wow im amazed by the extensive response. forums nowadays seem infected by the smartphone text culture.
(which touches the issue on discrimination, all this hate about trolls is just another way to reduce freedom of opinion: imho)
First of all sorry if you felt offended, i guess i just felt your answer was very passionate (not the answer to me.. but also that) which initially appeared wrong to me as i imagine a mod. should be more of a ... bot..
you know what i mean. anyways please accept my appologies if you were offended, i often conduct my argumentations through provokation, which, I know, isn't a particularly friendly attitude.
secondly thanks for your in depth answers, that actually addressed issues i had questions about.
This tf world seems so very complicated with all its multiverses, multiproducers, multidistributors, multirightowners.. multitoylines... should i go on?
coming from the comic world rather than the toy collector my perspective is more concerned on storybuilding, or worldbuilding.. hence the particular hate about the lack of a unified narrative vision. which other companies involved in fantasy and worldbuilding seem to deem important. (how many 'versions' of frodo are there?)
as for my interpretation of the 'function' of the site i may have judged to fast (i do perceive a passionate community around g1 atleast.. i think..) but seeing forum posts about 'desired future toys' i can think you can understand where im coming from. particularly in the gmail/google/utube infested times.
AND YES!! finally some1 that notices and points out my point! (yes that what happens when you use provokation to proceed through discussions..) WE ARE GIVING too much info about ourselfs... companies used to pay for customer information... now they can just come here and browse your forums (as an example).
not only it takes away bargaining power from you from the root, but it also helps the producers raise the prices later on by knowing what the hype is at that given moment.
fancomunities need to start taking care of each other.. TF, magic the gathering, gundam 1980s fans may not represent the highest demography, but they keep the product alive between a movie and another. but it would be naive to expect hasbro to 'take care of you' without taking advantage.
basically founder/ing fancomunities would greatly benefit from 'a la' 'trade-union' societies.
And I am being serious. I am telling you this as a man in his 30s who has seen 40 year olds bargain with 8 year olds about magic the gathering unsupervised... sorry that SHOULD BE ILLEGAL! It should also be illegal to sell a second hand card (to a minor) that has market values of +100 or even 50 dollars.
but while there are customer consortiums for more "acceptable" customer products, "geek communities" seem to always get the bad deal. even in the videogame scene hardcore communities seem to not have the bargaining power they used to.
It seems to me that companies in this situation (blizzard, wizards of the coast, hasbro) don't seem to understand the value of a founding fancomunity and how important they are in keeping the product alive between mass merchandizing investements (like a movie). On the other hand second hand markets don't really benefit companies directly.
As much as i feel obliged to try and tie all the above into one final sentance that makes it sound like a sensible argumentation, i feel it all just gets lost like .. tears, in rain... (yeah they just showed blade runner on tv.) In fact I somehow feel that this thirst i have about transforers has something to do with a late summer afternoon in the late 80s and a couple of kids watching a movie. Seeing my heroes killed of has evidently left the desire to see the stories of said being concluded with atleast a glimmer of happy ending, maybe then i can say goodbye forever to ratchet and co.. unfortunately, now that audience is different, in its 30's with other proplems and ideas. For example as i read posts of tf g1 fans around various fansites It seems to me that many are dealing with the issues of mortality and sense of place in the world/univesre (lost like tears in water. (Scott, 1982).), which are all things <30 years old do.
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