The Energon Pub

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MMC have been doing so much great stuff recently, but this is ridiculous

A little while ago they bitch about a third group entering the Predaking race and now they are the third to enter the Brainstorm race...

And then there is the fact that it looks ****! Hate to say it, but I'll be sticking with FP

Alt mode looks better than Toyworld but not the Robot mode. To be honest I'm sick of this competition crap. Somebody do a god damn Highbrow and stop this BS all ready. I'm willing to double dip, but not triple dip. MMC should focus on getting the Predacons done quicker and make an Elia-One version of that weird Arcee mold they have.

Oh, bloody hell...

I love Hexatron. I'll have to see size, price, and relase date comparisons. I have a feeling that since I already have FP preordered that I'll be sticking with them.

Is Brainstorm really this popular?

The only Headmaster I ever had was Squeezeplay. How about someone do one of him?

Or even .... DINOBOTS! You know, those guys who turn into grey and gold dinosaurs? Reeeaaaaaalllly obscure and hardly anyone will go for 'em, but if there's enough of a market for 3 Brainstorms maybe Dinobots are worth a shot.

First they cancel their Perceptor due to lack of interest (because, you know Hasbro's was pretty good and then KFC's is also pretty good), then they announce another figure that's being done twice already!

I'm seriously wondering about MMC's long-term planning at this stage.

Someone make an Apeface already!

Wait, they cancelled Perceptor? Awwww, that was exactly what I wanted too.

Guess I'll just stick with the Universe one.

Same as everybody else.. WHY? and it doesn't even look good imo . I hope there not planning on a full set the way things are going with these company's they will loose peoples interest, i'm starting to get bit bored now to be honest.

Arctorro wrote:A little while ago they bitch about a third group entering the Predaking race and now they are the third to enter the Brainstorm race...

And then there is the fact that it looks ****! Hate to say it, but I'll be sticking with FP

You speak the truth, brother!

Autobot Genocide wrote:I hope there not planning on a full set the way things are going with these company's they will loose peoples interest, i'm starting to get bit bored now to be honest.

Depressingly, so do you Genocide.

It's times like these that reminds me why FansProject were once easily the pinnacle of 3rd party figures.

Seriously? The f**k?
I mean I never even knew who the hell Brainstorm was until a few months ago, why the hell does he have 3 3rd Party toys now? And then of course CHMS will be KOing at least two of those.

Why the hell are there so many damn options for obscure characters hardly anyone cares or knows about?

I mean my god.

What's next? Are they all going to jump on making G1 Overload next?

Why are there still no plans for an Erectors guys?

As just about everyone has said so far...

WHY!?

Brainstorm? B-brainstorm? A THIRD one of him? Seriously? This is insane, and stupid. And a waste. Guys, your Predacons? Arcee?

Yeah, the Dinobots. I seem to recall seeing them once or twice. But nah, we need three different versions of a Headmaster from the beginning of the end of G1.

He looks like he would be beefy, like ToyWorld's version. Also, not sure about the eyes but we don't have a good view of them. I'd be interested to see what the headmaster looks like in bot mode.

Overall, nice figure. It seems to hold its own. But I do share sentiments with the rest of you, it feels too late in the game for another company to start with the Headmaster line of figures. Maybe some Targetmasters would be helpful (the large bot AND the weapon, not just the weapon a la FP or Master Shooter Collectibles)?

Yeah, there are many characters that still can be covered, don't really need to catch up with the recent MTMTE hype. Guess my recent purchase with MMC might stop with Predaking unless they come up with some thing better.

I'm honestly surprised at the reactions I'm seeing here.

I don't know about all of you, but I WANT competition, and I WANT options.

While I definitely agree that this particular offering is probably the weakest of the three currently under development (and the weakest possible project I've seen from MMC ever), and while I do think MMC is being unnecessarily aggressive in all of their recent announcements (I mean c'mon... they must be looking for fights, or something), I don't think that they should be bashed just for presenting us with a third option.

If this really does bomb, it will send MMC a message as to what kind of figures and what designs are viable, and they'll probably come back with a different product that is on the whole stronger due to the failure. I'm all for that. Competition means these companies will be putting their best foot forward. The final result will be better products for us, the fans. I fail to see anything wrong with that.

EDIT: This is not to say they shouldn't be filling character gaps. They have, and should continue to do so. But if this means the final Brainstorms we get from each of the 3rd parties are ratcheted up a notch, I'm okay with that, too.

megatronus wrote:I'm honestly surprised at the reactions I'm seeing here.

I don't know about all of you, but I WANT competition, and I WANT options.

You make decent points, but from where I'm coming from, a 3rd party exists to make something that Hasbro won't do. They're they only to fill a gap, or make an existing offering more accurate.

I would not care if three groups made a similar product to fill a gap if they could maintain a constant production of other figures alongside, similar to a single wave of toys that Hasbro produces.

But it seems that to make a single figure takes up months of time where the group is only focusing on that one figure. From a business perspective, it makes very little sense to go after a hotly-contested space. We TF Collectors who are interested in 3rd parties are only so numerous after all.

What I want is a gap filled on my shelf by a good representation of a character. In some cases, that's FP (Brainstorm), in others it may be MakeToys (Giant), but now that the gap is filled, unless something VASTLY superior comes along, I'm not going to worry too much about it and move on to the next gap that needs filling.

The frustration stems not that there is competition, it's that we've seen how long it takes to go for a character to go from a silhouette teaser, to being a plastic piece of awesome on our shelves. We get frustrated because we see groups (I'm not entirely sure I want to call them companies anymore) spending their resources in making a character that we don't need because our minds are pretty much made up.

We're also PO'd that no one's made some of the obvious ones by now, such as the Dinobots, or a Galvatron.

Mkall wrote:

megatronus wrote:I'm honestly surprised at the reactions I'm seeing here.

I don't know about all of you, but I WANT competition, and I WANT options.

You make decent points, but from where I'm coming from, a 3rd party exists to make something that Hasbro won't do. They're they only to fill a gap, or make an existing offering more accurate.

I would not care if three groups made a similar product to fill a gap if they could maintain a constant production of other figures alongside, similar to a single wave of toys that Hasbro produces.

But it seems that to make a single figure takes up months of time where the group is only focusing on that one figure. From a business perspective, it makes very little sense to go after a hotly-contested space. We TF Collectors who are interested in 3rd parties are only so numerous after all.

What I want is a gap filled on my shelf by a good representation of a character. In some cases, that's FP (Brainstorm), in others it may be MakeToys (Giant), but now that the gap is filled, unless something VASTLY superior comes along, I'm not going to worry too much about it and move on to the next gap that needs filling.

The frustration stems not that there is competition, it's that we've seen how long it takes to go for a character to go from a silhouette teaser, to being a plastic piece of awesome on our shelves. We get frustrated because we see groups (I'm not entirely sure I want to call them companies anymore) spending their resources in making a character that we don't need because our minds are pretty much made up.

We're also PO'd that no one's made some of the obvious ones by now, such as the Dinobots, or a Galvatron.

I agree with a lot of what you say Mkall.

This might be providing another choice, but it isn't really doing anything on the competition side of things. FP are locked into their design and price (which is decent) and to change anything now would be a terrible business decision. Toyworld released their prototype images a few months after FP clearly having made the decision to go with that ugly X-wing ripoff even though a competitor had a cheaper(?) show accurate version on the horizon. So this is having no effect on the competition mainly because these images were released waaaaay to late.

The recent Predaking "competition" has shown that most who decided to go with MMC months ago are staying there even though TFC are producing something nice. We've had months of drooling over Feral Rex and it would take something monumental to turn us away from him.

Even if this looked halfway decent (which it doesn't) so many people are locked into FP or Toyworld (or both?). There are those who go with the sites that make you pay for pre-orders up front and I'm guessing there are plenty of people who have spent months looking at the prototype images and imagining how it is going to look on the shelf (I know I have) and can no longer accept any alternative.

If MMC had released images of Overly Long And Stupid Name six months ago and it had looked good, then I'd agree 100% that the competition was going to benefit us, but now it can only hurt us because a good 3P company is wasting time and resources on something the community doesn't really need at this point. As Mkall said, they should be focusing on characters that are being ignored, or maybe some like the Combaticons, that have received an upgrade kit (and two figures) but not a proper "Classics" style remake.

Mkall and Arctorro said it better than I can. It's too little, too late for their Brainstorm. Third-party companies, for me, are best when filling character gaps.

The acronym for Brainstorm is BS. Need I say more ?

I see complaints falling into two buckets -

Generally:
1) 3rd Party 'Groups' ( ) take too long to get product to market.
2) They should be focused on filling gaps.

Specifically MMC:
3) MMC is late to the table in this instance.
4) Man, does their Brainstorm look like crap!


I'm 100% with you guys on the MMC complaints. Their Brainstorm looks terrible, and is coming rather late. I understand this looks like a waste of time on MMC's part - but if they do go ahead with it, I feel like a failure here will benefit us in the long run. They'll have to up their game on the next project that much more. Hopefully, all of our comments will cause them to cancel this as they did with Perceptor. It seems to me they're trying to feel out their next project rather then making a hard commitment. We know they have Arcee & Nova Prime in the works, so, for now, the future looks promising for them.

I disagree with the more general comments about 3rd Party Groups. Hasbro & Takara take several years to bring a toy to market - I can pretty much guarantee that Metroplex & Soundwave took at least 2+ years to design, model, test shot, tweak, etc. It's just that they don't announce the thing until it's basically finished. At the point we learn about things like MP Prowl, delays are more due to factory scheduling than anything else (that's an assumption on my part so please, correct me if I'm wrong). Although 3rd Parties don't always take as long as HasTak, it still takes a while. It's the name of the game, and I'm fine swallowing that pill if amazing figures like Hexatron are the result.

As far as gaps... I respect that sentiment, but it feels like a "Why can't they just do more of what we want?" type complaint. It's valid in its own way - these groups ARE trying to get our money, after all. On the other hand, we wouldn't be able to benefit from these groups unless they were independent, and in that vein, I bet they have their own motivations for pursuing Headmasters, something currently cornered by FP and Toyworld. I'm okay with a 3rd Party not bringing a new character to market if it means I get to have a choice. That MMC's Brainstorm simply looks terrible is a separate issue (per above), but I do appreciate the idea of getting another option to consider, even if I think the execution is off.


Speaking of Headmasters, someone want to tell me which they like better overall Toyworld or FP?

You know, I'd like to see the Target or powermasters tackled, too...

You know, if guys like this can get three toys, how about someone makes two more Beachcombers?
IGear's version is kinda crappy, as is HAsbro's legends toy.
How about someone shows him some love? Why can't I choose from 10 different Beachcombers?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

If it weren't for competition we'd be stuck with CrazyDevy upgrades, Impossible Toys Arcee and Unique Toys Predaking.

Be glad that the third party industry is doing **** like this. It's healthy. Tey can afford to anything now, and that is because they've 1) Gotten past the point where the income from the previous project supports their next 2) Gotten so good at making toys 3) Realize us fans will pay anything for everything.

You can't fault them for looking at facts.

You look at any thread you have here, and you see a fantastic piece of engineering and modelling for a character such as Nova Prime, and despite all of that, only half of the people like it. That's the way things go. So the other third party comes in and scoops up all the other fans. They're all making money.. it's not even competition - its like they're helping each other out. Not everyone was going to buy UT PK. Not everyone liked the aesthetics of MT PK. Not like people don't like TFC PK. Each company is making a profit because the amount of collectors that are attracted by the 3P Predaking companies is gigantic, it is attracting everyone.

Rinse. Repeat. Whatever. There's no point in complaining when these are the monsters that we've been feeding.

Rated X wrote:The acronym for Brainstorm is BS. Need I say more ?

megatronus wrote:I disagree with the more general comments about 3rd Party Groups. Hasbro & Takara take several years to bring a toy to market - I can pretty much guarantee that Metroplex & Soundwave took at least 2+ years to design, model, test shot, tweak, etc. It's just that they don't announce the thing until it's basically finished. At the point we learn about things like MP Prowl, delays are more due to factory scheduling than anything else (that's an assumption on my part so please, correct me if I'm wrong). Although 3rd Parties don't always take as long as HasTak, it still takes a while. It's the name of the game, and I'm fine swallowing that pill if amazing figures like Hexatron are the result.

For me at least, it's not so much the amount of time, it's time spent. I'm more than happy for MMC to take the extra time to get Predaking right. It's when they spent all that time on something that seems (to me) to be pointless.

megatronus wrote:Speaking of Headmasters, someone want to tell me which they like better overall Toyworld or FP?

FansProject hands down. I've got both Code and Hardbone (that name ) and Code's transformation is on a completely different level! The way the cockpit is used to store part of the vehicle mode and some of the features in the transformation, it is just a joy to play with. Hardbone is a great toy, but it is just a body with treads that become arms and legs. Fun, but not nearly as much as Code.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:Mkall and Arctorro said it better than I can. It's too little, too late for their Brainstorm. Third-party companies, for me, are best when filling character gaps.

For the sake of saving space on the thread, I'll just agree with your comment instead of quoting the entirety of Mkall's and Arctorro's. I'm in complete agreement with all three of you.

If a 3rd party group want to spend their time and resources on a character that's already got two figures in the works or in the wild, all the best to them, but I won't necessarily be ordering.

One thing I was kind of half expecting from multiple 3rd parties tackling the same character was a general decrease in price, but instead their response does indeed seem to be an increase in quality. That I can live with. Collectors pay for the best. After all, I only need one Arcee, one team of Predacons, one Brainstorm. And if a company are busy developing a rival product for the one I want, then they're not working on an uncontested product, and I'm theoretically coughing up less each month for my habit.

I can't help but wonder what Brainstorm would say to all this talk of three 3rd party figures of himself.

Brainstorm: "Those creeps, swiping my idea! I'll sue!"