The Energon Pub

Sorry if there has been other threads on this, I couldn't find any when looking. But my big beef is this..The TFC Hercules are selling for $100 for each figure. That's the same price as most MP except these are no where near the quality of an MP. Each figure has standard detail with non articulated hands. It's only after they form NOT Devastator is when this set becomes more awesome for $600,, WHAT??? Sorry but yes it's a nice set, but.....

A) It's still made in China from a factory for same price as $1 store items
B) There NOT Hasbro/ Takara giving them next to no Collectable value
C) There 3rd party meaning they're going to get knocked off (Just like Crazydevy's set) and sold for 25% the cost for an IDENTICAL ITEM making the $600 set worthless. TFC has no rights to this likeness meaning it's OPEN SEASON for knock offs, with next to no legal recourse for TFC to take.

Don't get me wrong I love this set, I plan on getting one, (Once they get reissued by the factory making these for TFC for 75% less). I just feel because something is Transformer related it gets an instant marked up value becuase collectors will pay it.. Thats creating a fake collectors market.

What do you guys think?

I don't like 3rd party stuff, they horribly feed of Hasbro's ideas and properties. So there's that.

But ehm... Where do you get that this tuff costs $1 to make? Design, shipping, packaging, production, assembly, paint, material... All for $1?

It all reads like you are a frustrated windowshopper.

RhA wrote:I don't like 3rd party stuff, they horribly feed of Hasbro's ideas and properties. So there's that.

But ehm... Where do you get that this tuff costs $1 to make? Design, shipping, packaging, production, assembly, paint, material... All for $1?

It all reads like you are a frustrated windowshopper.

Sorry I ment $1 (Which was a little low, but I wouldn't put it past $10) to manufacture, And yes plastic toys in China are very cheap to manufacture. It's the truth, I have Asian buddies in different fields who do business in China and it's very cheap to produce stuff there, Thats why 90% of stuff you see says made in China. Yes there's other costs like design, shipping (which is almost free in China) Material, I get that, but it's all cheap in China when bought in bulk. Next time your out goto the dollar store, you will see many items there for $1 that are in packages. But maybe $1 is a little harsh but I promise you that actual manufactuing costs of a Hercule's figures are probably around $5-$10 dollars. And if you dont believe that, goto the toy section in Walmart, you will find MANY toys there priced at around $10 that use the same amout of material used in a Hercules figure. I really like these figures but Im going to wait for these to get Stolen and knocked off. Have you see what happened to Cazydevy, A company is selling the COMPLETE devy set for $25, Head, arms, legs, shield, gun, Barrel, and it's ALL identical. Thats a $125 in savings. 3rd party companies never had legal rights to the likeness in thr first place and have no legal recourse. If Hasbro wanted to the could take these molds and sell the figures themselfs and TFC couldn't do a thing about it.

*sigh* Here we go, yet again. First up, this thread belongs in the Knock-Offs and 3rd Party Toys sub-forum in the Toy Forum.

The reason why those things are so expensive is because they're made by small fry, with small production runs. It's all statistics, but the same goes for Fun Pub's stuff: the smaller the production run the higher the price relative to volume.
Also, you have to take the rent of the facilities into consideration, not to mention having to plan production inbetween that of other companies, and the quality of materials used. That's nothing to sneeze at, I assure you. And if you must know, I consider most stuff in dollar and liquidator stores a bit sub-par, not to mention they're infested with Knock-Offs.

One final thing: when online stores stock the product, import charges and duties come into play, which can really add up.

As Jelze was getting at, the toy design process is actually quite expensive. To produce a mold and then replicate in the factory, it costs tens of thousands of dollars. Then you add in other things too. Such as the owners banking on this as their only job/business and they need to make a profit for a sustainable life style.

Yeah, cost of materials only goes so far. Plus, the $1 KOs aren't exactly ... quality. Most of them are a cheap POS that can barely pass muster as a playable toy.

But, yeah, you're not the first to balk at the price of Herc / 3rd party products / exclusives. They're all very expensive and they're only as much as someone is willing to pay for them. There's good points on either end of the spectrum.

And it's not safe to assume someone will KO Herc. Not every 3rd party product or Botcon exclusive is KOed.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Yeah, cost of materials only goes so far. Plus, the $1 KOs aren't exactly ... quality. Most of them are a cheap POS that can barely pass muster as a playable toy.

But, yeah, you're not the first to balk at the price of Herc / 3rd party products / exclusives. They're all very expensive and they're only as much as someone is willing to pay for them. There's good points on either end of the spectrum.

And it's not safe to assume someone will KO Herc. Not every 3rd party product or Botcon exclusive is KOed.

Ya, true, I was a little off by saying $1 but not by much, And yes you are so right about what people are willing to pay. RIGHT NOW ON EBAY, there's a painted Hercules figure up for sale and the highest bid so far is $1250.00 for a RE PAINTED Hercules complete set.

And no not every figure does get K/Oed but since TFC has NO legal rights to the image I'm very confident this will be cloned (NOT KO'ed) people wont even be able to tell the difference (Check out Ebay, One compaany in China has been selling MP Starscream NEW for 2 years straight, these were cloned) just like with Crazydevy's custom (that on K/Oed but identical) . and $1250 for a Hercules, wow.

Bravo2010 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Yeah, cost of materials only goes so far. Plus, the $1 KOs aren't exactly ... quality. Most of them are a cheap POS that can barely pass muster as a playable toy.

But, yeah, you're not the first to balk at the price of Herc / 3rd party products / exclusives. They're all very expensive and they're only as much as someone is willing to pay for them. There's good points on either end of the spectrum.

And it's not safe to assume someone will KO Herc. Not every 3rd party product or Botcon exclusive is KOed.

Ya, true, I was a little off by saying $1 but not by much, And yes you are so right about what people are willing to pay. RIGHT NOW ON EBAY, there's a painted Hercules figure up for sale and the highest bid so far is $1250.00 for a RE PAINTED Hercules complete set.

And no not every figure does get K/Oed but since TFC has NO legal rights to the image I'm very confident this will be cloned (NOT KO'ed) people wont even be able to tell the difference just like with Crazydevy's custom set. and $1250 for a Hercules, wow.

As I understand it, the Xtransbot add-ons are crap. Even crappier than the Crazy Devy originals.

It's really not about legal rights (KO companies obvious care nothing about that), it's whether I believe they'll actually make KOs of all six robots. They haven't done that so far, at least for Neo G1 stuff. Take the Botcon KOs. Yes, they've KOed SG Rodimus and Optimus .... but not Grimlock, Megatron, or Starscream (and that's just out of the SG box set). They have made a great selection of Seekers, but that's just one mold with a few swappable parts; hardly in the same vein.

And then there's quality to consider. Sure, the "high quality" KO are nice ... for KOs. There's still very annoying QC problems for those, and they're really simple molds. The CC set also has some problems, especially fitting on to the KO Prime mold. I question how well a copy of the Herc set will hold up, especially given the QC flaws already present. So, even if they make it, the quality is very much up in the air

And there's still PLENTY of other things they can KO. If they wanted to KO a Devestator they COULD turn to Giant. They COULD KO the Insecticons. They COULD KO the KP Bruticus set. There's so many things they COULD KO before getting to Herc. It's not always about making something cheaper, they have to move product the same as eveyone else. So, just like with the originals, they'd have to push all 6 unique toys to really make a go of it. And nothing I've seen suggests that they're willing to make a set like that.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:*sigh* Here we go, yet again. First up, this thread belongs in the Knock-Offs and 3rd Party Toys sub-forum in the Toy Forum.

The reason why those things are so expensive is because they're made by small fry, with small production runs. It's all statistics, but the same goes for Fun Pub's stuff: the smaller the production run the higher the price relative to volume.
Also, you have to take the rent of the facilities into consideration, not to mention having to plan production inbetween that of other companies, and the quality of materials used. That's nothing to sneeze at, I assure you. And if you must know, I consider most stuff in dollar and liquidator stores a bit sub-par, not to mention they're infested with Knock-Offs.

One final thing: when online stores stock the product, import charges and duties come into play, which can really add up.

SIGH for me too, The reason these things cost $600 is becuase people will pay $600, Herc could have been sold complete for $300 and still made a large profit. Thanks for the leason but it's flawd. $1 store was an extreme reference as to show a point. Look at the G1 Devastator K/O, It's almost identical to the original with all quality plastics and parts, also A+ packaging, these sell for $65-$95 with large profits being made.

Bravo2010 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:*sigh* Here we go, yet again. First up, this thread belongs in the Knock-Offs and 3rd Party Toys sub-forum in the Toy Forum.

The reason why those things are so expensive is because they're made by small fry, with small production runs. It's all statistics, but the same goes for Fun Pub's stuff: the smaller the production run the higher the price relative to volume.
Also, you have to take the rent of the facilities into consideration, not to mention having to plan production inbetween that of other companies, and the quality of materials used. That's nothing to sneeze at, I assure you. And if you must know, I consider most stuff in dollar and liquidator stores a bit sub-par, not to mention they're infested with Knock-Offs.

One final thing: when online stores stock the product, import charges and duties come into play, which can really add up.

SIGH for me too, The reason these things cost $600 is becuase people will pay $600, Herc could have been sold complete for $300 and still made a large profit. Thanks for the leason but it's flawd. $1 store was an extreme reference as to show a point. Look at the G1 Devastator K/O, It's almost identical to the original with all quality plastics and parts, also A+ packaging, these sell for $65-$95 with large profits being made.

G1 Devestator is much smaller than Herc.

But we really don't know how much profit TFC made. You may be right and they made tons of money from it. Or they could have broken even. Unless we know we can't rightly say it's overpriced (or fairly priced, really).

Bravo2010 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:Yeah, cost of materials only goes so far. Plus, the $1 KOs aren't exactly ... quality. Most of them are a cheap POS that can barely pass muster as a playable toy.

But, yeah, you're not the first to balk at the price of Herc / 3rd party products / exclusives. They're all very expensive and they're only as much as someone is willing to pay for them. There's good points on either end of the spectrum.

And it's not safe to assume someone will KO Herc. Not every 3rd party product or Botcon exclusive is KOed.

Ya, true, I was a little off by saying $1 but not by much, And yes you are so right about what people are willing to pay. RIGHT NOW ON EBAY, there's a painted Hercules figure up for sale and the highest bid so far is $1250.00 for a RE PAINTED Hercules complete set.

That is done by a customizer who has made himself a name, and 1250 for six voyager sized figures is nothing, a lot of Jin Saotome's Voyager scaled customes make more than that.

It has nothing to do with TFC or their pricing, it's how much the fans of the artist value his work.

Also the reason why toy production is so cheap for Hasbro, last official statement was $0.79 for 2007 Movie Leader Class Optimus Prime, is the sheer bulk they can produce their products in.
We've seen what TFC's factory looks like, and it's nowhere near the size or man-power that Hasbro has, it's tiny and requires a lot of manual labour, it's litle more than a glorified workshop.
TFC can't aford to produce their stuff in the quantanties that Hasbro does, which makes it more expensive to produce the indevidual pieces.
On top of that TFC has to pay the designers for their work.

KOs and clones are so cheap because the only expenses they have is the material cost, since everything else is already done.

The 95 dolars for the indevidual components for Herc include the design work, the engeneering, the mold creation, the testing, the materials, the production, the marketing, transportation from the factory to TFCs Warehouse, a profit for TFC, taxes, shipping to the retailers, taxes, and profit for the retailers.


I'm also pretty sick of people signing up to the forums and making uneducated rants about something they don't like and understand.

Dead Metal wrote:I'm also pretty sick of people signing up to the forums and making uneducated rants about something they don't like and understand.

This.

It's honestly embarrassing to read threads like this made by people who have no desire to do any kind of research and only want to complain.

Sorry if I offended anybody, This was my opinion, one that is shared by others as well. I do have a Medium sized collection of Transformers valued @ around $10,000.00 I know that might not be that large to give me the right to speak about prices. I always do research on anything I plan to buy, and believe it or not I will probably end up buying this. It still doesn't change my opinion on the price. If Takara or Hasbro offered this for $600 people would be very angry. And if Somebody wants to pay $1300 for a painted Hurcules, hey it's their money, IF someone wants to call the guy who painted that an artist thats their right too.

Don't get me worng, I'm not a troll, and was glad to find a site dedicated to Transformers collectors, Im 35, married with 2 kids and don't know anybody that collects TF, so i don't really have anybody who gives a %$#% about the matter and was glad to find a place where's theres people that at least understand what I'm talking about.

Again this was never intended to be a troll fest, just an opinion.. thx

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at Hasbro/Takara. They could have produced these figures for $20 - $30 a piece. I own them, and I can tell you there's nothing "special" about them. They're rather simplistic actually, and yet they completely succeed in all modes. I'm just grateful there are companies out there who will give us things that for whatever reason Hasbro/Takara won't.

If Takara or Hasbro offered this for $600 people would be very angry.

Well, Hasbro has a wide distribution network and CAN make this cheaper. So, yeah ... people would feel pretty ripped off. But in comparison to other figures of this type (Warbot Defender, Delicate Warrior, Knight Morpher), the price is, reletively, reasonable.

Emphasis on reletively.

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at Hasbro/Takara. They could have produced these figures for $20 - $30 a piece.

Yeesh, voyagers cost me MUCH more than $20. After taxes, that's how much a deluxe costs here in Canada.

IF they were willing to bank on kid's parents buying all six then, yeah they *could* make it. But seeing as they're just now making a decent Bruticus (at deluxe size), I tend to doubt it'd happen.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

If Takara or Hasbro offered this for $600 people would be very angry.

Well, Hasbro has a wide distribution network and CAN make this cheaper. So, yeah ... people would feel pretty ripped off. But in comparison to other figures of this type (Warbot Defender, Delicate Warrior, Knight Morpher), the price is, reletively, reasonable.

Emphasis on reletively.

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at Hasbro/Takara. They could have produced these figures for $20 - $30 a piece.

Yeesh, voyagers cost me MUCH more than $20. After taxes, that's how much a deluxe costs here in Canada.

IF they were willing to bank on kid's parents buying all six then, yeah they *could* make it. But seeing as they're just now making a decent Bruticus (at deluxe size), I tend to doubt it'd happen.

Thanks for the different points, some of which I should have considered more closely, like I stated, I'm going to buy these, probably a lot sooner then later. Im deciding between a couple of distributors. I was just peeved at the cost of admission. And thats a funny statement about kids parents buying them these, With MP's costing $70-$80 per figure at Toys R Us, Im thinking theres not a lot of KIDS buying these. I felt bad for that too, Last time I was at Toys R Us, The average cost of an action figure was $15-$20 for 1 and the really cool/ good stuff costing big $$$. Anyways thanks for listening to my confusing rant. One way i'm peeved but on the other I'm still buying, I hope you understood that too.

Bravo2010 wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:

If Takara or Hasbro offered this for $600 people would be very angry.

Well, Hasbro has a wide distribution network and CAN make this cheaper. So, yeah ... people would feel pretty ripped off. But in comparison to other figures of this type (Warbot Defender, Delicate Warrior, Knight Morpher), the price is, reletively, reasonable.

Emphasis on reletively.

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at Hasbro/Takara. They could have produced these figures for $20 - $30 a piece.

Yeesh, voyagers cost me MUCH more than $20. After taxes, that's how much a deluxe costs here in Canada.

IF they were willing to bank on kid's parents buying all six then, yeah they *could* make it. But seeing as they're just now making a decent Bruticus (at deluxe size), I tend to doubt it'd happen.

Thanks for the different points, some of which I should have considered more closely, like I stated, I'm going to buy these, probably a lot sooner then later. Im deciding between a couple of distributors. I was just peeved at the cost of admission. And thats a funny statement about kids parents buying them these, With MP's costing $70-$80 per figure at Toys R Us, Im thinking theres not a lot of KIDS buying these. I felt bad for that too, Last time I was at Toys R Us, The average cost of an action figure was $15-$20 for 1 and the really cool/ good stuff costing big $$$. Anyways thanks for listening to my confusing rant. One way i'm peeved but on the other I'm still buying, I hope you understood that too.

I understand. I just don't nessasarily ... fully agree.

I'm a little more peeved that BBTS jacked up the price by $10 while other stores had a discout when buying all six (no, I don't know where the discount was).

Bravo2010 wrote:Sorry if I offended anybody, This was my opinion, one that is shared by others as well. I do have a Medium sized collection of Transformers valued @ around $10,000.00 I know that might not be that large to give me the right to speak about prices. I always do research on anything I plan to buy, and believe it or not I will probably end up buying this. It still doesn't change my opinion on the price. If Takara or Hasbro offered this for $600 people would be very angry. And if Somebody wants to pay $1300 for a painted Hurcules, hey it's their money, IF someone wants to call the guy who painted that an artist thats their right too.

Don't get me worng, I'm not a troll, and was glad to find a site dedicated to Transformers collectors, Im 35, married with 2 kids and don't know anybody that collects TF, so i don't really have anybody who gives a %$#% about the matter and was glad to find a place where's theres people that at least understand what I'm talking about.

Again this was never intended to be a troll fest, just an opinion.. thx

If Hasbro made them, they'd produce a ton more which brings the costs down considerably. Look at the prices that are charged for official exclusives produced in comparable numbers. Almost $60 for a deluxe that's only a repaint. And then look at what places like BBTS charge to resale those figures...it's practically the same cost as the Herc figs which are all new molds and voyager sized! That's where the brunt of the mark-up comes, the outfits selling these things. RK charges $78 and they too have to be making a worthwhile profit so it's probably safe to say TFC Toys is selling them at less than $60.


BTW, I believe capturedprey.com is selling the set for like $530 shipped within the US...

I'm also pretty sick of people signing up to the forums and making uneducated rants about something they don't like and understand.

I'm glad I came here more then any other place, A couple of days ago I was little upset about the cost of something that I really wanted which I believed was over priced. After reading your guys responses I realized these are priced where they should be and are worth it. SO thanks again, I'll be buying this set on my next pay check. Looks like there's a very educated group of collectors here, I would like to know better,, cheers

Bravo2010 wrote:

I'm also pretty sick of people signing up to the forums and making uneducated rants about something they don't like and understand.

I'm glad I came here more then any other place, A couple of days ago I was little upset about the cost of something that I really wanted which I believed was over priced. After reading your guys responses I realized these are priced where they should be and are worth it. SO thanks again, I'll be buying this set on my next pay check. Looks like there's a very educated group of collectors here, I would like to know better,, cheers

Glad to have you aboard

I'm willing to bet that if more people didn't like Herc, this would go in a different direction than it did. I, personally, don't like the set. I see it as an overgrown Lego KO. The cost is too rich for my blood.

headsortails wrote:I'm willing to bet that if more people didn't like Herc, this would go in a different direction than it did. I, personally, don't like the set. I see it as an overgrown Lego KO. The cost is too rich for my blood.

True, it's was hard one too, because if you read my first post, if people actually got to the bottom part, I said I love this set and plan to buy it. I wasnn't slamming the product I was slamming the price. So I'm new on a board where members don't know me. But it could have gone worse. The price is rich too, The most I ever paid for a single TF is $250, I have figures worth much more but I bought them years ago,,(like Ultra Magnus C69 mint for $60) so $600 for one (I know theres 6 but individually they're worthless) is a lot.

So you have people here the paid the $600 and are going to defend it. I'm ording my set this friday for $495 shipped and will display it in the mancave but will be to embarrassed to tell any other adult I paid $495 for a plastic toy.

I think very few of us will brag about paying $600 for a TF to anyone.

I can't say I'll defend payign that much for a TF in as much as I'll say I feel ripped off by BBTS' markup. Especially since the first two figures were $10 less than the last 4.

Overpriced? Look at how much lucky draws cost nowadays then tell me Hercules is overpriced.

Proud owner of a Hercules here. Don't regret it.

However, you will have that moment where you feel reality slap you as you realize you just dropped $600 on 6 voyagers.

It fades though when you see the full combined mode sitting on your shelf.