The Energon Pub

Seibertron.com staff admin El Duque has spotted a very interesting article on his hounding travels, from the games section of VentureBeat, a tech and business news blog. The site had a chat with Jagex chief executive officer Mark Gerhard, and they talked about various topics, some of which have been previously reported, such as the Decepticon-Autobot disparity and the gameplay style - make sure you head to the official Seibertron.com thread for the game for more!



In other news, however, Gerhard has an intriguing point about their collaboration with Hasbro. Read on below!

Jagex has created all the original Transformers featured in the game — such as Duststorm, Firebreaker, and Showdown — from scratch, working closely with brand owner Hasbro.

“The IP [intellectual property] has been going for the last 30 years,” said art director Gerard Miley, pointing out that Jagex was free to draw on the entire range of Transformer generations for inspiration. “Universe is a key word,” he added, while also noting the key influence of the Transformers Prime animated television series. “The DNA of Prime is in our game,” he said.

Hasbro has no Transformers manual to use when creating a new bot, “so it’s really just studying the visual language of it,” said Miley. “Using clever shapes and a little bit of trickery to get the transformations working.”

[...]

Working so closely with Hasbro has yielded some great cross-promotion opportunities for Transformers Universe.

“It’s been a tremendous relationship,” said Gerhard. “They’ve been really blown away by how we’ve paid homage to the brand.”

With that in mind, Gerhard told me that Hasbro “has taken a number of bots we’ve created and turned them into a toy line.”

The toys won’t interact with the game, as we’ve seen with titles like Skylanders and Disney Infinity, but their presence on toy store shelves will be a great boost to the Transformers Universe brand as well as vindicating the quality of Jagex’s original Transformer designs.

While Hasbro itself is “superkeen” to promote the game on this toy line, Gerhard is wary that most of the people who buy the toys are quite young. He wants the game itself to be well received within the industry and with older gamers before leveraging the “extra footfall” that the toy line would create. “I think it’s a fantastic enhancer,” he said.

While this is the first official confirmation we have about a Universe game-based toyline, it does not come as that much of a surprise - after all, we've already seen some odd bolts cropping up in the Transformers: Prime (RID) line. Remember them?



As other members of staff have also pointed out, the game has been in development limbo for ages, and we've heard and seen from one of its concept artists previously too, with clear Prime-esque concept designs too. You can read the whole interview here - and make sure to leave your thoughts in the Energon Pub!

Oh. I'd actually be all over that like urban decay on Detroit.

could be good

Interesting...

They'll be Generations toys I'm sure, like FOC, at least of all the characters that were based of TF Prime toys! Anything could come in Generations.

YES! YES!!

My collection is Prime-based so any "Prime inspired" toy is very welcome.

Hold the phone and back the truck up, there.

Former Hasbro Associate Product Designer, and current freelance designer for Hasbro, Joe Kyde has chimed in on this, believing it to be a mere misunderstanding:

This is total speculation on my part, but this may be based on a misunderstanding. I noticed things like that happen all the time. I used some of their designs as jumping off points for some of the figures I worked on. This did involve confirming that it was OK for me to do so. This could have been misconstrued as "Hasbro's totally doing a toyline based on the video game" instead of "hey, that new Generations Salt Man Z looks a little like one of the cars in the video game."

No, there's not really a "Generations Salt Man X" coming (however slagging awesome that would be); twas just a hypothetical example.

And, come on guys. We know the Prime line is dying, and we already know of the plans Hasbro has laid down for AOE Generations, AOE Robots in Disguise, Collector Generations, Platinum Edition, Rescue Bots, and Construct-Bots for the foreseeable future. Nowhere is there room for them to work in yet another line, especially one for a game based on a dying series even if the game itself kept getting delayed and pushed back passed the point of death.

That's why I said 'remember the ones that already came out and didn't fit the line when they did'!


We're pretty sure they mean the figures that already came out in the Prime RID line, as the game has been taking foreeeeeeever to be released. Not a new line, but an old one that already had the figures ready to be sold alongside the game when it was first meant to come out.

Is what I think, at least.

Sabrblade wrote:Hold the phone and back the truck up, there.

Former Hasbro Associate Product Designer, and current freelance designer for Hasbro, Joe Kyde has chimed in on this, believing it to be a mere misunderstanding:

This is total speculation on my part, but this may be based on a misunderstanding. I noticed things like that happen all the time. I used some of their designs as jumping off points for some of the figures I worked on. This did involve confirming that it was OK for me to do so. This could have been misconstrued as "Hasbro's totally doing a toyline based on the video game" instead of "hey, that new Generations Salt Man Z looks a little like one of the cars in the video game."

No, there's not really a "Generations Salt Man X" coming (however slagging awesome that would be); twas just a hypothetical example.

And, come on guys. We know the Prime line is dying, and we already know of the plans Hasbro has laid down for AOE Generations, AOE Robots in Disguise, Collector Generations, Platinum Edition, Rescue Bots, and Construct-Bots for the foreseeable future. Nowhere is there room for them to work in yet another line, especially one for a game based on a dying series even if the game itself kept getting delayed and pushed back passed the point of death.

Shhhhh... Shhhh... Let us dream...

*pushes a pillow over Sarblade's face*

Shhh.... only dreams now...

It WOULD be kinda awesome to get figures out of these guys though.

Va'al wrote:That's why I said 'remember the ones that already came out and didn't fit the line when they did'!


We're pretty sure they mean the figures that already came out in the Prime RID line, as the game has been taking foreeeeeeever to be released. Not a new line, but an old one that already had the figures ready to be sold alongside the game when it was first meant to come out.

Is what I think, at least.

But those were all based on existing designs, either from existing toys that they just redecoed/remolded, or designs taken from the Binder of Revelation.

Though, Rumble... I dunno where that design came from.

Fires_Of_Inferno wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Hold the phone and back the truck up, there.

Former Hasbro Associate Product Designer, and current freelance designer for Hasbro, Joe Kyde has chimed in on this, believing it to be a mere misunderstanding:

This is total speculation on my part, but this may be based on a misunderstanding. I noticed things like that happen all the time. I used some of their designs as jumping off points for some of the figures I worked on. This did involve confirming that it was OK for me to do so. This could have been misconstrued as "Hasbro's totally doing a toyline based on the video game" instead of "hey, that new Generations Salt Man Z looks a little like one of the cars in the video game."

No, there's not really a "Generations Salt Man X" coming (however slagging awesome that would be); twas just a hypothetical example.

And, come on guys. We know the Prime line is dying, and we already know of the plans Hasbro has laid down for AOE Generations, AOE Robots in Disguise, Collector Generations, Platinum Edition, Rescue Bots, and Construct-Bots for the foreseeable future. Nowhere is there room for them to work in yet another line, especially one for a game based on a dying series even if the game itself kept getting delayed and pushed back passed the point of death.

Shhhhh... Shhhh... Let us dream...

*pushes a pillow over Sarblade's face*

Shhh.... only dreams now...

It WOULD be kinda awesome to get figures out of these guys though.

That's the thing though... between Va'als' and Sabrblades' last two comments we know that we already have some of these figures. We just don't recognize which ones, or at least those of us unfamiliar with the game don't.
This is what's so hilarious (and kind of stupid) about those that were so adamantly opposed to Drift being released and some folks grumbling about Windblade getting a figure. There are brand new characters in the game that likely already have figures and NOT ONE person has complained about them being made part of official cannon because they were slipped in quietly with an existing line. But make a bit of fanfare over a character and folks lose their freaking minds and protest. It's going to be almost impossible now to slip in any new characters under any line and not give acknowledgement to the game but then, as Sabrblade mentioned, we won't be seeing anything new from any other outside inspirational source for a long time. The movie and the new cartoon series will dominate the next couple of years worth of toys. Even Generations will barely be a trickle by the end of 2014.

And isn't the Binder at the core of Transformers: Universe too? What I'm arguing, based on the different pieces of information we have (including Christiansen's interview with us) is that those products that were not tv show specific, such as Rumble, Ironhide/Kup, and even Thundertron, were created with the game in mind. But then the latter tripped, stumbled and is only now seeing the light of day.

Fires_Of_Inferno wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Hold the phone and back the truck up, there.

Former Hasbro Associate Product Designer, and current freelance designer for Hasbro, Joe Kyde has chimed in on this, believing it to be a mere misunderstanding:

This is total speculation on my part, but this may be based on a misunderstanding. I noticed things like that happen all the time. I used some of their designs as jumping off points for some of the figures I worked on. This did involve confirming that it was OK for me to do so. This could have been misconstrued as "Hasbro's totally doing a toyline based on the video game" instead of "hey, that new Generations Salt Man Z looks a little like one of the cars in the video game."

No, there's not really a "Generations Salt Man X" coming (however slagging awesome that would be); twas just a hypothetical example.

And, come on guys. We know the Prime line is dying, and we already know of the plans Hasbro has laid down for AOE Generations, AOE Robots in Disguise, Collector Generations, Platinum Edition, Rescue Bots, and Construct-Bots for the foreseeable future. Nowhere is there room for them to work in yet another line, especially one for a game based on a dying series even if the game itself kept getting delayed and pushed back passed the point of death.

Shhhhh... Shhhh... Let us dream...

*pushes a pillow over Sarblade's face*

Shhh.... only dreams now...

It WOULD be kinda awesome to get figures out of these guys though.

if its integrated into an existing line then why not make em but if its going to be its own line then dont. there are to many sub lines as it is and if they do a thing where they are exclusive to the games site then they will be over priced and many will miss out.

I noticed on that guy from Jagex's account profile (Sorry man; I am not too great with names that aren't associated with attractive women ) that Circuit (the gangster?) was listed as his favorite toy, so perhaps he will be in the first wave of figures.

If this becomes a reality, I would love to own Conduit.

I'd still like a Thunderwing from the Wii game too, by the way, Hasbro.

Va'al wrote:And isn't the Binder at the core of Transformers: Universe too? What I'm arguing, based on the different pieces of information we have (including Christiansen's interview with us) is that those products that were not tv show specific, such as Rumble, Ironhide/Kup, and even Thundertron, were created with the game in mind. But then the latter tripped, stumbled and is only now seeing the light of day.

Okay, now that I've finally gotten around to reading that interview, I'm not really seeing much in it that points to the non-show Prime designs being made with the game in mind.

The ones like Ironhide and Thundertron do originate from the Binder, but in Ironhide's case, he was merely one of the Binder's many reimagined designs given to classic characters for people working on other projects derived from the Binder's contents to use as a frame of reference for how a new Ironhide ought to look in a general sense. As for Thundertron, when his toy was first revealed at BotCon 2011, it was treated as a means to help promote the then-new Exiles novel, in which he first appeared. And of the two online games to tie into Prime, it was the canceled Chinese game that Thundertron would have played a major role in, rather than this game.

Though, the designs for Rumble and Dead End are... curious enough in appearance, to say the least, that I could see them being designed with something like a game in mind. But, Dead End does still at least use an existing design (Wheeljack's) as a base, with only his head and deco being new creations. Yet, the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to see them as being mere creations of the toy designers like how Animated Oil Slick and Jetfire & Jetstorm were, being original toy-only designs created without a specific intent of being put into the greater media (only for those particular three to be inserted into season 3 of that cartoon, that is). After all, the Prime cartoon models were created before the toys were, so if the toy designers themselves came up with Rumble and Dead End, they wouldn't have been made from any existing character models.

It seems a similar sort of case with all these new game characters, likely having been created for just the game in mind rather than being made with tie-in toys taken into consideration. Plus, since the game had been in development for so long, if they were gonna make toys of the game-original characters, wouldn't it have made more sense for them to have already started working on toy designs back when the game was in development during the heyday of Prime? Had they been planning on making toys for the game bots, it would have fit better to release them during the PRID line, but none of the game characters that have been hyped up and promoted thus far got their own toys.

As for the Binder's relation to the game, since the game will probably focus more primarily on free gameplay rather than a set storyline, I wouldn't put much stake in the Binder influencing the game beyond only the most basic, general rules for the game's world.

In the end, though, we'll just have to wait and see, but I just don't want anybody to set themselves up for disappointment since that's no fun.