william-james88 wrote:I liked reading it too. Not in full agreement though. The studio series deluxes, cyberverse deluxes and generations deluxes are all at the same price point and sold in the toy sections of Walmart next to other kid toys (in my case, star wars). They are still kid toys for kids, with a and Hasbro keeps reiterating that, since that's where most of their money is coming from (well, their parents, but you know what I mean). there are different age groups among kids though. For preschoolers, there's rescue bots, for a bit older (their sweet spot where kids are 5 and haven't been fully consumed by video games yet), you have most of the cyberverse line, and for older kids (age 8 and up) you have the toys that collectors like too. They do of course cater a lot to fans, so they can get their money too, which is a nice chunk. But you can compare those to actual collector toys, like the new McFarlane DC line and that one makes it clear that it's not for kids and parents should not buy them, thanks to a big bold 12+ marking for all to see.
You make a good point. All Transformers sold at retail are toys meant for kids to play with, hence they all have to adhere to U.S. toy safety laws, etc. However, Hasbro is more aware than ever of the appeal to adult collectors, hence the huge emphasis on G1 nostalgia that permeates the Generations toylines now. The age range for Generations: War for Cybertron and Studio Series may, in fact, skew a little older than 8 years and up. The Cyberverse Deluxe Class actually proves my point on how Hasbro is thinking about Transformers now. That was a size class they had skipped for the first year and a half of the Cyberverse line, because it was aimed at kids in between Rescue Bots and Generations. However, the Cyberverse cartoon has had some appeal to older fans, prompting them to collect those characters, but the toys they had on offer aren't appealing to adult collectors. Hence, the new Deluxe Class in Cyberverse that offers sculpts, transformations, and paint apps more in line with the Generations line, which does appeal to adult collectors.
william-james88 wrote:And I don't see much of a divide price wide either, it's just a numbers game. The cyberverse warriors and deluxes are an excellent comparison. One is 33% pricier, but also has that much more paint, articulation and complexity (or more). It's just the idea of pricing things correctly so that parents can still buy them, and collectors too, while competing with other lines. I still think that these are the best toys on the market for the price, the engineers (not designers, the actual engineers who come up with plastic composition to fit the price points) and working overtime on this.
Indeed, the price gap isn't huge, but it's there, just like the widening divide between Transformers lines meant for specific age groups. That's still something relatively new to Transformers that had started around the time of the first live action movie line in 2007 and has been evolving since then. Your point on the engineering is right in line with what I'm talking about with the "full circle" evolution of Transformers toys since G1. Transformers were high end toys in 1984, requiring lots of different materials (opaque plastic, clear plastic, die-cast metal, paint, vacuum-metalized "chrome" parts, and stickers) and were more expensive than we remember. We had a period of time when design and engineering techniques got easier and less expensive, leading to bigger and more affordable (mostly plastic) toys. Now we're coming up against a time again when cost of production is going up, this time because the cost of raw materials is increasing, so engineers have to figure out how to do more with less, and after trying to find their stride during the T30 and Prime Wars Generations lines, we've hit a nice balance where we are getting fantastic figures at just a bit more cost than we were used to over the past decade. You can't argue with the results. Figures are smaller, yes, but they are generally better products overall than we've had for the past several years, in terms of design, complexity, paint applications, and best of all, screen accuracy.
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