ScottyP wrote:2010, eh? That's a perspective I couldn't disagree with more on a personal level, but your reasons are solid and to each their own, etc. What I remember of 2010 was start-and-stop, unfocused lines of product that had shelf-warming all-stars like Battle Hooks Leader Optimus or whatever and just about all of the PCC guys which were a major letdown outside of the torsos and individual scout/mini-con sets. The Generations releases were nice but hardly a focus at the time. Maybe it's me, but I remember that year as not bad but certainly far, far removed from best year ever.
Megatron Wolf wrote:I have to disagree with some of that, 2016 was not a good year distribution was a total train wreck, there was the wave 2 shortage that screwed over a lot of people and entire RiD & combiner waves were never seen, and lets not forget the fact that the prices went up yet again and quality went down yet again. Id say 2016 was not such a great year.
President-prime wrote:I cannot agree with this list. To say that 2010, 2016, above 1984 is flawed (in my opinion). Many of you weren't born or too young to comprehend the magnitude of transformers in 1984 g1 era. I'm not saying this but if you were there during that time, transformers are huge. Every stores sold transformers
Era. You can not go anywhere without seeing massive amounts of transformers. Every kid in the. neighborhood talked about transformers. Man, every flee market, swap meet, garage sales had transformers. They were huge. Living through all these times, I cannot say the same for the last 10-15 years.
I am glad we are all able to agree to disagree but what I want to point out is that the list isn't personal. It doesnt take personal situation into account on how the year was. It just looks at what came out. Thats the only way to write this list for me since I wasn't even born when Transformers first came out. So if I want to look at the past 30 years fairly, all I can do is look at what toys came out. There are mainly 4 haydays for Transformers toys that I am sure we can all agree on. There is G1 and Beast Wars, which create this amazing foundation and help maintain it. And then you have this golden age where designers are learning from the past and bringing it back better than ever and that's between 2003 and 2010. I think it was Scotty who pointed it out once what that golden era was. Where you had the best of quality, articulation, value, design, style. Its a wonderful era and hands down my favourite. And its culmination is 2010 with this great all encompassing Transformers line (that is really what the line was called) looking at G1 and movie toys and even giving us G1 reissues (like the sea cons). So thats where I am coming from. The shelfwarming and the fact that many remember it to be a meh year is due to the economy. Only in a recession would a $40 Buster Optimus Prime was shelfwarm, and that was felt all around on the distribution end, which ends with consumers. But it doesnt stop that year from being the apex of the most recent golden age of transformers, when looking at what came out and what was made.
So thats three haydays. I believe we are living the fourth right now. We may be too close to it to see it, but if you take a step back you will all see that we are getting more product and more diversified product than ever before. And When you add in Takara it gets truly epic. Never have we ever seen something like the two Computrons, something so radically different, being offered. Ginrai is also a good example. And then there are all the amazing MPs. We usually get one knock out MP mold a year to remember it by and this year there were several.
thesiege_2005 wrote:I don't understand 2010. I guess there was some good stuff that came out that year for collectors, but in terms of mainstream success I would think 2007 when the first Bay movie came out would have topped that. Plus it first gave us mainstream figures that were modern redesigns of classic characters (Classics/CHUG/CHUGGUR).
It was looking at toys mainly. And what started in 2007 seemed to reach its apex in 2010, hence why I picked it.
Just look at what you listed happened in 2006, g1 fans were happy, beast war fans were happy, unicron trilogy fans were happy, the fandom was happy, seems like a great year from my perspective.
2006 was a great year, but in the end, the other years just had more. And since this list is only based on what came out in a year, its hard to not see 2016 as great for Beast Wars fans. Instead of getting rerelased old toys we got Masterpiece Optimus Primal
And not only that but we now know it is the begining of a whole bunch of masterpiece figures. As a die hard beast wars fan, who was around in 2006 and did buy some rereleased toys, I found getting an MP Primal vastly superior. As for G1 fans, 2016 had way more to offer than 2006. We got a ton of headmasters and some amazing renditions of Blurr, Wheelie, Astrotrain and so on. If you just look at how much you got this year, it beats 2006 by a mile. And for any distribution woes, there is always the internet. We are all here, writing on this board, we know how to use the internet. If any of us want these toys, we can just buy them online. The only ones which were legitimately hard to track down for decent prices last year were deluxe groove and voyager skylynx. The rest required two clicks at any time. And all the TR toys did show up at retail eventually, many at even only 10$ a pop. I would know, this was the first year where I wasnt able to brag that I got the best deals since it seemed the best prices were in the US. You guys were even able to get Victorion for $40 , Fort Max for $75 and Platinum primal for $25, thats amazing!
shajaki wrote:Very awesome list, and awesome idea for a list!
Thanks man, and thanks for your awesome list too!
o.supreme wrote:Has anyone thought about what the 5 worst years would be?...not quite sure on the order, but for me it would be something like:
1992 (in most cases this was the year that *nothing happened* I know some TF's were released in Japan & Europe, but this was mostly the void between the original line and G2)
1990 - Action Masters and the end of the original series in most markets
1991 - More action masters
1995 Decline of G2, void between G2 and BW
1999 (this was tough because while I loved the BW Neo line in Japan, Hasbro was winding down BW with a lot of repaints, and gearing up for BM (blah). Plus Animorphs *shudders*
The early 90s were a low point for sure, hence the need for Beast Wars to save the line. But for a more recent year, I feel 2012 is a low point. You look at how better things were getting between 2003-2010 and then it slowly falls then dropping big time in 2012 with probably the worst quality plastic I ever felt and the smallest deluxes around.
) and some awesome redecos of some of the better Cybertron and Energon toys.
).
People had Black Friday style riots over a lot of stuff. Cabbage Patch Kids ring a bell? No? Well how about Super Nintendo? I bet you never heard of people being shot for a PS3 either? 
