The 3P article is up

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Bumblemus Prime
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The 3P article is up

Post by Bumblemus Prime »

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/12/rob ... mers-toys/

Thanks to all of you who commented and helped point me in various directions.
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Clay
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Post by Clay »

Sweet. A point might have been made that some third parties are shadier than others (iGear essentially bootlegging the official Masterpiece Starscream mold with different wings to make Coneheads), but I like this. Didn't know about the bit with Warhammer. And while it sucks for Figueroa, I think that's a pretty boiler-plate agreement when you work for a company that deals with intellectual property: ideas that you come up with while in their employ are theirs, legally.

You also reminded me of why I dislike David Willis.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Interesting article, although I'd take issue with the supply chain 'morality' of 3rd Party manufacturers when compared with Hasbro. With them being so secretive about their operations, you can't in all fairness say there's no abuse of that supply chain. Yes, Hasbro might be 'disgusting' for exploiting third world labour, but in this they are no different from any other multinational - something which has been going on since the 1980s when pretty much all western manufacturers shifted production to the East to take advantage of these very things - cheap labour, no unions and a working environment that has no concept of 'health and safety'. It was basically a step back to the age of the Industrial Revolution when labour was exploited as people had limited options and a system of government and industry that took a long time to wake up to the idea that they might have to take some responsibility for the people working for them. Shame that all got reversed in the age of Reaganomics.

And doesn't David Willis rather have a point with the attitude fandom takes towards 3rd Party toys? Without Hasbro, Marvel Comics and Takara we wouldn't have the very thing on which these manufacturers are basing their products!

And yes, I can't shed any tears for Don Figueroa not 'getting paid' for his designs. He was paid to be an artist on a comic whose intellectual property is owned by Hasbro, making any concepts and / or designs developed for Transformers automatically part and parcel of Hasbro's catch-all copyright and I am sure he would have been aware of that when he was producing those designs. The only way to get out of that is to employ the tactics Marvel did with Circuit Breaker and Death's Head. But then what you'd have is something that looks like Transformers but isn't - just like Third Party toys themselves.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Neat article, though like Skyquake, I have no sympathy for Don. The guy is a glorified diva and an attention seeker and seems sour about the fact that IDW was not interested in his pitch.

I'm not of the mindset that hasbro/takara are evil, even labour wise, and 3rd party companies are better. Labour is labour, and when saying these sort of things I am not sure most fans at forums contemplate of the rise of price we're talking about just from moving production to another company. I don't believe all the "bring production to the US and feed families here" guys at tfw2005 would be content with paying 30+ USD for a deluxe figure of the same size and quality as now.

Politics aside, Hasbro is slowly pushing away the older audience, and that audience finds solace at a 3rd party company. I fully agree on the build quality---my MMC Talon is tight, heavy, ratcheted, full of moulded detail. Unless my sense is off, he is actually heavier than MP Starscream, which a feat nonetheless!

There's still much competition in the 3rd party world, and unless you veer of and [successfully] do your own thing, you'll be swallowed up by competitors, as is the case with most companies and their "dino wars".

Furthermore, as the average attention of a tf fan is equal to that of a peanut, if you take too long to bring a figure out, it will be forgotten, orders will be cancelled, and a competitor has already released something similar.

Lastly, and this is sadly a trend with 3rd party companies, there's no sense of accountability. While there are delays on ALL of them, faults with some of them and so on, no company has come out and said "hey guys yeah we screwed up". No. It's always "hey the factory screwed up".

It's so common nowadays it's laughable. "The factory" is MMC's go to scapegoat for anything that's wrong, from colour renders to missing accessories to 3 month delays on repaints. :lol:
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Post by Clay »

Skyquake87 wrote:And doesn't David Willis rather have a point with the attitude fandom takes towards 3rd Party toys? Without Hasbro, Marvel Comics and Takara we wouldn't have the very thing on which these manufacturers are basing their products!
Yeah, but he's a pretentious git in the way he portrays the point.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

I totally never got round to adding my thoughts on the original thread (though as someone who only recently popped his third party virginity I'd probably not have been hugely helpful).

Is Don actually on record as being that upset about not making money from his character designs? Nick Roche is delighted at both the official and third party toys that have taken inspiration from his work, the same goes for Roberts. Even Budiansky and Furman (understandably I suppose as they're editors who would have made other freelancers sign similar contracts over the years) aren't cut up about their ideas being recycled into billion dollar films.

It might also be worth noting that most of the people behind the character designs haven't seen a penny from the third party toys either (Nick Roche was hoping for a free Not Ironfist at the last AA, I don't know if he ever got it.That's arguably worse than Hasbro not giving him a "designer" fee for Springer as at least that's covered by the original contract he signed).

Most freelancers who work on licensed properties are fairly sanguine about signing over the rights to their ideas in my experience. If they weren't, they wouldn't last very long in the field. You could argue there might be a higher standard of licences fiction generally if contracts were more favourable (Transformers is generally pretty lucky, there's a lot of crap out there) but it's still a reciprocal relationship, as can be seen by how the two main TF ongoings still sell about the same the name James Roberts doesn't sell Transformers comics, the Transformers name sells James Roberts comics.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Don Figueroa thinks he's Jim Lee thanks to all the spit-and-polish jobs he was given by fandom in 2002/3. Transformers fandom is about as loyal as a cat and have successively decamped en masse to stalk E. J Su and then Nick Roche.

But it is worth considering that, yes, basically 3P companies are just half-inching other people's work and it's worth remembering that none of them have had an original thought yet. Oh, you've put knees on Swindle? Well done, have a ****ing bun. And two hundred dollars for a Scout figure. But don't try designing anything that's not ripping off a Transformer design we all recognise as however good it is no ****er will buy it.

There's actually a lot of overlap between 3P and the 'designs' of comic artists; both are just fiddling around with details taken from thirty-year old work from hack staffers at Takara and Marvel.
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Post by Clay »

Cliffjumper wrote:But it is worth considering that, yes, basically 3P companies are just half-inching other people's work and it's worth remembering that none of them have had an original thought yet.
Actually, Fansproject have put out a couple of originals: Steelcore and Glacial Lord aren't based on any Transformers characters. It's my understanding that they sold reasonably well and are now out of stock everywhere... the problem with original designs like these though is that they're much tougher to sell since they're not recognizable designs that people are familiar with through either previous toys or fiction.

Just making a Swindle with knees offers a much safer return on investment.
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Post by Warcry »

With all due respect to Bumblemus, the article reads more like a guy trying very hard to convince himself that it's okay to like third-party stuff than anything else.
Clay wrote:Yeah, but he's a pretentious git in the way he portrays the point.
I don't have much use for Willis personally, but the type of frothing, hypocritical third-party fanboy that he lampoons absolutely deserve every morsel of childish scorn he can heap on them. He's not taking potshots at everyone who buys the stuff (at least not that I've seen) or even people like Knightdramon who prefer 3P stuff to official figures. He's going after the neckbeard assholes who flame people for buying official toys or call up third-party designers at home and threaten their wives because the Jetfire they designed didn't come with landing gear.

His strips may be partially responsible for giving third-party buyers a bad name, but honestly...the scene is filled with the same sort of passive-aggressive, smug fandom hipsters who were all "Hasbro sucks, I buy everything Takara" in 2008 and sang the praises of the "infinitely superior" Japanese shows in 2002. They've become less of a dominant voice over the last couple years as the 3P corner of the fandom has grown, but they're more than capable of making third-party buyers look bad all on their own.
Skyquake87 wrote:Interesting article, although I'd take issue with the supply chain 'morality' of 3rd Party manufacturers when compared with Hasbro. With them being so secretive about their operations, you can't in all fairness say there's no abuse of that supply chain.
Don't some of them claim to use the exact same factories as Hasbro? If that's true, considering they all seem to make product at the same price points, the manufacturing costs for each third party would have to be relatively similar. Which means that people aren't making a very good wage building these things either.

And honestly...the entire unofficial Transformers industry is predicated on making money off of other people's ideas without compensating them. It's a fundamentally exploitative endeavour, and I seriously doubt the people behind it care much either way if the people who assemble their merchandise are being exploited. If they were that idealistic, they wouldn't be engaged in morally- and legally-grey profiteering to start with.
Skyquake87 wrote:And yes, I can't shed any tears for Don Figueroa not 'getting paid' for his designs. He was paid to be an artist on a comic whose intellectual property is owned by Hasbro, making any concepts and / or designs developed for Transformers automatically part and parcel of Hasbro's catch-all copyright and I am sure he would have been aware of that when he was producing those designs.
Yeah...in spite of how Don tried to frame it, he absolutely was paid for designing those characters. IDW cut him a cheque years ago. What he's really griping about is that he doesn't think he was paid enough. But every worker in the world thinks that. If he's not happy with the pay and he can't negotiate a higher rate (or a clause that guarantees a payout if one of his designs becomes a toy) then he's free to go work somewhere else, but unless you're an absolute superstar you're not going to get rich drawing comics or designing toys. And that's especially true for Don, whose skillset extends to drawing robots and pretty much nothing else. There's not many places in the industry where he can find work, so he really doesn't have any leverage. If he wants to work on comics, for him it's pretty much Transformers or nothing.
Knightdramon wrote:I don't believe all the "bring production to the US and feed families here" guys at tfw2005 would be content with paying 30+ USD for a deluxe figure of the same size and quality as now.
There's absolutely no way that the price increase would be that steep -- you'd have to be paying your workers $15 per hour to produce a single toy per hour, and there's no way the process is that inefficient. $4 or $5 per figure? That I could see. And that would create enough outcry on its' own, though it would be offset a bit by an increase in QC.

Lego vs. Mega Bloks is the best comparison I can think of, and after a few minutes of quick research it seems like the made(mostly)-in-Europe Lego sets have essentially the same cost per piece as their lower-quality made-in-China cousins.
Knightdramon wrote:Politics aside, Hasbro is slowly pushing away the older audience, and that audience finds solace at a 3rd party company.
I think you've got that backwards. Hasbro isn't pushing anyone anywhere. They're doing exactly what they've done for the last decade and a half, making toys mostly for kids but doing what they can draw in the collector market at the same time. The third-party fans are the ones who've changed, mostly because they've gotten bored of what Hasbro's got to offer. But that's nothing new -- fans have been decrying the state of the line ever since I started posting here, and they'll be doing it long after I'm gone.

The main difference is that thanks to the movies, the fandom has grown to the point where small companies see that they can make money by trying to appeal to disaffected fans like you. Ten years ago a fan that got bored with the official output would wind up wandering off and finding a new interest to spend time and money on, but nowadays expensive unofficial merchandise is filling that niche for a lot of people and giving them a reason to stay Transformers fans.
Knightdramon wrote:Lastly, and this is sadly a trend with 3rd party companies, there's no sense of accountability. While there are delays on ALL of them, faults with some of them and so on, no company has come out and said "hey guys yeah we screwed up". No. It's always "hey the factory screwed up".
Again, I think that goes back to the essentially shady nature of the business. The sort of person who'd feel obliged to take personal responsibility for their company's screwups probably wouldn't have gone into a business like this to start with.
Clay wrote:Actually, Fansproject have put out a couple of originals: Steelcore and Glacial Lord aren't based on any Transformers characters. It's my understanding that they sold reasonably well and are now out of stock everywhere... the problem with original designs like these though is that they're much tougher to sell since they're not recognizable designs that people are familiar with through either previous toys or fiction.
But even then, there's a fair bit of crossover with Transformers surrounding those original figures. Steelcore is marketed as something of an unofficial Wrecker, being a part of the same series as their Springer, Broadside and Roadbuster. And the Glacialbots are basically a retro Scramble City design that exists solely due to nostalgia for the play pattern from some 80s TF toys.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Hmmm, agree and disagree with some of your points.

In an ideal world, there should be no "hate" and "preferences wars" like there are now for official or 3rd party, or even among 3rd party. It's no secret that I really, really like MMC products, but I really like the look of the FT releases. In an ideal world, I'd get both, but I like the "chunkier" and, bluntly, cheaper MMC releases a bit more. Buying all 5 Predacons from MMC is like 300 something pounds, buying all 5 dinos from FT is closer to 600 pounds :/

Don has pretty much been a HUGE attention wh*re in the past few years, and it annoyed me so much it actually went right through my one rule for artists [singers, pencilers, writers etc]---"you're in it for whatever the person is producing, not the person themselves". The guy publicly denounced Transformers as a whole when he went on to do his own thing, only to triumphantly return for the ongoing, then wander off again on that largely unsuccessful robot series, and then pull stunts like this. F*ck of Don, seriously. Grow a pair.

On the price hike for "domestic" production, yeah, it might not be that steep, but bear in mind that the average price for a US worker would be what, 6-10 USD per hour? [Not sure what the minimum is in the US] No matter how you look at it, it's more than the dollar or so they get in Vietnam.

While you are right that hasbro is more or less doing what they always did, the actual production values and quality of their "collector" releases has been subpar. Even the highly cherished MP releases are an actual, proper step down from the Binaltech line of 10 years ago, but fans are too caught up on the hype to see it. I'm not saying necessarily that the toys are bad, but they are *clearly* less than what they used to be.

On the accountability front, I am not sure that the 3rd party designers look at it that way---from most interviews, it looks like they are actually pretty up front about their work and eager to socialize with the fandom. But that's what's biting them in the a$$...people actually PM them with silly questions, feeling entitled to answers, communication and so on...
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Sharp as I am, I missed the links in the text on first reading, so I've now found the citation for the Don quote.

I suppose, to play devil's advocate, he'd previously been hired directly to design toys based on his art so even if it's not a requirement of his contract he might have seen it as a gentleman's agreement that Hasbro have now stepped back from needlessly.

Not a viewpoint I'd agree with, but that would explain why he's annoyed about this when people like Roche aren't.

Don Figueroa thinks he's Jim Lee thanks to all the spit-and-polish jobs he was given by fandom in 2002/3. Transformers fandom is about as loyal as a cat and have successively decamped en masse to stalk E. J Su and then Nick Roche.
[I know you're being tongue in cheek, but to use this as a jumping off point...]

It's actually amazing the extent to which El Don has alienated people. Other artists have reinvented themselves (Milne), took a break from Transformers to pursue other avenues even if it means bailing on previously agreed work (though when Roche stood down from MTMTE he at least was only one issue in rather than only have one issue left of a miniseries as Figgy did with Beast Wars), or been disparaging about IDW/Hasbro whilst continuing to get work from them (Wildman was marvellously scathing about their lack of interest in doing Reg and how they had to be arm twisted into it). All with managing to alienate very few of their existing fans.

Don doing all at once is somewhat impressive on that score. I certainly don't think fandom's falling out with him has anything to do with their fickleness, more his own ego. Which equally can't be blamed on the previous appreciation he received when the likes of Roche and Roberts have shown no sign of things going to their head.
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Post by Tantrum »

Warcry wrote:And honestly...the entire unofficial Transformers industry is predicated on making money off of other people's ideas without compensating them. It's a fundamentally exploitative endeavour, and I seriously doubt the people behind it care much either way if the people who assemble their merchandise are being exploited. If they were that idealistic, they wouldn't be engaged in morally- and legally-grey profiteering to start with.
To be fair, a decent amount of official Transformers industry has been predicated on making money off of other people's ideas without compensating them. Lots of original G1 alt-modes were based on unlicensed real cars, with sponsor decals tweaked to avoid infringement. That became legally risky, so now when Hasbro wants to cash in on nostalgia for those figures, they release a Generations/Classics/homage figure with an alt mode that's just different enough from the real thing to avoid licencing fees.
the Article wrote:There is a lesson here for budding artists: don’t go to work on licensed products and hand a design over to Hasbro! Your custom is your cool idea, and you can sell it to a third party.
That might not just be for budding artists. Is there some do-not-compete clause that prevents established TF comic artists from submitting original designs to 3P companies? Completely original 3P toys might not have mass appeal, but if they can be promoted as, "From the man who brought you [Hasbro character he designed] comes [original 3P character toy]" that might attract more interest.

Not paying comic artists extra when one of their designs becomes a new toy seems reasonable. I doubt whoever designed the G1 Cyclonus toy got extra cash when his/her design was used as the basis for the Classics figure. That being said, I'd hope drawing an issue of a TF comic would pay more than drawing an issue of a similarly selling, non-merch-based comic to account for that fact that it's promoting toys.

The Don F. case might be different, though. It sounds like he came up with the design for use in a story, Hasbro didn't buy the story, but used the design anyway, so he never even got his comic drawing money. if he was getting a salary from Hasbro when he designed the characters, that'd be one thing. If he was later brought on to draw the comics featuring the design, but not the story he wanted to do, that could be OK. But, if something he did on his own time was used as the basis for a product without him getting anything, I can see why he'd be upset.
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Post by Clay »

Tantrum wrote:To be fair, a decent amount of official Transformers industry has been predicated on making money off of other people's ideas without compensating them. Lots of original G1 alt-modes were based on unlicensed real cars, with sponsor decals tweaked to avoid infringement. That became legally risky, so now when Hasbro wants to cash in on nostalgia for those figures, they release a Generations/Classics/homage figure with an alt mode that's just different enough from the real thing to avoid licencing fees.
You know, I hadn't consider that before... Obviously, the Hasbro argument would be that they're offering a 'new' intellectual property by merging the existing product (a car) into a changing-form robot, whereas the third parties are taking both the car and the robot idea as well, but... yeah, that's a pretty good counterpoint. Is it valid to criticize Fansproject for plagiarism for making an add-on Winnebago set for a toy car which Hasbro itself lifted from another company to begin with? Hot Rod's just an example, of course.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yeh, because we all buy them for the alt modes after all, right? Nothing to do with them transforming into cool robots. When I buy a Prowl toy I'm after a moderately convincing Datsun model for twice the price of a high-quality toy car, I don't want some recognisable action figure of Prowl.

You're falling into the Walky fallacy - "yeh but your lot do bad stuff as well" does not a counterpoint make. Especially as Hasbro haven't really said anything and are actually giving tacit approval - half of their design staff are fanboy twats and the things are all over conventions. They could serve notices to each and every 3P manufacturer knowing they'd melt away rather than contest things in court as they wouldn't be able to afford the fees even if they were in the right. They don't care, so why are the fanboys getting all het up about it?

There's no need to subscribe to one or the other, that's just the usual fandom shit from a bunch of ****s with too much time on their hands.
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Post by Clay »

Cliffjumper wrote:Yeh, because we all buy them for the alt modes after all, right? Nothing to do with them transforming into cool robots. When I buy a Prowl toy I'm after a moderately convincing Datsun model for twice the price of a high-quality toy car, I don't want some recognisable action figure of Prowl.
Perhaps, but how many times have people complained when the alternate mode is changed? I remember people having fits because Binaltech Jazz was a Mazda instead of a Porsche, Movie Bumblebee was a Camaro instead of a Beetle, Movie Prime was a long-nosed tractor instead of a flip-top, etc. etc....

Turning into the cool robot is obviously the biggest draw, but it's not the only one. And while I agree that "you do bad things too so it's okay" isn't a real counterpoint, doing the same bad things [copying intellectual property without permission] for the same reasons [being too cheap to pay the fee] is.

But I wholeheartedly agree that the argument is a bit silly considering that Hasbro, the actual interested party, doesn't seem to care.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Fandom's great, there's always someone willing to go completely ****ing mental over anything. But the rest of the world turns on, which is why no-one's really bothered changing Jazz or Bumblebee back.

I'd actually be curious to know how much was needed in terms of manufacturer licensing back in the 1980s. Matchbox/Corgi toys of the period didn't bear the current licence gubbins on the packaging (massive badge, Officially Licenced in mahoosive letters) despite usually outright naming what the product was a model of and being much more accurate than Transformers ever were. TBH though the Diaclones are about as accurate as the likes of the Universe Gallardo or Sideways. IIRC both the Diaclones and similar Machine Robo tended to outright name the car mode on packaging too.

Models are actually a bit of a curious thing - obviously the likes of Jaguar and Ferrari realised merchandise was big bucks somewhere in the eighties/nineties, but where do you get the licence for a Hawker Hurricane from? What about now for a Ligier when the name and design rights could well have followed the team through two takeovers and a bankruptcy.

Even these days you'll find unlicensed toy cars all over the place, usually fairly accurate but shorn of trademarks.

I wonder if they maybe painted themselves into a bit of a corner with BT by overtly going for the licenced route. Going door to door with the manufacturers was a bit of a noble intention but it also meant they wouldn't be able to get away with modifying a Porsche's headlights or airdam and bringing it out as "Meister feat. Completely Generic Car Based On Nothing No Sir" when Stuttgart told them to piss off.
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Post by Warcry »

Knightdramon wrote:While you are right that hasbro is more or less doing what they always did, the actual production values and quality of their "collector" releases has been subpar. Even the highly cherished MP releases are an actual, proper step down from the Binaltech line of 10 years ago, but fans are too caught up on the hype to see it. I'm not saying necessarily that the toys are bad, but they are *clearly* less than what they used to be.
Are they really? I mean, we were talking about Hasbro, not Takara (who generally seem to be spared the fan rage that targets the US company). The recent MPs are a step down from Binaltechs if you're a fan of die-cast, for sure. But compared to Hasbro's previous collector-oriented stuff -- which consisted of reissues with missing chrome with gimped launchers and all-plastic Alternators -- I'd say they're a step up. Not a huge one, but it's the first time that any of Takara's collector-oriented releases have gotten a Western release without being compromised in the process. :)
Knightdramon wrote:On the accountability front, I am not sure that the 3rd party designers look at it that way---from most interviews, it looks like they are actually pretty up front about their work and eager to socialize with the fandom. But that's what's biting them in the a$$...people actually PM them with silly questions, feeling entitled to answers, communication and so on...
A few Hasbro or Takara employees have done the same over the years, though, going back to when Aaron Archer would take questions over at TFW. That never said anything about their company's attitudes, though, just their own.
inflatable dalek wrote:I suppose, to play devil's advocate, he'd previously been hired directly to design toys based on his art so even if it's not a requirement of his contract he might have seen it as a gentleman's agreement that Hasbro have now stepped back from needlessly.
On the other hand, were any of the toys he designed previously actually any good? IIRC they were all Titaniums.
Tantrum wrote:To be fair, a decent amount of official Transformers industry has been predicated on making money off of other people's ideas without compensating them. Lots of original G1 alt-modes were based on unlicensed real cars, with sponsor decals tweaked to avoid infringement. That became legally risky, so now when Hasbro wants to cash in on nostalgia for those figures, they release a Generations/Classics/homage figure with an alt mode that's just different enough from the real thing to avoid licencing fees.
Fair point, and not one that I'd disagree with. Hasbro's IP infringement and dodging is a different beast than what third-party companies do, though. Hasbro takes the likeness of a car or plane and makes an unlicensed toy based on them. Third-party companies take the likeness of a toy company's characters and make competing toys based on them. What they're doing is the equivalent of Hasbro making bootleg F-15s and selling them to Australia, or building and selling their own Corvettes from scratch. They're using Hasbro's IP to create competing products that could, in theory, take money out of Hasbro's pockets. I don't think that's actually happening now, but if a third-party company ever got their costs under control and start selling their wares for competitive prices, in higher numbers...Both amount to IP theft, but only one has the potential to actually hurt the company that's being wronged.

Besides, Hasbro's hands aren't exactly lily-white when it comes to other sorts of immoral business practices. I don't particularly expect ethical behaviour from them either, albeit for different reasons.
Tantrum wrote:That might not just be for budding artists. Is there some do-not-compete clause that prevents established TF comic artists from submitting original designs to 3P companies? Completely original 3P toys might not have mass appeal, but if they can be promoted as, "From the man who brought you [Hasbro character he designed] comes [original 3P character toy]" that might attract more interest.
Probably not since comic work is usually done on contract, but unofficially it might hurt their prospects of doing official work in the future. Maybe it wouldn't, but I'd imagine most artists would be afraid of burning that particular bridge.
Tantrum wrote:The Don F. case might be different, though. It sounds like he came up with the design for use in a story, Hasbro didn't buy the story, but used the design anyway, so he never even got his comic drawing money. if he was getting a salary from Hasbro when he designed the characters, that'd be one thing. If he was later brought on to draw the comics featuring the design, but not the story he wanted to do, that could be OK. But, if something he did on his own time was used as the basis for a product without him getting anything, I can see why he'd be upset.
He definitely drew comics that featured that design, so I don't think that's an issue. I'd be surprised if he didn't get at least a nominal payment for doing the original design, too -- the editors asked if they could use it in a different story, after all, and he not only told them it was okay but actually did some extra polishing on the design for them.

Honestly, I think the only reason it's an issue at all is because he's grown bitter about the TF brand in general. Back when he was still happy to be working on it, it was seemingly a non-issue that they based Cybertron Starscream primarily on his War Within designs without telling him.
Cliffjumper wrote:You're falling into the Walky fallacy - "yeh but your lot do bad stuff as well" does not a counterpoint make. Especially as Hasbro haven't really said anything and are actually giving tacit approval - half of their design staff are fanboy twats and the things are all over conventions. They could serve notices to each and every 3P manufacturer knowing they'd melt away rather than contest things in court as they wouldn't be able to afford the fees even if they were in the right. They don't care, so why are the fanboys getting all het up about it?
For my part, I'm honestly not bothered much by the illegality of 3P stuff in and of itself. Maybe that's just because being active on the internet in the early 2000s has made me numb to it. I mean, it wasn't much more than a decade ago that piracy was a top activity for this fandom. Pirated TF comics and cartoons were everywhere, and this very site used to host gigabytes worth of them. Everyone had low-quality combiner bootlegs. Most people were downloading music and movies illegally back then, too. Everybody did it and nobody cared. The only difference is that third-party toys are sold instead of given away (which is worse, but the principle is the same). It does make me wary of doing business with them and gives me a jaded view of the companies and their motivations, but that's not due to moral indignation, it's just common sense when you're doing business on what amounts to the black market.

What does bother me is the smug third-party fans who constantly go around trying to prove that their toys are perfectly legal and the companies are doing nothing wrong. Especially when they use the fact that Hasbro isn't doing anything about it as "proof" while simultaneously using it as an excuse to shit on the company farther. "LOL, Hasblow can't even shut down third-party companies, they suck at everything!" No, you cretins. Hasbro could easily shut down third-party companies, or at the very least make it incredibly difficult for them to do business in the West. The fact that they don't isn't a sign a weakness, it's a sign that they don't want to step on something that their fans enjoy as long as it's not actually costing them money.

I just wish third-party fans would admit that their toys are what they are and stop trying to antagonize the giant company that's so far deigned to let them continue to exist. The recent fiasco with MP Exhaust shows exactly how easy it is to intimidate online small businesses into pulling legally-questionable products. The fact that Hasbro hasn't done so and shows absolutely no interest in doing so in the future really should earn them some goodwill from the third-party fandom, but all they get is unrelenting, irrational hate.
Cliffjumper wrote:I wonder if they maybe painted themselves into a bit of a corner with BT by overtly going for the licenced route. Going door to door with the manufacturers was a bit of a noble intention but it also meant they wouldn't be able to get away with modifying a Porsche's headlights or airdam and bringing it out as "Meister feat. Completely Generic Car Based On Nothing No Sir" when Stuttgart told them to piss off.
I think they started having trouble even before that. Back during RiD, weren't they forced to hastily modify X-Brawn and take out a license for Side Burn because the car models were too close to the real thing and the manufacturers got wind of it?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Good point - it's possibly a cultural thing, then; maybe Japanese companies and concessionaries are less inclined to sue. TBH, car brand toy merchandising is something I've often thought is a little silly - the free advertising of your car being seen on toystore shelves, in cartoons etc. would surely outweigh the licensing revenue considering that most of these companies deal in high-cost units and the merch in itself provides no competition (i.e. someone's not going to be put off owning a Ferrari by being able to pick up a 4-inch unlicenced toy Ferrari).
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

They've usually sold the likeness to other toy companies to use officially, though.
Warcry wrote:What does bother me is the smug third-party fans who constantly go around trying to prove that their toys are perfectly legal
Pretty sure that they are]Most people were downloading music and movies illegally back then, too[/quote]
I think most people still are, and are also buying more stuff legitimately because they actually become aware of stuff that way. Value and availability pay off more than trying unsuccessfully to lock stuff away.

Coming back around to the topic, but taking much the same view, I'd place myself very firmly in the bracket "third party fandom". And that's one of the main reasons I've been buying official product -- because of add-ons and nifty 3P releases to stand alongside it.
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Post by Tantrum »

I wasn't thinking about real-world alt modes in general, just updates of legacy characters. Generations Sideswipe doesn't look like a Lamborghini because Hasbro's in the business of making toy Lamborghinis. Generations Sideswipe looks like a Lamborghini so he resembles G1 Sideswipe. Modifing the alt mode a bit lets Hasbro cash in on the nostalgia created by the old Lamborghini design without compensating those who created it.

I wonder if that affects Hasbro's decision not to litigate at all. If they tried to go after that new 3P Not Mirage, their argument would basically boil down to, "Your Honor, they can't make a toy robot that converts into an unlicensed Ligier F1 racer; that's our job."
Warcry wrote:The fact that Hasbro hasn't done so and shows absolutely no interest in doing so in the future really should earn them some goodwill from the third-party fandom, but all they get is unrelenting, irrational hate.
Is that hate actually common, or are the hateful just more vocal than everyone else? I'd imagine most fans would be at worst ambivalent if not happy that additional toys are available. When you think of how much money a company can spend on branding and public relations to give themselves a good image, letting 3P companies slide might make financial sense. They're probably not losing too many sales to $50 deluxes. The meager sales they do lose can be considered a PR cost for the goodwill generated by not cracking down.
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