The Transformers Thread

[karamazov80]

To Webhead's post, that's true, and I think we really have the 3rd party companies to blame. Those guys doing all their great, unlicensed G1-style stuff made Has/Tak realize the profit potential. And now, the official stuff is so freaking good that my own interest in 3rd party stuff has dwindled to almost nothing, even though this time last year, I had little to no interest in anything Hasbro/Takara were doing and was much more into 3rd party stuff.

Re: scale, they look fine to me. TF scale was all over the place in the cartoon. What they've done now though is found (IMO) a great place where both bots and cars look great in both modes. Seems like one or the other took a design hit back in the earlier days of the line.

Edited March 8, 2013 by karamazov80

[Webhead]

i think the scale is fine too. like K80 said you can't have both (bot and car mode) but these seem pretty close to both. If I had to pick one i'd prefer scale to bot mode over alt. And I'm fine with Grimlock not towering over...he's close enough for me. If I had him.

hobbylink japan has prowl and bluestreak for $50 each...thinking of getting them there over BBTS since they now have a private warehouse equivalent to bbts pol. Though I need to figure out what the shippping would be since I get alot of stuff from BBTS so the net may not be that much savings.

[karamazov80]

Damn, that's $30 in savings per figure. Could be a much better option if you use their POL.

[TENIME_art]

Yeah, if they're supposed to be robots in disguise, seeing a giant boombox wouldn't look very subtle. "Oh, but they mass-shift." And I hate mass-shifting.

I also prefer alt mode scale. That should dictate robot mode. Starscream should tower over Optimus Prime, not look him in the eye. Powerglide, too, not looking up at him.

Which would make Masterpiece Megatron pretty much 1:1.

[Webhead]

Damn, that's $30 in savings per figure. Could be a much better option if you use their POL.

yeah. I went ahead and preordered with them. You don't have to pay upfront either (just like bbts). on another board a guy said both of them shipped should be about $22 EMS or $14 SAL so say you go for EMS and guess $25 that's $125 shipped for 2 where ordering here you're looking at $160 + shipping. Hell may get 2 each at that price. There was some other japan online store that had them for $43 each but sold out in 3 hrs yesterday. Didn't find out about until today.

This savings can go towards me having to pay extra for ebay prices on Sideswipe.

[TM2 Dinobot]

My pants feel funny.

[TM2 Dinobot]

April Fools from Mastermind Creations.

2013 has proven to be a pretty tough year for us in the MMC Team with the sudden loss of one of our most important resellers and the rise of two formidable contenders for the same character in the Feral Rex Project.

We deeply regret that we have to announce the termination of the project due to the poor feedback on what we have released so far and the results from the preorders that we've put up over that past few months are.. well... disappointing.

We would still like to thank a couple of special members from the TFW2005 community, namely Transbot90210, hardreturn, exomega255, David Hingtgen, Transformed, Jigga, SCPrime, Trailbreaker77, daimchoc, eriku, Jehsee, Torque, RRavage, jonplumlee, Darcemeus, TENIME_art and many others more [like Astronut ] for their support, contributions, digibashes, suggestions and erm.... constructive criticisms towards our designs, products and especially for this particular project.

It had been a fun ride and it was a really sad decision that we had to make to end this, but here's some good news for all those who have already preordered either Talon or Bovis from our resellers!

We are please to announce the KNIGHT MORPHER REX COMMANDER as a replacement figure and it will be ready to ship very very soon!!

A note to those who have ordered both Talon and Bovis. You lucky guys will be getting TWO Rex Commanders!!! (or FOUR if you have ordered two sets of the original Rex members!!!) Happy days!

Holy heck. Ten, dude. Seriously, you're packing those kinds of connections? I've got to stop hanging out at that skeeve hole of Allspark.

[TENIME_art]

Wow.

Finally got around to taking pictures of my custom Breakdown:

He's going up on eBay in a bit, along with Takara Prime First Edition Bulkhead:

[hellpop]

So can someone tell me about this 3rd Party stuff? I'm not a Transformers collector (gotta draw the line somewhere), but I've just seen the term over on Fwoosh. Are these like unlicensed, limited run figures or something? Really fancy customs? And are these Masterpiece figures official Hasbro releases?

Teach me, I want to know!

[TM2 Dinobot]

the title '3rd party' is a bit misleading, as true 3P items are products licensed to a 3rd party. IE: Bobble heads. The moniker is wrong but just got stuck.

What F 3P items are is essentially mass produced customs, made available though the generous loop holes i the Chinese legal system. Someone has a product, tools the molds, fires a factory, creates the figures, packages them, ships them out and sells them to whoever. Some items are at-home deals (most of Luke's stuff and stands would fall into that category) and some if available on Shapeways. 3rd Party is just a large umbrella label that's less specific than it was 5 years ago. I would love to get in on it as I have some killer designs but I can't draw or CAD to save my life.

[battlecat]

And Masterpiece is just the high-end line of Transformers that Takara makes in Japan, some of which are later released over here by Hasbro, yes.

Edited April 5, 2013 by battlecat

[hellpop]

So are these legit companies? How are they able to sell anything anywhere without Hasbro hitting them with a cease and desist order? Even if they can get a production run from China made, I don't see how they can find any avenue to sell these. Even if they were to claim they're based on the original Japanese designs that Hasbro turned into G1, they still have Autobot and Decepticon stickers on, don't they? And that's clearly a Hasbro thing. Anyway, if you guys can point me to somewhere that I can read a bit more on the subject, I'd appreciate it.

[TM2 Dinobot]

No stickers, no names. IP infringement is REALLY hard to prove, and because they're Chinese it's essentially a blank check. China is rally an open book. You can get away with anything there. But no, they're not licensed and they're not legit. Honestly these are a little better (and in iGear's case not at all) than KOs.

[karamazov80]

I think the lack of legal pursuit by Hasbro/Takara may also be a function of the way that 3rd party stuff, for the most part, enhances rather than detracts from collectors' interest in legit. releases. If not for the 3rd party stuff, I probably wouldn't have maintained interest for the past couple of years. Prior to the MP-10 reboot or whatever, the only legit Transformers release I cared anything about was MP Grimlock. Has/Tak seem to benefit from them existing, and take many of their ideas, improve on them (IGear's seeker mod, MP Soundwave, smaller scale MP Prime) and capitalize on it.

Edited April 5, 2013 by karamazov80

[AdyCarter]

If it wasn't for 3rd parties my WST collection would be no where near as awesome as it is. (I just got Stepper/Riccochet that is amazing!) just need Sixshot and Astrotrain now.

In first part world I just treated myself to the Hasbro MP Hot Rod and Alternators Hot Rod, can't wait till they turn up.

[TM2 Dinobot]

Also, Hasbro is partly to blame. They're going to have a hard time claiming IP infringement when they spen the better part of a decade claiming Cyclonus was a blue helicopter rather than a purple jet. Hasbro's constant name reuse and insistence that all their characters are the same guy hurts them when they have to prove someone stole their idea. Just check out the wiki entry for Sideways. G1, RiD, Armada, Cyb, Animated, Robo Masters and DotM are the same guy. Hasbro had made matters worse in recent years, with the insistence that there's One Continuity. IP is hard to prove in the first place, and Hasbro for a long time has actively been shooting themselves in the foot.

[Webhead]

Hasbro doesn't have the rights to transforming robots so there's that too.

[hellpop]

Yeah, but a judge isn't going to care about trivialities like that. All Hasbro really has to prove is that 3rd Party toys could be confused in the marketplace for their legit products. Plus, the fact that these guys are apparently doing factory runs, even if a small run, pushes them from fan art into something else. I don't know why Hasbro hasn't objected to these (or why they've allowed it to continue if they have), as it seems a pretty cut and dried case to me.

[battlecat]

I think the lack of legal pursuit by Hasbro/Takara may also be a function of the way that 3rd party stuff, for the most part, enhances rather than detracts from collectors' interest in legit. releases. If not for the 3rd party stuff, I probably wouldn't have maintained interest for the past couple of years. Prior to the MP-10 reboot or whatever, the only legit Transformers release I cared anything about was MP Grimlock. Has/Tak seem to benefit from them existing, and take many of their ideas, improve on them (IGear's seeker mod, MP Soundwave, smaller scale MP Prime) and capitalize on it.

Yeah and I think it also proved to Hasbro/Takara, with no risk on their part, that the market could sustain multiple high-end releases a year -- which is why we've been seeing such a big expansion in the Masterpiece line lately. In a roundabout kind of way the 3rd party trend has ended up making them money.

[TM2 Dinobot]

I don't know why Hasbro hasn't objected to these (or why they've allowed it to continue if they have), as it seems a pretty cut and dried case to me.

What part of "They're in China" are you not getting? Let me try this. There's no legal way for a capitalist company in the United Stated to file a suite, let alone win, against a small group of individuals in the Democratic People's Republic of China. It can't be done with any form of class and treaties. They would most likely have to go through the State Department, and Hasbro would lose more money than they would save. These guys combined are eating possibly $100,000 out of Hasbro's market share. It's very niche, online, and very small. It's easier just to let them run wild. Whenever anyone in the US has tried it they've always gotten a C&D letter. But again, that's the States, not China.

[Hawkeye's Junk]

Got my Quakewave yesterday. Looking forward to checking him out.

[hellpop]

I don't know why Hasbro hasn't objected to these (or why they've allowed it to continue if they have), as it seems a pretty cut and dried case to me.

What part of "They're in China" are you not getting? Let me try this. There's no legal way for a capitalist company in the United Stated to file a suite, let alone win, against a small group of individuals in the Democratic People's Republic of China. It can't be done with any form of class and treaties. They would most likely have to go through the State Department, and Hasbro would lose more money than they would save. These guys combined are eating possibly $100,000 out of Hasbro's market share. It's very niche, online, and very small. It's easier just to let them run wild. Whenever anyone in the US has tried it they've always gotten a C&D letter. But again, that's the States, not China.

It was a simple question. No need to be a jerk about it.

I "get" that these are manufactured in China, and that there's little to no regulation of bootleg and counterfeit goods coming from there. What I don't "get", and the reason I asked the damn question in the first place, is how they are being sold. Are the people designing these things and putting in orders with the factories overseas located in the US? Then Hasbro certainly could shut them down. Are they being sold through US-based retailers like BBTS? Then Hasbro could shut them down. Are they sold by vendors at Bot-Con? Then Hasbro could shut them down.

My apologies that your "they're from China" answer didn't satisfy my curiosity about a subject I know nothing about. But, don't worry, I won't sully your precious Transformers thread with my ignorance again.

[TM2 Dinobot]

I don't know why Hasbro hasn't objected to these (or why they've allowed it to continue if they have), as it seems a pretty cut and dried case to me.

What part of "They're in China" are you not getting? Let me try this. There's no legal way for a capitalist company in the United Stated to file a suite, let alone win, against a small group of individuals in the Democratic People's Republic of China. It can't be done with any form of class and treaties. They would most likely have to go through the State Department, and Hasbro would lose more money than they would save. These guys combined are eating possibly $100,000 out of Hasbro's market share. It's very niche, online, and very small. It's easier just to let them run wild. Whenever anyone in the US has tried it they've always gotten a C&D letter. But again, that's the States, not China.

It was a simple question. No need to be a jerk about it.

I "get" that these are manufactured in China, and that there's little to no regulation of bootleg and counterfeit goods coming from there. What I don't "get", and the reason I asked the damn question in the first place, is how they are being sold. Are the people designing these things and putting in orders with the factories overseas located in the US? Then Hasbro certainly could shut them down. Are they being sold through US-based retailers like BBTS? Then Hasbro could shut them down. Are they sold by vendors at Bot-Con? Then Hasbro could shut them down.

My apologies that your "they're from China" answer didn't satisfy my curiosity about a subject I know nothing about. But, don't worry, I won't sully your precious Transformers thread with my ignorance again.

.

Man, I was afraid it might come off like that. I an truly sorry, and I was honestly not trying to be a jerk. I guess I just didn't use the right words or didn't understand your question. I thought my response could be construed as a bit defensive, but I just didn't bother thinking about what else I could say that couldn't be construed that way. :/

Let's try it like this. There's nothing Hasbro can do to shut down companies in China. They DO prevent them from being sold at Botcon, but they have no control over what online retailers do. That's akin to DSt getting mad that Luke sells Shokins (sorry Luke) They can stop shipping to Luke, but they can't stop Shokins from existing, even if they are eating into their profits. As to where the designers themselves are, I'm not sure. There's about 30 different 3rd party players right now, so I'm sure at least some are in the US. The Lukis Bros who essentially started the market certainly are located here. But that helpped in a way, as they ended up making kits for Botcon as well. IDK, it's a mixed bag.

[TM2 Dinobot]

Ady, this is for you.

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/3rd-party-unlicensed-41/justitoys-wst-military-transport-astrotrain-g1-toy-colors-177255/

Looks like Astrotrain, Blitzwing and maybe Sixshot?

And hellpop, I just wanted to apologize one more time.

[karamazov80]

I'm not sure there is any 3rd party figure I want more than a Blitzwing. Because I just don't see Tak/Has doing it.