The Energon Pub

I've found myself reminiscing a lot on how things used to be as of late, and I realize my views on this hobby have changed rather drastically from what they were several years ago. My collecting habits as a whole have changed a good deal, but particularly when I look at Transformers I feel it's a different brand from what it was just five-ish years ago.

The quality of what we get these days is much less impressive than the toys of before, a predictable occurrence given the economy, but still. When I go pick up an original Classics figure (From a time when folks said the line would never come back.) the difference in paint, plastic quality, and design is astounding. That's not to say they don't make good figures these days, but FOC Bruticus, especially when compared to Energon Bruticus, is a perfect example of what I mean. Frankly, he's a mess, combined he doesn't have a good form, he's disproportionate, and the individual members are all thin and don't really have satisfying robot modes. By now, it would seem obvious the old Energon combiner sets could be improved upon, but with problems like those it seems like we're lucky to get something barely on par.

The constant cycle of the same characters has also worked to further make things stale. I'm mildly interested in the new comic packs Hasbro has out, but with the first assortment being BB, Megatron, and Orion Pax, it really only serves to remind me how content I am with with what I already have of those characters. With Transformers Prime I really got into the show, and collected the cast, but they still didn't deviate much from the typical cast we've been seeing, the toys focused even more on those characters. They don't even change the designs up that much.

So, more about how I'm feeling... There's a certain amount of satisfaction with what I already have, that makes me more conservative with newer purchases. I already have a lot of Bumblebees, and Optimus Primes, and Megtrons, Ratchets, Soundwaves, Starscreams, and even a lot Arcees too. And while it feels like each new version of these characters tries to do something a little new, there's just too much of them.

I find myself more interested in vintage stuff these days, for both Transformers and other things. Exploring older toys, sometimes decades older than myself is interesting and refreshing to me. It's funny, I remember one of the first threads I started here was trying to understand the reason people enjoy G1 figures the way they do, but now here I am mainly directing most of my attention to older toys like those. Mind you, I did sometimes half-troll back in those days, lol.

I used to get really excited about new exclusives (limited run, Botcon type stuff), but lately I've grown really apathetic to those. I don't see many figures that seem different or interesting as exclusives these days. There's not much novelty, and with the way the Club does, it just feels more often like milking completionist. Last year's Botcon set is a great example. It didn't feel like any thought was put into that set, updates done as repaints don't make good exclusives. They've done better.

Typing this all out, I'm starting to wonder if my tastes have changed all that much or if everything's changing around me in a way that doesn't fit my tastes. My buying habits have definitely changed, and I feel a lot pickier too. Any of you also feel like your interests have shifted a bit over time?

Still the same TF G1 fans since the beginning. But........with the advent of the internet and specialty shops, I have managed to collect nearly 75% of G1 TV show figures which I never thought possible.

I do reminisce at the times when G1 figures were, cheap, not sold in astronomical prices in flea markets and the box, though not mint were still sealed.

Also loved the time when ala Easter Egg hunts would rummage through clearnace sales stores for the elusive G1 figure i still lacked.

My collecting habits have changed drastically. Where once I'd buy both the Hasbro and Takara version of nearly every Generations/United and TF:Prime figure released, I now just usually go with whichever one looks better (usually Takara, though not always).

They have gotten cheaper than they used to be. They always do. This happened in G1 and it will happen again. Remember when the Targetmasters and Headmasters shrunk? Remember when the Pretenders got smaller and all the toys were composed of cheaper, thinner plastics? I do. Hell, remember frickin' ACTION MASTERS!?!? You wanna talk about effing cheap! That stuff was cheap crap. Now of course, it's all a nostalgic kick, right?

The toys will get better again once Has/Tak stumble onto some new trend in engineering/themes for their main line toys. Ever since 2007, the same basic engineering style has ruled where most of the figures are a skeletal robot surrounded by alt mode panels that come together like an eggshell over that skeleton to form a vehicle or whatever, and right now they're just finding cheaper ways to make them and shrinking them down as usual.

The latest Generations figures like Springer, Waspinator and Rhinox show promise of the "new era" of things to come, and I think things are about to get back to "normal" again where Transformers aren't quite as cheap/poopy (that's not to say that the current figures are all "poopy", but they are arguably poopy next to say, Henkei Voyager Optimus Prime ).

Anyway, I'm still collecting, but now, since I've caught up on most of the past lines that I got into since I started collecting a few years ago (all the G1, Beast Wars, Energon, Cybertron etc. etc. that I missed out on and decided I wanted) and I'm keeping right on top of any new releases that I want via preordering on BBTS (including 3rd party stuff), I've now turned my attention to other toylines for the "hunt". I've been tracking down old oddball Voltron, Diaclone, Mask, Exosquad and other things I either had as a kid/wanted as a kid or that I never heard of until recently and decided they'd look good on my shelves.

My collecting habits have changed a bit from when I started. When I first got back into collecting I would buy any figure from any line that would reference a G1 cartoon character. As time went on, I realized that I was only interested in my Classics and MP shelf. My movie, animated, and Bin/Alt figures barely get a second glance anymore. I don't buy them either. I bought one movie figure since ROTF (Leader Ironhide) and 0 Animated figures since the show went off the air. My MP collecting is done now due to inflating cost and deflating size of figures. The only think I want anymore is to satisfactorily finish of the cast of the G1 US cartoon.

I consider myself relatively new to the collecting world (started during the movie boom) and I think I've turned to cherry picking instead of buying anything that catches my eye. With an increasing lack of space in my man-cave, I buy only the most impressive ones, and haven't haven't bought more than 50% of a toy line ever since ROTF.

I mainly go for IDW and "neo-G1" designs these days, and try to stay away from animated or movie lines, unless they're exceptionally good.

My standards have changed. Figures that i thought were amazing when I restarted collecting with Classics are now uninteresting. When I restarted I was amazed at how they'd improved since G1...

I've gone from mainline to Masterpiece, for the most part. Every now and then I'll buy a mainline figure, such as Generations Springer, but their purchases are becoming increasingly more rare.

The overall quality and play-ability of the MP's gives me greater joy than than many of the mainline figures right now. The change certainly doesn't save me much in terms of money, but, hey, the two MP's I have - Soundwave and Optimus - have left me very much impressed. That's more than I can say about most of my mainline purchases last year.

It also saves me a boat load of room

Ironically I have gone from mainly G1 and reissues to classicsverse and now back to G1. I actually do think this has been the best year for new Hasbro stuff in the past few, though.

My collecting habits have both expanded and narrowed at the same time. It started off as collecting a toyline (Armada), to collecting collectors grade figures (Alternators and Masterpiece), to collecting a universe (Classics et al.).

With the completion of my Beast Wars collection, I ceased collecting TFs that were interesting, but out of place. This included Masterpiece, Alternators, TF: Prime and even the few G1 figs I've had for a long time because at one point or another I had decided I wanted them for no reason. This lead to a fire sale where I just simply wanted them gone and I didn't care if I made a profit or not (spoiler: I did not).

What remains is, for all intents and purposes, my version of the Transformers Universe, containing Autobots, Decepticons, Pirates, Predacons, Quintessons, and a small Shattered Glass universe. Sadly in this collection, I have been pretty nonchalant on what I purchase to put in there, so long as it matches the style and is a different character, or replaces an existing character with a better version. That's not going to last much longer due to other finances that are going to be showing up within the next few months.

From a UK perspective for me the main difference is going from TF hunts at Supermarkets and TrU to scouring eBay for purchaces. When the Classics were first released all the major supermarkets were stocking them, theses days you cant move for bloody Movieverse and Prime figures.

due to QC issues and inconsitancies in most of the toys I am only collecting the materpiece line and maybe the odd one off of an exceptional figure.

Sadly, despite being a child of the 80's, I have lost interest in nearly all of the G1 TF's as of late, with articulation and well-proportioned robot modes being "king" in my eyes.

I've always been more or less a cherry-picker. I collect other toy lines as well, so this means I need to be really selective with what I buy. To that end, Masterpieces are where it's at for me.

Once I have all of whom I consider to be the core G1 characters, that'll be it for me. Maybe the occasional exceptional piece, whether official or third-party.

At any rate, I'm just glad that we have such wonderful toys coming out these days. It's a great time to be a fan.

EDIT:

Before I forget, and this is a big one.. my collecting has changed in that I'm no longer at the mercy of my parents, family members or my own limited childhood resources to get the toys I want. The Masterpiece line is better than anything I had as a kid and now I can buy them on my own. The only issue now is that I'm running out of room to display them.

In the beginning I wanted as many figures as I could get.

Now I'm focusing on quality over quantity.

I'm also getting rid of most of my figures from the movie trilogy.

GuyIncognito wrote:Now I'm focusing on quality over quantity.

Yep. That's pretty much it for me, too. Across all my toy lines. Can't get 'em all, so might as well get only the best ones available.

Quali-TAY.

For the past three years, basically since I purchased Generations Cybertronian Optimus, Megatron, and Soundwave, I've been full tilt, indiscriminate in purchasing figures from every current line (and a handful of older figures to round out my CHUG shelf), convention and club exclusives, third party, etc. This obviously was a huge monetary investment and not a sustainable way to collect. So, following my purchase of Subscription Service 2.0 and a handful of third party figures (Fansproject Stunticons, Project Genesis, MMC Leo Dux) I'm no longer collecting anything that isn't released at retail in the US or by the Collector's Club, with a strict limit on how many of those rare, pricy exclusives I can buy in a given year. I have a mostly complete Prime line, a good CHUG display, and more disparate Timelines figures than I ever needed.

In three years I went from collecting from everywhere to just two sources of figures. My wallet will thank me.