The Energon Pub

Dominus Prime wrote:Yea they are. Bout the only problem I have with the design.

Ironhidensh wrote:Considering this Zetacron answers almost all of the problems a large portion of the community has had with Haslabicron from day one, its hardly a 'low move'.

Making different design choices isn't the low move, it's announcing the project in the first place. It's one thing to fill a void, it's another to so brazenly compete with an official product while stealing the IP of the self same character. It's not just shady, it's pretty scummy.

Ironhidensh wrote:People buying this, for the most part, were not going to buy Haslabicron anyway

-Kanrabat- wrote:So, no. Zetanicron cannot "steal" any Haslabicron orders. Most likely many Zetanicron buyers will still back Haslabicron too.

All the people on TFW and Facebook explicitly saying they've cancelled their HasLab orders would disagree with these assessments.

Also, to say Unicron will succeed or fail on its merits is true only to an extent (and is actually a separate point from whether Zeta is stealing orders). How many people's first reaction upon hearing this project was to attack Hasbro for some reason or another, either for taking the crowdfunding route or for X, Y, or Z? Or who said, "I'll wait for 3rd Party"?

There's too much bias and/or entitlement amongst the fandom to look at this through the unfiltered lens of a fair market.

"Fair market" is a myth. There is NOTHING "fair" in business. The business world is shark infested waters. And some sharks have friggin' LASERS mounted on their friggin' head!

Complaining about it all day won't change that reality. ¯\_(⏓ヘ⏓)_/¯

No, but putting your dollar where it counts changes things. That's the whole point of the fan backed campaign concept. I see what people say about the limitations of the campaign but they did extend it, that's not nothing. I also see what you're saying but this just seems like the effort to stymie the complaining and offering people the chance to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak

What an effective villain. All these years after they blew his head off and still he drives us to these levels of passion for these fun transforming puzzle robots.

Stargrave wrote:No, but putting your dollar where it counts changes things. That's the whole point of the fan backed campaign concept. I see what people say about the limitations of the campaign but they did extend it, that's not nothing. I also see what you're saying but this just seems like the effort to stymie the complaining and offering people the chance to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak

What an effective villain. All these years after they blew his head off and still he drives us to these levels of passion for these fun transforming puzzle robots.

That's pretty much it. In the end, there is only ONE TRUE GOD.
And HE have always the last word.

megatronus wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:Considering this Zetacron answers almost all of the problems a large portion of the community has had with Haslabicron from day one, its hardly a 'low move'.

Making different design choices isn't the low move, it's announcing the project in the first place. It's one thing to fill a void, it's another to so brazenly compete with an official product while stealing the IP of the self same character. It's not just shady, it's pretty scummy.

Maybe. I’ve never particularly shared that view point. I’ve always seen it as Hasbro isn’t giving the fans what they want, only what they want the fans to want, then somebody else will, and I love that. I’ve never once understood why every collector doesn’t jump for joy at that. I dint understand it, but I can respect that view.


Again, maybe I’d feel differently if either of these figures were something I wanted. I follow this simply out of curiosity, and my general unease with Hasbro using a crowdfunding format.

I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Ironhidensh wrote:I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Not make the crowdfunding worldwide IS the real problem here. Why the hell did they do that? Seriously? What is the reasoning of making the program for Americans, Canadian, and Japanese exclusively?
Anyone at Hasbro-Takara who can give a clear answer that is not langue de bois or (waffle speak?)?

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Not make the crowdfunding worldwide IS the real problem here. Why the hell did they do that? Seriously? What is the reasoning of making the program for Americans, Canadian, and Japanese exclusively?
Anyone at Hasbro-Takara who can give a clear answer that is not langue de bois or (waffle speak?)?

Logistics. Finding the right partner. As others have pointed out, there's not a retailer in the UK who would be suited for this guy.

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Not make the crowdfunding worldwide IS the real problem here. Why the hell did they do that? Seriously? What is the reasoning of making the program for Americans, Canadian, and Japanese exclusively?
Anyone at Hasbro-Takara who can give a clear answer that is not langue de bois or (waffle speak?)?

Logistics. Finding the right partner. As others have pointed out, there's not a retailer in the UK who would be suited for this guy.

Plenty of stores simply ship internationally. But HasTak must jump through hoops for reasons.

Corporations are complicated.

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Not make the crowdfunding worldwide IS the real problem here. Why the hell did they do that? Seriously? What is the reasoning of making the program for Americans, Canadian, and Japanese exclusively?
Anyone at Hasbro-Takara who can give a clear answer that is not langue de bois or (waffle speak?)?

Logistics. Finding the right partner. As others have pointed out, there's not a retailer in the UK who would be suited for this guy.

If only Hasbro had access to a multi-billion dollar corporation......

Burn wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:I also fully agree with others that if Hasbro hadn’t said to hell with Europe, this would have, for good or bad, most likely been backed already.

Not make the crowdfunding worldwide IS the real problem here. Why the hell did they do that? Seriously? What is the reasoning of making the program for Americans, Canadian, and Japanese exclusively?
Anyone at Hasbro-Takara who can give a clear answer that is not langue de bois or (waffle speak?)?

Logistics. Finding the right partner. As others have pointed out, there's not a retailer in the UK who would be suited for this guy.

It's not like they have a UK branch of their own corporation or anything.......?

They may as well not have, Hasbro UK is just a shell of its former self that only exists to take retail orders.

Just gonna repost what I said on TFW2005:

Let's look at this from a Public Image standpoint: Hasbro is in deep trouble. Think about it: having one crowdfunding project fail (Cookie Monster) makes them look bad. Have two fail makes them look very bad. Have two fail, one of which has an extended deadline, would likely cause a lot, if not all, faith in Haslab to be lost. They pretty much have to make this in order to keep Haslab going.

Just my opinion though.

Decepticon Stryker wrote:Just gonna repost what I said on TFW2005:

Let's look at this from a Public Image standpoint: Hasbro is in deep trouble. Think about it: having one crowdfunding project fail (Cookie Monster) makes them look bad. Have two fail makes them look very bad. Have two fail, one of which has an extended deadline, would likely cause a lot, if not all, faith in Haslab to be lost. They pretty much have to make this in order to keep Haslab going.

Just my opinion though.

Yeah ... no. If Unicron fails, it fails. If people are going to write off an entire company over that one failure, then I'll put this simply.

They're idiots.

EVERY company has a failure at some stage in business. Yeah, they'll lose money over this, they'll get a bit of bad PR, but they have many other lines, in Transformers alone, to keep on going.

If Unicron fails, most people will have forgotten about it within in a year, anyone who keeps bringing it up, and there will be a small few, are just assholes because of some petty childish grievance they have against the company that has given them a franchise they've gotten years of enjoyment from.

Burn wrote:

Decepticon Stryker wrote:Just gonna repost what I said on TFW2005:

Let's look at this from a Public Image standpoint: Hasbro is in deep trouble. Think about it: having one crowdfunding project fail (Cookie Monster) makes them look bad. Have two fail makes them look very bad. Have two fail, one of which has an extended deadline, would likely cause a lot, if not all, faith in Haslab to be lost. They pretty much have to make this in order to keep Haslab going.

Just my opinion though.

Yeah ... no. If Unicron fails, it fails. If people are going to write off an entire company over that one failure, then I'll put this simply.

They're idiots.

EVERY company has a failure at some stage in business. Yeah, they'll lose money over this, they'll get a bit of bad PR, but they have many other lines, in Transformers alone, to keep on going.

If Unicron fails, most people will have forgotten about it within in a year, anyone who keeps bringing it up, and there will be a small few, are just assholes because of some petty childish grievance they have against the company that has given them a franchise they've gotten years of enjoyment from.

I didn't mean people would write off the entire company, just Haslab. If Hasbro wants Haslab to be successful, then they're going to have to find a way to get Unicron made.

How does a failed project like this make them look bad? Cookie Monster is a prototype that didn't make it into production due to lack of market interest. Hasbro and Takara probably hav hundreds, maybe thousands of those between them from over the years. The only difference between this and those is that we know about them. Is BWNeo Unicron a failure that makes HasTak look bad because they didn't put it into production?

Zeta took all their Unicron stuff off FB maybe Hasbro said something.

Stargrave wrote:Zeta took all their Unicron stuff off FB maybe Hasbro said something.

Just heard the same thing, strange that it went down so quick.

I agree with the earlier sentiments that Zeta's thing was a total dick move on their part. I really don't like 3rd parties for the most part.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Stargrave wrote:Zeta took all their Unicron stuff off FB maybe Hasbro said something.

Just heard the same thing, strange that it went down so quick.

I agree with the earlier sentiments that Zeta's thing was a total dick move on their part. I really don't like 3rd parties for the most part.

All their stuff is still up on non-U.S. sites. Probably to avoid trouble from Hasbro. My best guess is that it wasn't supposed to be a dick move. I think they were expecting Unicron to fail and planned their announcement to come out after the original deadline, but then the deadline got pushed back and their announcement did not.

Well, here's some news:

https://www.facebook.com/556051094/posts/10157683172371095/

Flint Dille says he and Ron Friedman are gonna make some new G1 project featuring Unicron if and only IF this figure gets funded.

GET UNICRON NOW: If this gets funded, Ron Friedman and I have committed to teaming again on a new G1 Transformers project featuring Unicron. No guarantees as to what, but we'll do it.

Okay, I know $600 is a lot of money. My own wife was kind of startled. Still, this is our one shot at creating the biggest action figure in history and I'm trying to get them to promise to get me the head.

Here's an idea. How about that guy give some hints on what could be the next thing?

I don't have the funds to get Unicron anyways but even if I did I would never make the investment because of a statement about something possibly happening that I don't even know what it is.

Would it be a comic? Youtube video? An appearance worked into Cyberverse? Like not knowing what it might be is not a strong convincing reason to back it.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Here's an idea. How about that guy give some hints on what could be the next thing?

Flint Dille isn't a member of HasLab or even of Hasbro, so he wouldn't be privy to such information. He's as much an outsider as the rest of us.

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Here's an idea. How about that guy give some hints on what could be the next thing?

Flint Dille isn't a member of HasLab or even of Hasbro, so he wouldn't be privy to such information. He's as much an outsider as the rest of us.

So he pulled this out of his ass, making that info completely useless and pointless.

Eh.

Bigger news would be all those DMCA attacks made against the Zetanicron on Facebook and YouTube by petty fanboys.
As if such behavior would save Haslabicron. That's some bad karma right there.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Here's an idea. How about that guy give some hints on what could be the next thing?

Flint Dille isn't a member of HasLab or even of Hasbro, so he wouldn't be privy to such information. He's as much an outsider as the rest of us.

So he pulled this out of his ass, making that info completely useless and pointless.

Eh.

Bigger news would be all those DMCA attacks made against the Zetanicron on Facebook and YouTube by petty fanboys.
As if such behavior would save Haslabicron. That's some bad karma right there.

You think DMCA "attacks" are being performed by petty fanboys? The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a measure meant to prevent folks from circumventing measures to protect IP - in other words, it's a way to protect against IP theft. It's a pretty stilted view to think this isn't coming from the source.

I know you have this weird libertarian / MGTOW thing going on and want to side with the IP thieves. But like, come on. Let's be real about who is the most likely entity to be (rightly) shutting it down.