There’s a Transformers exclusive toy subscription service now. The last time I strongly endorsed something like this on my site, there was a huge credit card theft breach thing. So this time, I”ll just mention it exists and leave it at that.
I do want some of those figures… but I don’t want to spend money on figures that I don’t want. So, guess I’ll just wait for the inevitable scalpers, and then moan about the markup.
Really? Wonder if they’ve got the Joe subscription figures as well.
*takes a look*
Bloody hell, have you seen the prices they’ve put on these?! $60 for Cover Girl, $40 for Topside (who I’m fairly sure is a character no-one but me likes), $150 for Ultra Mammoth. Cripes.
$40 isn’t much of a markup for Topside. He won’t be Big Boa or Cover Girl, but I think he’ll end up fetching considerably more than BBTS’ asking price when it’s all said and done.
Yeah, Topside will probably go for a little more than some of the other figures simply because he’s actually a “used to be in the original line” character. It’s the non-vintage, non-US repaints that will likely be the low sellers, with the possible exception of the Nano-BAT, simply because it’s a troop builder and there are Joe fans out there that really love them their BATs.
I guess I’m thankful that I don’t see nearly so many people on the Joe boards complaining about the lack of new molds…maybe because Fun Pub actually did do a fair bit of molding for their G.I. Joe offerings (still mostly heads and such, but still), and because with G.I. Joe you at least get the option of mixing up parts to make figures that at least look new at first glance.
I’ve seen a bit of complaining over it, but it all seemed to come from the usual suspects who comment solely to complain and wouldn’t have dropped the cash even if every figure used 100% new tooling anyway.
Oh great joy! Thank you so much for that link. Been oggling Slipstream ever since they announced the subscription service, but as I’m not even a TF Collector’s Club member to begin with, I’ve been operating under the assumption all this time that my only option for acquiring it would be ludicrously expensive.
Well, 100$ is still pretty pricy for a toy that I already got the same mold of for 15$. >.> But I’m willing to make an exception once or twice a year and splurge on something I probably shouldn’t.
No kidding. I see some Joe fans complain endlessly about how GIJoe has too much ninjas, and then they post pics of their collection and I see ALL OF THE NINJAS.
I buy the GIJoe ninjas, but that’s because I love the GIJoe ninjas.
I only wanted like… five Joes. Xamot and Tomax, Lady Jaye, a non-derpy Cover Girl, and Beach Head. I’m a shipper more than a collector, suffice to say.
Wow. Seriously, just wow. I’m really facepalming here right now that there’s people this deluded.
(Mind, I’ll bet these people are going “Third parties can do it why can’t Fun Pub?” despite all the good reasons why they can’t. Reasons like risk, safety requirements, initial expense, and that these same people would whine at the cost of 100% new tooling FunPub transformers, or at the inevitable “not good enough” quality)
Usually I’m not shocked by the stupidity of the fandom, but wow. Since, you know, every Comic-Con, Botcon, and Collector’s Club exclusive ever has been a redeco of an existing mold.
It’s sort of like believing that THIS is the day that that Ford dealership down the street might have a Mustang on sale for a nickel. Just gotta wait long enough, they’ll figure out that’s what you want. And until then, they’re friggin’ clueless jerks.
I don’t think that’s exclusive to fandoms. People are rarely aware of the logistics and complexity of financing, manufacturing and distribution of what they use or buy. Like how half the U.S. is split over taxes but probably less than a tenth have any actual idea of whether or not money is being wasted and where.
I do find it a shame I can’t pick and choose which exclusives you want, plus it’s not really resulting in much savings compared to their typical exclusive pricing. Thankfully I have a deal with someone to go in on this with to get just Slipstream and Jackpot, they were the only two that I really wanted anyway.
I am not sure why you believed that a subscription service would result in lower costs, or why it’d be expected that you’d be able to pick and choose toys out of a subscription service.
It’s like Zoobooks. You can’t sign up and demand only the tiger poster for a buck. You have to get the cheetah and zebra and elephant magazines and everything else. It’s not a la carte.
Perhaps I’m misinformed but isn’t the subscription service replacing their old form of exclusives? Typically I would only end up buying one of the two exclusives they would offer (this past year being the exception where I bought both). Also, wasn’t it stated these would come in simple mailers like the freebie? The club has often stated that the fancy packaging was a big part of the cost, which I would be happy to do without, but if that has been eliminated the impact on pricing has been negligible.
I am also aware Ultra Mammoth is a more expensive toy and offsetting the price per each. I guess I was just one of the few that didn’t think their existing system was broken, I always managed to get the toys I wanted from them without being required to pay for ones I didn’t.
Expanding into a subscription service allows the club to do more daring and “out-there” choices for exclusives, rather than buckling down with the two that are likely to be the most popular. Lord knows we wouldn’t be getting Circuit otherwise, and he’s my favorite of the six. Jackpot wouldn’t have happened, either, pretty sure. The last Animated club exclusive they did, Cheetor, is still taking up stockroom.
And the prices are cheaper than they are with boxes, yes. A pair of exclusives is $90, so that’s $45 per. A boxed exclusive is $55. (Or more. Factory costs have been rising.) This doesn’t yet take into account that one of them is a huge Ultra. You’re saving probably $15 per toy.
No; they will still be offering each of these exclusives individually; they’ll just be more costly when compared to the per-figure cost breakdown of the subscription.
Though I suppose if you’re going for only one or two figures, the subscription is a bit superfluous.
Though I remember having Zoobooks, the tiger poster, and everything… except the Elephant issue? I’m sure something weird happened there, but I don’t want to put the effort into figuring out how that happened…
It’s bad enough Walky that I’m one of the oldest org Botconners still going or my friends at SuperHeroTime keep kidding me about my age due to some random reference to an 80′s cartoon I remember watching when it aired and not twenty years later on YouTube you just HAD to go and make me feel old mentioning those damm Zoobooks!!
*sniff* I’m just going to go watch Bionic Six on VHS and cry into my Mario cereal.
This bodes well for a Fall of Cybertron comic. Still miffed we didn’t get an Amazing comic (yes I know, not much to do when nature herself gives you the middle finger. I had 4-5 points on why it would be cool to watch but a little offputting.
An Amazing Spider-Man comic. The points where; Peter’s much more relatable, this movie is the reason Spidey won’t be in the Avengers movies for atleast a decade, one key scene is Spidey dominating another man with toys when the police find him, and Spider-Man takes his lessons on responsibility from The Illusive Man. Next time you watch it you will imagine an interrupt prompt.
It sounds like you could write your own comic about it. I didn’t really have those thoughts. I didn’t have very many strong opinions on Amazing Spider-Man, hence the lack of a comic.
I always kinda thought that these two were like pure opposites in a “where there is good there must also be evil” sort of way. Having them come even that close to not arguing shakes me to my core.
There’s some reasonable complaints to be made about FunPub, but “they don’t create entirely new molds” is not one of them. Thankfully I’ve not actually seen anybody saying this. I know why things cost what they do, and I respect that they’re out of my price range. That said, I’m a little bummed that FunPub are the only ones who stepped up and thought of using the RTS Prime mold as Scourge, who is like the most requested and most obvious redeco from that mold. Or maybe Hasbro DID think of it, but just couldn’t fit it in anywhere, I dunno. Point is, it’s probably the one figure EVERYBODY wants, but he’s only available in this subscription set of 6, which costs like $350 on top of whatever other fees the Club charges. And if you don’t like the other figures in the set, that doesn’t sit too well. I think Scourge should have been the freebie or the club exclusive or something, and throw somebody else into the subscription service. OR offer individual orders as well as subscriptions. I can’t count how many people have said “I only want 2 or 3″.
And yes, I know about BBTS, but right now Scourge is $100 and that’s more than I’m willing to pay for him without a trailer. Still, that’s MY problem, not exactly FunPub’s fault. I just wish FunPub was selling them in some individual format themselves so I wouldn’t have to deal with a 100% markup.
I agree, I’m not thrilled that I have to pay for ALL of them when I all I really want is Breakdown, Scourge and Slipstream. I am getting more and more on board with Ultra Mammoth though…lol.
Hasbro wouldn’t have done Scourge. They tooled an evil Prime head with a skull face for that mold with the intentions of making a Nemesis Prime out of it. And so Hasbro’s version would have had a skull head, been in desaturated Optimus Prime colors, and been called “Nemesis Prime.”
That’s why it falls to the club to make an RID-style version of “evil Optimus Prime,” because that definitely wouldn’t have been the version to hit retail.
There’s nothing stopping them from using a mold for MORE than two figures, except ostensibly the attention span of the kids. The RID Bumblebee mold has gotten released as three separate figures in a six month period, after all. Optimus Primes and their clones are pretty close to being that marketable. Oh well, point is we ARE getting a Scourge, it’s just….part of a set of others that I’m somewhere between “Cool but not for that amount” and “Who the hell are these guys?” (I was born after G1) where you can’t pick and choose.
And FP’s Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus was a pretty snazzy use of that alt head mold, I will admit.
I’m satisfied with my Universe Nemesis Prime. Maybe if Ultra Mammoth wasn’t in the triple digit price range, I’d want it more. I mean, yes, it’s really cool, but just…..too expensive.
I was kinda hoping that the Scourge repaint of RTS Optimus was not only inevitable, but also popular enough to be a regular retail release. I mean, they already flood the shelves with regular color Optimuses in multiple scales and multiple versions, and those “night watch” dark repaint Optimuses, so why not Scourge at regular retail? I guess I’m just disappointed that now I won’t be able to get one, unless they eventually do a regular release a couple of years down the road, or maybe Takara will do it, or something.
Also, a limited production run of all new tooling would probably… cost what we pay for a limited production run figure like what Fans Project or TFC Toys puts out, if they did the same volume! I think Ethan just needs to imagine a tiny bit harder ;D
Fans Project doesn’t have to adhere to child safety laws or survive rigorous child testing, both of which are extremely expensive. They also don’t pay Hasbro a licensing fee, obviously. Fans Project toys can cost what they do because they skirt below the law.
As for the likelihood of an RID Scourge at retail, see my comment one thread up.
What you said is definitely true, and they did do that for Botcon. But I do not see how that actually excludes Scourge/Black Convoy from retail. Isn’t an additional straight-recolor of an existing mold what Takara-Tomy and Hasbro like to do? Starscream / Acid Storm / Thundercracker / Skywarp, for example?
Doing different characters, all who are wildly varying colors, from a single mold is absolutely nothing like doing two evil Optimus Primes in similar color schemes from the same mold.
Even beyond that complication, an evil Optimus Prime called “Scourge” with upside-down G2 symbols is “counter message” to Hasbro’s purposes for the brand. Hasbro’s evil Primes are called Nemesis Prime, and have been since 2003. And they’re not gonna use the Combatron symbol. It was only the one dude in 2002 who got to be called Scourge, and paying homage to that very specific iteration of a general idea is the fan club’s arena, not Hasbro’s.
The fan club is the ONLY way this specific toy would have happened. That Fun Pubulications did it is proof of that. If Hasbro wanted to do it, FP couldn’t touch the idea. It would be off-limits. Hasbro makes way more money by selling things at retail themselves than by letting FP make money off a small limited run. So FP can’t do things that Hasbro wants or plans to do, nor would FP want to, because FP wants their exclusives to seem special, and when they get displaced by a later mainstream retail version, that is bad news for them. (See Thundercracker.)
tl;dr: Club Scourge means retail Scourge wasn’t happening.
I’m sorry, but again, Classics Thundercracker was a Botcon 2007 exclusive, and then in 2011 went to mass retail so that argument really doesn’t make sense. Maybe Hasbros’ current plans don’t call for a retail Scourge ever. Maybe Takara-Tomys’ call for a Black Convoy, considering they did Henkei Thundercracker in 2008. Maybe in four years time, people will have moved around the corporate ladder at Hasbro and someone will decide that a mass retail release of Scourge will be a great idea. Maybe even the guy who decided that the first few waves of Deluxe Dark of the Moon toys needed Bumblebee, Nitro Bumblebee, Cyberfire Bumblebee, and various store exclusive repaints of older Bumblebees.
And until 2011, we had no reason to believe Hasbro would be releasing a retail Thundercracker. For the exact same reasons that we have no reason to believe that Hasbro would be releasing a retail Scourge anytime in the next, oh, four years.
Yes. Thundercracker, as I SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT UP, is the exact reason why Fun Publications wants to avoid that kind of scenario. Like, he’s the textbook example. I mentioned him for a reason.
Thundercracker is WHY Fun Publications is only doing Nobody Characters instead of dudes from 1984. Scourge, with his specific name and deco, is a Nobody Character. Hasbro does Nemesis Primes when it wants to scratch that particular itch. It’s specifically why Scourge was chosen.
(And you did NOT just compare RID Scourge to Bumblebee, a flagship character of the franchise, right? I imagined that?)
But sure, if you believe this will be just like Thundercracker-the-guy-from-1984, feel free to wait the four years until 2017 for your RTS Prime redeco.
No, I was trying to bring up that sometimes Hasbros’ planning doesn’t make a lot of sense. They seem to have finally clued in with their re-arrangement of the Prime wave assortments. But it seems that the shelves full of multiple types of movie bumblebee have taken their tool on retailers, as I still have yet to see any Deluxe Prime toys other than Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, and Soundwave.
Wait, if they’re doing only Nobody Characters, then why are they doing G1 Breakdown?
Oh! Maybe you can answer a question for me. We got that Fallback/Outback recolor of the RTS Brawn toy, but was Outback ever actually animated during G1? I can’t remember him at all except from the toy catalogs as “Brawn with a difference face and a gun on top”
I seriously can’t remember him in the show, and it’s bugging me. I used to always tell people that all the stuff from the old catalogs got animated except for the mail-away omnnibots, the Dorvak molds, and the “colorful insecticons”, but now I’m not so sure that was accurate.
G1 Breakdown is being done because the tooling for the G2 Breakdown head was still viable. Club heads are done with tooling that doesn’t last that long, since that’s less expensive and the heads don’t NEED to last that long, as they’re limited runs. But the head tooling was apparently still viable for another limited run.
I have never gone to a store to look for any Transformers: Prime toys, but I have seen every deluxe release at retail at least once. Airachnid and the Vehicon are the only two I haven’t seen several times. Sounds like your location is the problem.
Some of the reply buttons have disappeared on me for some reason, so I apologize for posting this message on an earlier post in the thread. I just looked at my 2002 Scourge toy, and I thought I’d mention that he has regular Decepticon insignias. So that particular other insignia, while it would be show accurate, would not actually be necessary on a recolored RTS Prime.
The Scourge name has been reclaimed by the army builder, but the Scourge image is the reason for our Nemesis Prime fad. They could release that mold in Scourge’s colors, with regular Decepticon sigils, and call him Nemesis Prime. The devoted would call him Scourge anyway, Reprolabels would probably chime in to fix the sigils and whatever else needed fixing, and everybody had their cake and ate it, too. But that’s not happening now, for the reasons you’ve detailed. BUT THAT’S HOW IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE.
Don’t miss IF I DESIGNED IT, the upcoming book from Hasbro about IF their publicity team had committed the grisley sin of releasing a mold as a nerd-favorite but otherwise unknown character from the forgotten Transformers show. Which THEY ASSURE YOU they didn’t. But IF they did.
There is a way for the club to do both new molds and same price: it’d just
take them having probably hundred of thousands more subscription to possibly a million more. Let’s face it, the club is doing fine with its current plan plus “Crazed Overzealous Toy Collector/Whipping Boy” just isn’t able to encourage those kind of metrics. Maybe the hundreds, but that doesn’t work.
I’ve been reading about the bitching over the GI Joe sub figures, and it’s interesting to note that it’s a different type of bitching: It’s over the price only, and has nothing to do with the sculpts, really. Joe fans are used to getting figures that are made of 50%-80% old tooling, it seems. But $20 per figure is apparently too much for them.
Anyway these figures are out of my price range. So who is this Circuit guy? He seems to be an homage to something that’s too obscure for me.
Actually, I can see Thundercracker hanging out with an Autobot off-duty. Especially if it’s AM Thundercracker, who’s just been laughed out of Decepticon HQ for crimes against the colour spectrum.
It’s easy to forget that these $15 toys cost hundreds of thousands to design, produce, test, and market. Because we only pay $15 normally, but that’s the production cost distributed over millions of copies of the figure. People can’t easily wrap their heads around numbers like that.
Its sad, but only because I don’t think I have the money for it. I’m trying quite hard to find a way to make the subscription payments for Ultra Mammoth and Circuit and Scourge though.
AM I allowed to have a problem with the subscription service if the problem is the approximately two-week window of availability for it? I’d like to get in on this, but I’m not sure I’ll have the money in time.
Looks like there’s store trouble yet again. Seems they are sending out confirmations on orders to the wrong people for both Transformers and GI Joe subscriptions.
What was amusing is it listed all the contact info of its intended recipient including their email address. Looks like no one proof read them before they let them go out.
I still have to wonder why TFCC feels the need to have “kid safe” toys when the sub-line is marketed towards adults. Legally, there’s no major risk, especially if they put a disclaimer, so that’s not a major cost concern unless the license requires it be.
Mind you, the bigger cost than safety testing, done or undone, would likely be ENGINEERING the new toy.
…come to think of it, using the japan-exclusive character molds (the ones that don’t “quite” fit american versions” might be a good option for them if they could work out the rights…
It’s not up to TFCC whether to have “kid safe” toys. It’s up to Hasbro. If some kid chokes on a club toy, CNN isn’t going to care that long ago when it was in a box it was labeled “Adult Collectible.” They’re going to care that it was a Transformers toy from Hasbro. Hasbro takes the heat. It is expected that Hasbro’s toys are safe for children, and Hasbro will play to that reputation.
The odd thing is that by and in large I agree with what you said, I even addressed the concept of Hasbro’s concerns (in retrospect far too briefly and side-longed) in my post. Like I said, I saw no reason for FUNPUB and TFCC to have to deal with it, with the exception, and even said “Unless the license requires it be”. Given Hasbro make the terms of said license, I could easily believe THEY would have reason for making sure the safety concerns were covered for PR reasons. I can easily see HASBRO putting that in the license. In which case, the point is entirely moot.
Either way, it’s not like I was agreeing with Duncan, just saying the “safety” thing was not necessarily an obstacle legally, short of the contract between Funpub and Hasbro, which would be informed by Hasbro’s concerns relating to what you just said.
I was also pointing out fans who think those are the biggest costs are wrong, due to the engineering itself regardless of kid issues being rather expensive.
The last thought I had is entirely about possibilities if the contract doesn’t mention those safety tests, not a suggestion that it doesn’t.
Again, I was pointing out that Funpub/TFCC has no reason, short of the contract with Hasbro, to be worried about child safety. not that no one involved would have a reason.
They absolutely still have to adhere to child safety laws. Mattel does the same thing with Masters of the Universe Classics. Yes, it’s a collector oriented toy line, but laws are laws.
Yes, but legally those laws don’t apply to “Collectors items” rather than “children’s toys”. Hence why you get things like certain DC Direct figures that bend and/or break several “Childrens toy” regulatins and are noted as “Made for adult collectors over the age of 18 and not for use by children”. Similar exists, sometimes moreso, with several “Collectors” figure and collectable lines.
Mattel most likely keeps things as are in their Subscription lines for two reasons:
First, the same likely reason as Hasbro: Press if something goes wrong.
Second, one that Mattel has shown great interest in, is an eye towards the possibility of later mass-market retail release IE the movie-masters revival or Ghostbusters figures.
…
The worst part of the argumetn is that I disagree with the attitude in the comic, and I’m still getting into arguments.
Actually, A third reason comes to mind. Changing their safety process for specific items might cost something in retraining/contracts with employees/factories.
Judging from the look on his face in panel three, Ethan is desperately trying to imagine that he doesn’t have Duncan’s lingering nerd-rage boner poking him in the right buttock.
I do wonder if 3D printing will lower costs in the long run.
It cant match mass production molds for cheapness, but for a small batch of (say) new heads it might be economical. You could even, at no extra (per-unit) cost, have random variants in the production process. http://i.materialise.com/gallery
You could give it a rest now… I mean, EVERYONE knows this is impossible, and a retool is the best we can expect. The number of idiots expecting new molds is in a steady decrease… I don’t think I have seen anyone ask for such a thing in 2012 at all.
Might as well get this in before someone else does.
Dicks. Dicks everywhere.
Wait…what? Everyone has their pants on in this one. Willis has given so love to people who like teh sausage, but this isn’t one of them.
You can tell I’m old because I use “teh”. Kids these days know better.
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7677/1275813485144.jpg
Meme refrence.
Don’t feel bad, I got it.
The Slipstream is just a repaint, too? I thought for sure that was a new head on there, but I guess not.
There is a new head on her, yes.
… There’s finally a Slipstream toy, and she’s a club exclusive?
;_; Hasbro mocks me.
I’m daring to imagine a world where you got your arm off of me before we had a problem
You too, huh?
I do want some of those figures… but I don’t want to spend money on figures that I don’t want. So, guess I’ll just wait for the inevitable scalpers, and then moan about the markup.
It’s a thing…
BigBadToyStore has preorders up for the individual figures, though Slipstream and Scourge have already sold out. Scourge has sold out twice, even.
Really? Wonder if they’ve got the Joe subscription figures as well.
*takes a look*
Bloody hell, have you seen the prices they’ve put on these?! $60 for Cover Girl, $40 for Topside (who I’m fairly sure is a character no-one but me likes), $150 for Ultra Mammoth. Cripes.
$40 isn’t much of a markup for Topside. He won’t be Big Boa or Cover Girl, but I think he’ll end up fetching considerably more than BBTS’ asking price when it’s all said and done.
Yeah, Topside will probably go for a little more than some of the other figures simply because he’s actually a “used to be in the original line” character. It’s the non-vintage, non-US repaints that will likely be the low sellers, with the possible exception of the Nano-BAT, simply because it’s a troop builder and there are Joe fans out there that really love them their BATs.
I guess I’m thankful that I don’t see nearly so many people on the Joe boards complaining about the lack of new molds…maybe because Fun Pub actually did do a fair bit of molding for their G.I. Joe offerings (still mostly heads and such, but still), and because with G.I. Joe you at least get the option of mixing up parts to make figures that at least look new at first glance.
I’ve seen a bit of complaining over it, but it all seemed to come from the usual suspects who comment solely to complain and wouldn’t have dropped the cash even if every figure used 100% new tooling anyway.
Nooooooo! Slipstream was the only one I wanted! I am crushed.
TFSource still has her: http://tfsource.com/products/view/product_id/5129/
Oh great joy! Thank you so much for that link. Been oggling Slipstream ever since they announced the subscription service, but as I’m not even a TF Collector’s Club member to begin with, I’ve been operating under the assumption all this time that my only option for acquiring it would be ludicrously expensive.
Well, 100$ is still pretty pricy for a toy that I already got the same mold of for 15$. >.> But I’m willing to make an exception once or twice a year and splurge on something I probably shouldn’t.
Does this guy even buy anything? I think that at this point, Galasso would ban him from entering.
Pfffft, complaining constantly never stops us toy collectors from buying what we claim to hate.
No kidding. I see some Joe fans complain endlessly about how GIJoe has too much ninjas, and then they post pics of their collection and I see ALL OF THE NINJAS.
I buy the GIJoe ninjas, but that’s because I love the GIJoe ninjas.
I only wanted like… five Joes. Xamot and Tomax, Lady Jaye, a non-derpy Cover Girl, and Beach Head. I’m a shipper more than a collector, suffice to say.
So you pack and ship toys?
How do you ship GI Joe without shipping Storm Shadow x Snake Eyes?
I understand that, I’m more referencing the fact that I’ve never seen him with a product in his hand.
I’ve rarely seen much of anyone cash out. So.. yeah… there’s that.
Yea, but he’s still in the isles. There’s time to buy.
I dunno, I refuse to buy Bumblebee toys…
Sir, you are a credit to us all.
Like hell! It’s his fault there’s so many unbought Bumblebees!
Hold the bastard down and paint him yellow!
Are there actually people complaining that they’re repaints? O.o
Yes. I could upload screencaps, but I’m lazy.
Wow. Seriously, just wow. I’m really facepalming here right now that there’s people this deluded.
(Mind, I’ll bet these people are going “Third parties can do it why can’t Fun Pub?” despite all the good reasons why they can’t. Reasons like risk, safety requirements, initial expense, and that these same people would whine at the cost of 100% new tooling FunPub transformers, or at the inevitable “not good enough” quality)
Usually I’m not shocked by the stupidity of the fandom, but wow. Since, you know, every Comic-Con, Botcon, and Collector’s Club exclusive ever has been a redeco of an existing mold.
It’s sort of like believing that THIS is the day that that Ford dealership down the street might have a Mustang on sale for a nickel. Just gotta wait long enough, they’ll figure out that’s what you want. And until then, they’re friggin’ clueless jerks.
Even then, they’d end up complaining that now EVERYONE has a Mustang, so it’s not cool and collectable anymore.
Or is that just us Hipsters? I assume toys are no different.
Totally different. I have collectible “The Centurions” action figures, you’ve probably never heard of them. (JK)
I don’t think that’s exclusive to fandoms. People are rarely aware of the logistics and complexity of financing, manufacturing and distribution of what they use or buy. Like how half the U.S. is split over taxes but probably less than a tenth have any actual idea of whether or not money is being wasted and where.
I… I need an Ultra Mammoth. I haven’t bought a transformer in YEARS and I NEED an Ultra Mammoth.
He’s my third favorite, but only because he’s with two Action Masters. Action Masters always win.
I was frothing at the mouth by the last panel. I must be better at imagining than Ethan.
I do find it a shame I can’t pick and choose which exclusives you want, plus it’s not really resulting in much savings compared to their typical exclusive pricing. Thankfully I have a deal with someone to go in on this with to get just Slipstream and Jackpot, they were the only two that I really wanted anyway.
I am not sure why you believed that a subscription service would result in lower costs, or why it’d be expected that you’d be able to pick and choose toys out of a subscription service.
It’s like Zoobooks. You can’t sign up and demand only the tiger poster for a buck. You have to get the cheetah and zebra and elephant magazines and everything else. It’s not a la carte.
That….that was a perfect analogy!.
Too bad. I’d totally pay a dollar for that tiger poster.
Perhaps I’m misinformed but isn’t the subscription service replacing their old form of exclusives? Typically I would only end up buying one of the two exclusives they would offer (this past year being the exception where I bought both). Also, wasn’t it stated these would come in simple mailers like the freebie? The club has often stated that the fancy packaging was a big part of the cost, which I would be happy to do without, but if that has been eliminated the impact on pricing has been negligible.
I am also aware Ultra Mammoth is a more expensive toy and offsetting the price per each. I guess I was just one of the few that didn’t think their existing system was broken, I always managed to get the toys I wanted from them without being required to pay for ones I didn’t.
Expanding into a subscription service allows the club to do more daring and “out-there” choices for exclusives, rather than buckling down with the two that are likely to be the most popular. Lord knows we wouldn’t be getting Circuit otherwise, and he’s my favorite of the six. Jackpot wouldn’t have happened, either, pretty sure. The last Animated club exclusive they did, Cheetor, is still taking up stockroom.
And the prices are cheaper than they are with boxes, yes. A pair of exclusives is $90, so that’s $45 per. A boxed exclusive is $55. (Or more. Factory costs have been rising.) This doesn’t yet take into account that one of them is a huge Ultra. You’re saving probably $15 per toy.
No; they will still be offering each of these exclusives individually; they’ll just be more costly when compared to the per-figure cost breakdown of the subscription.
Though I suppose if you’re going for only one or two figures, the subscription is a bit superfluous.
You CAN, however, buy individual issues without a subscription to Zoobooks. So there’s that.
But no TIGER POSTER. That’s the exclusive, there.
Though I remember having Zoobooks, the tiger poster, and everything… except the Elephant issue? I’m sure something weird happened there, but I don’t want to put the effort into figuring out how that happened…
It’s bad enough Walky that I’m one of the oldest org Botconners still going or my friends at SuperHeroTime keep kidding me about my age due to some random reference to an 80′s cartoon I remember watching when it aired and not twenty years later on YouTube you just HAD to go and make me feel old mentioning those damm Zoobooks!!
*sniff* I’m just going to go watch Bionic Six on VHS and cry into my Mario cereal.
If it’s any consolation. Bionic Six still actually holds up pretty well.
This bodes well for a Fall of Cybertron comic. Still miffed we didn’t get an Amazing comic (yes I know, not much to do when nature herself gives you the middle finger. I had 4-5 points on why it would be cool to watch but a little offputting.
An Amazing comic?
An Amazing Spider-Man comic. The points where; Peter’s much more relatable, this movie is the reason Spidey won’t be in the Avengers movies for atleast a decade, one key scene is Spidey dominating another man with toys when the police find him, and Spider-Man takes his lessons on responsibility from The Illusive Man. Next time you watch it you will imagine an interrupt prompt.
It sounds like you could write your own comic about it. I didn’t really have those thoughts. I didn’t have very many strong opinions on Amazing Spider-Man, hence the lack of a comic.
Wow. Panel two. They kind of agreed on something.
I always kinda thought that these two were like pure opposites in a “where there is good there must also be evil” sort of way. Having them come even that close to not arguing shakes me to my core.
Ethan just knows by now that there’s a certain level of delusion you just don’t try to argue with, for your own mental health.
Can you find anyone who disagrees with the notion that online transaction fees are ridiculous in this day and age who hasn’t forgotten how to breath?
There’s some reasonable complaints to be made about FunPub, but “they don’t create entirely new molds” is not one of them. Thankfully I’ve not actually seen anybody saying this. I know why things cost what they do, and I respect that they’re out of my price range. That said, I’m a little bummed that FunPub are the only ones who stepped up and thought of using the RTS Prime mold as Scourge, who is like the most requested and most obvious redeco from that mold. Or maybe Hasbro DID think of it, but just couldn’t fit it in anywhere, I dunno. Point is, it’s probably the one figure EVERYBODY wants, but he’s only available in this subscription set of 6, which costs like $350 on top of whatever other fees the Club charges. And if you don’t like the other figures in the set, that doesn’t sit too well. I think Scourge should have been the freebie or the club exclusive or something, and throw somebody else into the subscription service. OR offer individual orders as well as subscriptions. I can’t count how many people have said “I only want 2 or 3″.
And yes, I know about BBTS, but right now Scourge is $100 and that’s more than I’m willing to pay for him without a trailer. Still, that’s MY problem, not exactly FunPub’s fault. I just wish FunPub was selling them in some individual format themselves so I wouldn’t have to deal with a 100% markup.
I agree, I’m not thrilled that I have to pay for ALL of them when I all I really want is Breakdown, Scourge and Slipstream. I am getting more and more on board with Ultra Mammoth though…lol.
Hasbro wouldn’t have done Scourge. They tooled an evil Prime head with a skull face for that mold with the intentions of making a Nemesis Prime out of it. And so Hasbro’s version would have had a skull head, been in desaturated Optimus Prime colors, and been called “Nemesis Prime.”
That’s why it falls to the club to make an RID-style version of “evil Optimus Prime,” because that definitely wouldn’t have been the version to hit retail.
There’s nothing stopping them from using a mold for MORE than two figures, except ostensibly the attention span of the kids. The RID Bumblebee mold has gotten released as three separate figures in a six month period, after all. Optimus Primes and their clones are pretty close to being that marketable. Oh well, point is we ARE getting a Scourge, it’s just….part of a set of others that I’m somewhere between “Cool but not for that amount” and “Who the hell are these guys?” (I was born after G1) where you can’t pick and choose.
And FP’s Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus was a pretty snazzy use of that alt head mold, I will admit.
Who wouldn’t pay a transaction fee for ULTRA MAMMOTH though??? Woooooo BULLY!
I’m satisfied with my Universe Nemesis Prime. Maybe if Ultra Mammoth wasn’t in the triple digit price range, I’d want it more. I mean, yes, it’s really cool, but just…..too expensive.
I was kinda hoping that the Scourge repaint of RTS Optimus was not only inevitable, but also popular enough to be a regular retail release. I mean, they already flood the shelves with regular color Optimuses in multiple scales and multiple versions, and those “night watch” dark repaint Optimuses, so why not Scourge at regular retail? I guess I’m just disappointed that now I won’t be able to get one, unless they eventually do a regular release a couple of years down the road, or maybe Takara will do it, or something.
Also, a limited production run of all new tooling would probably… cost what we pay for a limited production run figure like what Fans Project or TFC Toys puts out, if they did the same volume! I think Ethan just needs to imagine a tiny bit harder ;D
Nope. Did you get to see the Heroes of the World Kickstarter? They needed $150,000+ just to make the molds. And they had already designed the figures.
Fans Project doesn’t have to adhere to child safety laws or survive rigorous child testing, both of which are extremely expensive. They also don’t pay Hasbro a licensing fee, obviously. Fans Project toys can cost what they do because they skirt below the law.
As for the likelihood of an RID Scourge at retail, see my comment one thread up.
What you said is definitely true, and they did do that for Botcon. But I do not see how that actually excludes Scourge/Black Convoy from retail. Isn’t an additional straight-recolor of an existing mold what Takara-Tomy and Hasbro like to do? Starscream / Acid Storm / Thundercracker / Skywarp, for example?
Doing different characters, all who are wildly varying colors, from a single mold is absolutely nothing like doing two evil Optimus Primes in similar color schemes from the same mold.
Even beyond that complication, an evil Optimus Prime called “Scourge” with upside-down G2 symbols is “counter message” to Hasbro’s purposes for the brand. Hasbro’s evil Primes are called Nemesis Prime, and have been since 2003. And they’re not gonna use the Combatron symbol. It was only the one dude in 2002 who got to be called Scourge, and paying homage to that very specific iteration of a general idea is the fan club’s arena, not Hasbro’s.
The fan club is the ONLY way this specific toy would have happened. That Fun Pubulications did it is proof of that. If Hasbro wanted to do it, FP couldn’t touch the idea. It would be off-limits. Hasbro makes way more money by selling things at retail themselves than by letting FP make money off a small limited run. So FP can’t do things that Hasbro wants or plans to do, nor would FP want to, because FP wants their exclusives to seem special, and when they get displaced by a later mainstream retail version, that is bad news for them. (See Thundercracker.)
tl;dr: Club Scourge means retail Scourge wasn’t happening.
I’m sorry, but again, Classics Thundercracker was a Botcon 2007 exclusive, and then in 2011 went to mass retail so that argument really doesn’t make sense. Maybe Hasbros’ current plans don’t call for a retail Scourge ever. Maybe Takara-Tomys’ call for a Black Convoy, considering they did Henkei Thundercracker in 2008. Maybe in four years time, people will have moved around the corporate ladder at Hasbro and someone will decide that a mass retail release of Scourge will be a great idea. Maybe even the guy who decided that the first few waves of Deluxe Dark of the Moon toys needed Bumblebee, Nitro Bumblebee, Cyberfire Bumblebee, and various store exclusive repaints of older Bumblebees.
And until 2011, we had no reason to believe Hasbro would be releasing a retail Thundercracker. For the exact same reasons that we have no reason to believe that Hasbro would be releasing a retail Scourge anytime in the next, oh, four years.
Oh my god.
Yes. Thundercracker, as I SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT UP, is the exact reason why Fun Publications wants to avoid that kind of scenario. Like, he’s the textbook example. I mentioned him for a reason.
Thundercracker is WHY Fun Publications is only doing Nobody Characters instead of dudes from 1984. Scourge, with his specific name and deco, is a Nobody Character. Hasbro does Nemesis Primes when it wants to scratch that particular itch. It’s specifically why Scourge was chosen.
(And you did NOT just compare RID Scourge to Bumblebee, a flagship character of the franchise, right? I imagined that?)
But sure, if you believe this will be just like Thundercracker-the-guy-from-1984, feel free to wait the four years until 2017 for your RTS Prime redeco.
No, I was trying to bring up that sometimes Hasbros’ planning doesn’t make a lot of sense. They seem to have finally clued in with their re-arrangement of the Prime wave assortments. But it seems that the shelves full of multiple types of movie bumblebee have taken their tool on retailers, as I still have yet to see any Deluxe Prime toys other than Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, and Soundwave.
Wait, if they’re doing only Nobody Characters, then why are they doing G1 Breakdown?
Oh! Maybe you can answer a question for me. We got that Fallback/Outback recolor of the RTS Brawn toy, but was Outback ever actually animated during G1? I can’t remember him at all except from the toy catalogs as “Brawn with a difference face and a gun on top”
I seriously can’t remember him in the show, and it’s bugging me. I used to always tell people that all the stuff from the old catalogs got animated except for the mail-away omnnibots, the Dorvak molds, and the “colorful insecticons”, but now I’m not so sure that was accurate.
G1 Breakdown is being done because the tooling for the G2 Breakdown head was still viable. Club heads are done with tooling that doesn’t last that long, since that’s less expensive and the heads don’t NEED to last that long, as they’re limited runs. But the head tooling was apparently still viable for another limited run.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Outback#Generation_1_cartoon_continuity
I have never gone to a store to look for any Transformers: Prime toys, but I have seen every deluxe release at retail at least once. Airachnid and the Vehicon are the only two I haven’t seen several times. Sounds like your location is the problem.
Man, you’ve seen a Soundwave? All I see are Bumblebees, Starscreams, Arcees, and I THINK I saw a Cliffjumper ONCE.
Some of the reply buttons have disappeared on me for some reason, so I apologize for posting this message on an earlier post in the thread. I just looked at my 2002 Scourge toy, and I thought I’d mention that he has regular Decepticon insignias. So that particular other insignia, while it would be show accurate, would not actually be necessary on a recolored RTS Prime.
The Scourge name has been reclaimed by the army builder, but the Scourge image is the reason for our Nemesis Prime fad. They could release that mold in Scourge’s colors, with regular Decepticon sigils, and call him Nemesis Prime. The devoted would call him Scourge anyway, Reprolabels would probably chime in to fix the sigils and whatever else needed fixing, and everybody had their cake and ate it, too. But that’s not happening now, for the reasons you’ve detailed. BUT THAT’S HOW IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE.
Don’t miss IF I DESIGNED IT, the upcoming book from Hasbro about IF their publicity team had committed the grisley sin of releasing a mold as a nerd-favorite but otherwise unknown character from the forgotten Transformers show. Which THEY ASSURE YOU they didn’t. But IF they did.
With election season coming up, have we seen the last of CongresswomanDesanto?
She’s not boring and uninspiring enough for this election season.
Also too progressive.
There is a way for the club to do both new molds and same price: it’d just
take them having probably hundred of thousands more subscription to possibly a million more. Let’s face it, the club is doing fine with its current plan plus “Crazed Overzealous Toy Collector/Whipping Boy” just isn’t able to encourage those kind of metrics. Maybe the hundreds, but that doesn’t work.
I want my troop builder Reflector from Perceptor.
I’ve been reading about the bitching over the GI Joe sub figures, and it’s interesting to note that it’s a different type of bitching: It’s over the price only, and has nothing to do with the sculpts, really. Joe fans are used to getting figures that are made of 50%-80% old tooling, it seems. But $20 per figure is apparently too much for them.
Anyway these figures are out of my price range. So who is this Circuit guy? He seems to be an homage to something that’s too obscure for me.
One minute later: Oh, I see, he’s an Action Master. So I guess he’s there to hang out with Slicer and Thundercracker?
Well, he’s an Autobot, so he’d hang out with Kick-Off. Slicer and Thundercracker would punch him in the face.
Actually, I can see Thundercracker hanging out with an Autobot off-duty. Especially if it’s AM Thundercracker, who’s just been laughed out of Decepticon HQ for crimes against the colour spectrum.
…where’s the like button…
Transformers fans really should be used to getting figures that are 100% old tooling, but people whine anyway.
It’s easy to forget that these $15 toys cost hundreds of thousands to design, produce, test, and market. Because we only pay $15 normally, but that’s the production cost distributed over millions of copies of the figure. People can’t easily wrap their heads around numbers like that.
Its sad, but only because I don’t think I have the money for it. I’m trying quite hard to find a way to make the subscription payments for Ultra Mammoth and Circuit and Scourge though.
AM I allowed to have a problem with the subscription service if the problem is the approximately two-week window of availability for it? I’d like to get in on this, but I’m not sure I’ll have the money in time.
Absolutely.
That’s why I had some money put aside for whenever they announced it.
It’s possible tinfoil only heard about it now.
Ah, didn’t think about that. Whoops.
Even knowing there was the “How much will I need to have when it’s announced”, “When will I be charged”, and similar logistics.
The common assumption was in the $300 range, which apparently turned out to be pretty close to the mark.
Looks like there’s store trouble yet again. Seems they are sending out confirmations on orders to the wrong people for both Transformers and GI Joe subscriptions.
ahahahaha
sob
What was amusing is it listed all the contact info of its intended recipient including their email address. Looks like no one proof read them before they let them go out.
I still have to wonder why TFCC feels the need to have “kid safe” toys when the sub-line is marketed towards adults. Legally, there’s no major risk, especially if they put a disclaimer, so that’s not a major cost concern unless the license requires it be.
Mind you, the bigger cost than safety testing, done or undone, would likely be ENGINEERING the new toy.
…come to think of it, using the japan-exclusive character molds (the ones that don’t “quite” fit american versions” might be a good option for them if they could work out the rights…
It’s not up to TFCC whether to have “kid safe” toys. It’s up to Hasbro. If some kid chokes on a club toy, CNN isn’t going to care that long ago when it was in a box it was labeled “Adult Collectible.” They’re going to care that it was a Transformers toy from Hasbro. Hasbro takes the heat. It is expected that Hasbro’s toys are safe for children, and Hasbro will play to that reputation.
*sigh*
The odd thing is that by and in large I agree with what you said, I even addressed the concept of Hasbro’s concerns (in retrospect far too briefly and side-longed) in my post. Like I said, I saw no reason for FUNPUB and TFCC to have to deal with it, with the exception, and even said “Unless the license requires it be”. Given Hasbro make the terms of said license, I could easily believe THEY would have reason for making sure the safety concerns were covered for PR reasons. I can easily see HASBRO putting that in the license. In which case, the point is entirely moot.
Either way, it’s not like I was agreeing with Duncan, just saying the “safety” thing was not necessarily an obstacle legally, short of the contract between Funpub and Hasbro, which would be informed by Hasbro’s concerns relating to what you just said.
I was also pointing out fans who think those are the biggest costs are wrong, due to the engineering itself regardless of kid issues being rather expensive.
The last thought I had is entirely about possibilities if the contract doesn’t mention those safety tests, not a suggestion that it doesn’t.
Again, I was pointing out that Funpub/TFCC has no reason, short of the contract with Hasbro, to be worried about child safety. not that no one involved would have a reason.
I never thought you were agreeing with Duncan, don’t worry!
Whew. Load off my mind. I only look mostly-crazy now. not all crazy.
They absolutely still have to adhere to child safety laws. Mattel does the same thing with Masters of the Universe Classics. Yes, it’s a collector oriented toy line, but laws are laws.
Yes, but legally those laws don’t apply to “Collectors items” rather than “children’s toys”. Hence why you get things like certain DC Direct figures that bend and/or break several “Childrens toy” regulatins and are noted as “Made for adult collectors over the age of 18 and not for use by children”. Similar exists, sometimes moreso, with several “Collectors” figure and collectable lines.
Mattel most likely keeps things as are in their Subscription lines for two reasons:
First, the same likely reason as Hasbro: Press if something goes wrong.
Second, one that Mattel has shown great interest in, is an eye towards the possibility of later mass-market retail release IE the movie-masters revival or Ghostbusters figures.
…
The worst part of the argumetn is that I disagree with the attitude in the comic, and I’m still getting into arguments.
Actually, A third reason comes to mind. Changing their safety process for specific items might cost something in retraining/contracts with employees/factories.
Judging from the look on his face in panel three, Ethan is desperately trying to imagine that he doesn’t have Duncan’s lingering nerd-rage boner poking him in the right buttock.
I do wonder if 3D printing will lower costs in the long run.
It cant match mass production molds for cheapness, but for a small batch of (say) new heads it might be economical. You could even, at no extra (per-unit) cost, have random variants in the production process.
http://i.materialise.com/gallery
Hm. Make molds with 3D printers, perhaps?
You could give it a rest now… I mean, EVERYONE knows this is impossible, and a retool is the best we can expect. The number of idiots expecting new molds is in a steady decrease… I don’t think I have seen anyone ask for such a thing in 2012 at all.
From a week ago:
