The Energon Pub

Burn wrote:Had they not banned you would you have still called Hasbro US?

Definitely, just as I would have initially emailed their ISP reporting them. I was trying the more "reasonable" approach first to see whether their stance on packaging was more a case of something they hadn't really thought that much about.

When it became clear that they simply didn't care and actually wanted to produce complete rip-offs, that's when I acted.

That's the thing about their KOs vs other KOs. KOs with generic packaging are a pain to Hasbro and it's their job to keep an eye out for them.

The KOs by KOToys are a different story though. By copying everything, including packaging, they not only hurt HasTak, but collectors as they give scammers a free pass to rip off every collector they can.

At that point, it doesn't just become HasTak looking after themselves, but collectors as well. That said, I did once contact Hasbro Australia about some KOs which were being sold in a major retail chain here, so it's not like I haven't also reported KOs when it wasn't a threat to collectors as well.

alternator77 wrote:sounds like another case of i trolled, i provoked, i got banned im sorry that youre frustrated but by your own admission you joined in the hopes of getting a ko or at least were considering one.

this thread is really going nowhere and this is my last post on it.

good night everyone.

There's trolling involved in this situation at the moment, and it's by you in your last past 2 posts as you've proven by this last post.

Furthermore you might want to learn the difference between a customer complaint and trolling. I brought up a legitimate gripe with their products, received spin and the brush-off, then pressed the point, then got banned. There's absolutely nothing unreasonable about that.

If that's your definition of trolling, then do yourself a favour and never get a job even remotely related to customer service.

wow,...definitely stopped reading past page 7 or 8...too long, short attention span,...plus children in the background here,...i dunno burning something or breaking something probably (parent of the year award winner 2012 right here!)

anyways, to sum this up, this is like prohibition in the 20's, bootleggers came out of the freaking WOODWORK! that's just whats gonna happen here,..cause if you love America,...you gots to love moonshine

try an back THAT up with some lawyer B.S. and I know some crazy hillbillies right over the river in W.V. that have a sawed-off with the trigger cocked to save their stil

and actually, this isn't the first time this has happened either,...few years back, I seem to remember ebay taking ALL the KO's off of their site,...and then shortly afterwards the 3rd party scene blew up like a Krispy Kreme doughnut filled with too much fluff....so I foresee even MORE companies spotting up, I just do.

and yes, I did just send out an order for a black deth starscream, a clear slag, a clone warrior, henkei skywarp, perfect effect reflector, and a golden seeker. so send hasbro knockin on MY door buddy....remember I love America and i looove my moonshine

The issue here would be the kind of KOs where you can't tell from pictures that's it's a KO, but is still pretty inferior to the real deal. Not the 3rd party stuff (at least for most). NONE of the products you listed would really count (except, maybe, Henkei Skywarp if it was sold out of package).

Thoughts on that? Or just more moonshine?

Gauntlet101010 wrote:The issue here would be the kind of KOs where you can't tell from pictures that's it's a KO, but is still pretty inferior to the real deal. Not the 3rd party stuff (at least for most). NONE of the products you listed would really count (except, maybe, Henkei Skywarp if it was sold out of package).

Thoughts on that? Or just more moonshine?

I'm just a dude, that works a Bullcrap job for slightly more than bullcrap wages, who has two beautiful holy terrors of children, and a mortgage and all that crap,...if my wife lets my testes out of the purse once in a while I'll get to add to my collection,..and yes, sometimes that means getting a KO at a cheaper price....I don't see my original fortress maximus from my childhood or the omega supreme i have paying my retirement in 40 to 70 years as the case may be....so what's the harm? eh? nada. zilche, zero.

oh, and of course moonshine doesn't hurt either

So did the Squaktalk/Beastbox KO actually get released? I was about to buy a set used, and want to be sure it is not KO. Thanks.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:The issue here would be the kind of KOs where you can't tell from pictures that's it's a KO, but is still pretty inferior to the real deal. Not the 3rd party stuff (at least for most). NONE of the products you listed would really count (except, maybe, Henkei Skywarp if it was sold out of package).

Thoughts on that? Or just more moonshine?

^^This.

vaporretarder wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:The issue here would be the kind of KOs where you can't tell from pictures that's it's a KO, but is still pretty inferior to the real deal. Not the 3rd party stuff (at least for most). NONE of the products you listed would really count (except, maybe, Henkei Skywarp if it was sold out of package).

Thoughts on that? Or just more moonshine?

I'm just a dude, that works a Bullcrap job for slightly more than bullcrap wages, who has two beautiful holy terrors of children, and a mortgage and all that crap,...if my wife lets my testes out of the purse once in a while I'll get to add to my collection,..and yes, sometimes that means getting a KO at a cheaper price....I don't see my original fortress maximus from my childhood or the omega supreme i have paying my retirement in 40 to 70 years as the case may be....so what's the harm? eh? nada. zilche, zero.

oh, and of course moonshine doesn't hurt either

Let's talk more about this moonshine............

Dude, most of us are dudes like you. Just dudes.

And, there will be more KO outlets. Probably even more people passing off KO's as originals.

Which is the point I was getting at... amusing, ain't it?

So let the investors spend $3,000 on a few official transformers and keep 'em mint in sealed box. If the killing off of one e.tailer let's them rest their heads better at night, sweet!

The rest of us will find the alternative(s). It's just a shame we might have to go through some shenanigans to end up right back where we started.

Court Jester wrote:Dude, most of us are dudes like you. Just dudes.

And, there will be more KO outlets. Probably even more people passing off KO's as originals.

Which is the point I was getting at... amusing, ain't it?

Except that your point was flawed. These guys aren't just an e-tailer, they're also a manufacturer of some of them- namely the G1 KOs which you seem to conveniently forget put the whole situation in a place where there is no win-win situation for fans. Scammers can only scam when they have knock-offs to work with and KOToys were one of the worst for KOing the packaging as well as the toy. If KOToys is completely shutting down then so is the manufacturing half of things for them- at least for now.

Court Jester wrote:So let the investors spend $3,000 on a few official transformers and keep 'em mint in sealed box. If the killing off of one e.tailer let's them rest their heads better at night, sweet!

The rest of us will find the alternative(s). It's just a shame we might have to go through some shenanigans to end up right back where we started.

Translation: to hell with whoever gets scammed by fakes, just as long as you get cheap toys right? Considering you conveniently omit the fact that the sticky point here are the KOs which completely KO the packaging and fuel scam rackets; it's essentially what your argument amounts to here.

That's the thing. Any KO (even the Henkei stuff with a CHMS logo on the card) which has packaging that differs from the original, while diddling Hasbro (and therefore well within their rights to sue the socks of those making them), doesn't actually screw over collectors.

However the moment you cross over that line to KOing the packaging too, you start to actually perpetuate scam rackets by giving them the means to flourish.

While that type of KO is on the market, there can be no "live and let live" in the fandom when it comes to KOs, because of the fact that every single fan is put at risk of being scammed the moment a good enough faked gets passed off as the real thing.

Might I remind you guys of the whole Encore Metroplex horror a few years back?

Remember how KOToys sold the KO Metroplex, and then when the Encore version was released just a few months back, for a far cheaper price might I add, remember what happened then?

If you answered with they started selling KO Metroplexes in Encore packaging and then supplied retailers with these claiming they where genuine Encore Metroplexes - well then you where right.

So answer me this, how do they serve the fans and give you a choice if they go and KO something that's freely available for less and then even go and copy that to trick people?

I remember that sneaky move DM. Soooooooooo stupid of 'em. Give the fans the real stuff and them K.O.'s will wither in the vine

@Burn

Just got late in the discussion but, you were sold a K.O. Ratchet packaged as an Encore? heck, where I hail from, Encore Ratchet is like shelf warming.........

fenrir72 wrote:I remember that sneaky move DM. Soooooooooo stupid of 'em. Give the fans the real stuff and them K.O.'s will wither in the vine

Which wouldn't be that difficult to do either. They could easily determine what people want in terms of reissues by allowing people to have input online.

From those mentioned, it should be fairly easy to come up with a shortlist of say, 50 and have people vote on the top 5 or top 10 to reissue.

If retailers didn't want to play ball then Hasbro could offer them directly by having Hasbrotoyshop.com offer them internationally, or in the case of Takara (who wouldn't have an issue anyway) the likes of HLJ.

It honestly surprises me that this level of fan consultation hasn't already been done, for the simple fact that it makes good business sense.

Bowspearer wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:I remember that sneaky move DM. Soooooooooo stupid of 'em. Give the fans the real stuff and them K.O.'s will wither in the vine

Which wouldn't be that difficult to do either. They could easily determine what people want in terms of reissues by allowing people to have input online.

From those mentioned, it should be fairly easy to come up with a shortlist of say, 50 and have people vote on the top 5 or top 10 to reissue.

If retailers didn't want to play ball then Hasbro could offer them directly by having Hasbrotoyshop.com offer them internationally, or in the case of Takara (who wouldn't have an issue anyway) the likes of HLJ.

It honestly surprises me that this level of fan consultation hasn't already been done, for the simple fact that it makes good business sense.

disclaimer,these are my opinions below,i state nothing as fact.

i'm going to be replying to this reply paragraph by paragraph.

paragraph 1--this wouldn't work. because on-line fans don't play fair. recent example is erector. most on-line fans would literally register a billion times & try to vote a billion times. some are selfish & will try to dominate the voting polls. with on-line fan polls fairness is the last thing they care about. as long as they cheat by voting a billion times via different registered names that's all they care about.

paragraph 2--are we referring to takara's japan based releases? or hasbro's usa based releases? takara releases what they can if the master molds haven't degradded. hasbro will never take the lead & release reissues in america that takara never released. with reissues hasbro rides takaras coat tails & lets takara do all the hard work.

paragraph 3---Hasbro would never pay all those high packaging cost to repackage all the takara reissues in brand new american language hasbro boxes. then only sell them on the hasbro.com web site in limited volume units. the cost of repacking for small volume units would make hasbro owe money & being in the red.

paragrapgh 3 continued---why bother having a limited run in eglish hasbro packaging or selling straight up japanese takara reissues packaging on Hasbro.com. these things are a collectors market products. anyone who wants them knows where to order them on-line like bbts.com,ebay,amazon.com,captured prey,import shops in their areas,hljcom,etc.....

paragraph 4----fan consultation with hasro has been in the works for years. TFCC/Fun pub is running a team where their ideas & only their ideas get put out their. hence the botcon toys & club toys. TFCC/FUN PUB has over 50+crew & elite fans that decide for the majority based on their selfish needs./desires what repaints/remolds they want done as botcon convention toys/club toys.

no,i don't want anymore fan consultations. because a group of fans get together & get their desires/dreams in toy form without asking what the majority wants. its all about being selfish & king fan of the fandom.

hasbro already consults tfcc/fun pub crew members & asks input on retail released tf toy ideas. most fans could care less what everyone wants,they just care what they want.

AGAIN,Online polls is a bad idea,fans cheat,they register a billion times & vote a billion times. example erector.voting is not fair because some are selfish,have more free time & try to cheat.

consulting more fans would result in more cheating type groups/rings. where certain fans get their ideas/stuff made,don't care what the majority wants. then those fans walk around the fandom like their better than others. NO thanks.........

fenrir72 wrote:@Burn

Just got late in the discussion but, you were sold a K.O. Ratchet packaged as an Encore? heck, where I hail from, Encore Ratchet is like shelf warming.........

Yeah ... packaged as an Encore. I was sceptical about it before it turned up. Sure I only paid $30AUD for it, probably not a lot of money, but the guy had him on E-Bay as a genuine reissue. Didn't even need to take it out of the box to know it was a KO. I could tell from the dodgy red stripe along the side.

I needed to replace my original G1 Ratchet (he's badly beaten up) and I thought this was a pretty good deal. But as it turned out it wasn't.

And that's what I hate most about KO's. Having originals in my collection is one thing, but there are a few too many people out there (not just KOToys) that are willing to pass these KO's off as the real thing and suck people in.

Tidalwavex wrote:paragraph 1--this wouldn't work. because on-line fans don't play fair. recent example is erector. most on-line fans would literally register a billion times & try to vote a billion times. some are selfish & will try to dominate the voting polls. with on-line fan polls fairness is the last thing they care about. as long as they cheat by voting a billion times via different registered names that's all they care about.

I'm not saying there aren't problems, but there are solutions at the same time. To begin with, make people register with "real" email addresses which are from their ISP or educational institution. Sure that might lead to some doubling up, but at the worst, someone might be able to pull off 1-2 alt accounts that way, specially if the IP address was logged. That's just a few possible ways to circumvent that off the top of my head.

Tidalwavex wrote:paragraph 2--are we referring to takara's japan based releases? or hasbro's usa based releases? takara releases what they can if the master molds haven't degradded.

Which comes down to a question of how badly degraded the mold is, and how viable reworking the mold is. That's where feedback for things like the Dino Cassettes would play a huge part in seeing them reissued- it ultimately all comes down to cost and return.

Tidalwavex wrote:hasbro will never take the lead & release reissues in america that takara never released. with reissues hasbro rides takaras coat tails & lets takara do all the hard work.

Depends on how much of a market they see in it. Hasbro wouldn't once again, only be going by the market research data they obtained, which would also indicate the volume of sales they'd get.

Tidalwavex wrote:paragraph 3---Hasbro would never pay all those high packaging cost to repackage all the takara reissues in brand new american language hasbro boxes.

You mean like the TRU reissues which Hasbro did as recently as the 25th Anniversary line for Perceptor and the Insecticons?

Tidalwavex wrote:then only sell them on the hasbro.com web site in limited volume units. the cost of repacking for small volume units would make Hasbro owe money & being in the red.

Again, who said it would be small volume sales. There could well be a situation where Hasbro finds that even though retailers are too skittish to take them on; they have market data through such interactions that shows that they have a more than big enough market to offer the reissues directly themselves. Let's face it, as the marketing decisions of Hasbro in terms of retail products are essentially decided by a few people in Walmart's marketing division, that scenario is entirely possible.

Tidalwavex wrote:paragrapgh 3 continued---why bother having a limited run in eglish hasbro packaging or selling straight up japanese takara reissues packaging on Hasbro.com. these things are a collectors market products. anyone who wants them knows where to order them on-line like bbts.com,ebay,amazon.com,captured prey,import shops in their areas,hljcom,etc.....

And yet as I just pointed out, Hasbro have done exactly that with Perceptor and the Insecticons recently, along with Prime. Then there's the Soundwave and Blaster releases at SDCC in the past few years.

Tidalwavex wrote:paragraph 4----fan consultation with hasro has been in the works for years. TFCC/Fun pub is running a team where their ideas & only their ideas get put out their. hence the botcon toys & club toys. TFCC/FUN PUB has over 50+crew & elite fans that decide for the majority based on their selfish needs./desires what repaints/remolds they want done as botcon convention toys/club toys.

Which is a focus group and about as far from mass-consultation as you can get.

Tidalwavex wrote:no,i don't want anymore fan consultations. because a group of fans get together & get their desires/dreams in toy form without asking what the majority wants. its all about being selfish & king fan of the fandom.

So you're against mass fan consultations because of focus groups? Do I even need to point out how ironically fallacious that is.

Tidalwavex wrote:hasbro already consults tfcc/fun pub crew members & asks input on retail released tf toy ideas. most fans could care less what everyone wants,they just care what they want.

Again you're talking focus groups, not mass fan consultation.

Tidalwavex wrote:AGAIN,Online polls is a bad idea,fans cheat,they register a billion times & vote a billion times. example erector.voting is not fair because some are selfish,have more free time & try to cheat.

consulting more fans would result in more cheating type groups/rings. where certain fans get their ideas/stuff made,don't care what the majority wants. then those fans walk around the fandom like their better than others. NO thanks.........

And yet within 30 seconds of reading this post, I came up with solutions to what you were talking about- all of which I have already gone into. But that's the difference between a reasoned response and an irrational and purely emotive one.

Just putting this out there for reference...

Typical product runs seem to be in the 30-50 thousand units for store release during the armada trilogy. That may be more with the movie line now. Probably is to be honest.

When Japanese runs of rare figures are made, they are in the 1200 - 5000 unit range. The prices are always 2x to 3x retail cost for these when sponsored by a site or show. The Henkei seekers were made to order and were 4x-5x retail cost.

BotCon produces under 2000 sets of their toys that are specifically marketed to "fans". 2009 and 2010 did not sell out. 2011 did sell out but I think there was hype around the continuation of Animated.

Ok, so start inferring from the numbers... World wide, there may be 4000 fans who are willing to pay for premium, exclusive, or otherwise niche product.

Maybe...

The question is, and I don't care to take sides on this, but how do you get a company to do a small production run with limited audience and high prices?

Compound it with the fact that TF engineering is more difficult that GI Joe, He Man, or Star Wars where they can literally mix and match parts with a new head to make a new character.

*All of my numbers can be referenced for accuracy if you dig a bit. The only ones I can't back up is the unit runs of the AEC trilogy. That comes from a statement from Aaron Archer commenting on the Energon releases of Treadbolt and Ultra Magnus as being "low" at around 30k

Counterpunch wrote:When Japanese runs of rare figures are made, they are in the 1200 - 5000 unit range. The prices are always 2x to 3x retail cost for these when sponsored by a site or show. The Henkei seekers were made to order and were 4x-5x retail cost.

Not completely correct, Skywarp and Thundercracker cost 5 dollars more than standard Japanese retail price + shipping + what ever mark up your Japanese contact wanted + shipping to where you live. Or all of the previous with BBTS or TFScource mark up and shipping.

Also on the whole "listening to fans and catering to collectors": Hasbro released reissue Stepper/Ricochet at the time one of the most sought after figures on the secondary market and in high demand by collectors - they had to sell them off for below profit margin because suddenly he was no-longer cool.

Star Convoy also highly sought after met the same fate.

Remember the Universe special editions? Which where on-line only and catered towards collectors? Again, we waited till Hasbro put them on sale - twice.

And the best recent example: shared on-line exclusive Seacons, you can still get them heavily discounted.


Hasbro recently said that the only way they can reissue stuff any-more is by having them sponsored by a large chain willing to take a risk. After all, ask any child what they would rather have: One weird looking articulation less G1 toy they don't even recognise, or two highly accurate super articulated toys of characters they recognise?

bowspeaer,i'm replying to a few things you wrote in your last reply.

1-your idea of hasbro or other coroprate companies checking nntp or ip addresses everytime everyone does a on-line poll. HAS FAULT BECAUSE iphones/itouch & similar mobile devices have firewalls+decoders+scrambler software that allows the user of the device to hide his nntp or ip address.

1a-just a contiunation on your first idea. EXAMPLE: not on this seibertron.com forum but elsewhere--currently the transformers internet forums is being over run by some users who use iphone/touch & similar devices. were currently having this problem on 3 other transformers groups i post to on-line. where users are creating hundreds of newbie accounts. these fake users are creating newbie accounts to troll,curse,act perverted & to flame bait. their sole purpose is to ruin threads. I got a few email from other sites from mods/admins advising me of this problem.

2--hasbro will never take the lead & do reissues that takara didn't already release. it makes zero sense for me to explain why. when the average TF fan knows the answer. just a quickie answer. hasbro is too cheap & they save money. by letting takara spend the money+labor finding & fixing the master molds. then letting takara test the master molds. then letting takara set up the assembly line equipments & train the workers to use the equipment. Hasbro saves money by letting takara do all this then swooping in & not paying for any of this. if hasbro took the lead then they'd have to pay for everything takara did that i mentioned above.

Wow, there's some rather aparent... how to put this diplomatically? Some rather aparent large idological differences, in this thread.

Just to throw in my two cents that no one will likely care about, if they were producing KO toys that were difficult to tell from the originals, and in KO packaging also similarly difficult to spot, then I do say good riddance to them.

However, that being said, I must admit that, like a vulture, I could not help but pick at their corpse a bit for some seekers to fill out my Decepticon ranks. None of the main six, mind you. I will only have the official Hasbro ones for them, thank you. But I do have a set of rainmakers, a set of three purple generics, a Sunstorm, and a black seeker on the way.

I don't feel completely hypocritical. After all, none of the ones I ordered were colour schemes offered by Hasbro. Still, these will be the first carbon copied molds in my collection. Thus far, I've only bought original third party items. So this is a slightly darker grey area I feel I am going into, but I suspect it is a one time thing. Generally, I am strictly for original Hasbro (and occasionally Takara) or original third party items.

(That KO Powered Commander was a bit tempting, I will admit... But as a KO that wasn't even a recolour, it was a line I was unwilling to cross.)

@ Burn

The Encore Ratchet re-issue QC, is indeed kind of meeeh. Is it possible for you to post the ebay seller name(if it came from ebay)?

Other issues.............

I'm also surprised at the collectors market concerning the Encore figs (could be due to over saturation or the economy?)

If this info is accurate, God Ginrai was said to be over produced (over saturation?)

Encore Skywarp and TT are said to shelf warm (so maybe the reason for the limited run sponsorship of the henkei releases of the two?)and yet Starscream sells like hotcakes? No wonder Takara/Tomy ain't touching Ramjet and Thrust

Star Convoy also shelf warmed(?), but the reason may have been(speculation on my part) Takara not following up on the other Battlestars( Grandus cough, cough)

Stepper (Another surprising shelf warmer) I got one, excellent re-issue with a lot of improvements to the mold(so not a lazy re-issue)

Devastar(from what I gather, he is all but sold out in online stores in Japan) but again,Takara shot itself in the foot with another QC issue concerning Mixmaster. They never learn.

Seacons......... got it 'cause I don't have one but the QC, omigosh!

Sometimes I'm also frustrated at the fickleness of G1 fans.

Bowspearer wrote:Right after I was banned, I then looked up their IP address and hosting details and contacted their hosting company by email about them,which I never heard back from. I was also considering contacting Hasbro by phone.

When they announced pre-orders for Slamdance and Squawkbox though I took it an extra step and called Hasbro US from Australia in the middle of the night (I had to wait until after midnight to reach them during business hours) to report them.

Could you share these phone numbers with us? I think a lot of us would take advantage of this contact info, knowing now that this seems to work.

fenrir72 wrote:@ Burn

The Encore Ratchet re-issue QC, is indeed kind of meeeh. Is it possible for you to post the ebay seller name(if it came from ebay)?

It's possible, but i'm not going to. He got his feedback, I don't need to further bad mouth him.

If this info is accurate, God Ginrai was said to be over produced (over saturation?)

Oh he was. I got him when he first came out from Hobbylink Japan, a few months later I got a second one for about half prize from HLJ as they marked him down to get rid of him.
Turned around and sold him for a profit. Yeah that's right, I scalped him! Deal with it!

Encore Skywarp and TT are said to shelf warm (so maybe the reason for the limited run sponsorship of the henkei releases of the two?)and yet Starscream sells like hotcakes? No wonder Takara/Tomy ain't touching Ramjet and Thrust

Initially I passed on Skywarp and Thundercracker because I had them already in good condition.

Then they too got marked down. Think they worked out to $40AUD for the set.

Starscream though is clearly the more popular character.

Star Convoy also shelf warmed(?), but the reason may have been(speculation on my part) Takara not following up on the other Battlestars( Grandus cough, cough)

And he was a brick.

Stepper (Another surprising shelf warmer) I got one, excellent re-issue with a lot of improvements to the mold(so not a lazy re-issue)

He was okay. Really just milking the mold with that one though.

Devastar(from what I gather, he is all but sold out in online stores in Japan) but again,Takara shot itself in the foot with another QC issue concerning Mixmaster. They never learn.

Takara didn't shoot itself in the foot. TomyTakara did. Big difference. Since the merger the QC has definitely gone down hill. I was a big "get the Japanese version 'cause it's better" collector but these days there's not much difference to really warrant it.

Burn was a scalper?

I meant TomyTakara btw , and yes, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, when it was a for Japan product, quality is said to be tops, now, not much difference.

@Counterpunch & Dead Metal- every single issue you bring up there has been due to poor market research data- as well as the overproduction issues which have also been discussed in this thread. A census-based approach rather than a survey-based approach would eliminate those problems with the proper safeguards put in place in the data collection stage.

Tidalwavex wrote:bowspeaer,i'm replying to a few things you wrote in your last reply.

1-your idea of hasbro or other coroprate companies checking nntp or ip addresses everytime everyone does a on-line poll. HAS FAULT BECAUSE iphones/itouch & similar mobile devices have firewalls+decoders+scrambler software that allows the user of the device to hide his nntp or ip address.

1a-just a contiunation on your first idea. EXAMPLE: not on this seibertron.com forum but elsewhere--currently the transformers internet forums is being over run by some users who use iphone/touch & similar devices. were currently having this problem on 3 other transformers groups i post to on-line. where users are creating hundreds of newbie accounts. these fake users are creating newbie accounts to troll,curse,act perverted & to flame bait. their sole purpose is to ruin threads. I got a few email from other sites from mods/admins advising me of this problem.

Your point here completely fails to address what I brought up, because even if you have IP scrambling, you still would have "real" (ie ISP issued) email addresses as opposed to the hotmail and yahoo ones which you refer to in your issues over duplicate accounts on forums. Furthermore if the whole thing is account based that further locks things down.

Tidalwavex wrote:2--hasbro will never take the lead & do reissues that takara didn't already release. it makes zero sense for me to explain why. when the average TF fan knows the answer. just a quickie answer. hasbro is too cheap & they save money. by letting takara spend the money+labor finding & fixing the master molds. then letting takara test the master molds. then letting takara set up the assembly line equipments & train the workers to use the equipment. Hasbro saves money by letting takara do all this then swooping in & not paying for any of this. if hasbro took the lead then they'd have to pay for everything takara did that i mentioned above.

It makes zero sense to you because your point defies the logic of businesses. Hasbro will do anything if there is enough of a market there. Also as for Hasbro never reissueing something Takara haven't; last I checked, Takara have yet to reissue the Seacons.

Yotsuyasan wrote:However, that being said, I must admit that, like a vulture, I could not help but pick at their corpse a bit for some seekers to fill out my Decepticon ranks. None of the main six, mind you. I will only have the official Hasbro ones for them, thank you. But I do have a set of rainmakers, a set of three purple generics, a Sunstorm, and a black seeker on the way.

The different coloured Seekers are an interesting case. In a way they're straight knock-offs and in a way they're 3rd Party products. This is where Hasbro looking at a co-operative approach to 3rd party companies in terms of licencing, really would truly benefit everyone.

It Is Him wrote:Could you share these phone numbers with us? I think a lot of us would take advantage of this contact info, knowing now that this seems to work.

I just called the relevant number on this page after doing a google search for the website with the words "IP address" thrown in there.:

http://www.hasbro.com/customer-service/ ... ectory.cfm