amcgrath929 wrote:I'm not sure I buy into that really. Hasbro had it's Springer out well before Warbot came along. So did BotCon for that matter. I don't think FP cost Hasbro any cash there. And as far as price goes, it cannot be proven either way that a small third party company makes any more % profit than Hasbro does per figure. I'd venture to say that Hasbro makes a greater % profit considering there the big dog in Transformer distribution.
Again with the Hasbro. (busts out Obama voice) Let me be clear, (<---- he says that alot)this conversation is not at all relevent to Hasbro, in any way shape or form. The only time the name Hasbro factors into this conversation is the point that both KO and 3rd party use Hasbro properties for their profit. This fact is
not disputable. As I said earlier, I
do agree that Hasbro probably did not lose that much money on Warbot Defender. However, if there are any people out there that have Warbot Defender and not the Hasbro or Botcon Springer, then it can certainly be argued, especially from Hasbro's standpoint, that Hasbro did in fact lose some profit. But this isn't the issue being discussed. For the sake of the conversation, I do not care how much profit Hasbro loses due to the existence of KOs and 3rd parties. The only reason I mentioned that they both pull from Hasbro's profit earlier was to illustrate the similarities of KOs and 3rd parties in that regard.
Not to suggest that I care about the issue.
For what its worth, it is my opinion that 3rd parties
are feeding off of fanboyism and jacking their prices way up to maximize profit. I say this for two reasons: as stated earlier, Hasbro caters more to kids than collectors. Hasbro can rely on moving large quantities of figures at a smaller profit per figure sold but make their money on the higher volume sold. 3rd parties cater specifically to collectors. They do not move anywhere near the volume that hasbro does. Therefore, their profit per figure has to be bigger to be successful. So right out of the gate, their prices are high.
Reason #2 the fact that 3rd parties seem to be crawling out of the woodwork like roaches lately is a very good indicator that fanboyism is feeding into 3rd parties pretty heavily. If they weren't making such a huge profit, more 3rd parties wouldn't be so eager to get into the mix. This leads me to believe that 3rd party prices are excessively high and appear to be getting higher. And, collectors, of course keep feeding the monster that its becoming. When you have to pay 30 bucks to get a new head for a figure that costed less that $15 (think cliffjumper add-on kit), its gotten ridiculous. But all of this was a "since you brought it up" kind of thing. I'm not in the business of telling anybody how to spend their money. If you want to pay 30 bucks for a head, then by all means do it. I will not argue that a lot of 3rd party stuff is pretty awesome and I would probably have some of it if it was more reasonably priced. It isn't though and the pattern that I have noticed is that it is getting worse.
Astronopolis wrote:You've got me that 3rd party products are just as legit as KO toys. They're both robot toys made by groups other than Hasbro that's for sure.
Exactly, this is my whole point. I don't know why they are viewed so differently.
Astronopolis wrote:now this may just be romanticism, but i appreciate the work that goes into the development and design of a 3rd party toy. I admit i do not know what goes in to it all but a great effort is surely required, in most cases design choices have to be made due to limitations of the toy to be modified and so forth. it feels honest and admirable, so i feel a heftier price tag is appropriate.
on the other hand, to make a KO all one needs is to sacrifice an official item to make the casts and print them out, its all profit for little work in my opinion.
This is well said, I like this point. I am just going to disagree on the honest and admirable portion. Nowhere have I accussed 3rd parties of making junk. I can't speak from personal experience but I've seen enough reviews to know how highly collectors hold some of them. However, I think thats part of the problem. I believe 3rd parties are getting greedy with their pricing because their confidence is high (for good reason) that people will buy their product. The Crazydevy add on's are pretty awesome, but are they really worth more than the price of the whole figure?
I understand that "worth" is relative to who's paying the money. But man, at some point people have to stand back and look at what they are getting and what they are actually paying. I believe that both 3rd parties and straight KOs are over priced, with 3rd parties leading the pack in this department. You are paying a lot of money to get that transforming robot action figure. Too much perhaps.
