Sabrblade wrote:For those wondering why neither Hasbro, Takara, nor the Club has done GoBot redecos beyond Movie Fracture and BotCon 2007 Bug Bite, it's because they really sorta can't. Hanna-Barbera and Bandai own the GoBots characters and likenesses, preventing there from being a Transformers toy done up in the colors of a GoBot and with the name and identity of said GoBot its deco is homaging.
When e-HOBBY did their six-pack Minibot G1 GoBots redeco set, they got around the legal trouble by using prototype Transformers decos that didn't resemble any of the GoBot decos, and by not even giving the six of them names or identities. The toys were all nameless and bio-less.
BotCon 2007 Bug Bite had its deco based on the nameless e-HOBBY toy, and while Club fiction has established him as officially being the GoBot Renegade of the same name, his bio did not directly identify him as such, instead remaining ambiguous about his true nature, writing him as an enigma among his peers:
Bugbite is a Decepticon shrouded in mystery. Many serving under Bludgeon are unsure as to why he gained such favor. commander of one of the finest ships within Bludgeon's army, Bugbite enjoys unusual freedom of action, often disappearing for months at a time with his eclectic crew of ne'er-do-wells on missions of which none of them ever speak. Many under his command have abandoned partners and friends without a word leading many to suspect even greater duplicity than is typical among the Decepticons.
And Movie Fracture was a very borderline case that played at least a part in TF companies' current reluctance to do any more direct GoBot homages. That figure was intended to be the GoBot Crasher, but couldn't be due to Crasher's character and likeness being owned by Hanna-Barbera and Bandai, and so became the different character of Fracture. But, its deco was still very much that of Crasher, making it walk the thin line of what TF companies could and could not do. Since then, there haven't been any more direct GoBot deco homages made, with any others being only "loose" or "indirect" homages in toys like ROTF Deadlift. But Fracture wasn't exactly an example of something that all parties felt "okay" with.
So if we ever want something like an official Transformers Cy-Kill toy, it'd either have to be in some deco that doesn't remotely resemble that of Cy-Kill, or it would have to be just a generic red and blue deco figure that isn't named "Cy-Kill", and either case's bio wouldn't be allowed to directly identify him as the GoBots Cy-Kill character. An official Transformers Cy-Kill toy that's colored like Cy-Kill, named "Cy-Kill", and identified as the GoBots Cy-Kill character cannot legally happen.
Same goes for all other GoBots.
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