The Energon Pub

by **Optimum Supreme** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 2:39 pm

Skyfire-5 wrote:Here's an idea... how about a couple of new factions? You can come back to Autobots and Decepticons whenever you want. How about a new cyber world? In other words - tell us about the Gobots, Hasbro!

That would be kinda cool, but the legal rights to everything except the Gobots name itself, and a few of the character names, are sketchy enough that the lawyers would never allow it. They couldn't even call Armada Unicron's minicon Gobotron fer cryin' out loud. And I don't know about anyone else, but if I see figures called Autobot Scooter or Agent Turbo or Decepticon Cop-Tur on the shelves, I may just :BANG_HEAD:

so much my face bleeds.

I would love a GI Joe vs Transformers line, though. Make the Joes really small like Human Alliance sized, I don't care, I just can't believe Hasbro's never done it (one prototype aside).

News Credits: 241 · by **Jelze Bunnycat** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:56 pm

Optimum Supreme wrote:
Skyfire-5 wrote:Here's an idea... how about a couple of new factions? You can come back to Autobots and Decepticons whenever you want. How about a new cyber world? In other words - tell us about the Gobots, Hasbro!

That would be kinda cool, but the legal rights to everything except the Gobots name itself, and a few of the character names, are sketchy enough that the lawyers would never allow it. They couldn't even call Armada Unicron's minicon Gobotron fer cryin' out loud. And I don't know about anyone else, but if I see figures called Autobot Scooter or Agent Turbo or Decepticon Cop-Tur on the shelves, I may just so much my face bleeds.

Unicron's moon being named Dead End has nothing to do with trademarks. The designers didn't want Unicron being overshadowed by a Gobots name homage, that's it. Hasbro has access to all Gobot charcters via Tonka, but not the molds. Crasher (as Fracture), Spoons (as Deadlift) and Night Ranger (as the cancelled Backtrack) got homages, and Bug Bite was kept intact as a character, but as a Decepticon instead of a Renegade.

Anyhow, Two factions (good and evil) per line are plenty according to Hasbro, and adding more would only cause confusion. Case in Point: Beast Machines Buzzsaw was originally a Predacon, but chucked with the Maximals instead.

News Credits: 4 · by **craggy** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:28 pm

there are already other factions than the Autobots and Decepticons. Maximals and Predacons of course, and arguably Junkions, Quintessons (including Sharkticons, Allicons and whatever else they want to make up), Dinobots, Vehicons and Minicons. Granted, most of these are off-shoots of the originals, or in some way affiliated with them, but they needn't be in every continuity.

I'd also be interested in more unaffiliated characters, or at least those with very loose connections to the overall military commands from them at least. Devcon, Lockdown, etc as bounty hunters, maybe a small warband of guys led by Bludgeon, that sort of thing.

by **Screamfleet** » Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:54 pm

I really hope scraphead is released separately. I think the idea is that these will all be unique, so I'm not holding my breath. Maybe I'll be able to grab scraphead alone some how.