Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Tantrum
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:48 pmAside from the pandemic and silly exclusives, I've probably had the best time collecting Transformers over the last 3 years, which is actually kind of nice...! Does mean there's less interesting late-wave stragglers showing up at the end of the Pier discount outfits B&M and Home Bargains though. Ah the crazy days of 2010 when most of RTS ended up at Home Bargains for a fiver a throw...
I've noticed a lack of TFs at discounters, too. Last year, I got the Cyberverse Seeker 4-pack at one, and the year before that I got Siege Crosshairs and Sideswipe at another. I don't think I've even seen TFs at any lately. Pre-vaccination, I was avoiding unnecessary trips so I wasn't going to discounters much. Now, I'm not going to discounters much because they never have anything.

Finding TFs at discounters helped take the sting out of price increases, since it brought down the average price I was paying per figure. driving half an hour to Target to pay $20 for a Deluxe is a lot more palatable when I can another Deluxe at TJ Maxx next door for $10.

I wonder if the lack of TFs at discounters is an artifact of the pandemic, or a conscious decision on Hasbro's part.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Tantrum wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:22 am I wonder if the lack of TFs at discounters is an artifact of the pandemic, or a conscious decision on Hasbro's part.
I think part of the apparent lack is that word spreads fast among interested parties and they sell through quickly. I remember when Earthrise Optimus was reported as showing up at a nearby Ollie's, like a full endcap worth. I stopped by the same day or the next day and they had 1 left.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:48 pmI was just musing over starting a thread musing over collecting habits. I was in Smyths looking at the Legacy stuff and Bumblebee Studio Series figures everyone's lost their minds about (Ratchet now discounted now no-one's buying him as he's discoloured out the box) and just walked away because I just cannot be bothered with another go-around on G1 type stuff. I enjoyed the Siege Trilogy, but I think I that's as far as I go.

I feel super lukewarm about Legacy myself. Aside from Skids, none of the toys look bad at all. But it's hard to get worked up about another Drag Strip or Skywarp or Blaster, and even the Prime stuff doesn't feel very exciting. Tarantulas is nice but not at all surprising or fresh after all the BW guys we got in Kingdom. Jhiaxus is the only thing that I'm really looking forward to. Kickback is one of my favourite background characters, but I already own three or four Kickbacks...I may end up buying this one as well but it's hard to actually get excited about it, you know?
Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:48 pm I got distracted reading this thread and was thinking whether things had actually improved or not. I'd have to say, that with so many retailers going to the wall, suddenly there does seem to have been some improvement.
It's been exactly the opposite here. I almost couldn't buy a new Transformer now if I tried. :( Toys'R'Us sets aside a ton of space for Generations figures but never seems to stock more than one case at a time, so you wind up with four feet of shelf space stocked one figure deep. Walmart isn't much better. Amazon cancels 50% of their Transformer preorders nowadays, almost as a matter of course. The fandom seems to have decided that preordering stuff from Gamestop is the only reliable way to get new figures these days. I was at Walmart today and their Transformers section was almost empty except for the giant pile of $70 reissue Primals and Megatrons that they don't want to ever put on discount.
Tantrum wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:22 amI wonder if the lack of TFs at discounters is an artifact of the pandemic, or a conscious decision on Hasbro's part.
Retailers might be more likely to just blow out their excess stock on their own websites nowadays rather than selling them on to a discounter. Selling all your excess Cyclonuses for 50% off one at a time might be more profitable in the end than selling them all at once to a discounter, as long as you're not in a rush to open up the warehouse space they're taking up.

It also feels like retailers are just ordering less stock to begin with. Ten years ago retailers would keep their Transformers sections stocked to the brim, and when a line ended there was always leftovers. Nowadays, there's fewer places stocking Transformers to begin with and they seem to keep fewer toys on the shelves at any given time. That might just mean there's nothing left for the discounters to buy.

That's probably an artifact of the rising prices. Getting stuck with a bunch of leftover $15 Deluxes that you can't sell at the end of the line hurts a lot less than getting caught with a bunch of leftover $35 ($36? $38? I honestly can't even keep up with the price hikes in Canada over the last year) figures, so the store's buyers are probably a lot more careful .
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Warcry wrote:I feel super lukewarm about Legacy myself. Aside from Skids, none of the toys look bad at all. But it's hard to get worked up about another Drag Strip or Skywarp or Blaster, and even the Prime stuff doesn't feel very exciting. Tarantulas is nice but not at all surprising or fresh after all the BW guys we got in Kingdom. Jhiaxus is the only thing that I'm really looking forward to.
Mmm. A new first decent-ish figure for a character beats another competent but uninspiring version hands down, and I wouldn't say it's exciting despite US G2 being such a big thing personally. What's soured me on the line is Motormaster being in 3P price territory, to the extent I've cancelled preorders. Just not interested in getting another version of the team to combine them. Think I'm going to sit most of the year out. If further down the line I find a loose MM cab I might think about a set of the other four.

I'm sure Dragstrip's shoulders could have been done better, for instance. It looks like the wheels can probably be rejigged upwards at the cost of some articulation, but the shoulders seem to have ball joints on them. And a square head would've been nice too. Basically the X-Transbots Overheat toy/"youth" version as a deluxe.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Warcry wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 3:03 amI feel super lukewarm about Legacy myself. Aside from Skids, none of the toys look bad at all. But it's hard to get worked up about another Drag Strip or Skywarp or Blaster, and even the Prime stuff doesn't feel very exciting. Tarantulas is nice but not at all surprising or fresh after all the BW guys we got in Kingdom. Jhiaxus is the only thing that I'm really looking forward to. Kickback is one of my favourite background characters, but I already own three or four Kickbacks...I may end up buying this one as well but it's hard to actually get excited about it, you know?
I do know. I was in Walmart earlier, and saw they had Kingdom Deluxes on clearance for US$13. I picked up Waspinator and Tracks and started walking towards the regular toy section. By the time I got there, I realized the T30 and CHUG versions of these characters are enough. If I bought these, I'd transform them once or twice out of curiosity, to see how they differ from the versions I already have, then forget about them entirely. I hadn't grabbed these figures because I liked them; I grabbed them because I wanted to like them. I put them back on the shelf.

The regular toy section had some Legacy stuff. I wasn't into Kingdom Galvatron with his misassembled shoulders and smeared paint, but went for the clean, correctly built Legacy version. My only other Galvatron is the old Energon figure who can't aim his arm cannons normally.

The Deluxes and Voyagers didn't do anything for me. Arcee's torso seems like a black spine with a blue plate attached to the front. Kickback is basically a larger version of the TR figure I already have. Bulkhead's design reminds me more of CHUG Inferno/Grapple than his Prime or Animated versions.
None of these are major issue, and they all seemed like pretty decent toys. They just don't offer anything I don't already have.

I may just be set on the core concept of Transformers. It's not that I've stopped liking them, it's that I have enough. I'll still pick up one or two if they offer something that I don't already have covered, like a crown/cape for Starscream, or blue Bluestreak. But I don't see myself buying many updates of characters I already have, especially if the new figures don't have fewer flaws, just different flaws.

Of course, the next show/movie could introduce a bunch of new characters that pique my interest and cause me to give Hasbro all my money, again.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Interesting that we're all feeling a bit tapped out with Legacy. I watched a review of the G2 'Laser' Optimus Prime that's due out and I thought to myself 'they could have just reissued the original and saved themselves the bother'. It brings nothing new to the table (apart from ankle tilts - wooo) and the shrunken trailer and lack of gimmicks rob that toy of what made it so great in the first place.

I was also thinking that about the Prime characters. Those original toys are all largely great (as the Selects reissues reminded everyone), so I don't see why if it's a 'Universes collide' thing, Hasbro didn't just reissue those. Might have made for a more interesting line.

There just seems diminished returns for me from doing MORE redos of G1 characters we've already had in multiple forms already, along with doing new versions of modern characters that already had pretty great toys the first time around. The modern take on G1 figures works because those original toys from the 1980s and 1990s had no articulation; updates of Prime (and Beast Wars) don't really bring anything new to the table. The geewunification of the Prime characters also means they end up falling between two stools and pleasing no-one.

I was listening to the Triple Takeover podcast the other day, and they'd done an episode on the G1 homages in Energon which touched on something I liked about that line; 'looks like, but isn't'. It took some of those 1980s names and designs and just went mental with them. Energon Scorponok, for example, is equally memorable as his 1980s predecessor, but brings something totally fresh and interesting to the whole robot to scorponok me-do. I miss that.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Denyer wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:55 pmto the extent I've cancelled preorders. Just not interested in getting another version of the team to combine them. Think I'm going to sit most of the year out. If further down the line I find a loose MM cab I might think about a set of the other four.

I'm sure Dragstrip's shoulders could have been done better, for instance. It looks like the wheels can probably be rejigged upwards at the cost of some articulation, but the shoulders seem to have ball joints on them. And a square head would've been nice too. Basically the X-Transbots Overheat toy/"youth" version as a deluxe.
Well, sent an email and got an auto-response trying to get people to send everything through website forms, so might as well use Amazon in future. Not sure they get how off-putting this is, particularly to people who keep a record of comms in email.

Legacy Dragstrip is much better than expected. Although I haven't seen people do this in photos, the shoulder pads can be turned 90 degrees because they don't interfere with arm movement and that gives them a similar profile to the original toy. The shoulder wheels adjust enough to compliment that, and the head is a mix of blocky and rounded that doesn't look bad in hand. The moulding doesn't feel as severely gappy as some recent figures and the honeycombing is offset by quite a bit of sculpted detail. The guns are black with purple paint apps rather than the solid purple in the initial renders.

And of course it's the proper race car alt-mode, which is kind of important.

edit:
Image
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Denyer wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:55 pmMmm. A new first decent-ish figure for a character beats another competent but uninspiring version hands down
Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. After another wave of reveals the only thing that's really caught my eye at all was Leadfoot, and it's at least partly because the prospect of a new Leadfoot toy is such a novel idea in general. I had one as a kid and that surely helps too, but I had Thundercracker and Bumblebee too and their almost yearly redos don't get much attention from me at all.
Denyer wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:55 pmWhat's soured me on the line is Motormaster being in 3P price territory, to the extent I've cancelled preorders. Just not interested in getting another version of the team to combine them. Think I'm going to sit most of the year out. If further down the line I find a loose MM cab I might think about a set of the other four.
Yeah, on the one hand I do realize that even without the other Stunticons, Motormaster and his Menasor bits are basically the size of Siege Jetfire. But on the other, building Legacy Menasor would cost me the same amount of cash as I laid out to assemble all three of Superion, Bruticus and Abominus back during CW and POTP. And Hasbro's going to have a tough time convincing me that Menasor is three times the toy as those guys.

(And even if it was, it's Menasor, the ugliest and least-cool of all the G1 combiners by a wide margin IMO.)
Denyer wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:55 pmAnd a square head would've been nice too.
This is something I've thought of more and more lately. For the price Hasbro charges for these things, the product should be better and one of the things that really should be included are Marvel Legends-style alternate heads. So many characters have two (or even three!) distinct head designs from the toy, cartoon and comics, and someone is always going to be disappointed when they put out new Stunticons or a new Blaster or a new Red Alert...
Tantrum wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:57 pmI may just be set on the core concept of Transformers. It's not that I've stopped liking them, it's that I have enough. I'll still pick up one or two if they offer something that I don't already have covered, like a crown/cape for Starscream, or blue Bluestreak. But I don't see myself buying many updates of characters I already have, especially if the new figures don't have fewer flaws, just different flaws.
That's about how I feel as well. Picking a name at random, I'm very happy with the MP Prowl toy I own. But unless it breaks or turns yellow, another Datsun that turns into a robot based on the cartoon model is going to be a tough sell.

Now that said, I own something like six different Cheetors, six or seven different Spider-Man toys, and who knows how many different Batman figures...and I'm happy with all of them because each one is a radically different take on the character. I'd happily buy, say, War Within Prowl or the IDW bulked-up police SUV design. Or a Generations Prowl that's designed around the toy deco. But none of that seems to be Hasbro's focus right now.
Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 7:50 pmInteresting that we're all feeling a bit tapped out with Legacy. I watched a review of the G2 'Laser' Optimus Prime that's due out and I thought to myself 'they could have just reissued the original and saved themselves the bother'. It brings nothing new to the table (apart from ankle tilts - wooo) and the shrunken trailer and lack of gimmicks rob that toy of what made it so great in the first place.
I've been messing around with RiD Scourge for the last few days thanks to the weirdly ugly Legacy version getting leaked, and you're not wrong. It's a little clunky by modern standards, but it's a million times more fun than anything Hasbro's made in years. The fandom nowadays seems to be filled with people who value joints and poseability over everything else and scorn things like the original trailer's fifty different firing weapons, and I'm sure the new one feels like an upgrade to those folks, but it sure wouldn't to me.

The best thing about the original might just be how quickly you can transform it. It goes from a great robot to a great truck in eight steps, in under ten seconds. Core class toys are more complicated than that nowadays.
Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Apr 25, 2022 7:50 pmThe modern take on G1 figures works because those original toys from the 1980s and 1990s had no articulation; updates of Prime (and Beast Wars) don't really bring anything new to the table.
In a lot of cases, it's not even that the new toys aren't bringing anything new. They're actually, actively worse! Cybertron fans slated Siege Galaxy Prime. I personally liked the Kingdom stuff, but I don't play with much of it. I usually have a few of the 90s BW toys on my desk to fiddle with while working but it's not common for any of the newer toys to join them there because most of them don't do anything.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

Post by Denyer »

Even without the gimmicks, the original Laser Rod Prime is a fun toy because it's both poseable and quick to transform. Excessive complexity hurts playability. Maybe the Legacy one will be better than some recent lines in that respect... Hasbro can do big, simple and fun without making KO quality figures, and did pretty well with TR Overlord and his mould mate.
Warcry wrote:even without the other Stunticons, Motormaster and his Menasor bits are basically the size of Siege Jetfire
The only thing that potentially saves it, personally, is they're making an effort to make the individual Stunticons well so I mind less not getting a set with MM. It even fits with the characterisations because they hate him. But it's going to damage sales, isn't it? Most people, especially those that didn't grow up with the ragtag Marvel UK earthforce line ups, care about groups and are going to feel priced out or that the value for money of a combiner team being literally twice the cost of the previous iteration isn't there.

Alternate heads... definitely would encourage a purchase in some cases, but since there are often also deco differences with TFs I'd perhaps do it a bit differently and borrow the Marvel Legends concept of giving the customer a whole new character. So you can have your Nick Fury and Dirk Anger figure, your Dani Moonstar / Karma / Wolfsbane, and your Stepford Cuckoos generic, except with Transformers double the appeal of some figures with a Thunderwing head packed directly in with a movie figure or give that yet-another-Ironhide an extra life straight out of the box with a third-tier character head for Tote, etc. Maybe make something of the titanmaster gimmick.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Denyer wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 6:54 pm Even without the gimmicks, the original Laser Rod Prime is a fun toy because it's both poseable and quick to transform. Excessive complexity hurts playability.
Totally agreed on that point. A lot of new Transformers manage to be very impressive without actually being very fun to transform. The new Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime both qualify for me -- I admire the creativity that went into the transformation engineering but I also kinda never really want to transform the things ever again. Though that's been an on and off problem for a while now though. One of the worst examples I can think of is actually the last Laser Prime mold they made back in 2011 or so.
Denyer wrote: Mon May 23, 2022 6:54 pmMost people, especially those that didn't grow up with the ragtag Marvel UK earthforce line ups, care about groups and are going to feel priced out or that the value for money of a combiner team being literally twice the cost of the previous iteration isn't there.
There's certainly a big chunk of the fandom who are going to be all or nothing about any of the combiner teams...I remember the reaction back in '08 when they made big ol' Ultra-class toys of Onslaught and Sliverbolt, and no one else from those teams. But on the other hand, anyone on the "all" side of the spectrum is committing to buying a Commander-class toy. It might work out to be a wash?
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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The complexity and lack-of-fun thing really pushed the experience towards overpriced action figure collecting for a while. I mean, I like what they did with Warpath in Earthrise, but it's too fiddly to be the spiritual successor of a minibot.

The CW designs have that and this Dragstrip's got some of it. It's simple enough to not be a million miles away from the one I got from the Weetabix offer* as a kid (which was a favourite, and the tactile memory of how every piece moves and converts and looks from any angle is remarkably strong -- the character's a cipher but ) and the only thing I'd really term a design flaw is that the panels with the second front wheels seem like they're going to become floppy/loose/broken on some in future.

*Which I thought was earlier than it was. Apparently it was 1991 and in some cases people were getting Classics toys because they'd run out of Drag Strip and Fireflight.

Skids and Kickback also do the toy homage thing very well, but didn't have them originally.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Warcry wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:56 am Totally agreed on that point. A lot of new Transformers manage to be very impressive without actually being very fun to transform... Though that's been an on and off problem for a while now though. One of the worst examples I can think of is actually the last Laser Prime mold they made back in 2011 or so.
Have to disagree on the ~2010 laser prime deluxe. It's complex for a reason: it has the truck windows move to the chest instead of being faux parts. The new legacy figure, on the other hand, is completely convoluted for the benefit of... nothing? Both the G2 figure and the 2010 deluxe have better proportioned truck modes. The deluxe figure at least has a clever transformation for the sake of getting parts where they need to go without resorting to fake bits, and the G2 figure is wonderfully simple and had a battery/light up feature (though excised for Scourge).

The new one has all the complexity for the goal of... still having a fake window chest, and not including the electronic light gimmick. I'd make a joke about it having ankle tilts at least, but even the 2010 figure had those too!

Funnily enough, I think that if they had just upscaled the 2010 deluxe version to the size of the Legacy figure, most of the criticisms of the former's fiddliness could have been resolved and created a better figure than before. As it is, it's a lateral move at best.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Apparently the Legacy deluxe Cosmos, which is itself part of a walmart-exclusive sub line, is packed one to a case of eight. The other figures in the box include two copies a diaclone homage Skids and two copies of G2 Road Rocket, both of which are repaints/retools of figures that are still on the shelves now, more or less.

So, you have a character that has a much higher profile than the others, which are basically niche offerings. Makes sense to hide that one behind both store exclusivity and shortpacked distribution, yeah?

I'm not actually all that enamored with the new figure (I like the Legends version with the little space shuttle more), but it's bound to be maddening to the people that prefer it or don't have a Cosmos at all. I get that it's a luxury item and ultimately a non-issue, but it still comes across as a baffling decision.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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I'm sure it'll be back at some point. Hasbro's running full tilt at producing enough designs, standard variants and novel variants to spray them around retailers in the hope of getting product stocked in brick and mortar stores (Target, Walgreens, etc) plus dumping extras on bundles with Amazon. The relatively unique or particularly popular/reusable designs such as Ironhide, Cosmos, etc will likely get reused. The ones that have paid for themselves already such as Fangry and Runabout probably won't.

This probably means that people looking to purchase Minerva, for example, are shit out of luck like they were with Brainstorm as the fourth Autobot Titanmaster since that was a Blurr retool.

There is some randomness. The Worlds Collide pack seems to have been reissued or had a lot of overstock redirected if anyone's after it;
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/ ... ils/210057
https://www.entertainmentearth.com/prod ... -5/hsf0994
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Cosmos being packed one to a case makes sense to me. He hardly set my pulse racing back in the 1980s and the same is true now. Us fanboys aside, are kids going to connect with a character who looks like he turns into a hotel reception bell? Or will they - as I suspect - be more interested in characters that turn into cars, bikes and cranes?

I think the 1 a case is Hasbro meeting the demand the 20% ish of the market collectors make up (actual percentage may vary as I'm not at work, so my brain is in sleep mode).

I'm a bit sad at missing out on the Buzzworthy Creatures set, but it's not as exciting as the Worlds Collide one, so I'll live. Or at least probably be able to pick up the beast characters no-one wants on the aftermarket at some point, like I did with the Worlds Collide set. Hooray for putting together a mixed bag of characters that appeal to two different sets of collectors, making the set a limited release and pleasing no-one!


...looking forward to the mooted Coneheads re-releases Be fun to see how that goes...
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Yeah, can't imagine he's a big draw. As well as or instead of straight reuse in the next line maybe a Selects version as a Gobot character with an alternate head already part of the mould. They won't want to waste the tooling.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

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Collectors might only be 20% of the toy-buying marketplace overall, but I can only imagine we're a much higher slice of the pie for Generations, and for limited-run store exclusives in particular. With Deluxes drifting up to close to $40 here (and over that if you're silly enough to buy from Toys'R'Us) it feels like they've more or less priced out the casual market. It's kinda tough for a kid to buy a Generations figure with pocket money nowadays.

I can see where Clay is coming from with this. The Velocotron case includes two figures with significant new tooling and three simple redecos. You'd think they'd want to ship Cosmos in greater numbers to get their money's worth from the new mold, and shortpack the redecos instead. Especially since Hasbro doesn't exactly have a great track record of re-releasing Walmart-exclusive molds lately, and the one release they did get were almost impossible to find (tapedeck Soundwave, VW Bumblebee). As soon as I heard that they were doing a new-mold Cosmos in this line I guessed it'd be scalped to the moon. Shortpacking the thing just made it a zillion times worse. I'm just glad it's so ugly, so I'm not tempted to try and track it down.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

Post by Denyer »

The situation with VW is a bit of a unique one fraught with additional restrictions and probably negotiated time-limits on releases. The classic alt mode of one of their most recognisable/bankable characters is bound up in another company's imaginary property rights. I don't think there's ever been anything similar with Prime, the seekers, etc, has there?

Tape deck Soundwave will probably reappear (has there been a Soundblaster variant yet?) And in other territories it's not Wal-Mart (eg the Velocitron releases are in Smyths over here).

Cosmos probably reflects spacing out with a straight reuse, or Selects type release, or another character.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

Post by Clay »

I dunno; per the last round of fan questions from the pulsar stream or whatever it is, the exclusive factor isn't just a fielding for niche items on hasbro's part, but actually really is an exclusive agreement with a given store. The question was about the netflix soundwave (I think), and it actually can't (per hasbro) be added into a general retail wave later in legacy or something for X amount of time until the agreement with walmart concludes, even with deco changes.

I reckon it'd be the same for Cosmos? I can't say that he particularly interests me, but tooling costs don't account for character appeal or decos, so it just seems weird that they'd short the production of one complete tooling while doubling up on another (like Skids and Road Rocket).

Speaking of, I saw the deluxe wave (minus Cosmos and the Sideswipe redeco) and the leader wave today. Seeing Legacy Skids and Diaclone Skids on the pegs at the same time reminded me of the days of Universe 1.0 when you could find two slightly different versions of RID Prowl/Red Alert simultaneously.

I picked up the Scourge, though. While I was lukewarm toward the G2 Op deco, I like this one. It's more black than the predominantly gray version of the RID figure, but it looks good in person. Still over-complicated, though.
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Re: Grumpy old men: armchair brand management

Post by Tantrum »

Acording to tfwiki, Hasbro said they rereleased the 2014 Cosmos toy Clay mentioned in 2017 because they thought the 2014 version was "too rare". They may do the same with this Cosmos. Or, maybe they learned from that experience just how popular Cosmos is, and have produced the correct amount. I stopped believing that sentence as I was typing it.

Being a niche character who had a decent toy released twice in the past decade, maybe being short packed in a store exclusive wave is the correct supply to meet demand. But, it's also a small enough supply that scalpers can dominate the market.

The Walmart exclusive Netflix VW mold from last year was released this year as part of a Target exclusive set, with a new deco and head. So, there is some limit to these exclusivity deals.

I'm hoping Cosmos gets redecoed as Rick and Morty's ship.
Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:08 pmI'm a bit sad at missing out on the Buzzworthy Creatures set, but it's not as exciting as the Worlds Collide one, so I'll live. Or at least probably be able to pick up the beast characters no-one wants on the aftermarket at some point, like I did with the Worlds Collide set. Hooray for putting together a mixed bag of characters that appeal to two different sets of collectors, making the set a limited release and pleasing no-one!
I'm pleased with all 8 figures from the Collides 4-packs. I was mainly interested in Fangry from the first set, and was satisfied with him. I was never big on the simplicity in going from a humanoid to an ape, but Nemesis Primal won me over with the little details like built in weapons and ankle pistons. I'd passed on Cliffjumper and never saw Netflix Bee, so was happy to have this mold in hand. The only mold in this set I already owned was Blackarachnia, and I was able to swap spider limbs with this one to make a more screen accurate version.

The second set gave me an actual VW. I'd considered the original decos of the Ransack and Skywasp molds, but passed due to already owning decent versions of Kickback and Waspinator. In hand, they're good molds, but not different enough from what I already own to justify having the same deco of each. So, I'm happy with the black repaints. I'd passed on Scorponok due to not having any affinity for the character, and not liking the bot head. I ended up liking the mold, and this version even came with an alternate bot head. Plus, this was 4 Deluxe toys for about the price of 3.

I'm hoping the third set comes with the Goldbug version of the mold with a yellow head and black limbs to resemble the G1 Bumblebee toy.
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