iGear are at it again... -_-;;

[glazios]

Well, shit. Botcon 2011 comes and goes, and we find those thieving f*$&ers iGear are at it again.

With all the stir and bad press already around the 3rd-party market this year, namely the whole misunderstanding with TakTomy apparently banning 3rd-party products in Japan (which they weren't, it was a general import-stop notice), one might be forgiven for thinking they'd have a bit of sense and stop being so brazen with their theft of HasTak's Intelectual Property. But evidently not.

They now plan to do a full set of the Minibots, starting with Huffer and Seaspray.

iGear Mini Warriors Teaser image

Oh! And they're doing Impactor, too, and calling it 'Presser'.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- do these people have no shame? Or are they just doing it to throw it in HasTak's collective faces?

I hate these shitheads.

[Denyer]

It'd be nice to see companies compete by putting out a better product rather than expecting work done decades ago to be an everlasting income stream.

Particularly since the future is CAD on the average desktop PC, rapid prototyping and access to the kind of production capacity industry types would've killed for when Transformers was getting started. It's a bit like trying to hold back the tide, though there are going to be a lot of attempts to do so in our lifetimes.

[glazios]

It'd be nice to see companies compete by putting out a better product rather than expecting work done decades ago to be an everlasting income stream.

Particularly since the future is CAD on the average desktop PC, rapid prototyping and access to the kind of production capacity industry types would've killed for when Transformers was getting started. It's a bit like trying to hold back the tide, though there are going to be a lot of attempts to do so in our lifetimes.

I get all that, I really do. I just wish that they would take the manufacturing ingenuity they obviously have and use it for something a bit more ambitious than stealing the intelectual property of the company that brought us Transformers in the first place.

Hasbro don't always do right by us TF fans, and really they can't always be expected to give us the figures we want of the characters we want to see and get them perfect every time. It's not feasible in any sense of the word. That's what the 3rd-Party market is for.

But by taking HasTak's IP, tweaking it a little and then slapping a premium pricetag on it, iGear are threatening to tear down that 3rd-Party market one strip at a time - they're pulling out the nails from the scaffolding that everyone else is building up.

Take FansProject's Defender and compare it to that new Impactor prototype; yes it has a green-yellow-and-blue colour scheme, and yes it has a similar head mould to Springer. It turns into a helicopter and a land vehicle. It's supposed to look like Springer, because that's the whole damn point of it, but what it doesn't do is take an existing Hasbro character design, copy it right down to the footnotes, and rip it off - and that is what iGear has done with this Impactor prototype, just like they did with the Masterpiece and Classics Seeker mould. iGear have ripped that Impactor design right out of Last Stand of The Wreckers, so that means they've now stolen IDW's IP too.

At least companies like FansProject and TFClub make something that could be considered original - if you took away the familiar colour scheme and gave it a new head, Warbot Defender could be anything. And an inventively- and intuitively-engineered 'anything' at that.

When it comes down to it, iGear are just glorified bootleggers.

Also, since you mentioned it, the Thames Barrier does a pretty good job of holding the tide back. Maybe HasTak should ask for a tour and find out where they're doing it wrong

[Cliffjumper]

I'm buying that Impactor.

[inflatable dalek]

I'm buying that Impactor.

Indeed, whilst I fully agree with everything Glazios says (they are taking the piss now, whilst it's all equally illegal any wriggle room is rapidly vanishing), that is one bloody awesome looking toy. Considering the name's supposed to pop up in Dark of the Moon in some capacity I'm surprised Hasbro haven't trademarked the term Wreckers, unless Igear really don't care.

[Thunderwave]

I'm buying that Impactor.

As happens once a blue moon, I totally agree with Cliffy.

[Knightdramon]

While I'm partial to the entire 3rd party agreement, to me there's no distinguishing between igear or fansproject or littlefairytalewarrior\whatever. Why? Because it's all relative.

Sure, fansproject's stuff are general enough to avoid stepping on licensed products, but seriously, "Protector" or "Warbot Defender" or whatever Magnus armour got called are just attempts at hiding behind their fingers. Show a decked up Rodimus with the Protector armour to a complete stranger or your mom, hey cool, that's a red dude with a big spoiler and flames that transforms to whatever that vehicle is called. But show it to ANY transformer fan who has seen -one- episode of season 3 or the animated movie, and OMG it's Rodimus...even though it's called "Protector". How many green\gray\yellow transforming robots do you, as a TF\anime mecha fan know with that helmet\face that transform into an armoured car and helicopter? Call it Warbot, call it Green army dude, it's still Springer to the casual TF fan.

This is why I don't differentiate between third party companies by brand. Sure, their downsized MP Optimus is a direct scale down of the MP toy, if the fandom hadn't had a demand for a more in scale Optimus to them, they wouldn't have sold like they did. If takara tomy had the intention to release an MP Ramjet, they would have done it by now.

I understand that some items\characters are difficult to sell to people [Impactor never had much of an, well, impact on any fan before LSOTW], but when they do make them, most of the times they're subpar. Wow, they released a Thunderwing figure after 25 years of absence from the shelves due to his portrayal in the IDW Stormbringer series. Yeah? He's a tiny DELUXE figure. Seriously, he's shorter than same-size deluxe figures that came out 3-4 years ago.

I want wreckers figures. I paid around 80 USD at a bargain to get Botcon Pyro for my LSTOW line-up. He's a firetruck that looks like Inferno, painted in garish G2 colours. And that's what Hasbro was able to give me\us, a very limited exclusive repaint of a character that had an approximation of a similar alt-mode to Pyro.

If I have to wait 2-3 years [say] for Hasbro to release a generations Impactor that will probably look nothing like the comic book character I'm identified with, then screw it, more power to Igear or whomever makes him. If I have to wait that long for a generations Overlord that transforms to a jet with tank treads and is as tall as generations wheeljack, then screw it again.

I didn't see anybody make a rant about it when WST Dinobots were released [again, Desert Warrior? Air bombardier? Snarl and Swoop depicted in smaller scale, call them Cherry and Cheese and I'd still know who they are] and the line continued with shockwave and blaster. Nobody made a rant about fansproject bruticus limbs, which are, in essence, under all pixie dust, scouts retailing for leader prices that drove the price of bruticus maximus up by about 150 USD.

Also, nobody ranted about Igear for their AWESOME Kup head, but they moan about Impactor?

This isn't by any means targeted at the topic opener as I've read many a similar situation on other forums, but damn if we're a hard crowd to please, especially since the core of our fandom is an outdated horrible 80ies cartoon riddled with plot holes, colour innacuracies, cheesy music and the favourite hero is a red and blue generic truck guy that I wonder what so many people find on him. Jesus [/rant]

[Cliffjumper]

Impactor actually had a little bit of a following from his 1980s Marvel appearances, especially once American fandom had grudgingly admitted he existed (which happened around 2004 in the end).

Aside from that, agree with everything you said - it's splitting hairs to differentiate between the different Transformers-copying companies out there. They're all basically in the same boat - making money out of Hasbro/Takara's copyrighted stuff, whether by producing knock-offs or just stealing a basic idea. All of these figures rely on their recognition as established Transformers characters to sell, because if they didn't look like (or in the case of accessories, go with) established, existing Transformers no-one, but no-one would be interested.

To quibble over whether one trades on stolen designs more than others is silly, as they're both using stolen designs to some extent, relying on HasTak's properties to sell their wares.

[Blackjack]

Hasbro seems to have an understanding with iGear and stuff.

If Seibertron is to be believed, they displayed the aptly named 'Not-Ironhide', the iGear Powerglide at BotCon among others (the Insecticons and whatnot) as 'third-party products'.

I want Impactor.

[Rack 'n Ruin]

F
*
*
*
I
N
G

H
E
L
L
!

IMPACTOR!!!

[numbat]

Wow... People get upset at weird things!

I'm not keen on people ripping off HasTak, but much of the recent 3rd party stuff doesn't seem to really do that, given they're making things HasTak wouldn't, and aiming at a tiny market.

Direct KOs are more of a concern for me (which aim at the same market, and may even undercut HasTak), and that's where I draw the line. But each to their own!

I also totally fail to see the difference between City Commander Ultra Magnus armour and Presser Impactor (for instance) in terms of ripping off HasTak IP? Can anyone explain?

As to the Minibots - I'll be very interested to see the result, personally. HasTak have not been making decent small figures for a while now (with the odd exception of RTS Legends G1 Megatron). I am intrigued by the fact they're obviously redoing some which have been tackled by Universe 2.0 Legends Class though. Given the final products and price tag, I would be well up for these guys!

[Thunderwave]

Given that the third party people had booths at flippin' BotCon and where proudly displaying their wares, including the MP Seekers, it seems that HasTak has taken a stance of general acceptance. As in so long as runs stay low, prices stay high, and the releases are aimed at the collector market go ahead. I mean, after all, we all know how odd we collectors can get when something comes along that we want reallllllllly badly (I'm looking at you, Crossfire).

I guess in the big picture it's not really competition between the third party guys and HasTak. People like Fansproject and iGear are making things for a small segment of the toy buying market. If 1000 people don't buy the new Deluxe Springer and instead buy "Warbot Defender", so what? HasTak looses how much money? Maybe $5000? Not a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things. As long as Transformers remains profitable, the third party guys stay selling to collectors, and the kids keep buying up the HasTak offerings I don't see any of this as a bad thing.

Me, personally, I'm going to buy "Presser" when he comes out. I've been wanting an Impactor toy since I was a kid. I like the third party stuff, but not all of it has a place in my collection. I use it to accent and to fill in gaps, which I get the feeling a lot of collectors are doing.

[Cliffjumper]

I'm not keen on people ripping off HasTak, but much of the recent 3rd party stuff doesn't seem to really do that, given they're making things HasTak wouldn't, and aiming at a tiny market.

As a consumer, I don't particularly care as it makes stuff more easily avaliable for me and others, but there's an important difference between my personal values ("This isn't mine, but I can make money out of it - excellent!") and the law.

Direct KOs are more of a concern for me (which aim at the same market, and may even undercut HasTak), and that's where I draw the line. But each to their own!

Again for me it's about getting stuff to me and others - I wouldn't have minty-fresh Wheeljack/Sunstreaker/Mirage if not for the Chinese mould-thieves, and it's great that others have the opportunity to do the same rather than good condition G1 toys being the preserve of the monied lunatics.

At the other end of the scale, I would never have got Raiden if there hadn't been a cheap slush copy avaliable, and while it's no doubt an inferior copy I can enjoy the mechanics of a figure I wouldn't otherwise.

I see knock-offs in much the same way I see comic scans - if there's an official version avaliable new at a reasonable price, get that (e.g. I'd never bother buying a knock-off of Tracks, if they've made one, though I do occasionally pick up the crazy Mini-Con KOs they have in Poundland for giggles). If it's out of print and through neglect or some other reason and the material is avaliable through other channels, take them.

I guess you could draw a hazy line between things like current line KOs (like all those weird Movie-aping toys) and KOs of older stuff that largely hasn't been reissued (which isn't just limited to the Chinese copies - look at all the cheap combiners for a start), but like 3rd party projects you can't really draw a line for no better reason than to suit yourself.

I also totally fail to see the difference between City Commander Ultra Magnus armour and Presser Impactor (for instance) in terms of ripping off HasTak IP? Can anyone explain?

I would guess in that particular example the case would be made that someone would have to buy a HasTak Ultra Magnus for the former to work - though this would ignore the point that Magnus has been discontinued for three years or whatever now, and that either the person buying the CC Armour would already have him, or be buying him second-hand - something for which Hasbro would receive no money, in the same way Alan Moore won't receive any money if you spunk £100 on a Miracleman TPB in a comic shop.

But if you change "City Commander Armour" to "Whatever They Called Those Combaticons", yeh, there's no difference whatsoever.

It's important to realise that just because you like something and are overjoyed it exists, it's not necessarily right or defensible as such. I love the way I can basically download any film, TV series and/or album from the internet for free, but that doesn't make it legally sound.

[Cliffjumper]

In terms of Minibots, I'd love to see someone do the whole lot of them in Scout-sized, a la Windcharger. Obviously with the G1 line-up genuine scale is always going to be an epic head****, but Legends Minibots look far too tiny next to the Deluxes which are the backbone of any neo-G1 collection.

[inflatable dalek]

I should say that when I said "They" earlier I did mean all the 3rd Party people (I still think that if they were so inclined it would be easier for Hasbro to build a case against something like the City Commander simply because it's purpose built to plug into one of their toys), though if they've got some sort of tacit approval from Hasbro that at least explains why they seem to be sailing closer to the wind all the time.

As far as copyright goes, I'm sure where we as individuals draw the line does vary from person to person (hell, in the strictest sense this entire site is a massive infringement on Hasbro trademarks, I doubt a fair usage argument would hold if they threw their entire legal team at us, and companies like Paramount and Fox have had periodic bouts of getting Trek and X-Files fan sites shut down, so we're all in a big glass house here).

And sometimes such things can have a positive effect, such as the subtitles for the last two Takara collections coming from fan subs.

[Skyquake87]

Hmm. I don't like these third party things. I understand why they exist, and if you've got £100s to throw away on these hidings to nothing, then good luck to you.

Where Hasbro and Taktom are missing a trick, rather obviously, to me is in making these toys themselves. They have that overpriced Collector's Club which frequently goes into a feeding frenzy everytime a short run repaint of a figure you may already own twice over goes on sale/ is given away free.

Why let the bootleggers walk away with money you could be making? Sure, Hasbro/ Taktom may cry that its too expensive to be worthwhile for a limited production run - but there's clearly a growing portion of the collector market that will happily spaff £100 on a deluxe toy from a third party company (which is bloody ridiculous when you think about £100 covers my food bills for three weeks a couple of nights out at the pub - I'm a cheap date!) who can be bothered - and its clearly paying dividends for them , otherwise they wouldn't keep making the damn things. The other option is to give iGear (whom at least seem to put more effort in than most to these things) a license to produce this stuff. Even with the increased cost a license would add to this stuff, you'd still see folk fork out for it. Taktom's MP Rodimus Prime proved that there is no threshold for some fans, who will happily pay whatever it costs to have the latest fanboy fart to vacate their factories, so why not take advantage?

[numbat]

You make good points as always Cliffy.



I think the iGear Minibots are Legends sized, I'm afraid, judging from the Seaspray and Huffer photos online at Seibertron:

http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... fer/21857/

Very snazzy looking though.

[Thunderwave]

As far as copyright goes, I'm sure where we as individuals draw the line does vary from person to person (hell, in the strictest sense this entire site is a massive infringement on Hasbro trademarks, I doubt a fair usage argument would hold if they threw their entire legal team at us, and companies like Paramount and Fox have had periodic bouts of getting Trek and X-Files fan sites shut down, so we're all in a big glass house here).

I think the main argument against the 3rd Party people VS what goes on here is $$$. They are making a profit off of HasTak's IP, we're here, sitting around, talking about it and not hawking our wares. I've seen a few ways of handling this over the years. Some companies could give two poops about what you do if you aren't making money. Some want you to at least let them know you exist. Some get worked up into a slathering RAGE if you so much as even consider putting up that fansite.

[Cliffjumper]

Yeh, it's probably worth mentioning that a few years ago when Brendan tried to set up a system of charging to recoup bandwidth costs for downloading episode rips and comic scans, he got a broomstick handle up the arse deliverred by the lads at Rhode Island.

Hasbro realise the potential of good PR in general, though, and don't often take people on in a big fashion if it's not financially worth the fuss. I mean, most Transformers fans are complete brand zombies to the point where they're largely ignorant of other transforming robot lines, and seeing as someone who spends $100 on a 3rd party figure is likely to spend 5-10 times that a year on official HasTak products it's not doing them any harm.

Seriously, do a quick bit of mental arithmetic for your spendings on new figures when last actively collecting a line - adds up, doesn't it? I'm fairly sure I spent in the region of £400 on ROTF figures, for example [~£40 on Prime, ~£30 each on Jetfire and Megatron, ~£40 on Devastator, ~£15 on Legends Devastator, ~£20 each on the Fallen, Long Haul, Mixmaster, Demolisher, white Demolisher, Grindor, ~£10 each on Bumblebee, Jolt, Sideswipe, Skids, Mudflap, Arcee, Chromia, Ice Cream Twins, Sideways, ~£7 each on Depthcharge, Nightbeat, Dead End, Shitbox, ~£4 each on Legends Arcee, Prime, Bumblebee...]

And in amongst that I got that Cliffjumpor thing for a tenner, instead of spending about twice that on a second-hand '07 Cliffjumper. And that's from one person with moderate income.

[glazios]

Direct KOs are more of a concern for me (which aim at the same market, and may even undercut HasTak), and that's where I draw the line. But each to their own!

I also totally fail to see the difference between City Commander Ultra Magnus armour and Presser Impactor (for instance) in terms of ripping off HasTak IP? Can anyone explain?

It's the direct KOs that bug me the most - this is what I meant when said about iGear ripping off HasTak's IP. They've now done KOs of most if not all the Seekers, at both Masterpiece and Classics size classes. But this 'Presser' is really taking the pi$s IMO. They've practically taken LSOTW Impactor and made a figure of it. That's not just HasTak's IP they've stolen, it's IDW's too.

As for the difference between City Commander and Presser (aside from the fact that they're made by different companies), IMO, the first is an add-on kit accessory, which HasTak frown on but don't seem bothered all that bothered by as it's aimed at a relatively small market, like you said, but the second, Presser is a complete figure based on a character design licenced to IDW by Hasbro - that's basically a direct KO, in-terms of the IP, even if there isn't a licenced figure to knock off.

The thing that's got my back up about all this is that iGear are being so damn brazen about their IP theft - they know what they're doing, and they obviously don't give a rat's ass. If Hasbro were to come after them, they'd have to go after every other 3rd-party company as well, and iGear appears to be using that as a shield to continue undercutting HasTak at every opportunity.

One could say that other 3rd-party companies like FansProject and TFClub are doing this too - FP's recent not-Insecticons look pretty close to the mark, and TFClub's Project Hercules (not-Deva) is also cutting it pretty close to the line -- but these figures also have differences to the figures and characters they're based on, which sets them apart and makes them unique from those figures and characters. iGear's Presser is clearly supposed to be Impactor, right down to the nuts and bolts.

iGear are stealing HasTak's IP, here, and they're doing it because they believe no-one can stop them.