Hasbro's Comic-Con prices a ripoff!

[JediTricks]

So, Hasbro has put out press releases for their San Diego Comic-Con wares, and every price is higher than expected.


$25 - TFP Terrorcon Cliffjumper, a $13 figure - hard to find only due to Hasbro's choices - repainted and slapped into slightly special packaging. Last year, the Comic-Con TFP Optimus Prime deluxe was an all-new mold in special packaging, $20.

$60 - GI Joe / Transformers HISS Tank in Shockwave deco with Destro, construction BAT, mini-Soundwave cassette player, and a few more small accessories. This is based on a $20 GI Joe vehicle and a couple of recycled figures. Last year's SDCC GI Joe / Transformers set was Sky Striker in Starscream deco with Cobra Commander and a mini-Megatron handgun accessory, it was $50 based on a $30 vehicle.

$100 - TF: Fall of Cybertron Bruticus in Bruticus colors, a boxed set of the 5 bots in the colors they appear in from the game, as well as Hasbro's original solicitation images. This set is based on $65 worth of main-line Transformers Generations figures who will be shipping together in even numbers along with a not-yet-named 6th case-mate.


And HasbroToyShop is one of the SDCC booths that charges sales tax despite not being permanently located in California, so you can't even claim savings there.

While I'm somewhat annoyed at the first 2 - that price on Zombie Cliffjumper makes him a figure I won't be buying at all where I had previously committed funds to buying him - it's really Bruticus that sickens me. That is nothing but a blatant cash-grab, that is an extra $35 for the privilege of having the figure in not-hideous colors, and nothing else at all. Packaging, you might argue? Last year's gigantic carded Sentinel was $60 at SDCC, the same as its MSRP when it hit mass-release in its regular packaging. So where is our money going? There's no extra accessories, there isn't another 3 figures in the box, so it's just GOUGING with no clear pretense or justification. $35 is over half the pricetag on the mainline release all by itself. HasbroToyShop's line is a miserable experience every year, I was planning on braving it this year for the Bruticus set, for Zombie Cliffjumper, for the Star Wars 6-pack, and possibly the Shockwave HISS Tank and other pieces plus some requested by my friends, but now that Zombie Cliff is definitely out, the SW pack is losing its luster at its high price, Shockwave HISS is out, and Bruticus feels like an insult while remaining the only reason to attempt that horrorshow of a line. I know some SDCC-goers buy the Marvel and GI Joe figures for profit as they always sell, but I don't want to be that guy. So that leaves me with my morals in one hand and nothing in the other.

[Dominic]

Unless you farm your money by selling toys to begin with, it is not worth buying a few toy simply resell.

To be fair, the price on Bruticus is not that out of order. The retail for 5 deluxes is ~$75, not $65. And, a ~33% mark-up is not bad for an exclusive figure. Shockwave has new moulding. (Cluffjumper and the $20 MLP figure are factory direct gauging though.)

Bruticus is so offensive because of the colouring. Hasbro is releasing the correct colour scheme, (the one that people will recognize from the game) as a convention exclusive and releasing damn near a wave's worth of toys in a colour scheme that fewer people will recognize. Hard core collectors, the smallest segment of the market, will buy it. Confused grandparents, an inconsistent and unreliable segment, will buy it. But, casual fans who recognize TF because of media will look at it and see it as "wrong". Hasbro is effectively releasing a late run recolour as the main release. (And, we all know how well that non-media coloured figures sell.)

JT is probably right, SDCC Bruticus is likely a cash grab. Of course, in the long run, it will cost Hasbro miney. But, their decision making over the last few years has not been the most sound or rational.


Dom
-not one for rewarding bad behavior by a company like Hasbro.

[BWprowl]

To be fair, the price on Bruticus is not that out of order. The retail for 5 deluxes is ~$75, not $65. And, a ~33% mark-up is not bad for an exclusive figure. Shockwave has new moulding. (Cluffjumper and the $20 MLP figure are factory direct gauging though.)

Da fuq? Deluxes are fifteen dollars retail where you live, Dom? At worst they’re $13 over here, which would put the total for the group just at $65, and it wouldn’t even be that since at Target they sit just a little above $12 (and I’m confident that they’ll get bumped back down to ten later in the year, as ALWAYS happens).

Bruticus is so offensive because of the colouring. Hasbro is releasing the correct colour scheme, (the one that people will recognize from the game) as a convention exclusive and releasing damn near a wave's worth of toys in a colour scheme that fewer people will recognize. Hard core collectors, the smallest segment of the market, will buy it. Confused grandparents, an inconsistent and unreliable segment, will buy it. But, casual fans who recognize TF because of media will look at it and see it as "wrong". Hasbro is effectively releasing a late run recolour as the main release. (And, we all know how well that non-media coloured figures sell.)

Or they’ll buy it anyway because, despite the colors being a bit brighter, it’s still a big, kickass, combining robot toy. Kids aren’t as discriminating as we are, yo. In the few episodes of G1 I saw as a kid, I was distinctly unconcerned with the fact that Hubcap was yellow on TV but red in the toy I had in my hand. My new favorite toy Hubcap was on TV! Yay Hubcap!

I’d like to continue thinking of Hasbro making the darker-colored Bruticus as a service they did ‘Just for the fans’ (since they were the ones who, in classic Transfan fashion, whined and whined about wanting it), but at those prices it does start to feel more like gouging. On the other hand, Hasbro wasn’t even able to get rid of all their exclusives from last year at the lower prices JT’s citing (the TFPrime exclusives can still be had on HTS) so it might be that they’re just trying to preemptively recoup losses. Either way, yeah, the price on that Bruticus stings. It was the only one I was interested in, so I’ll probably still make a point of grabbing it off of HTS post-Comic-Con. Hey, it’s better than Botcon prices and availability, right? (And you know Bruticus is going to get used for a Botcon exclusive next year, or the year after. Probably some Club exclusives too)

[Dominic]

Da fuq? Deluxes are fifteen dollars retail where you live, Dom? At worst they’re $13 over here, which would put the total for the group just at $65, and it wouldn’t even be that since at Target they sit just a little above $12 (and I’m confident that they’ll get bumped back down to ten later in the year, as ALWAYS happens).

Give or take. But, yeah, $15 is about right.

Or they’ll buy it anyway because, despite the colors being a bit brighter, it’s still a big, kickass, combining robot toy. Kids aren’t as discriminating as we are, yo. In the few episodes of G1 I saw as a kid, I was distinctly unconcerned with the fact that Hubcap was yellow on TV but red in the toy I had in my hand. My new favorite toy Hubcap was on TV! Yay Hubcap!

Maybe this is generational. I notice that you and O6 are generally more forgiving of, and willing to reward, half-assery that guys like JT and I are simply offended by. (For example, your argue that the new Asia market Swerve is a "good Swerve figure" despite it looking nothing like the comics that made you like Swerve in the first place.)

But, I am going to have to say you are wrong on this. Toys that do not look like the movies/show/game/comics/whatever do not sell as well as screen/page accurate figures. I see more non-movie colour Bumblebees or Optimus Primes than I do correctly coloured Bumblebees or Optimus Primes. And, how many of the kids who just want a big combining robot are going to opt for the more expensive Combaticon figures (sold as 5 separate figures) when they can likely find something cheaper (and easier to convince their parents to buy), likely as one boxed set?

And, are you talking about Cliffjumper? Hubcap was never on the cartoon. He had one or two appearances in the background of the US comic, and a few minor appearances in the old manga.

I’d like to continue thinking of Hasbro making the darker-colored Bruticus as a service they did ‘Just for the fans’ (since they were the ones who, in classic Transfan fashion, whined and whined about wanting it), but at those prices it does start to feel more like gouging. On the other hand, Hasbro wasn’t even able to get rid of all their exclusives from last year at the lower prices JT’s citing (the TFPrime exclusives can still be had on HTS) so it might be that they’re just trying to preemptively recoup losses.

This is the same kind of bullshit that Hasbro pulled with the RiD Combaticons 10+ years ago. Remember "blue for no reason Armourhide" and "silver combiner parts Ruination"? All that did was validate the people who imported the damned set from Japan a year earlier.

This is not a question of Hasbro releasing a set in G1 colours to keep fans happy. This is a situation where Hasbro is releasing the toy in screen-accurate colours as an exclusive and acting like they are doing use a favour. They might well be trying to avoid a repeat of last year by trying to force less devoted collectors to buy the (more expensive) exclusive at the cost of discouraging sales of the regular release. This is not the level of Thundergate in '07, but it definitely makes me glad that I am largely skipping toys this year.


Dom
-is going to save so much money if Hasbro keeps up like this.

[BWprowl]

Give or take. But, yeah, $15 is about right.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: You need to move.

Maybe this is generational. I notice that you and O6 are generally more forgiving of, and willing to reward, half-assery that guys like JT and I are simply offended by. (For example, your argue that the new Asia market Swerve is a "good Swerve figure" despite it looking nothing like the comics that made you like Swerve in the first place.)

Hey, MTMTE didn’t make me ‘like’ Swerve, I’m neutral towards him at best in that comic, and no other comic has really made me like him. But the Generations Swerve looks like ‘Swerve’ in a general, idiomatic way, in that it’s a pickup in the right colors with a correct-looking head. It’s the same way that Classics Prime doesn’t look like any particular Optimus Prime, but I still love that toy to bits anyway because it’s just a kickass toy of ‘Optimus Prime’.

See, you say ‘forgiving of half-assery’, I say ‘not overly entitled and picky’. Hasbro makes cool robot toys and I buy those that I like. I dunno, I’d love to live a life where I could complain that my giant, awesome, transforming combining robot toy has colors that are a little too bright, since it would mean that my life must be so fucking fantastic that I have absolutely *nothing* else to complain about, but unfortunately for me, collecting toys is still something I do purely for fun.

Maybe it is generational, or just a function of how I was brought up. My parents didn’t exactly buy me a ton of toys growing up, it was strictly a ‘few every birthday and Christmas’ thing. Anything else I’d have to save up my allowance and buy for myself. If I did get a toy as a gift, and I’d started crying five minutes later that it was too bright in colors or was missing a couple paint apps or didn’t look exactly like the cartoon, I’d get my shit kicked in. And rightfully so, you’re a kid who just got a toy! You literally have no reason to complain!

But, I am going to have to say you are wrong on this. Toys that do not look like the movies/show/game/comics/whatever do not sell as well as screen/page accurate figures. I see more non-movie colour Bumblebees or Optimus Primes than I do correctly coloured Bumblebees or Optimus Primes.

The show-accurate TFPrime Bumblebee is absolutely CLOGGING shelves here, and many other places (all I’ve got to back that up is anecdotal evidence, but it’s pretty widespread, so there you go). The DOTM Prime with the trailer isn’t exactly flying off shelves either. Meanwhile, Hot Shot, a non-show repaint character, is considerably harder to come by.

And, how many of the kids who just want a big combining robot are going to opt for the more expensive Combaticon figures (sold as 5 separate figures) when they can likely find something cheaper (and easier to convince their parents to buy), likely as one boxed set?

Like what, exactly? Maybe one of those knockoff gestalts from Big Lots or something? Those won’t be sharing shelf space with the Comabticons at all, so the kids at Target will have those guys as their option for ‘big combining robot’ to bum off of their parents. Unless you’re insinuating that the parents would actually take the kid around to multiple stores in search of a ‘better deal’, in which case you’re crazy. The parent’s going to get the kid just Brawl or something with the promise of maybe getting the others later (which won’t happen, but dammit they’ve got to get out of there and get home and pay bills and start dinner) or they’ll just leave without buying anything, kid screaming for his toy be damned.

And, are you talking about Cliffjumper? Hubcap was never on the cartoon. He had one or two appearances in the background of the US comic, and a few minor appearances in the old manga.

Ah, you’re right, fair enough. But the point still stands that I was less concerned with Hubcap being a character on TV than I was with him just being a really cool toy. I only saw like five or six episodes of the cartoon growing up, and I still loved getting/playing with Transformers purely because the toys were great. I’m sure plenty of kids might want Bruticus based on seeing him in the game, but I’d think lots of other kids who’ve never played the game (and might not even be entirely familiar with Transformers at all) would still want to get and enjoy Bruticus just because Toys Are Fun.

This is the same kind of bullshit that Hasbro pulled with the RiD Combaticons 10+ years ago. Remember "blue for no reason Armourhide" and "silver combiner parts Ruination"? All that did was validate the people who imported the damned set from Japan a year earlier.

Fun fact: My brother got that whole set of Combaticons and loved it. We watched the show, you think he gave a shit that the toys weren’t the same color as on TV? No, because it was a cool little set of transforming, combining military robots. I later got the Urban Camo set of the same molds just because they looked so cool, lack of fictional context be damned.

This is not a question of Hasbro releasing a set in G1 colours to keep fans happy. This is a situation where Hasbro is releasing the toy in screen-accurate colours as an exclusive and acting like they are doing use a favour.

It’s entirely possible that market research or whatever showed that kids didn’t respond as well to the darker colors on Bruticus, so they tweaked them to be brighter to have more appeal to that base market. But they still wanted to get the darker Bruticus out there because the fans were screaming like the self-important shits they are, so they decided that an SDCC release (which, as I’ve talked about before, are not hard to get at all) was a good way to do that. Is the price inordinately high? Yes, Hasbro’s clearly gunning for more of a profit than last year with this one. But they could’ve released no darker Bruticus at all, and the fans would’ve bitched in that situation too (these are the same people willing to shell out $500+ for a chunky, kibble-ridden, parts-forming not-Devastator, mind you).

[Dominic]

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: You need to move.

You have no idea. Seriously, my neighborhood is getting worse. The train has brought in enough drunks and crackheads that I am now seeing people sleeping (passed out high/drunk) in and around the city center, even on residential/commerical streets some distance from the train.

Hey, MTMTE didn’t make me ‘like’ Swerve, I’m neutral towards him at best in that comic, and no other comic has really made me like him. But the Generations Swerve looks like ‘Swerve’ in a general, idiomatic way, in that it’s a pickup in the right colors with a correct-looking head. It’s the same way that Classics Prime doesn’t look like any particular Optimus Prime, but I still love that toy to bits anyway because it’s just a kickass toy of ‘Optimus Prime’.

I pretty sure that Swerve is not a pick-up. But, anyway....

I dunno, I’d love to live a life where I could complain that my giant, awesome, transforming combining robot toy has colors that are a little too bright, since it would mean that my life must be so fucking fantastic that I have absolutely *nothing* else to complain about, but unfortunately for me, collecting toys is still something I do purely for fun.

I look at it as a question of my hobby being the thing that I use to de-stress. If Hasbro wants me to the stay with the hobby, they need to be doing it right because there is nothing actualy keeping me in. I have plenty more else to complain about, which is why I expect my hobby to be "done right". When Hasbro pulls this shit, they give me one less reason to bother.

My parents didn’t exactly buy me a ton of toys growing up, it was strictly a ‘few every birthday and Christmas’ thing. Anything else I’d have to save up my allowance and buy for myself.

Same here. But, that is why (to this day) I want "best possible copies". I knew that I was only getting so many toys, so I did not want to waste "toy opportunities" on shitty toys. When I was a kid, I got Ramjet for Christmas one year. After some exploratory fiddling and examination of the package art, I realized how that mould worked, and that the body was the same one used for the toys of Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp. I was glad to have Ramjet (with the allowable conehead) rather than one of the "just not going to look good no matter what I do" guys.

I did not flip out on my parents for buying me Ratchet (even though I knew that part of their reasoning in picking that figure up was "it is a non-violent ambulance"). But, you are damned right that I was kind of annoyed that I got Ratchet instead of a good figure. When my cousin got a Megatron for his birthday, I resolved to stop lobbying my parents for a Megatron. (They objected to him having a gun mode.)

The parent’s going to get the kid just Brawl or something with the promise of maybe getting the others later (which won’t happen, but dammit they’ve got to get out of there and get home and pay bills and start dinner) or they’ll just leave without buying anything, kid screaming for his toy be damned.

That screaming kid helped me get some Minicons once. So, hey, go easy on him!

Joking aside, that story kind of illustrates what you are saying. They kid might get *one* of the 5. Do you think that kid from my "great Minicon caper" would have gotten all 3 of that set, even if they were common? I doubt it. Do you think that he would have better odds with larger toys that were part of a larger set? I doubt it.

And, all it is going to take is one of the kid's friends (or an older sibling) to point out that "toy Bruticus is stupid because he does not look like the game", and suddenly getting that complete set is going to be less of a priority. Hell, if the kid is thinking like I was at the age of 7 or so, he is going to be calculating his odds of getting a complete set as soon as he sees them on peg-hooks.

I got two Constructicons for Christmas or some such one year. I never got the rest until years later because getting them would have meant skipping some other stuff. (When the opportunity to get more did arise, I had managed to lose Devastator pieces from the first two, so there was no point in getting the rest.) I got Swindle knowing that I would never get the other 4 Combaticons as a kid, because I liked the character (even if the toy sucked). I got Fireflight, and realized my mistake as soon as I got home. I got Motormaster for similar reasons that I got Swindle, and also got a hard lesson in toy scales when I had him face off against my Optimus Prime.

I took chance with the Predacons, and only managed to complete the set because I got diabetes that year and a hospital stay yielded a couple of "get well soon" TFs *and* it was right before Halloween (where I simply liquidated the candy that I could no longer eat) *and* that was followed by the big-time holidays. Even so, the only reason that I was willing to take that chance was that 1986 was a light year for toys. (And, do not think that I did not consider army building Sweeps, cuz I did.)

Sorry, just had some flashbacks to work through. The basic point to take away from this? The fewer toys you get, the more incentive you have to hold out for better toys. And, I wager that today's kids will be thinking along the same lines.

But they could’ve released no darker Bruticus at all, and the fans would’ve bitched in that situation too (these are the same people willing to shell out $500+ for a chunky, kibble-ridden, parts-forming not-Devastator, mind you).

This feels like Hasbro charging more for the correctly coloured toy while releasing a badly coloured toy at mass retail.


Dom
-never even completed the Insecticons, and is still fighting that battle on some emotional level.

[JediTricks]

Unless you farm your money by selling toys to begin with, it is not worth buying a few toy simply resell.

To be fair, the price on Bruticus is not that out of order. The retail for 5 deluxes is ~$75, not $65. And, a ~33% mark-up is not bad for an exclusive figure. Shockwave has new moulding. (Cluffjumper and the $20 MLP figure are factory direct gauging though.)

Bruticus is so offensive because of the colouring. Hasbro is releasing the correct colour scheme, (the one that people will recognize from the game) as a convention exclusive and releasing damn near a wave's worth of toys in a colour scheme that fewer people will recognize. Hard core collectors, the smallest segment of the market, will buy it. Confused grandparents, an inconsistent and unreliable segment, will buy it. But, casual fans who recognize TF because of media will look at it and see it as "wrong". Hasbro is effectively releasing a late run recolour as the main release. (And, we all know how well that non-media coloured figures sell.)

JT is probably right, SDCC Bruticus is likely a cash grab. Of course, in the long run, it will cost Hasbro miney. But, their decision making over the last few years has not been the most sound or rational.

At it again, Captain Contrary? MSRP for deluxes is $12.99, times 5 that's $64.95. Hasbro's convention exclusives have not carried that much markup before ever.

Shockwave has 1 piece of new molding on a $20 vehicle, it's a separate barrel from the turret so it's not a particularly complex part, how does that get you to $60?

Da fuq? Deluxes are fifteen dollars retail where you live, Dom? At worst they’re $13 over here, which would put the total for the group just at $65, and it wouldn’t even be that since at Target they sit just a little above $12 (and I’m confident that they’ll get bumped back down to ten later in the year, as ALWAYS happens).

Thank you!

I’d like to continue thinking of Hasbro making the darker-colored Bruticus as a service they did ‘Just for the fans’ (since they were the ones who, in classic Transfan fashion, whined and whined about wanting it), but at those prices it does start to feel more like gouging. On the other hand, Hasbro wasn’t even able to get rid of all their exclusives from last year at the lower prices JT’s citing (the TFPrime exclusives can still be had on HTS) so it might be that they’re just trying to preemptively recoup losses. Either way, yeah, the price on that Bruticus stings. It was the only one I was interested in, so I’ll probably still make a point of grabbing it off of HTS post-Comic-Con. Hey, it’s better than Botcon prices and availability, right? (And you know Bruticus is going to get used for a Botcon exclusive next year, or the year after. Probably some Club exclusives too)

I don't think it's fair to call out fans on this one, Hasbro did solicit the good colorscheme first, then changed their minds and had Neon Camo Batman syndrome rain down on top of this figure.

If they weren't able to get rid of those pieces at lower prices, what makes Hasbro think raising the price will help? Even if the run was shrunk which could explain a proportional cost increase, this is between 20% and 33% of an increase in a year where they've done heavy damage to every single one of their fan bases via distribution mistakes, doesn't seem like a good time to expect lower prices - that didn't sell when they were lower - to somehow translate to higher prices selling better. Sounds to me like too much internal overhead passed onto the consumer which will only raise costs by driving away more of the consumer base - a classic failure spiral.

Botcon prices are so outside the norm that there is no justification at all beyond "ultra limited products custom-ordered by an outside vendor", and even that one you'd have to see the books on to really feel it a justification.

I dunno if they'll use Bruticus next year, I'm thinking at least 2 years since Amazon is getting an exclusive repaint this year.

Give or take. But, yeah, $15 is about right.

Except that it's not, they're $13 at Target and Walmart and stated MSRP. And you can't count sales tax because that wasn't factored into SDCC Bruticus' $100 pricetag.

Maybe this is generational. I notice that you and O6 are generally more forgiving of, and willing to reward, half-assery that guys like JT and I are simply offended by. (For example, your argue that the new Asia market Swerve is a "good Swerve figure" despite it looking nothing like the comics that made you like Swerve in the first place.)

But, I am going to have to say you are wrong on this. Toys that do not look like the movies/show/game/comics/whatever do not sell as well as screen/page accurate figures. I see more non-movie colour Bumblebees or Optimus Primes than I do correctly coloured Bumblebees or Optimus Primes. And, how many of the kids who just want a big combining robot are going to opt for the more expensive Combaticon figures (sold as 5 separate figures) when they can likely find something cheaper (and easier to convince their parents to buy), likely as one boxed set?

I tried to avoid taking us down that conversational road by barely commenting on that part of his post, but most of that rings true.

This is not a question of Hasbro releasing a set in G1 colours to keep fans happy. This is a situation where Hasbro is releasing the toy in screen-accurate colours as an exclusive and acting like they are doing use a favour. They might well be trying to avoid a repeat of last year by trying to force less devoted collectors to buy the (more expensive) exclusive at the cost of discouraging sales of the regular release. This is not the level of Thundergate in '07, but it definitely makes me glad that I am largely skipping toys this year.

Yeah, and it's doubly bad because they solicited it originally with game-accurate and more pleasing colors, then changed tactics midstream.

Give or take. But, yeah, $15 is about right.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: You need to move.

This is partly on Target's shoulders, I'll bet. I live within 2 miles of 3 different Target stores, and their prices are either $15 or $13 depending on which one you go to for these, and they change their prices back and forth arbitrarily at times as well, sometimes up and sometimes down. Target has a very aggressive "urban area" business model that seems to fluctuate wildly within blocks of each other.

See, you say ‘forgiving of half-assery’, I say ‘not overly entitled and picky’. Hasbro makes cool robot toys and I buy those that I like. I dunno, I’d love to live a life where I could complain that my giant, awesome, transforming combining robot toy has colors that are a little too bright, since it would mean that my life must be so fucking fantastic that I have absolutely *nothing* else to complain about, but unfortunately for me, collecting toys is still something I do purely for fun.

Maybe it is generational, or just a function of how I was brought up. My parents didn’t exactly buy me a ton of toys growing up, it was strictly a ‘few every birthday and Christmas’ thing. Anything else I’d have to save up my allowance and buy for myself. If I did get a toy as a gift, and I’d started crying five minutes later that it was too bright in colors or was missing a couple paint apps or didn’t look exactly like the cartoon, I’d get my shit kicked in. And rightfully so, you’re a kid who just got a toy! You literally have no reason to complain!

I don't mean this in a dickish way, but it might come off that way so I'm stating it first, but...

I notice a lot of 20-somethings lately have this almost reverse-snobbery about anybody taking issue with anything, as if they are better than everyone else for accepting those flaws as "good enough". Maybe it's from growing up with walls of Hasbro's Neon Camo Batman figures at the toy store and having no other choice but either the bright yellow with blue zig-zags Batman or the bright red with white and black stripes Batman or the bright green with white electric zaps Batman to look at, but it comes off as a pretense of "drinking PBR is fine by me, you people saying it tastes like piss are assholes for not accepting that it gets you drunk" as if discerning personal taste is a bad thing. Everybody has their personal level there though, if you got Optimus Primal for your birthday and he was missing his swords, you'd be bummed and you'd say something probably; if he was missing his ARMS you'd definitely say something. The attitude that it's ok to put up with substandard ugly colors simply because Hasbro wants an extra $35 and the rest of us are assholes for not seeing it that way though, that is kind of a dubious standing point. If we were nitpicking the shade of blue in a figure's eye color, I could give you that, but that's far from what we're talking about.

The show-accurate TFPrime Bumblebee is absolutely CLOGGING shelves here, and many other places (all I’ve got to back that up is anecdotal evidence, but it’s pretty widespread, so there you go). The DOTM Prime with the trailer isn’t exactly flying off shelves either. Meanwhile, Hot Shot, a non-show repaint character, is considerably harder to come by.

TFP Voyager Optimus is as well, that's true. TFP in general seems to not be grabbing the mainstream market as well as Hasbro hoped, this is not terribly surprising when you look back a few months and see that the retailers pulled out of TFP initially for those very same concerns, that there wasn't broad enough appeal from the product. Maybe it's a cost issue as well, but I'll stand by my "consumers aren't as familiar with TFP and aren't as attracted to the look of the product outside the context of the fiction" issue as a primary stumbling block for the line. That said, a lot of characters across CybCmdr, Dlx, and Voy are moving better than these overpacked Voy Optimus and Dlx BB.

Like what, exactly? Maybe one of those knockoff gestalts from Big Lots or something? Those won’t be sharing shelf space with the Comabticons at all, so the kids at Target will have those guys as their option for ‘big combining robot’ to bum off of their parents. Unless you’re insinuating that the parents would actually take the kid around to multiple stores in search of a ‘better deal’, in which case you’re crazy. The parent’s going to get the kid just Brawl or something with the promise of maybe getting the others later (which won’t happen, but dammit they’ve got to get out of there and get home and pay bills and start dinner) or they’ll just leave without buying anything, kid screaming for his toy be damned.

There's still a supply of PCC sets on shelves at TRU and even WM around here, there's boxed TF gift sets with 3 or more robots, there's the upcoming TFP Cyberverse robot suits (which make no sense but they are they same general concept). Plus there's Power Rangers, Bakugan, there's a few other competitors for the rough idea of "big boxed robot toy" right now.

Fun fact: My brother got that whole set of Combaticons and loved it. We watched the show, you think he gave a shit that the toys weren’t the same color as on TV? No, because it was a cool little set of transforming, combining military robots. I later got the Urban Camo set of the same molds just because they looked so cool, lack of fictional context be damned.

Fun fact: every few years, toymakers get lazy and assume that slumping sales are due to product not catching kids' eyes, so they make them bright ugly colors because bright ugly colors catch younger kids' eyes, then the whole line falls to shit in sales and the toymaker changes tactics significantly - see GI Joe in the early '90s, Batman in the late '90s/early '00s, Transformers in the '90s. Basically, any time you have bright colors it's a sign that the manufacturer is trying to compromise their core audience of pre-teen boys by aiming at the lower-market 4-to-8-year-old age group - it has so far been a gamble that's worked for a few months and then longterm never. The only line that gets away with it consistently is Power Rangers, and that's built into the concept and already has a lower age group as its core market and uses a higher generational turnaround to recapture that age market every 2 years as a new batch grows into it while the previous market has already grown out of it. Bright, loud, mismatched colors are naturally offensive to human senses and grow moreso as they develop, it's why baby toys are appealing to babies but those same colors and shapes and sounds aren't enough of a draw to enthrall an 8-year-old; kids may get suckered in by bright shiny things at one age but soon grow tired of bright and shiny being the only attraction as they age, it's how they learn to become people.

It’s entirely possible that market research or whatever showed that kids didn’t respond as well to the darker colors on Bruticus, so they tweaked them to be brighter to have more appeal to that base market. But they still wanted to get the darker Bruticus out there because the fans were screaming like the self-important shits they are, so they decided that an SDCC release (which, as I’ve talked about before, are not hard to get at all) was a good way to do that. Is the price inordinately high? Yes, Hasbro’s clearly gunning for more of a profit than last year with this one. But they could’ve released no darker Bruticus at all, and the fans would’ve bitched in that situation too (these are the same people willing to shell out $500+ for a chunky, kibble-ridden, parts-forming not-Devastator, mind you).

Yeah, that's definitely reverse-snobbery there, the fans that were shown a better-looking product are now what you call "self-important shits" for not wanting ugly replacement product, and for not wanting to be gouged to get the original product they were solicited.

Hasbro is trying to hedge their bets, they're using "business management" thinking rather than "toy marketing" thinking by saying "we need to have more visual appeal and variety on pegs so consumers get attracted from further away but don't get confused when they get closer", it ignores that consumers want better-looking products in general and that the TF:Generations line is one designed for a more discerning consumer base than Rescue Bots. Even without the game as context, comparing the first images Hasbro solicited of Bruticus to the second is not favorable to the latter by any stretch, it looks notably worse as a core system and as individual products.

I pretty sure that Swerve is not a pick-up. But, anyway....

G1 Swerve is a pickup, he's got what looks like either a camper shell or a box in the back, kind of '60s Dodge Power Wagon pickup truck design. Generations Kup isn't a terrible fit for that alt mode, even if Kup is a smaller type of pickup truck.

This feels like Hasbro charging more for the correctly coloured toy while releasing a badly coloured toy at mass retail.

That's because that is exactly what is happening.

[Dominic]

At it again, Captain Contrary? MSRP for deluxes is $12.99, times 5 that's $64.95. Hasbro's convention exclusives have not carried that much markup before ever.

Hey, slow down there SGT Sodomy! I am agreeing with you, if only in general terms.

Not sure why I am calling you "SGT Sodomy", but maybe that is me just being a contrarian.

Target around here runs $13 and change, which is close to $15, even before tax (which I do count because it is still money that I have to spend).

Shockwave has 1 piece of new molding on a $20 vehicle, it's a separate barrel from the turret so it's not a particularly complex part, how does that get you to $60?

At least the damned thing has some new moulding. $20 vehicle + 2 ~$10 figures = ~$40, + at least $10 basic mark-up for a short production run and now ~$10 for the new piece.

I don't think it's fair to call out fans on this one, Hasbro did solicit the good colorscheme first, then changed their minds and had Neon Camo Batman syndrome rain down on top of this figure.

I completely forgot this point. Even if they did not formally solicite the Combaticons using the good colours, they released images of those colours first, which would lead people to reasonably expect that those were the toys slated for mass release.

Sounds to me like too much internal overhead passed onto the consumer which will only raise costs by driving away more of the consumer base - a classic failure spiral.

Hell to the yeah, (said Admiral Agreeable).

The thing is that some people will take this ride, just to get the right colours on Bruticus. Hell, I would probably be one of them if I were not trying to cut back on toys anyway. Hasbro is trying to force sales, and maybe to boost the bottom line of their exclusives division. Of course, as I pointed out above, this will harm the sales of their "regular" toys, after a year or so of (as JT pointed out) making idiotic decisions in terms of distributing lines with otherwise built in fandoms.

The really stupid thing is that Hasbro could make more in terms of sales volume by releasing a better toy than by forcing sales of a more limited toy. Hasbro could have made a non-game colour exclusive toy (maybe using G2 or RiD colours) and still sold plenty at SDCC, likely even with the price mark up.

but it comes off as a pretense of "drinking PBR is fine by me, you people saying it tastes like piss are assholes for not accepting that it gets you drunk" as if discerning personal taste is a bad thing.

So long as we agree that this goes beyond just toys or just cartoons. I see it in publishing, with books having typing errors that would have been caught by MS Word and writers using childish punctuation or phrasing that would be caught and fixed by somebody who took 3 minutes to glance over a page or two.

The attitude that it's ok to put up with substandard ugly colors simply because Hasbro wants an extra $35 and the rest of us are assholes for not seeing it that way though, that is kind of a dubious standing point.

There is also a perception that "it ish awshum" when toys have shitty colours. Look at the people who were calling for "Action Master" Thundercracker colours on the modern Seeker mould. They wanted the obnoxious colours, even if it might have reduced the chances of getting a correctly coloured Thundercracker.

The attitude that "standards are bad" permeates all manner of disciplines and levels of society.

TFP Voyager Optimus is as well, that's true. TFP in general seems to not be grabbing the mainstream market as well as Hasbro hoped, this is not terribly surprising when you look back a few months and see that the retailers pulled out of TFP initially for those very same concerns, that there wasn't broad enough appeal from the product.

The average consumer is not going to keep looking for a toy. Right around the time that guys like us give up and look to eBay, they just give up and stop looking. Even if a kid is tenacious, his parents are going to tell him to let it fucking go. His friends are going to move on, and he is going to go with them unless he is a future collector.

Those casual fans are only going to care for so long. While the show is on, they are going to look for the toys. But, after however many fruitless searches, they are going to give up. They might not even care once the toys do show up in quantity. Are new episodes of "Prime" still running on TV? I am seeing Prime toys turning up at Walgreenws, which means that there is probably spill-over from retailers who are skipping the line.

There's still a supply of PCC sets on shelves at TRU and even WM around here, there's boxed TF gift sets with 3 or more robots, there's the upcoming TFP Cyberverse robot suits (which make no sense but they are they same general concept). Plus there's Power Rangers, Bakugan, there's a few other competitors for the rough idea of "big boxed robot toy" right now.

Agreed. And, Target and Wal*Mart regularly have exclusive recolour sets that are billed as "bargain" sets, which will attract parents even if they are non-sensical recolours.

Hasbro is trying to hedge their bets, they're using "business management" thinking rather than "toy marketing" thinking by saying "we need to have more visual appeal and variety on pegs so consumers get attracted from further away but don't get confused when they get closer", it ignores that consumers want better-looking products in general and that the TF:Generations line is one designed for a more discerning consumer base than Rescue Bots.

"Generations" seemed to move better than any other TF line around here. I am still seeing newly rotated "Generations" product on shelves at local secondary stores. People are fucking buying them, and leaving movie toys. (I still see Tuner Mudflaps on occassion.)


Dom
-tired or rewarding bad behavior.

[BWprowl]

I don't think it's fair to call out fans on this one, Hasbro did solicit the good colorscheme first, then changed their minds and had Neon Camo Batman syndrome rain down on top of this figure.

Let me put it out here that I don't think the colors on retail Bruticus are as bad as you're making them out to be. There's no neon camo or anything, the colors aren't even strictly 'neon'. The colors on Onslaught, Brawl, and Swindle are basically the same, just a few levels brighter than the SDCC ones, Blast Off is actually a *darker* black and purple coloration than the SDCC's metallic gold, and Vortex about breaks even between the clashing yellow and red of the SDCC version and the more uniform red with purple highlights of the retail version. It's hardly Neon Night Attack Batman or anything, and actually still resembles the game colors reasonably well, Blast Off being the only one who jumps out as 'wrong'.

If they weren't able to get rid of those pieces at lower prices, what makes Hasbro think raising the price will help? Even if the run was shrunk which could explain a proportional cost increase, this is between 20% and 33% of an increase in a year where they've done heavy damage to every single one of their fan bases via distribution mistakes, doesn't seem like a good time to expect lower prices - that didn't sell when they were lower - to somehow translate to higher prices selling better. Sounds to me like too much internal overhead passed onto the consumer which will only raise costs by driving away more of the consumer base - a classic failure spiral.

Hey, I just put out my theory as to why Hasbro did raise the price, I never said it was a good call on their part. This is one place where I actually agree with you: The jacked-up price on SDCC Bruticus is over-the-top and smacks of gouging.

I don't mean this in a dickish way, but it might come off that way so I'm stating it first, but...

I notice a lot of 20-somethings lately have this almost reverse-snobbery about anybody taking issue with anything, as if they are better than everyone else for accepting those flaws as "good enough". Maybe it's from growing up with walls of Hasbro's Neon Camo Batman figures at the toy store and having no other choice but either the bright yellow with blue zig-zags Batman or the bright red with white and black stripes Batman or the bright green with white electric zaps Batman to look at, but it comes off as a pretense of "drinking PBR is fine by me, you people saying it tastes like piss are assholes for not accepting that it gets you drunk" as if discerning personal taste is a bad thing. Everybody has their personal level there though, if you got Optimus Primal for your birthday and he was missing his swords, you'd be bummed and you'd say something probably; if he was missing his ARMS you'd definitely say something. The attitude that it's ok to put up with substandard ugly colors simply because Hasbro wants an extra $35 and the rest of us are assholes for not seeing it that way though, that is kind of a dubious standing point. If we were nitpicking the shade of blue in a figure's eye color, I could give you that, but that's far from what we're talking about.

I appreciate your concern over sounding dickish, and wanting to avoid coming off that way, but don't worry, I kinda get where you're coming from, and can understand why you might see things the other direction.

My thing is that I just *cannot* get so bent out of shape over toys like this; I just can't take them this seriously. Don't get me wrong, if I was sold a car that didn't run, or some food that was spoiled, you bet I'd be livid and be taking the supplier to task and all that. But when I'm just plunking down ten bucks for a pure luxery item, a plastic child's plaything that I *know* I am not in the target audience for, then there's no reason for me to flip the fuck out because it's a few levels of yellow brighter than it was when it showed up months ago in a video game magazine I didn't even read. I've looked at it, I've read reviews or whatever, I've decided that I want to buy the toy because I think it will appeal to me and be worth my recreation-money, so I get it. If it's got some enjoyable bits, it's entertaining and I feel it was worth my money, cool, I enjoy it just as I have most every other TF toy that's kept me in the hobby. There are some disappointing ones every now and then, sure, but it's just a bad toy that, at worst, cost me no more than twenty bucks. It's not giving me cancer or anything, it's just a less-than-stellar toy.

It's not a case of lacking standards, look at some of the high-end Japanese toys I also dedicate my time and money to collecting: Kamen Rider SHFs, Figmas, cool one-offs I'm getting like the SIC Stronger and Tackle set or the incredible SRC DaiZyuJin, high-end collector-oriented stuff that runs me $30-$40 a pop for all the interchangeable hands and faces, accessories, and immaculate paint apps the collector target audience actually demands, those are toys I might expect to be geared towards this audience's more exacting standards (and boy do they deliver). But when I can walk to Target and plunk down $12 for a cool Transformer with all the articulation and weapons I would want, that friggin' transforms, and the only 'flaw' is that it's missing a couple paint apps that I didn't even notice because I don't watch the show? That's not a bad deal at all, and to whine and bitch about it to a Hasbro that isn't even listening (and why should they?) just makes me look spoiled.

There's still a supply of PCC sets on shelves at TRU and even WM around here, there's boxed TF gift sets with 3 or more robots, there's the upcoming TFP Cyberverse robot suits (which make no sense but they are they same general concept). Plus there's Power Rangers, Bakugan, there's a few other competitors for the rough idea of "big boxed robot toy" right now.

Heh, I'd actually managed to forget about Power Rangers for that, no idea how. But man, even in the face of all your criticism for FOC Bruticus, that thing still blows the current Samurai Megazord on shelves out of the water. This is a side note I wanted to talk about, by the way: We Transfans are so lucky, we get a ton of toys that are AMAZING compared to what other fandoms get (have you seen the shit on shelves for the people who like stuff like Power Rangers, Ben10, or video games like Assassin's Creed or Red Faction? Even missing a few paint apps the TFs make those things look like jokes) so complaining when a toy might not be perfect (and indeed, that you could ever expect anything ever to be 'perfect') just seems petty.

Anyway, if a kid buys a TF giftset or one of those Cyberverse suits instead of Bruticus, then Hasbro still wins, so I don't see what the issue is.

Fun fact: every few years, toymakers get lazy and assume that slumping sales are due to product not catching kids' eyes, so they make them bright ugly colors because bright ugly colors catch younger kids' eyes, then the whole line falls to shit in sales and the toymaker changes tactics significantly - see GI Joe in the early '90s, Batman in the late '90s/early '00s, Transformers in the '90s. Basically, any time you have bright colors it's a sign that the manufacturer is trying to compromise their core audience of pre-teen boys by aiming at the lower-market 4-to-8-year-old age group - it has so far been a gamble that's worked for a few months and then longterm never. The only line that gets away with it consistently is Power Rangers, and that's built into the concept and already has a lower age group as its core market and uses a higher generational turnaround to recapture that age market every 2 years as a new batch grows into it while the previous market has already grown out of it. Bright, loud, mismatched colors are naturally offensive to human senses and grow moreso as they develop, it's why baby toys are appealing to babies but those same colors and shapes and sounds aren't enough of a draw to enthrall an 8-year-old; kids may get suckered in by bright shiny things at one age but soon grow tired of bright and shiny being the only attraction as they age, it's how they learn to become people.

I know you probably didn't intend it this way, but this does come off a little douche-y when you insinuate that I haven't 'learned to become a person' just because I happen to think Energon Sharkticon's orange/purple color combo makes him look cool. Different tastes man, come on. I may think the plain, stacked-boxes look of a lot of the G1 animation models look like shit, but I accept that that's my opinion and that you liking them is your opinion, I don't try and negatively justify it by saying your opinion is wrong and that you were a victim of Hasbro foisting Dery style on you in the 80's. There is no 'right' opinion, some people genuinely think brighter, more defined colors look cool on some things, and to diminish them by saying that their opinion is 'wrong' or that your taste is somehow immune to the same sort of bias you accuse them of falling under just comes across as really elitist. You should *never* consider yourself better than someone or think that you've 'learned to become more of a person' than them, just because you've decided the things you like are better than the things they like. Especially when those things are kids' toys.

Yeah, that's definitely reverse-snobbery there, the fans that were shown a better-looking product are now what you call "self-important shits" for not wanting ugly replacement product, and for not wanting to be gouged to get the original product they were solicited.

Transfans got mad at a toy company for making a toy, which they weren't the primary target audience for, in colors that didn't appeal to them particularly. They then actually demanded that the toy company change the colors back to appeal to them and not said primary target audience. That is absolutely self-importance.

I'm not a vegetarian. I may enjoy some 'vegetarian' foods like falafel and tofu, but I am not the target consumer for those products. So if I were to march into a Trader Joe's and start demanding that the suppliers change the taste of these foods from what appealed to the target vegetarian market, to something to suit my personal, omnivorous tastes, that would come across as self-centered and arrogant. Which is what a bunch of adult Transfans whining to Hasbro to change the colors of a kids' toy because it didn't appeal to them enough comes off as. If you don't like it, don't buy it, that's your right as a consumer, but don't start yelling at Hasbro to make one special for you because you're entitled to it (even though Hasbro did JUST THAT for those fans, and those fans still whined).

Hasbro is trying to hedge their bets, they're using "business management" thinking rather than "toy marketing" thinking by saying "we need to have more visual appeal and variety on pegs so consumers get attracted from further away but don't get confused when they get closer", it ignores that consumers want better-looking products in general and that the TF:Generations line is one designed for a more discerning consumer base than Rescue Bots. Even without the game as context, comparing the first images Hasbro solicited of Bruticus to the second is not favorable to the latter by any stretch, it looks notably worse as a core system and as individual products.

I do kinda like how we're judging the success of this thing and Hasbro's decision before the toy's even out yet. Tell you what, if retail-colors Bruticus shelfwarms, I owe you a Coke. Anything to chill out since we seem to end up at each other's throats any time this sort of subject comes up. This is why I try not to take it too seriously.

Target around here runs $13 and change, which is close to $15, even before tax (which I do count because it is still money that I have to spend).

Dammit Dom, no, you can't do that! You can't round up the price and include tax when you're trying to figure out the value of an exclusive set of toys before tax! Even at $13.50, the toys in question only come out to just $67.50 together, you can't count 'close to' price with these things! $13 and change is not $15, that's...just...not how numbers work.

[Dominic]

Let me put it out here that I don't think the colors on retail Bruticus are as bad as you're making them out to be. There's no neon camo or anything, the colors aren't even strictly 'neon'. The colors on Onslaught, Brawl, and Swindle are basically the same, just a few levels brighter than the SDCC ones, Blast Off is actually a *darker* black and purple coloration than the SDCC's metallic gold, and Vortex about breaks even between the clashing yellow and red of the SDCC version and the more uniform red with purple highlights of the retail version. It's hardly Neon Night Attack Batman or anything, and actually still resembles the game colors reasonably well, Blast Off being the only one who jumps out as 'wrong'.

I looked at pictures of both, and can substantially agree with you. *But*. my complaint was that Hasbro is releasing a screen-accurate toy as an exclusive and is releasing an incorrectly coloured toy at retail. I actually kind of like retail Blast-Off, but the fucking thing looks wrong because it does not look like the game.

I like recolours. You know how much I like some of the UT moulds. I *really* like PLX Thrust. But, I would be annoyed if PLX Thrust was the commonly available figure of that character while the page/screen accurate figure was scarce. (Okay, bad example. Both "Armada" Thrust figures were rare. But, you get the idea.)

If it's got some enjoyable bits, it's entertaining and I feel it was worth my money, cool, I enjoy it just as I have most every other TF toy that's kept me in the hobby. There are some disappointing ones every now and then, sure, but it's just a bad toy that, at worst, cost me no more than twenty bucks. It's not giving me cancer or anything, it's just a less-than-stellar toy.

JT and I come at this from a perspective of the hobby taking limited resources. If we are spending out limited discretionary money on something, it had damned well better be worth it. If I have to spend $15 on an action figure (and I am sticking with that number), I want it to be worth the $15 I spend on the figure, the time I spend going to the damned store *and* the space it is going to take up.

We choose out hobbies. We choose to participate. Why the hell would we want to half-ass it, or tolerate/reward official sources half-assing it?

I can forgive small errors, in toys and elsewhere. When I get coffee on a cold morning, I assume that there is a small chance of mistake. I prefer decaf. (Actually, given how much I have cut back on caffeine in recent months, I *need* decaf.) I get cream, and add my own artificial sweetener. But, every so often, somebody makes a mistake, and I get full caffeine. I do not blame them. Things happen. Errors occur. Given the amount of coffee those guys sell, their error rate is actually pretty good. Every so often, I might get a figure with two left feet or something. It happens.

But, when problems are common, or designs/execution are so flawed that it is apparent that Hasbro is not even trying, then I am going to be annoyed because I am expected to pay money for crap.

then there's no reason for me to flip the fuck out because it's a few levels of yellow brighter than it was when it showed up months ago in a video game magazine I didn't even read. I've

Hasbro revealed the damn thing in a video game magazine, in an article about their video game. People are going to expect that the fucking mass release toy is going to look like the fucking game that it is associated with.

Stuff like that is "bad behavior". Hasbro advertises a screen-accurate toy, and then makes it a more expensive exclusive while releasing a pointless recolour as the "normal" release. I would probably have broken down and picked up Bruticus, (cutting back on toys be damned), but Hasbro made it easy to skip. Hell, I might have bought two for the purposes of customizing. But, now? I do not want to reward bad behavior.

Code: Select all

  Anyway, if a kid buys a TF giftset or one of those Cyberverse suits instead of Bruticus, then Hasbro still wins, so I don't see what the issue is.
   

Bruticus consists of 5 figures in a 6 figure case. Those figure need to move. If they do not, then retailers will have a *wave* worth of shelf-warmers. What about uneven sales? I would imagine that Swindle or Onslaught will sell more than Brawl or Blastoff or Vortex. Each Combaticon that shelf-warms is arguably one more toy that blocks another toy from being put out. And, that will make it harder for people to get a complete set of Combaticons, which might deter some people. (I would probably hold off on buying any unless I could get them all easily.)

Dammit Dom, no, you can't do that! You can't round up the price and include tax when you're trying to figure out the value of an exclusive set of toys before tax! Even at $13.50, the toys in question only come out to just $67.50 together, you can't count 'close to' price with these things! $13 and change is not $15, that's...just...not how numbers work.

Figure it this way, MA sales tax is .0625, which works out to 6c per $1 spent. If a toy's base price is $13.50, the tax is going to be ~70c. This brings the price up to $14.20, leaving less than $1 if you hand the cashier $15. Guess what? That is close enough to $15 in my book.


Dom
-cannot think of anything to be purchased for less than $1...