william-james88 wrote:That Bot wrote:Ironhidensh wrote:Not to mention the Seekers are important enough to warrant their own mold. This is typical Hasbro pissing on the fans to earn a cheap buck.
Pissing on the fans? They went out of their way to re-sculpt the mold to create the seekers so fans and parents of younger children would have something cool to buy. Is it a marekting ploy? Of course, but so is literally everything they do. That's what makes them a business. As has been pointed out, right now the voyager and deluxe classes are being used to forward the gimmicks, so new Seekers would have to be either Legends or Leader sized, and we wound up with both. It's not a 100% original mold, but it's not a shameless straight redeco of Jetfire either. They redesigned it to capitalize on the mold the mold they paid for and they're getting their money's worth. They have to balance the interests of the fans with their own corporate interests, and I think the leader seeker mold is a good middle ground. It pleases enough people to be worthwhile and we'll get better seekers eventually.
Something I would like to add to this, it seems that for once Hasbro answered some people's wishes for repaints. I know Burn had indicated that when he recieved Jetfire, he wished the mold be used for seekers, and he got his wish. And when Thundercacker first appeared, people said they sure hoped they would get all three seekers from Hasbro, well here ou go! I personally do not care for retools like this (as I detailed in that very long post) but I do constantly see people asking for repaints and retools. Even now with combiner wars when you would think it's enough, I see people saying it would be great to have the stunticon team repainted like cybertronian dinobots (which is a terrible idea because a) more repaints and b) the dinobots only started existing on earth). Or, a better example, seeing people ask for Hotspot repainted as RID 2001 Prime and all sorts of stuff like that. Well, for once, with combiner wars including these leaders, Hasbro went all out with repaints, giving you everything you might have wanted. And it doesnt hurt anyone, it just gives more product on the shelf and more chances for younger fans to get to know classic characters without breaking the bank (shelf presence is really important for brand sustenance). However, this does show that people should be very conscious of what it is they ask for. These seekers are a result of using a mold for characters it was not originally made for (unlike the Asrotrain we are sure to see from Sentinel Prime), so I hope people remember this well the next time they see a mold that has an inkling of a similar alt mode to a character they like and demande a repaint/retool. Because you couls get exactly what you asked for, and wont be happy. We fans are sometimes out worst enemies.
Though, depending on when in the design cycle these were decided upon, these may simply be a byproduct of there not being any other famous fliers - or at least any that looked close enough to jetfire to merit use.