by Convotron » Sun Aug 22, 2010 10:12 pm
- Motto: "When in doubt, transform and roll out!"
- Weapon: Saber Blade
Gauntlet101010 hit the nail on the head. I've written a similar assertion previously and state it again: The TF fan community loves Fansproject products for the most part, not 3rd party products in general and yet the two are confused as the same thing.
Now before I go on, I want to make it clear that I'm not speaking about anyone in particular, just the general attitude I've observed in TF fandom, here and elsewhere, with respect to 3rd party products...
The majority of 3rd party products that are lauded as great successes are, as far as I've seen, solely FP products. Every other 3rd party product company has shaky performance records at best. Only FP seems to produce products, time after time, that seem to cause TF fans to say that "Hasbro should have done this!". Other 3rd party producers may provoke such a reaction, but on a far less frequent basis and from a far fewer amount of TF fans.
Other 3rd party product companies make mediocre products that fans will enjoy and buy but can any other 3rd party product company claim that their work has resulted in inflating the price and increasing the demand for official HasTak products such as Henkei/Classics Convoy/Optimus Prime/Ultra Magnus?
All 3rd party producers get the credit that mainly should go to FP with respect to non-official products that are consistently well made. Even so, as much as I enjoy my City Commander set, it doesn't impress me on a toy engineering level. It's a great product that adds much enjoyment value to my Classics Ultra Magnus but it's nothing without HasTak's Henkei/Classics Convoy/Optimus Prime figure. Add ons NEED official products. Please don't let the coolness factor of add ons disillusion you to their sole role as enhancement products.
Now as far as stand alone, complete figures, well how many are actually durable and functional product designs? FP's Warbot Defender is one...iGear's Faith Leader and repaints are another. However, the former is a unique design built from scratch while the latter is a resized recast/carbon copy of an existing HasTak mold so I would only name FP's WD as a true 3rd party figure while iGear's FL is a copy of an existing product design. At any rate, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I know of no other 3rd party produced figure that can even come close to FP WD and/or iGear FL with respect to engineering and durability for use(transforming on a reasonably regular basis).
Don't get me wrong, I do see merit in 3rd party products and I enjoy them as much as anyone else here but let's not kid ourselves and ignore all of the toy design and innovation that HasTak's designers have developed over the last couple of decades every time we see a new and potentially fangasmic 3rd party product. HasTak makes TF figures, especially within the last several years that are affordable and well engineered. Many figure designs originating in the Classics line, for example, have numerous examples of molds adored by fans or at least lauded as examples of great TF toy design(Deluxe class Mirage, Voyager class Optimus Prime, etc.). Are such achievements by HasTak to be ignored every time we see something potentially good but unfinished at this time(TFC Devastator) or a singular instance of a well engineered yet extremely expensive of 3rd party action figure design(Fansproject's Warbot Defender)?
Seriously. Are some TF fans simply ignorant of the existence of relatively recent(within the last few years) developments in TF toys or are they simply ridiculously myopic to the point of willfully ignoring numerous toy designs by HasTak in the presence of a relative few 3rd party products that pique their interest?