Why I HATE iGear
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:55 am
I thought I would write this down because I seem to have a pathalogical dislike of this company that I can't quite put my finger on. I am an avid collector of 3Rd party TFs - some companies output doesn't really do it for me (like TFC toys for some reason) but I can acknowledge what they are decent anyway. But I HATE iGear. Feel free to berate me/ignore this or anything else but this is why I dislike them quite so much.
It starts with the name. iGear. A terrible, derivative name which grabs onto Apple's coat tails and somehow seeks to be associated with the qualitative, innovative output of that company. It's fitting that a company with a penchant for ripping things off would go down this road. Contrast this with FansProject, which at least evokes that we're all in this together, even if it isn't true.
Then there is their penchant for KOing and downsizing HasTak moulds. Why be original when you can let someone else do the hard work for you, then simply modify certain parts as per the original design spec like the seekers? It looks like their Impactor (if it ever sees the light of day) is heavily knocked off (or should I say 'inspired' (to use the parlance of iGear apologists) from Generations Warpath. And the daft names they give these chimeras like 'Faith Leader'. Do me a favour. Can they be any more pretentious about creating their knockoffs? Some KOs have a certain charm, like the ones with mad colour schemes and generic names like 'flying attack robot drone atom smasher', perhaps with some mis-spelling somewhere. I have more respect for these guys than the hacks at iGear. And their end product is probably higher quality.
Everything they release seems to come out a year later than planned, if at all.
They made the incredibly cheap move of upscaling all of their decentish scout sized Minibot modes to rake an a bit more cash for their tat. Actually, not all of them, they neglected to do the same for Huffer and Seaspray meaning that everyone who has already purchased these will have to purchase them again when iGear inevitably upsacle and re-release these 2 as 'limited edition' for $100
Their Packaging and all other print materials are the absolute worst of any of the 'main players'. It is crap and 'basic' is probably too kind a description.
The quality of plastic used on them is also terrible when compared with FansProject, TFC, Maketoys, Perfect Effect etc. Yet they still charge the same premium as the other guys who deserve it so much more.
They did NOT make Delicate warrior. Everyone pretty much likes this figure, and most call it 'iGear Arcee'. It has nothing to do with iGear. They were one of many distributors who carried the toy. If iGear had designed this figure, the quality of the plastic would be even worse and the box would have been an old shoebox with a hastily-scribbled iGear logo adorned to it. Credit where it is due, and in this case it is M&G Toys (although they pretty much ripped it off of Impossible Toys
It starts with the name. iGear. A terrible, derivative name which grabs onto Apple's coat tails and somehow seeks to be associated with the qualitative, innovative output of that company. It's fitting that a company with a penchant for ripping things off would go down this road. Contrast this with FansProject, which at least evokes that we're all in this together, even if it isn't true.
Then there is their penchant for KOing and downsizing HasTak moulds. Why be original when you can let someone else do the hard work for you, then simply modify certain parts as per the original design spec like the seekers? It looks like their Impactor (if it ever sees the light of day) is heavily knocked off (or should I say 'inspired' (to use the parlance of iGear apologists) from Generations Warpath. And the daft names they give these chimeras like 'Faith Leader'. Do me a favour. Can they be any more pretentious about creating their knockoffs? Some KOs have a certain charm, like the ones with mad colour schemes and generic names like 'flying attack robot drone atom smasher', perhaps with some mis-spelling somewhere. I have more respect for these guys than the hacks at iGear. And their end product is probably higher quality.
Everything they release seems to come out a year later than planned, if at all.
They made the incredibly cheap move of upscaling all of their decentish scout sized Minibot modes to rake an a bit more cash for their tat. Actually, not all of them, they neglected to do the same for Huffer and Seaspray meaning that everyone who has already purchased these will have to purchase them again when iGear inevitably upsacle and re-release these 2 as 'limited edition' for $100
Their Packaging and all other print materials are the absolute worst of any of the 'main players'. It is crap and 'basic' is probably too kind a description.
The quality of plastic used on them is also terrible when compared with FansProject, TFC, Maketoys, Perfect Effect etc. Yet they still charge the same premium as the other guys who deserve it so much more.
They did NOT make Delicate warrior. Everyone pretty much likes this figure, and most call it 'iGear Arcee'. It has nothing to do with iGear. They were one of many distributors who carried the toy. If iGear had designed this figure, the quality of the plastic would be even worse and the box would have been an old shoebox with a hastily-scribbled iGear logo adorned to it. Credit where it is due, and in this case it is M&G Toys (although they pretty much ripped it off of Impossible Toys