The Energon Pub

Hello all. My name is Starfish, and I am a complete and utter failure.

Here's why:

When the first Transformers movie was originally announced, I said to myself: "Right, those designs look pretty cool, I'm going to get them all. The lot. The ENTIRE line. Of all three films."

Not having been a fan for a few years, I thought it would be easy. How hard could it be?

I even gave myself a few guidelines:

Only toys that transformed from a robot into a alt-mode would count towards my collection, so no Cyberstompers or role-play stuff would be needed.

I also decided to concentrate only on new moulds designed specifically for the movie line, so I passed on the Target Scouts.

I also limited myself to toys that were commercially available, for sale to the public - so no prototypes or lucky draws. Those were my only three rules.

Seibertron became my ultimate resource, giving me all the details of store exclusives, repaints, etc. At first, I was having a whale of a time, but by the end of the first movie, it had become a bit of a slog.

I hadn't counted on all the endless repaints (Deluxe Bumblebee, Voyager Starscream and Prime, I mean YOU) and all the Japanese exclusives. Yes, I soon discovered that the Japanese got all the cool stuff.

In Japan they had Vardia Starscream, metallic Bumblebees, transparent protoforms - even a pink Arcee. How could my movie collection ever be complete, I thought, without these cool figures. So I got them all - even down to the Deluxe dune buggy with the slightly greener paint and the Real Gears with their different decals.

I was so determined to get the lot, I even got the Final Battle Jazz with the extra post on the gun. My collection of toys of the first movie was as complete as my self-imposed guidelines would allow. So far, so good.

And then the second movie came out. I got both variations of Sideways and Breakaway. I have the Cannon Bumblebee with different windows. I even bought myself another FAB Ratchet, such was my determination.

I have the Black Soundwave. I have the Tokyo Toy Fair Voyager Prime. Things were going great.

When the Japanese DVD exclusives were announced, I had mixed emotions. The Bumblebees and the Black Prime looked fantastic. The Skids and Mudflap less so, but I bit the bullet nonetheless and pre-ordered with BBTS for over $200 (plus $30 shipping to the UK).

So what has prompted me to end the cycle, to give up on being a completist?

Takara bloody Devastator, that's what. I'm sorry, but my urge to have a complete set of movie toys is not strong enough to warrant spunking hundreds of pounds on a bit of red facepaint.

So my initial mission is a failure. My task will never be complete. In fact, I almost considered quitting the hobby altogether, perhaps selling off my rarer items to recoup some money.

But then I thought - nah, I'll just make a new rule...

Rule 4: Only buy Japanese excluives if they are significantly different from their US counterpart.

So mow I have a new rule, and my collection is complete again. Simple!

So I put it to you, whoever's made the heroic effort to read through this horrendously long post - has anyone else out there started a collection that they could not finish? Are there any other toys out there which prompted people to change their buying habits?

Or am I just an idiot spending so much money on lumps of plastic?

I have long realize that I only collect toys or figures I like, no matter from which line. It will never complete as hasbro or takara keep pumping out new figures or repaint.
I know friends that collect optimus prime or starscream, from all generations... After so many years and money spent, there are still no sights of the end... Probably we will be gone or bankrup first... Haha

Now I just have to choose...

I've just recently evolved into a cross-country completionist. I was pretty much only doing US stuff for the last eight or nine years, picking up Tak/Tomy every now and again when it was significantly different (i.e. JRX/Railracer) or altogether missing (BWII Galvatron). A few times, I've bought both versions of a mold because the differences were astounding (Armada Tidalwave vs MD Shockwave). But recently I've been picking up alot of rarer Japanese stuff (mainly from A/E/C, though I'm working on a Movie G1 Wonderfest Arcee right now). I've put off stuff that's only slightly different like DVD Exclusive Exillion until I have nothing else to buy. I'm sure one day I'll end up with it all, but I can wait.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: ENLIGHTENMENT

The Cake is a lie. The existence of Mainstream Media Conspiracies is a lie. Completionism is a lie.

Here are my credentials and references on the matter: You’re completing all of the movie line? I’m doing the same thing with Armada, Energon, Cybertron, and Classics. That includes Mini-Cons and most if not all J-Exclusives.

“Completion” is a myth. It’s the dragon you chase. It is the mountain that is hard to climb.

Why? Simple, because it never ends. You may have finished your goals and proclaimed proudly that you have a complete collection. Then the guy next to you say, ‘Nope, you didn’t get X.’ Now, you may have made the decision to omit X from your collection on account of your rules, but now that dude has said it. Somewhere in the pit of your gut, you know, you just know that you’re not really done. It’s all a sham and you can’t claim what you’d like to claim.

So, you set off looking for that one piece, that one figure. This goes on and on.

Even when you have assembled countless rare figures together, most of which you swore you’d never buy. Takara will release one set of special figures, available for one day. Each one available at a different toy store on a different island of Japan. The train ride to get to each store will take 8 hours and you probably won’t get each figure because there are other dudes like you waiting outside before the stores open to grab them up.

Alternately, Hasbro releases countless minor revisions to a figure. A splotch of paint here, a packaging variant there, all are easy to obtain, but each Bumblebee you purchase devours a little piece of your soul, until one day you look at the 42 different deluxe Bumblebee figures you have and despair.

Now, my Father collected various things throughout the years and I learned a good deal watching him. Collecting for the sake of doing it is an insidious little disease. Most of what I’ve said seems like I’m steering you away from your chosen path, but I’m the devil of daybreak and to be honest, that’s not my intention.

To have a big completion-ish collection, you have to set terms. Define ‘WHY’ you are buying stuff before you buy it. Hasbro and Takara can keep you on the hook forever if you don’t do this.

It sounds like you’re making the right choice. Define the terms of your hobby, don’t let them define you.

A little story and I’ll stop…

A good friend of mine was looking to purchase a Lucky Draw Micron Legend Convoy (Armada Optimus Prime). He told me about it and my response was: “So, you will be picking up Lucky Draw Jetfire to go along with that right? You don’t want to be some kind of loser who has nothing to combine Prime with right? It’s only another $1,200…”

He didn’t get either. To this date, crushing peer pressure is still comedy gold.

CP is right, yet again.

I'm a newer collector and I've felt some of the draw of "completing", though my idea of completionism is meager compared to everyon elses!

I have Rid/CR Landfill/Build King and its two repaints. I have BWII BB & Starscream as well as RiD Dreadwing and Smokejumper. I plan on getting the original G2 Dreadwing & Smokescreen figures and the Robot Masters Gigant Bomb & Smokesniper. I think that's pretty much it.

The reason why I got more than one iteration of Landfill is because I really like the look and the design of the mold. I think the central hub design of the combiner is really neat. The Dreadwing & Smokescreen molds are not pretty by modern standards but I love flying wing alt modes and I love the juxtaposition between the huge Dreadwing and the small Smokescreen. The older school Transformers designs are also charming to me.

My one and only rule for collecting is to simply get what I think is cool. The characteristics I think are cool are visual aesthetics, toy design, character fiction(I love the comics and cartoons the Transformers product has spawned), and playability(articulation and posing potential). Some figures will have an abundance of all characteristics, others will have a low rating in a particular area but the other areas make up for it.

I'd like to have a huge all encompassing collection but ultimately, there'd be a lot of stuff there for ego and not for sincere enjoyment of a figure.

If normal completionism is a dragon one chases, my idea of completionism is a little flightless winged lizard who is chubby and can't run fast. I'll catch it one day...

Having rules for your collecting is a great idea. Otherwise you end up walking around toystores, aimlessly spending money on stuff you don't want. I try to stick to my rules as closely as possible, but sometimes that is really tough. My rules pretty much allow for the things I really like. Every once in a while I see a figure that doesn't quite fit and I buy it anyway. I guess that happens to all of us though.

My rules are simple:

1 ) Buy figures I like the look of, or who are unique and at least moderately cool

2 ) Be more judgemental as the figure gets more expensive

3 ) $150 is about the MOST I will ever spend, and it must be AWESOME for that (re: MP Grimlock).

I don't care about completionism, I don't care if a figure was in the show / movie or not, and I don't care if it's the 57th repaint or the second repaint. If it's cool, I'll get it.

I only have one rule when building my collection. "If I like it, I'll buy it"

I wouldn't call you an idiot, but I'd say that your quest to literally complete them all, announced at '07 ('completing' including the following 2 lines whose subsequent toy designs were then utterly unfathomable) was rather rashly made. 100% completionism is exactly like 100% perfection in the sense that it so could not truly ever possibly exist.

Me? My rules for completionism are rather lax.

Like you, I was enamored with the '07 movie which made me a TF fan again and I wanted to get many figures (not all of them though). Ultimately, I voluntarily missed out on quite a lot in the '07 line alone (I didn't get protoform & voyager Prime, Arcee and Dreadwing, only got 1 Real Gear, missed all the scouts, etc.) but I don't really regret it at all.

I didnt have rules then, but here's my current, best-working ones:

1: Only get the most realistic AND transforming versions (Deluxes, voyagers and leaders, now including ROTF scouts since they're not Cybertron repaints, as well as figures in the Human Alliance line). Meaning, no FABs, RPMs, Robot Replicas, etc. Scouts? Just Arcee, if she's usable within the HA line.

2: Only get the figures that I'm sure to like by doing research before actively hunting for them; read and watch reviews (thanks Peaugh), browse pictures, anything that helps.

3: If I'm on the fence with a figure, take my time in questioning myself repeatedly before making the purchase: "Do I really want this?" while holding the boxed figure in my hands. Helped me pass on Dune Runner and some others. Redundant in the case of figures that radiate awesomeness such as upcoming Voyager Bludgeon.

4: NONE of that 'limited exclusives' stuff - why buy a single thing with an absurd amount of money that you could use to buy so many?

5: when buying a mold representing a single character, go for Hasbro or go for Takara, no getting both molds of the same figure. I.E. only getting one version of Breakaway.

6: That said, NO getting remolds of the same figure (deluxe Bumblebees) down future lines unless there is an impressive effort made to change much on the mold, or it could be used to swap/repair parts with the current version being displayed to make a superior/fixed version (I was planning to get ROTF Ironhide to swap his guns and head with my '07 Ironhide's but scrapped that plan, now waiting for the Jungle version). If it helps, perceive the repaints and remolds primarily as a 'second chance' for parents and late collectors to grab.

Warbreaker wrote:4: NONE of that 'limited exclusives' stuff - why buy a single thing with an absurd amount of money that you could use to buy so many?.

Because the limited exclusives are often better... better color choices, homages to G1, etc. In other words, they know how to hook us, and will make the limited versions on the colors that many people really want. IE -- black repainted 07 Arcee, G1 repaint 07 Arcee, etc., etc.

Exclusives can also work to set your collection apart from others...

tigertracks 24 wrote:

Warbreaker wrote:4: NONE of that 'limited exclusives' stuff - why buy a single thing with an absurd amount of money that you could use to buy so many?.

Because the limited exclusives are often better... better color choices, homages to G1, etc. In other words, they know how to hook us, and will make the limited versions on the colors that many people really want. IE -- black repainted 07 Arcee, G1 repaint 07 Arcee, etc., etc.

Exclusives can also work to set your collection apart from others...

And a certain purchase will get you into the Noisemaze Mass Production Type Club.

Theme song go:
Who controls the Japanese Yen?
Who keeps bringing Prime back again?
We Do, We Do...
Who requires safety caps?
Who keeps Transtech under wraps?
We Do, We Do...
Who makes missiles shoot real far?
Who makes Megan Fox, a star!
We Do, We Do...
Who repaints Armada Sideswipe?
Who ignores your fanboy gripes?
We Do... We Doooo!

Counterpunch wrote:And a certain purchase will get you into the Noisemaze Mass Production Type Club.

Those blasted Stonecutters!

My rules are simple.

1) Buy only Neo-G1 figures. This means updated versions that are similar to the G1 Characters, or at least the style of the figures. That nixes 100% of TF:Animated figures and 98% of the Movie figures.
2) If it's a good price, and 1) is met, buy it. Yeah, I've dropped 200 on Diver and his Niagra Waterfall Base. I've seen it go on ebay for much more money than that.
3) If I can affoard it and 2) is met, buy it. 325 for a Noisemaze production type fig is a good price, but it's still out of my rance for now
4) If it's an exclusive, and 3) is met, buy it ASAP. I'm an exclusivity whore, I'l adamit that. So I know how secondary market prices can soar if the initial stock runs out.

5) If it's a Beast Wars figure, buy it ONLY if it's not a transmetal or a TM 2. I don't like metals mixing with my organics thank you very much, it's also cut down on the figs I've needed to get.

I stopped short of completing USA G1 by about five figures (not including Micromasters and decoys). I started looking at the clutter and all the figures I bought that I didn't even like. I let the completionist attitude go. I did not have to have them all. I have no regrets.

Lapse Of Reason wrote:I stopped short of completing USA G1 by about five figures (not including Micromasters and decoys). I started looking at the clutter and all the figures I bought that I didn't even like. I let the completionist attitude go. I did not have to have them all. I have no regrets.

The thing I'm concerned about is "What do i do after I have everything?"

I'm afraid that one day I'll have nothing left to buy and I'll stand around going "Now what?" I'll miss the adrenaline of an ebay auction in the final seconds, or the glee at finding a figure for less than you planned on paying.

Razorclaw0000 wrote:

Lapse Of Reason wrote:I stopped short of completing USA G1 by about five figures (not including Micromasters and decoys). I started looking at the clutter and all the figures I bought that I didn't even like. I let the completionist attitude go. I did not have to have them all. I have no regrets.

The thing I'm concerned about is "What do i do after I have everything?"

I'm afraid that one day I'll have nothing left to buy and I'll stand around going "Now what?" I'll miss the adrenaline of an ebay auction in the final seconds, or the glee at finding a figure for less than you planned on paying.

Nope, you won't get there.

I was on track with all the releases and then something comes out that just stops the cycle. For me it was Star Wars Transformers. They sucked so bad that they stopped me from buying those non-main line items that make you go nuts. Then animated came out and the figures were so not what a TF should be (my opinion) that I stopped getting the repaints and and not wanting the main line figures put me into a state where I only buy the molds I like, and don't have to buy repaints that I don't like. So now I buy Transformers for what I originally intended them for, to have fun. Plus after 2000 figures, it kind of gets boring to collect just to collect something.

After a somewhat similar revelation, I adopted the following purchasing guidelines...

Question 1: Do I like it?
If yes, proceed to Question 2
If no, don't buy!

Question 2: Are they one of (or obvious homages to) the following? Optimus Prime/Primal, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod/Rodimus, Jetfire, Dinobots, Minibots, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Constructicons, Insecticons, Decepticon Cassettes
If yes, proceed to Question 3
If no, don't buy!

Question 3: Do I already own this mold?
If no, proceed to Question 4
If yes, don't buy! (or sell currently owned mold)

Question 4: Is it more than 15% of my monthly income?
If no, buy it!
if yes, don't buy it, dummy!

Since then, I've also sold or gave away most figures that were not among the characters listed above. The only exceptions are Unicron, Team Bullet Train of course, and my G1 figures.

It can be really hard at times (ROTF Bludgeon!!! ), and my collection is much smaller than it was, but it's also much less nausea-inducing. I can't deny that these rules have helped me create a pretty sexy collection.

The rules that i have to keep my collection are no same molds (but if they have a slight re-mold eg botcon new heads i get them) and no same characters ( i have only one prime, megatron etc) But if a mold of a character changes to a new one (eg,black convoy) i sell laser optimus and get a new prime mold that has not been used before as a new character (eg, galaxy prime) complex i know, but it stops my collection becoming to big!

ausbot wrote:The rules that i have to keep my collection are no same molds (but if they have a slight re-mold eg botcon new heads i get them) and no same characters ( i have only one prime, megatron etc) But if a mold of a character changes to a new one (eg,black convoy) i sell laser optimus and get a new prime mold that has not been used before as a new character (eg, galaxy prime) complex i know, but it stops my collection becoming to big!

Man, I could never sell any part of my collection unless I have duplicates.

Razorclaw0000 wrote:

Lapse Of Reason wrote:I stopped short of completing USA G1 by about five figures (not including Micromasters and decoys). I started looking at the clutter and all the figures I bought that I didn't even like. I let the completionist attitude go. I did not have to have them all. I have no regrets.

The thing I'm concerned about is "What do i do after I have everything?"

I'm afraid that one day I'll have nothing left to buy and I'll stand around going "Now what?" I'll miss the adrenaline of an ebay auction in the final seconds, or the glee at finding a figure for less than you planned on paying.

I don't think I need worry about that - I'm always on the lookout for something to collect. Before Transformers it was classic Doctor Who novelisations, and before that it was issues of 2000AD comic. Once the third movie comes and goes (assuming it's the last), I'll get back to other stuff. Maybe I have a touch of OCD as well!

Example: I'm a big fan of the UK rock group Feeder - I first ecountered them surrpoting Terrorvision back in 96. Since then, I have everyhting they've ever put out, promos, vinyls, CDs, everything. I even have a complete collection of Inodesian-label tape cassettes they put out.

So once I'm done with Transformers, there will be other stuff, I guarantee it!

ausbot wrote:The rules that i have to keep my collection are no same molds (but if they have a slight re-mold eg botcon new heads i get them) and no same characters ( i have only one prime, megatron etc) But if a mold of a character changes to a new one (eg,black convoy) i sell laser optimus and get a new prime mold that has not been used before as a new character (eg, galaxy prime) complex i know, but it stops my collection becoming to big!

I actually am very fond of getting all interations of a mold that I really like, ala Classics Mirage, G1 Prowl (Bluestreak, and Smokescreen), G1 Sideswipe (plus REd Alert, and all E-hobby repaints, and even some customs).

The only way I would get rid of a mold to replace it with another, would be if I hated the mold, and then why would I buy another? Rarely would I want to get rid of it, even if it was not as good paint quality as the newer (ala Cybertron Gasket and all of his interations).

i just don't like having the same character repeated endlessly 15 prime 13 megatrons 11 soundwaves, but i like certain molds, so i can have a g1 jazz mold (but as stepper) but my jazz character is the animated mold who has not been repainted as another character

Questions to myself when seeing a figure in a store:

Question no.1: Like it?
Question no.2: Have money for it?
Question no.3: It is not a movie figure?

If answer to all 3 is yes, I buy the figure.

I've always been fussy about what figures I buy so there's no way I'll ever be a completist. If I did go for a complete set it would be something like 'on-screen characters only, in screen accurate colours and preferably in scale with each other'. I'd like to do that for something but unfortunately I'm too damn fussy - I just don't like the majority of the ROTF designs.

I'm well aware that I don't have enough spare cash to buy multiples of a mold.