Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company?

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Tigermegatron
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

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Shockwave wrote:Y'know, I'm actually kind of with Prowl on this one. I mean, Hasbro already gave us an updated version of Skullgrin, and they also gave us Straxus, so really, I'm inclined to think they could do anyone at this point, given enough time. But it's like 3rd party companies aren't willing to wait until Hasbro makes official updates or doesn't trust that they'll be done "correctly" and so we wind up with a kajillion different knock off versions of the Dinobots and Predaking. Honestly, I was also looking forward to something new and different from these guys and am aslo disappointed that this has degenerated into "we're to fucking impatient to wait for Hasbro to do certain TFs so we'll do them our damn selves".
I also agree with BWProwl on this one.

Think these PWTT 3rd party toys are the worse update toys ever. Creating MOTU/WWE Styled 6 inch ation figures for the 1980's Pretender with brick former take apart drones is the worse idea ever. :lol: -----> If this is the best EX-Hasbro employees can create, it's no wonder Hasbro fired these guys . :lol:

If Hasbro ever does any Pretenders updates designs in their 6 inch TF Hero Smashers toy line and sells them for $9.99. I'd buy a few at this low USA retail store price. Their is no way I'd pay $50 to $70 for the 3rd party PWTT Pretenders updates toys.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

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BWprowl wrote:
Onslaught Six wrote:Yeah, because that multi-billion dollar corporation over there *really* cares about the artistic integrity of its designs...Get off your high horse about it. I don't buy third party stuff because 95% of it is overpriced and I don't trust the people who make it to know what they're doing beyond things like new heads or extra guns. Meanwhile, these guys are literally the same guys who made TFs for the last several years, doing (essentially) more TFs. Can't argue with that--the only thing that I could argue with is price, depending on how much these end up going for.
That's not so much what it's about (though if I'd spent zillions of dollars making a particular brand and characters popular, I'd likely be a little perturbed by people trying to make a buck off that cultivated popularity without my consent). It's like... Okay, I go to anime conventions a lot, right? And at most conventions, there's an 'artist alley', where artists professional and unprofessional, wildly popular or with only small followings, can all set up booths and sell prints and commissions and custom-made keychains and buttons and shit. Thing is, 90% of the stuff they sell is fanart of shit that is popular and they KNOW will sell regardless of whether it's their art or not. People aren't buying that Zelda print because they really like the artist's technique or what they're doing in the piece or are a fan of the artist in general, they're just buying it because it's a picture of Zelda and they like Zelda. That...completely defeats the purpose of buying art from an artist to support an artist, and cheapens the point of having a whole room of booths where you can interact with these people and see what they can do when all you're doing is buying Madoka keychains and My Little Pony buttons and Pokémon postcards in a room just over from the dealer's hall, not to mention shortchanging the people who actually ARE selling original artworks, because none of these idiot weebs are going to look twice at them because they don't have a picture of Naruto or whatever.

THAT'S my problem with these third-party startups, this one included. They have the potential to make some amazing toys, to really show me what they can do and craft something new and interesting and carve out a niche for themselves. There actually are a handful of original designs in there (the new heads, mostly) that look like they could be awesome! But instead they went the easy route of "Well, people gobble up things that look like Transformers like there's no tomorrow, let's just do that!". Just slap some joints into the Pretender designs and call it a day. No thanks, I don't want to buy your stuff just because it looks like something else, from someone else, that I happen to like for different reasons. That's dishonest on both our parts.

I have a very difficult time justifying buying anything in an artist's alley, because I second-guess myself every step of the way. "Do I actually want this because it's a nice piece of art and I like the artist's style and what they're doing? Or do I only want it because it's a picture of a Transformer?" It's the same thing here, these things might look nice as action figures, as cool toys, but I'd just be too unsure of "Do I really want these because they're cool toys made by a new company, or just because they look like Blood and Lander?"
As someone who does what could arguably be called "fan music," how do I factor into this, in your view? I mean, my three latest releases are an album with Megatron on the front called Peace Through Tyranny, an EP with fanart of Gypsy Danger punching Godzilla, and a full-length from my Mass Effect-themed synthwave band.

I make the things I do because I like those things. I didn't make a TF-themed thrash metal album because I thought it would sell super well. (Spoilers: it really didn't, which I'm kinda pissed about.) I did it because I love TF and I've had the idea for years. But "music based on existing franchises" is basically me entire MO. I did an album called First Blood where every song is a ripoff of a movie. Iron Maiden's been doing it for decades.

And okay, here's a thing, I know I'm quoting it twice but it's important:
It's the same thing here, these things might look nice as action figures, as cool toys, but I'd just be too unsure of "Do I really want these because they're cool toys made by a new company, or just because they look like Blood and Lander?"
Can't you ask yourself the same question of every Transformer, or every licensed toy? "Do I want this Death's Head toy because it's objectively a great toy, or do I just want it because it looks like Death's Head?" What does a corporations stamp of approval have to do with it? Then you can get into the middle ground, because anyone in this hobby will tell you that they want both of those things. You don't want to just get the new Jetfire because he's a new Jetfire and you like Jetfire, you want a new Jetfire that's actually good on top of it.

Likewise, "new toy of a character I like" can easily make you initially go, "Hey, this toy is great, even if some of it has objective flaws, because it's a new toy of Roadbuster!" This is the case with the original Classics Jetfire, who I praised through the flaws that I even mentioned in my original review, but sold in 2013 because the flaws had started to grate on me. (I would link the review but the only known copy is on my old Xanga, and I'm not linking to a Xanga blog in 2014.) I have no idea if, in 2020, I'll want another new toy of Roadbuster because of his feet or his transformation or his slightly loose missile launcher will bother the fuck out of me. (Hopefully not; these things barely bother me now as it is. Windblade is more likely to miss the cut, though.)

But I'm digressing--the main point I'm trying to get at is, as a collector and a dude who likes toys, the two things that matter most to me are:

1) Is the toy itself cool enough to justify spending the current market price of the figure?
2) Is the toy of a character that I even remotely care about (or part of a franchise I care about)?
3) Is the toy easy to get?

And here's the thing, in a lot of ways, 2 is going to trump 1 every time. You could have the absolute objectively coolest Kamen Rider OOO figure (for example) that is the best toy ever made, period, by any company, but because I don't care about Kamen Rider or OOO specifically, I will have pretty much zero interest in it. Likewise, these guys could make objectively great 6" figures with cool designs and interchangable shit, and if they're at a good enough price (read: a price that is WELL below most third-party TF style shit) and I MIGHT be interested on a pure toy-design style level. BUT, they are no longer characters or part of a franchise that I care about, and consequently suffer from that. You could argue that I'm shallow in that regard, but I could just as easily argue that I'm frugal.

And here's the thing, you could turn this around in a thousand different ways, and almost all of them revolve around those three things. I got into Christopher Nolan as a director because I loved Batman Begins--he was the director of a new Batman movie that looked objectively great, was cheap to see, and easy to find. Likewise, once he moved away from point 2 (franchise I like) and did Inception, I could see that movie for about the same price I paid to see his Batman work, and it was just as readily available. No harm, no foul. I was able to enjoy his "original" work just as easily as his "licensed" work, because I knew it would be quality and I knew it would be cheap and easy to get.

Now, okay, let's move it to comics. I haven't read much of Costa's Cobra run, but I know Dom likes it enough to continually push it and I did like what I did read. So, for the sake of argument, let's say I really like it. Now, I know (because Dom is a big fan) that Costa has done some original, non-licensed comic work. I'm not particularly interested in this because I didn't really see anything from it to excite me. Despite this, I'm sure it's equally as available as his Cobra stuff (which is actually semi-difficult to get just on its own) and can't be that expensive, because the comics industry is pretty standardised. (I can't think of a publisher with the balls to charge more than $20 for a standard 6 issue trade.) So the only roadblock for me is that he's working on a franchise that I don't care about, in this case, an original property. It's harder to get me to separate myself from my money based on the idea of just the people involved.

Now, to bring it all back around, let's say that these guys were actually doing 100% original designs for these figures, okay? Now to get me the least bit interested, they're going to have to be a) relatively cheap (at 6" scale I'd have to say easily no more than $20 each TOPS) AND be readily available--and I don't mean "You can get it on BBTS" available, I mean, "buy it at Wal-mart" available. Because at BBTS, I have to actually actively go out of my way to find and buy these things. I can't walk into Wal-Mart with $20 and say, "I'm leaving with a toy," and leave with Warbot Defender. But I can do that with a TF, or Marvel Universe, or a GI Joe (if this is 2008! *rimshot*).

Now, mind you, just based on the pedigree, if these were entirely original designs and were sold at that sub-$20 price point, even on BBTS or Amazon or something, I would actually probably pull the trigger on one just to try out the line. Really, if post-Kickstarter prices for these aren't around $35-40, I definitely won't be buying any, TF lookalikes or not. (I say "post-Kickstarter" because any Kickstarter-reward-level figures for any project like this will almost always be $10-15 above what a "production" level figure's pricing would be. That's just how these things go.)

Side Note: Marauder Inc. is a company that started off doing original resin weapons primarily for GI Joes. You can't really give them any shit for this since they were only ever making weapons, and they worked for pretty much any 1/18th scale figure--GI Joe, Star Wars, Marvel Universe, whatever. Recently they had a Kickstarter where they're starting to make full-on figures--sound a little familiar? Of course, they aren't making "not-Firefly" and "not-Destro" because Hasbro won't do them (or, I guess the equivalent characters for GI Joe would be something like "not-Overlord" and "not-Robo-Joe"), they're just doing some generic-looking dudes with facemasks and camo and shit. But the figures look good! But they're really expensive. So I didn't get one. Also, they're only on their website. So, yeah. There's that.

Last thing: Have you considered that these guys are starting with some TF crank designs so they can raise some initial capital, before venturing off to do different stuff? I mean, they're obviously gearing up for some big-level stuff, I assume they intend to stick around with a little longevity, and there's only--what, a dozen Pretenders they can do, if they do the Classic Pretenders, plus Metalhawk and Grand? (Were there any UK-exclusive Pretenders?) If they want the company to last more than a year, they're going to need to do original work to survive, and it'll be interesting to see how many people stick with them. (My dollar will rely entirely on how much I like the initial offerings, assuming I buy any, and on how cool the "new" designs really are.)
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by BWprowl »

Onslaught Six wrote:As someone who does what could arguably be called "fan music," how do I factor into this, in your view? I mean, my three latest releases are an album with Megatron on the front called Peace Through Tyranny, an EP with fanart of Gypsy Danger punching Godzilla, and a full-length from my Mass Effect-themed synthwave band.

I make the things I do because I like those things. I didn't make a TF-themed thrash metal album because I thought it would sell super well. (Spoilers: it really didn't, which I'm kinda pissed about.) I did it because I love TF and I've had the idea for years. But "music based on existing franchises" is basically me entire MO. I did an album called First Blood where every song is a ripoff of a movie. Iron Maiden's been doing it for decades.
See, in my mind, the more direct musical equivalent of what I’m talking about would be cover/tribute bands. Whole bands assembled with set lists purely dedicated to just playing particular songs by a particular artist that people want to hear. Guys who don’t play their own music, who are paid to show up because people want to hear the Beatles, or whatever.

The stuff you do, the fan-stuff inserted into your music, well that’s no different than any other nods or references that any creator puts into their work. Del the Funky Homosapien, my favorite rapper of all time, has multiple songs where he drops references to King of Fighters and other video games, or even whole tracks dedicated to such a thing. But they’re there as elements of who he is, and what he likes and wants to make music about. And your stuff is similar, the fact that it’s ‘unofficial better alternative soundtrack to Mass Effect’ or something isn’t a selling point, it just starts based on Mass Effect because that’s something you enjoy as part of your life, but is your own thing, own creation through-and-through. It’s clearly a ‘fan’ thing, and not a cynical grab at what you know people are desperate to get their hands on, not caring who it actually comes from (You made a whole concept album based around an *imaginary* John Capenter movie! That’s brilliant! And the album itself is friggin’ magical to listen to, btw. I swear I’ll get off my ass and buy your other shit off bandcamp or whatever here soon. I’m a terrible friend.)
Can't you ask yourself the same question of every Transformer, or every licensed toy? "Do I want this Death's Head toy because it's objectively a great toy, or do I just want it because it looks like Death's Head?" What does a corporations stamp of approval have to do with it?
That is the difference, though, in that the official toy knows exactly why it exists, and I know why it exists, and why I want it. Marvel let Hasbro make a Death’s Head toy so I could buy it. Kickass, I like Death’s Head specifically *because* of Marvel (and to an odd tangential extent, Hasbro too), I’ll let them kick a toy of him my way. But some random dickhead with a Chinese factory contact and a handful of dudes trying to start something up? I get cynical. “You have nothing to do with why I care about that character, you just saw an opportunity to make a buck off of my interests in something that somebody else cultivated. Try harder.”

Like, in my fanart example: Earlier this year at Fanime I met Sarah Stone in the artist alley, and one of the things I bought from her was a lil’ print of Chromia, because fuck yeah, I didn’t even give a shit about Chromia until Stone drew her for TF: Windblade earlier this year. I can happily buy TF art from Sarah Stone because I absolutely know that I love TFs as drawn by her, specifically. (Of course, I also just love her art in general, as evidenced by the fact that I bought her artbook there as well.) Anyone else? I would want to buy something that was ‘theirs’, not just something that happened to be a picture of something I liked.
But I'm digressing--the main point I'm trying to get at is, as a collector and a dude who likes toys, the two things that matter most to me are:

1) Is the toy itself cool enough to justify spending the current market price of the figure?
2) Is the toy of a character that I even remotely care about (or part of a franchise I care about)?
3) Is the toy easy to get?

And here's the thing, in a lot of ways, 2 is going to trump 1 every time. You could have the absolute objectively coolest Kamen Rider OOO figure (for example) that is the best toy ever made, period, by any company, but because I don't care about Kamen Rider or OOO specifically, I will have pretty much zero interest in it. Likewise, these guys could make objectively great 6" figures with cool designs and interchangable shit, and if they're at a good enough price (read: a price that is WELL below most third-party TF style shit) and I MIGHT be interested on a pure toy-design style level. BUT, they are no longer characters or part of a franchise that I care about, and consequently suffer from that. You could argue that I'm shallow in that regard, but I could just as easily argue that I'm frugal.
And this is one point where we strongly diverge. I *will* buy some random fuckoff toy of something I don’t know if it looks cool enough. I saw this thing in a magazine and thought it looked incredibly badass, so I tracked it down and bought it. I bought Mugenbine toys for the same reason (I don’t know if those things even have context). Hell, going to your Kamen Rider example above, several years ago when I was just getting into the franchise, I’d only seen W and I think some of Den-O. But when I was at a convention and buying my first Figuarts in the line? Yeah, I bought W, but I also bought Dark Kiva because look at him, he looks badass! I still haven’t watched Kiva the show (and from what I hear, it’s not very good), but I still wanted that excellent figure of a kickass design because…it was an excellent figure of a kickass design.

It’s just how I am. I am that guy who will grab a random manga off the shelf at Barnes & Nobles and plunk down ten bucks to check it out because the art looks nice. If you don’t randomly try out new things, then how would you get into new things?
And here's the thing, you could turn this around in a thousand different ways, and almost all of them revolve around those three things. I got into Christopher Nolan as a director because I loved Batman Begins--he was the director of a new Batman movie that looked objectively great, was cheap to see, and easy to find. Likewise, once he moved away from point 2 (franchise I like) and did Inception, I could see that movie for about the same price I paid to see his Batman work, and it was just as readily available. No harm, no foul. I was able to enjoy his "original" work just as easily as his "licensed" work, because I knew it would be quality and I knew it would be cheap and easy to get.

Now, okay, let's move it to comics. I haven't read much of Costa's Cobra run, but I know Dom likes it enough to continually push it and I did like what I did read. So, for the sake of argument, let's say I really like it. Now, I know (because Dom is a big fan) that Costa has done some original, non-licensed comic work. I'm not particularly interested in this because I didn't really see anything from it to excite me. Despite this, I'm sure it's equally as available as his Cobra stuff (which is actually semi-difficult to get just on its own) and can't be that expensive, because the comics industry is pretty standardised. (I can't think of a publisher with the balls to charge more than $20 for a standard 6 issue trade.) So the only roadblock for me is that he's working on a franchise that I don't care about, in this case, an original property. It's harder to get me to separate myself from my money based on the idea of just the people involved.
So why are comics so different from movies? You have no problem checking out an ‘original’ film from Nolan, but an ‘original’ comic from Costa is harder to pull the trigger on? Why?

I can do this with writers, by the way. I’m reading Chris Yost’s New Warriors and his Amazing X-Men, despite not having overt particular affection for either franchise, because Chris Yost is a kickass writer and I want words by him on my eyeballs.

But on the other, previously mentioned side, I started buying Ms. Marvel and Inhuman, despite not giving any fucks about Captain/Ms. Marvel or the Inhumans as franchises, despite being completely unfamiliar with the creative teams behind them, simply because the books themselves and what they were doing looked neat.

I *will* check things out just because they look cool. You shouldn’t have to dress it up like something I already like to make me care about it, that’s overly narrow.

It’s like, it’s one reason I *hated* all the ‘guest characters’ that got added to Soulcalibur in the later installments. SC, you don’t need to add Star Wars and God of War and Assassin’s Creed to make me care about you, I *already* thought you were cool because of *you*. And the people who ARE buying the game JUST to play as Ezio or whatever, they’re only doing it for that, and not because they actually have an appreciation for the game as it is.
Now, to bring it all back around, let's say that these guys were actually doing 100% original designs for these figures, okay? Now to get me the least bit interested, they're going to have to be a) relatively cheap (at 6" scale I'd have to say easily no more than $20 each TOPS) AND be readily available--and I don't mean "You can get it on BBTS" available, I mean, "buy it at Wal-mart" available. Because at BBTS, I have to actually actively go out of my way to find and buy these things. I can't walk into Wal-Mart with $20 and say, "I'm leaving with a toy," and leave with Warbot Defender. But I can do that with a TF, or Marvel Universe, or a GI Joe (if this is 2008! *rimshot*).

Now, mind you, just based on the pedigree, if these were entirely original designs and were sold at that sub-$20 price point, even on BBTS or Amazon or something, I would actually probably pull the trigger on one just to try out the line. Really, if post-Kickstarter prices for these aren't around $35-40, I definitely won't be buying any, TF lookalikes or not. (I say "post-Kickstarter" because any Kickstarter-reward-level figures for any project like this will almost always be $10-15 above what a "production" level figure's pricing would be. That's just how these things go.)
It’s another fundamental difference, I guess. I buy shit online *all the time*, so this wouldn’t be a significant roadblock to me. As I said, when the news first hit and we were getting early looks at some of their original designs, I couldn’t wait for these things. The price and availability of them didn’t perturb me, if you want it, you can get it. But now I feel alienated. “These aren’t for people who just want cool toys, these are specifically for people so desperate to have a Landmine on their shelf that they don’t actually care what it is or where it comes from.” I mean, jeez, for *Landmine*? I don’t need that, and I especially don’t need it from a company that claims to be wanting to make their own unique, imaginative, interesting toys, then just goes and makes plastic lumps to Look Like Dudes on Shelves for people that are *really* desperate for some Masterforce action, apparently.
Side Note: Marauder Inc. is a company that started off doing original resin weapons primarily for GI Joes. You can't really give them any shit for this since they were only ever making weapons, and they worked for pretty much any 1/18th scale figure--GI Joe, Star Wars, Marvel Universe, whatever. Recently they had a Kickstarter where they're starting to make full-on figures--sound a little familiar? Of course, they aren't making "not-Firefly" and "not-Destro" because Hasbro won't do them (or, I guess the equivalent characters for GI Joe would be something like "not-Overlord" and "not-Robo-Joe"), they're just doing some generic-looking dudes with facemasks and camo and shit. But the figures look good! But they're really expensive. So I didn't get one. Also, they're only on their website. So, yeah. There's that.
This leads me to another interesting side-note that has ALWAYS bugged me about this third-party world we find ourselves in: Why the fuck do all these guys do Transformers? Like, there’s no one making $60 super-detailed fake GI Joes (are there?). I never see anyone on /toy/ posting anything about, like, off-brand Star Wars alternatives or fake Back to the Future action figures or stupid high-end Voltrons or what have you (actually, why the fuck has no Third Party company made some hugeass amazing transforming Dino Megazord?). Is it just because TF is the only franchise that’s proven that the fandom is desperate enough to create a market for this, so it’s the only thing these opportunists feel is ‘safe’ to jump on? No other franchise has had the absolute explosion in available unofficial product occur, and is it just because that market exists and now everyone and their dog wants to make a not-Devastator to get a slice of that pie?
Last thing: Have you considered that these guys are starting with some TF crank designs so they can raise some initial capital, before venturing off to do different stuff? I mean, they're obviously gearing up for some big-level stuff, I assume they intend to stick around with a little longevity, and there's only--what, a dozen Pretenders they can do, if they do the Classic Pretenders, plus Metalhawk and Grand? (Were there any UK-exclusive Pretenders?) If they want the company to last more than a year, they're going to need to do original work to survive, and it'll be interesting to see how many people stick with them. (My dollar will rely entirely on how much I like the initial offerings, assuming I buy any, and on how cool the "new" designs really are.)
That doesn’t mean you have to be shady and opportunistic on other people’s interests about it. 4 Horsemen does their own toylines (which look amazing and I can’t believe I haven’t bought any. I should have gotten in on the Kickstarter for those Ravens), but they also do DC and MOTU stuff for Mattel to help pay the bills. But they’re contracted for that work, it’s licensed, it’s legit, it’s not just them squirting out their own He-Men because they know it’ll turn a tidy profit with little effort.

And if the masses, the ‘fans’ are only going to buy things from a new company if they look like otherwise-unrelated things that they happen to like, then that’s a problem with that market. Don’t make toys for those jerks that don’t care who you are, make toys for people who will legitimately appreciate your work, regardless of if it’s pandering to their interests.

Bringing this all the way back to your initial example: Would you really want people listening to your music just because you mention Transformers and the Dragonzord? Or do you want them listenting because they like Onslaught Six and Onslaught Six’s music in general? The references, the homages, those are there as a facet of you, of who you are and what you like and what influences you when you make music, it’s not there as a cheap selling point for people that don’t care about the actual music.

And looking like Landmine shouldn’t be the primary selling point for an ‘original’ toy being designed by a new company specifically claiming to want to do new imaginative things.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by Tigermegatron »

Onslaught Six wrote: As someone who does what could arguably be called "fan music," how do I factor into this, in your view? I mean, my three latest releases are an album with Megatron on the front called Peace Through Tyranny, an EP with fanart of Gypsy Danger punching Godzilla, and a full-length from my Mass Effect-themed synthwave band.
Congrats on releasing all that music of yours.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by JediTricks »

Honestly, once they announced that Aaron Archer is also in on this, it started to look bad. Then you have more TF characters popping up and it's just not looking good. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but they worked inside, this isn't even a tribute band, this would be Danzig playing nothing but Misfits songs.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by Almighty Unicron »

Now I took a big hiatus from the fandom for a while, but was there a specific point when Hasbro dumped a lot of its staff, or was it simply a slow churn and now they're all getting together at PWTT?
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by Tigermegatron »

Almighty Unicron wrote:Now I took a big hiatus from the fandom for a while, but was there a specific point when Hasbro dumped a lot of its staff, or was it simply a slow churn and now they're all getting together at PWTT?
Just me guessing below, So please don't bash me to bad if i'm wrong or right.

Heavily guessing those who got fired got caught leaking secret advanced TF toy info and pics to the fans. When I was a TFCC Club member years ago and posted on their forum, A bunch of guys use to brag about knowing more advanced secret TF info then they should have.

Aaron archer and his crew were mean to the Takara Guys. So perhaps the firing order came from Takara. As Takara had reached it's limit with dealing with these guys.

Most of these fired guys who were huge veteran Forum trolls who got hired by TFCC and Hasbro as part of Aaron archer's team and a part of TFCC's team. It is never a good idea to hire a full team composed of forum trolls. Perhaps Hasbro had enough of these guys off the wall crazy, eratic, unprofessional on the job, trollish behavior.

All of the failed TF toy lines, Ideas, Side lines, Gimmicks and concepts that sold poorly in stores world wide. Might have been done by all of these fired guys.

Thinking at some point some of these Hasbro guys were caught working with some of these 3rd party companies. like sharing with them advanced secret Hasbro TF toy info. Helping design the toys through art or sculpting and so on.

Thinking it was a building up of some/most of these things over the years. Hasbro reached it's limit and just fired them all at once.
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by JediTricks »

I don't think any of those theories are close. Archer's departure came just after a significant culling of upper management when the company's growth internally outstretched its earnings. Either Hasbro cut him and his fiefdom or he chose to leave because his power base was depleted and he was in danger of being moved.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Tigermegatron
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by Tigermegatron »

JediTricks wrote:Honestly, once they announced that Aaron Archer is also in on this, it started to look bad. Then you have more TF characters popping up and it's just not looking good. They want to have their cake and eat it too, but they worked inside, this isn't even a tribute band, this would be Danzig playing nothing but Misfits songs.
Here's another guess.

Perhaps After AEC ended Aaron archer and his crew took a laid back approach on their jobs and most of their TF ideas were not accepted for 2008 Animated, The Movie Verse and TFP. Perhaps Hasbro felt Paying these guys so much made no sense as their contributions to the TF brand after AEC ended was next to nothing.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Former Hasbro employees have created a 3rd party company

Post by Sparky Prime »

JediTricks wrote:I don't think any of those theories are close. Archer's departure came just after a significant culling of upper management when the company's growth internally outstretched its earnings. Either Hasbro cut him and his fiefdom or he chose to leave because his power base was depleted and he was in danger of being moved.
According to what was being said on TFW2005 around the time everyone found out Archer had left Hasbro, those in the know never went into detail of what exactly happened but they gave the impression he was trying to save jobs due to cut backs Hasbro was making at the time.

Edit: Looking into it a bit more, I found that Archer commented at Tfcon 2014 the reason he left Hasbro was mainly due to the difficulties of making fun toys while dealing with issues like cost efficiency and the rising prices of plastic.
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