I didn't get into TF toy collecting until late 2007 so I wasn't in the fandom during the announcement of the MP and Binaltech lines. However, I was aware of both lines, through just seeing the MP-01 toy in photos and seeing Alternators when they made it over to North America.
It may seem odd to some but to me, Masterpiece has "always" been around. This is a great article and I think it's a wonderful way to regain perspective on the Transformers brand.
I mean, let's consider the landscape of the Transformers brand as far as toys and interaction with fandom from Hasbro and TakaraTomy during the pre-Masterpiece years. It seems like MP and Binaltech were the first signs of a focused effort from the brand owners(Hasbro and TakaraTomy) to address the rising population of the TF fandom.
I take things like Classics/Henkei/Universe/Generations/etc. for granted but I need to be reminded that up until about a decade ago, outside of things like convention exclusives, there was little, if anything, in the main toy line that was geared towards a customer who wasn't a kid of a certain age group.
Ravage XK wrote:Cant believe it was so long ago.
Indeed! Look at how much the Transformers brand has changed over a decade.
When I step back to take a look at the overall state of the online Transformers fandom...I see a relatively good thing. We have the luxury to complain about things that aren't going our way in terms of product design direction or media direction. That means Hasbro and TakaraTomy are able to take certain risks, to test the waters because they're not going to go bankrupt if a particular market strategy doesn't do as well as they hope.
Compare this to other brands that aren't doing so well, where fandom may be correct to fear the possible demise of those brands in the foreseeable future.
When is the last time that we've had valid argument in the global TF fan community discussing whether or not Transformers is in dire straits?
Could any company afford to invest in fan centric product campaigns such as Thrilling 30 if they weren't doing well financially?
Love or hate what is going on with the brand right now, let's try to see that it's a prosperous brand at this time and with some patience, it should come back around into a direction that will please folks who may not look at things like the live action movies or the last two animated series with favourable eyes.
At the very least, the MP line is full of great momentum and despite misgivings of certain product design directions the current main toyline has taken(Prime/BH), we still have word from the Global Brand Manager for Transformers that there is no intention of basically messing around with the Generations line.
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
