Bass X0 wrote:Botcon can't win whatever they do with Seibertronian commenters.
They create their own characters, people complain there is no attachement.
They do Shattered Glass, people complain they are too different.
They do G1 characters, people complain that they should have been done at retail.
They do Machine Wars, people complain that they are not wowed by them.
BotCon and TCC are their own worst enemy. It's because of the hype that they build up around their products that so many people seem to get their hopes up. We've known for almost 2 months that the BotCon 2013 theme was going to be Machine Wars. That's 2 months for speculation to build up in our heads about what the products will be. Those that are passionate about BotCon exclusives each has our own ideas about what would make a cool Machine Wars "revival".
The last really amazing BotCon "set" was the BotCon 2006 Beast Wars themed set. Great set. Filled in a gap in a story many of us love and wanted to know more about. The 2005 set was OK ... I give them a pass on that set because I personally like most of it (including the poor face designs on Ratchet and Ironhide), primarily because everything rides on Deszaras. It was their first set and I think it was a pretty rushed set, so I give them a pass on that one. I still think the 2007 set was really great, but understand the sensitivities that surround it. The initial Shattered Glass set was a fun idea (not my thing but I don't have to like everything) and we ended up with some decently conceived ideas (i.e. Starscream in Jetfire's colors, the Megatron with the early comic head, black Hot Rod, etc). Unfortunately, it's kind of been downhill since. Shattered Glass has been beat to death, the 2009 set was "meh" at best (especially after getting awesome retail versions of Kup and Scourge), I liked the 2010 set but I think they really missed an opportunity by doing G2 right (it should have been called G1.5 Redux, calling it G2 is misleading), the 2011 set was OK but again I think they missed a lot of opportunities, and the 2012 set was SG beaten to death with screwy looking versions of what should have been two of the most awesome BotCon figures ever (Metalhawk and Overlord).
I get the idea of building hype behind an event or product. It's a key aspect of marketing. However, when the end product doesn't end up meeting the extreme artificial hype, disappointment unfortunately ensues. The massive viral marketing scheme behind the flopped "Snakes on a Plane" flick come to mind. Having seen this happen every year since 2005, you'd think the marketing strategy would have changed at this point. Knowing how this song and dance goes every year, I think they should wait to announce the theme and figures until they had everything they wanted to reveal all in one fell swoop. This would end the early speculation that seems to simmer for weeks or months at a time which only leads to disappointment.