The Energon Pub

Bowspearer wrote:At the risk of turning myself into a pariah in the fandom again, I have a confession to make. After I got banned from KO Toys' forums for voicing concerns over there being no intentionally built in differences between the KO Dino cassettes they were making and the genuine article, I did an IP check and found out their website was hosted in the US. About a week and a half ago, I used the international minutes on my mobile to report them the Hasbro, including giving them their IP address, hosting company (which is based in Michigan) and website address. Looks like they acted pretty swiftly on this one.

Some people might hate me for this, but I'm proud of what I did and I'd do it again. Contrary to their claims, KO Toys were giving scammers cart blanche to pass off fakes as genuine G1 Toys, which has even proven true in at least one eBay auction for the Dino Cassettes.

HasTak certainly need to get better with their reissues, and there's certainly a market for access to these molds. However if someone is genuinely about "filling gaps" then this needs to be done in such a way that scammers can't rip people off in the process.

You did the right thing.

So I have a bit of a rush to pick up the KO Reflector. 'kay, good to know.

Whoa, this turned personal really fast. Tends to happen when Deathywave20X6 or whatever it's going to be next is around. Weird...

Counterpunch wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:And here's where I'm going to say a very unpopular sentiment. If you can't afford a figure that you want, tough ****! There are plenty of figures that I want for my collection but can't afford, too bad for me. I am in no way entitled to any of them and neither are you. Suck it up.

Word.

I couldn't agree with this more. Are we seriously that spoiled?

I also get slightly annoyed with the "KOToys gave me a choice" argument. When Hasbro puts a figure out, you have a choice. Whether it is $10 or $300, you have a choice. If its out of your price range, budget your money and buy it when you can afford it. It's crazy how that works.

amcgrath929 wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:And here's where I'm going to say a very unpopular sentiment. If you can't afford a figure that you want, tough ****! There are plenty of figures that I want for my collection but can't afford, too bad for me. I am in no way entitled to any of them and neither are you. Suck it up.

Word.

I couldn't agree with this more. Are we seriously that spoiled?

I also get slightly annoyed with the "KOToys gave me a choice" argument. When Hasbro puts a figure out, you have a choice. Whether it is $10 or $300, you have a choice. If its out of your price range, budget your money and buy it when you can afford it. It's crazy how that works.

If you're paying $300.00 for a toy, that's crazy too. Legit or KO, $300.00 is just flat out crazy. Some of you might have disposable income, which $300.00 still seems exorbitant, but most don't. Even then...they still find a way to spend through the nose over some toys. No thanks.

Put any number in there you'd like, the math is the same.

zodconvoy wrote:So I have a bit of a rush to pick up the KO Reflector. 'kay, good to know.

Whoa, this turned personal really fast. Tends to happen when Deathywave20X6 or whatever it's going to be next is around. Weird...

don't blame me for this hostile thread. This thread turned hotile,dis-respectful & insulting slinging on the first page. i entered this thread near the end of the 5th page.

all i did was state my opinion,in a polite & respectful manner. it's not my style to insult anyone nor do i call members here insult names nor curses. i prefer to treat members here with repect & dignity. because were all transformers fans & we all deserve respect no matter how different our opinions may be.

Tidalwavex wrote:BTW,It's extremly selfish to hate kotoys because they made ko toys out of exspensive tf toys that you own.

And yet I have repeatedly said, including in my post that my issue was that KO Toys were reproducing rare items right down to knocking off the packaging. I have no problem with KOS which are clearly distinguishable as KOs. However what KOToys were facilitating though were outright counterfeits.

Tidalwavex wrote:it's a selfish act because other fans deserve the right to buy these ko's TF toys for much cheaper prices.

not everyone wants to nor can afford the high secondary prices for the liscensed TF toys.

Really, I wasn't aware that being able to own every single toy in existence was on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or that Capitalist societies were forced to resort to Communist practices when it came to issues of supply with non-essential items.

I'd love a Learjet, a billion dollar mansion and a complete collection of cars (including a modified Contach 500s) replicating the 1984/5 cars. However I'm mature enough and realistic enough to realise that it may never happen, or if it does, it will be due to having been fortunate enough to happen.

That's the difference between being a mature adult in this hobby and an adult who mistakes the age recommendation of "Ages 5+" on what they collect, with the maturity level which is acceptable from them as an adult.

Tidalwavex wrote:who cares if tf fans with exspensive stuff get their stuff devalued because of reissues,ko's or re-releases.

You've screwed yourself over with your own argument here. Anyone spending even 30 seconds looking at the difference between the packaging of reissues and re-releases can tell that unlike these outright counterfeits which KOToys produced and facilitated; there's a clear effort by HasTak, even when in the case of Encores, the G1 style packaging has been emulated, to put clear writing and logos on the packaging which make it clear there's a reissue there.

Furthermore what tends to happen anyway is that the market for those who only want originals stays the same, while the market for those who just want the figure shrinks and then grows back once the re-issue has finished selling and demand for it grows too anyway.

Tidalwavex wrote:I don't care,i love it when this happens. THESE ARE TOYS THAT ARE MEANT TO BE ENJOYED BY AS MANY AS POSSIBLE. not by only a select few. These tf toys were never meant to make others jealous or to make others pay beyond high secondary prices.

So then let's take that argument to the fullest extreme. Your argument firstly is utterly fallacious, because under that line of thinking, toys should be enjoyed by children alone.

Under that logic, this website should not exist, or should have a maximum age limit of 12 (which is the age ceiling of where toys have been traditionally marketed to) with the exception of a select few adult moderators.

Furthermore, conventions should not exist, and the fan club should be just a basic mail out with some cardbord playset or small figure which people pay for by buying several toys, cutting out a portion of their cards and then mailing off the required portion for each little toy, along with a certain money amount, either by cheque or money order.

So the very SG toyline people talk about here, would never exist to begin with, nor would most of the TFCC toys people here are complaining about access to. After all the SG line and other convention and club lines are specifically marketed as adult collectibles.

Furthermore any adult who actively went looking for toys would be instantly viewed as being mentally retarded with the mental age of a 5-12 year old or a pedophile looking for grooming implements by society.

So which way do you want it- adult collectibles existing and things like convention exclusives being listed, or the very act of collecting toys having a high risk of seeing you being put on a child sex offender list because some idiot out there has overreacted and seen your hobby as attempting to make yourself able to groom a child (which with our society as it is, in that scenario, would be a likely alternative)?

Autobot032 wrote:If you're paying $300.00 for a toy, that's crazy too. Legit or KO, $300.00 is just flat out crazy. Some of you might have disposable income, which $300.00 still seems exorbitant, but most don't. Even then...they still find a way to spend through the nose over some toys. No thanks.

Any more crazy than a "grown adult" being the fan of "a child's plaything"?

Yes, we're all fans here, including you (otherwise why would you be here) and as such, those sorts of numbers as a fan, are justifiable to the fan mindset.

When I bought my sealed set of Diaclone Powerdashers and my sealed set of Godmasters; I didn't have $200 in disposable income- I simply saved and went without other things (nothing essential like board or travel expenses) to make it happen.

Declaring that as crazy in a place like this is throwing the proverbial stone in the proverbial glass house.

Tidalwavex wrote:all i did was state my opinion,in a polite & respectful manner. it's not my style to insult anyone nor do i call members here insult names nor curses. i prefer to treat members here with repect & dignity. because were all transformers fans & we all deserve respect no matter how different our opinions may be.

Actually what you did was defend a "victimless crime" (which btw is an oxymoron), and accuse one of the victims of it (at least one other person here also wanted Slamdance/Beastbox too or has been caught out by these fakes) of being selfish. So you were rather insulting, by accusing myself and others of being so vain, jealous and selfish that we can't possibly bear the thought of others owning the same rare piece that we do- simply false.

Furthermore your entire argument for it was the antithesis of reason and logic. In fact I could take every single one of your posts I was responding to and when quoting them, replace what you had said with the words "pure fallacy".

The problem is that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. With theft, "someone can probably afford it". With home invasion "it's their own fault for not being more careful". It escalates further and further, to the point of fashion sense when you get to the point of rape and "justifiable homicide" regardless of how much of an act of self-defence the killing actually was.

Ethically speaking (and I expect those who are incapable of grasping this concept to quote Godwin's Law here), there is no difference between a small "victimless crime" and when you get upto things like genocide and "ethnic clensing", besides the level of dehumanisation.

In every single case, you are dehumanising the person to some extent. At the lowest rungs, you start out at the human right to own property with theft. The level of dehumanisation increases with the crime, until you reach complete dehumanisation with the crimes of genocide and "ethnic cleansing".

In short, the moment there is a crime of some kind, someone always gets hurt and there is always a victim.

Bowspearer wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:If you're paying $300.00 for a toy, that's crazy too. Legit or KO, $300.00 is just flat out crazy. Some of you might have disposable income, which $300.00 still seems exorbitant, but most don't. Even then...they still find a way to spend through the nose over some toys. No thanks.

Any more crazy than a "grown adult" being the fan of "a child's plaything"?

Yes, we're all fans here, including you (otherwise why would you be here) and as such, those sorts of numbers as a fan, are justifiable to the fan mindset.

When I bought my sealed set of Diaclone Powerdashers and my sealed set of Godmasters; I didn't have $200 in disposable income- I simply saved and went without other things (nothing essential like board or travel expenses) to make it happen.

Declaring that as crazy in a place like this is throwing the proverbial stone in the proverbial glass house.

Tidalwavex wrote:all i did was state my opinion,in a polite & respectful manner. it's not my style to insult anyone nor do i call members here insult names nor curses. i prefer to treat members here with repect & dignity. because were all transformers fans & we all deserve respect no matter how different our opinions may be.

Actually what you did was defend a "victimless crime" (which btw is an oxymoron), and accuse one of the victims of it (at least one other person here also wanted Slamdance/Beastbox too or has been caught out by these fakes) of being selfish. So you were rather insulting, by accusing myself and others of being so vain, jealous and selfish that we can't possibly bear the thought of others owning the same rare piece that we do- simply false.

Furthermore your entire argument for it was the antithesis of reason and logic. In fact I could take every single one of your posts I was responding to and when quoting them, replace what you had said with the words "pure fallacy".

The problem is that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. With theft, "someone can probably afford it". With home invasion "it's their own fault for not being more careful". It escalates further and further, to the point of fashion sense when you get to the point of rape and "justifiable homicide" regardless of how much of an act of self-defence the killing actually was.

Ethically speaking (and I expect those who are incapable of grasping this concept to quote Godwin's Law here), there is no difference between a small "victimless crime" and when you get upto things like genocide and "ethnic clensing", besides the level of dehumanisation.

In every single case, you are dehumanising the person to some extent. At the lowest rungs, you start out at the human right to own property with theft. The level of dehumanisation increases with the crime, until you reach complete dehumanisation with the crimes of genocide and "ethnic cleansing".

In short, the moment there is a crime of some kind, someone always gets hurt and there is always a victim.

dude,you can create all the clever words you like & twist around others members words.

disclaimer: this is my opinion,nothing i state is fact.

those botcon attendees who make profits off botcon convention & club toys from my perspective deserve to have their stuff devalued by kotoys. because no fan deserves to pay double nor tripple for botcon convention or club toys on the secondary market.

those botcon profit guys are upset with kotoys.com because fans were given a alternative choice of obtaining the items at cheap decent prices.

SORRY,Having the only option of paying secondary profit prices for botcon toys is not the adult mature & morally right thing to do. supporting these botcon profit guys is not something I nor others are willing to do.

i'd throw away $1,000 dollars down the drain or shred a $1,000 dollars in a paper shredder. instead of handing over a $1,000 to these botcon profit guys for botcon toys. i'd rather see these botcon profit guys over buy the items & forever get stuck with them,no one buys them & they hoarde the toys forever.

Tidalwavex wrote:those botcon attendees who make profits off botcon convention & club toys from my perspective deserve to have their stuff devalued by kotoys. because no fan deserves to pay double nor tripple for botcon convention or club toys on the secondary market.

Generally those prices only exist for a few weeks after BotCon. The KO stuff tends to take a while to come out.

Thereby the only people who's figures are being devalued are those who made it to BotCon and got them there, or those who paid after-BotCon prices. The "BotCon attendees who make profits off BotCon" aren't hurt by KO's because their stuff is already sold on. So you might want to rethink that argument.

SORRY,Having the only option of paying secondary profit prices for botcon toys is not the adult mature & morally right thing to do. supporting these botcon profit guys is not something I nor others are willing to do.

i'd throw away $1,000 dollars down the drain or shred a $1,000 dollars in a paper shredder. instead of handing over a $1,000 to these botcon profit guys for botcon toys. i'd rather see these botcon profit guys over buy the items & forever get stuck with them,no one buys them & they hoarde the toys forever.

But you'd happily part with your money to a KO'er. Right. Okay. That makes perfect sense.

Tidalwavex, if you were trying to disprove my point, you failed miserably. In fact, the fact that you clearly have some kind of a crusade against FP to the point where you want fans to suffer for the "crime" of simply sacrificing to earn a rare piece for their collection, truly does you no favours whatsoever.

You claim that your opinions are not fact. Considering that your opinions in this thread, have shown themselves to be completely devoid of ethics, reason and maturity; it would indeed seem that this sentiment is correct.

A child expects toys handed to them. An adult understands that things, especially collectibles, need to be earned. You would do well to remember that.

I 'm having a hard time figuring out why some people are trying to defend Ko Toys............I'm sorry, but if I owned a company building something and found out that someone else was TOTALLY copying my stuff and selling it as their own, I would have them shut down in a heartbeat. I don't see how it could get so complicated. This doesn't just seem like a moral gray area to me. It's straight up stealing! And no, third parties (except for Igear) don't count. They use their OWN molds and designs for their figures, and they don't have licensed Transformers logos stamped on them How is this confusing? As for the whole "don't want to pay scalped prices in the secondary for club and con exclusives"- well do like I do and GET OVER IT. I wish I could have gotten a Wildrider or SG Rodimus, but I couldn't, and I can't afford the high price now, but i'm not gonna bitch about it or buy a stolen molded copy from recycled Easter basket plastic.........

Sorry..............my rant has ended

Well it's about time. That's what happens when you sell Copyright and trademark infringements. I don't care who you are, or what your opinion is about KO toys.
It's illegal, and it's wrong.

And to back up what others have said already.

If you can't afford a toy, tough ****.
If toys are that important to you that you buy counterfeit / stolen property because you can't afford the original piece. You need a life, and a therapist.
Hasbro has the right to defend it's Copyrights and Trademarks aggressively. KO is the first to go. Keep bitching and complaining, and Hasbro will stop playing ball with the 3rd party companies.

Just because it's original molds, doesn't make it any less illegal.
Exgraver and Heavy Labor looks enough like the original characters that it would be infringement. For some reason Hasbro has let these guys continue. So let's back the guys actually doing the work, and stop buying from people like KO who just replicate, and counterfeit TF toys, regardless of age.

Whoa with tensions looking high I'm surprised this thread hasn't been shut down....yet. So besides ebay is there any other site that deals in heavy or few KO's? The only beef I have is when seller's try to dump KO's on unknowing buyer's and selling it for something it is not!

RodimalToyota wrote:Just because it's original molds, doesn't make it any less illegal.
Exgraver and Heavy Labor looks enough like the original characters that it would be infringement. For some reason Hasbro has let these guys continue. So let's back the guys actually doing the work, and stop buying from people like KO who just replicate, and counterfeit TF toys, regardless of age.

That's where I think Hasbro needs to change its game and look at the way you approach licencing for smaller 3rd party companies. Licensing fees on some of these toy runs are so cost prohibitive per unit that it makes playing ball by the smaller companies somewhat difficult.

I'm not saying that Hasbro shouldn't be getting covered IP-wise, but that 3rd party companies could easily operate in an authorised manner with a restructured approach to licencing fees.

What Hasbro really needs to start doing with them is approaching things not from a flat licensing rate, but a percentage of each unit rate- be that 5%, 10% or 20%.

It then puts Hasbro in a position where if they have no intention of covering certain characters because of perceived poor sales, they can simply hand it over to a 3rd party who does want to go there and get licencing royalties without having to worry about having to justify retail runs of several million on a niche character, while allowing fans to be serviced by companies who operate outside of conventional retail chains with production runs in the thousands- well below Hasbro's economy of scale.

While the likes of KO Toys was bad news no matter which way you looked at it; 3rd party companies could be a handy means for Hasbro to fill gaps in collector and adult demand which simply aren't workable with Hasbro's business model.

Whether Hasbro recognises this and embraces the notion of licenced, tiny collector-based authorised external products, or fails to take advantage of them though, remains to be seen.

And remember, kids, it's only infringement when someone borrows a HasTak idea...when HasTak is the one doing the borrowing, as LT would say, "then it's all clean."

I find it amusing that several people believe that this will herald the total eradication of knock offs of Hasbro products world wide; making it easier to not run into a bad deal at conventions, online auction sites, or e.tailers - so your investment remains valid...

What nonsensical logic.

I've read so much minutiae about Mike and Kate. There is so much "I heard this..." and "Since [insert popular forum poster ID here] said that they're drug addicts and bad people, screw them... not my money".

Which is completely fine. But, I remember when the majority of us just didn't care about the business side. At one time, the majority of us just cared about the toys, and not spreading rumor, profiteer hoarding (read: scalping), or slinging mud at each other. Fandoms, it seems, change.

However, when it comes to 3rd party products, realize that these same creators come from the same perspective as the good people (IMHO) at KOToys; providing things they would've made for themselves (via mass production and assembly lines available to them) to the fans willing to spend their money on the product.

I am not Hasbro, not their target audience, am not concerned with the "official" stamp of approval, and am not a stock holder. I'm merely a dork that still collects toys that I think are fantastic. I owe Hasbro nothing that exact moment I plunk down that paper currency.

I know several of you won't care when I say I've had a great time with the KOToys community, and will continue to support their services -in whatever form they take on- going forward.

To everyone else, enjoy your Botcon exclu$ives, I know eventually I will too.
There will be several out there who want to nitpick this post, which is their right... please excuse my nonchalance.

Court Jester wrote:I find it amusing that several people believe that this will herald the total eradication of knock offs of Hasbro products world wide; making it easier to not run into a bad deal at conventions, online auction sites, or e.tailers - so your investment remains valid...

What nonsensical logic.

I've read so much minutiae about Mike and Kate. There is so much "I heard this..." and "Since [insert popular forum poster ID here] said that they're drug addicts and bad people, screw them... not my money".

Which is completely fine. But, I remember when the majority of us just didn't care about the business side. At one time, the majority of us just cared about the toys, and not spreading rumor, profiteer hoarding (read: scalping), or slinging mud at each other. Fandoms, it seems, change.

However, when it comes to 3rd party products, realize that these same creators come from the same perspective as the good people (IMHO) at KOToys; providing things they would've made for themselves (via mass production and assembly lines available to them) to the fans willing to spend their money on the product.

I am not Hasbro, not their target audience, am not concerned with the "official" stamp of approval, and am not a stock holder. I'm merely a dork that still collects toys that I think are fantastic. I owe Hasbro nothing that exact moment I plunk down that paper currency.

I know several of you won't care when I say I've had a great time with the KOToys community, and will continue to support their services -in whatever form they take on- going forward.

To everyone else, enjoy your Botcon exclu$ives, I know eventually I will too.
There will be several out there who want to nitpick this post, which is their right... please excuse my nonchalance.

So it's okay for me to take an idea you had en sell it for cash? Right-o, let's go. What have you got? Tell me, I need your money.

Court Jester wrote:I find it amusing that several people believe that this will herald the total eradication of knock offs of Hasbro products world wide; making it easier to not run into a bad deal at conventions, online auction sites, or e.tailers - so your investment remains valid...

What nonsensical logic.

This post is so ironic in its accusation of the logic of others being non-sensical, when the entire post smacks of self-absorbed, immature relativism, completely devoid of logic or being in the real world.

You like at least one other person are so focused on Botcon exclusives that you miss the point.

KO Toys wasn't just providing KOs of toys which were clearly recogniseable as KOs; they were KOing everything, right down to the packaging, which was then giving scammers the opportunity to rip people off with a steady supply of fakes.

They knew the risks, they had people point out solutions, yet rather than take them on board and in the case of G1 KOs, incorporating some clear difference between it and the real thing with the packaging at the very least; they banned people for pointing out a problem of their making.

They're just as big a pack of scumbags as the scammers themselves, and supporting that kind of behaviour just makes the people who do it look dodgy as all hell.

This post is yet another example of an adult who thinks that just because they collect a child's plaything that it gives them a free pass to act childishly.

Good luck with supporting KO Toys- it would honestly be karma if one day you were badly ripped off by someone passing off a G1 knock off as the real thing.

@ Bowspearer: Immature, you say? Please enlighten me.

@ RhA: In all seriousness... huh? Is it alright if I make money off protected material - is the concern here, right? No, it's not alright. It's not legal here in the US. So I don't do it. Is it legal to do so in China? Hell if I know. Are Chinese goods available to US citizens; you know like TFC's Hercules? You bet. All part of globalization of capitalism. If you want to stomp your feet and cry about me buying said goods, it's certainly a free country.

its funny that weve got posters who bitch and moan about ko's yet have no pictures up of their collections and another poster who talks about collectors hoarding and yet bought 6 tru rodimus primes just to resell them to pay for one. and at inflated prices for that matter.

everyone bitches about the need for ko's until they try to sell that limited exclusive theyve been holding onto only to find out there a couple of hundred knockoff in perfect replica packaging on ebay for half their asking price.

as far as hasbro going after 3rd parties aint gonna happen. all theyd have to do is show up with a classics "jetfire" and images of the original valkyrie to make their point. anyway kotoys is no more so lets just move on and get back to our lives because lets be honest weve got better things to do.

I would like to add, most of the knocked off exclusives KOToys was making/selling cost more than their original RRP by Has/Tak, so they where not "fairer" more reasonably priced alternatives to the originals.

And just to show my stance on this whole issue, I bought a Kold Blue Konvoy and a DIY KO Jizzai Powerglide kit from them. Why? Well I love the Classics Prime mold and wanted a blue version to display alongside of my original Classics Prime figures, the kit was just an impulse buy since I was and still am against knocking off Jizzai Toys.
I wouldn't have bought them before, due to the prices being too inflated and unreasonable, costing more than the original versions of those molds.