The Energon Pub

[bfett88]

Does anyone really think Hasbro Really Care about 3rd Party Companies? They really don't seem to?

Has anyone asked them at one of the Con QAs?

[Mkall]

They've been asked at 'cons and you can really tell the change of mood. I sure they know that they're out there, but I don't think HasTak can do much about them so long as the companies do their own design.

I personally think asking them about 3PPs is disrespectful though, especially when they're being compared in a panel.

[Motorthing]

I personally think asking them about 3PPs is disrespectful though, especially when they're being compared in a panel.[/quote]

With Hastak currently getting their asses handed to them by small collectives of Guys in Chinese garden-sheds I think a few barbs of well-aimed disrespect wouldn't be out of line in the grand scheme of things......

Do they care: Yes and no. They go after what they can, ignore what they can't and probably get a secret warm-glow when they complie their Crossfire Bruticus......

[Yotsuyasan]

Has anyone asked them at one of the Con QAs?

I should think that, if we are talking about a straight-out bootlegger, it shouldn't be so much asking Hasbro, rather it should be telling Hasbro so they can do something about it!

On the other hand, when it comes to original third party companies (such as Fansproject) I'd agree that asking Hasbro publically about them seems a bit like bad form. While technically I don't think Fansproject or similar companies are doing anything wrong, it still just feels like it might be better if they stayed (publically) under Hasbro's radar. Although I am sure that on some level Hasbro knows all about it. But if we keep quiet about it, then they don't have to express their opinion either and everyone can play nice.

[Mkall]

I personally think asking them about 3PPs is disrespectful though, especially when they're being compared in a panel.

With Hastak currently getting their asses handed to them by small collectives of Guys in Chinese garden-sheds I think a few barbs of well-aimed disrespect wouldn't be out of line in the grand scheme of things......

Please note I don't wish to call you out specifically, more like the line of thinking I've seen from multiple people.

Do I think Hasbro can make better figures than 3PPs? Yes. They have teams of designers who do this for a living. and have been doing it for years. The problem is the sustainability of such a practice. I, like most people who visit this forum, believe that many 3PP figures are better than alot of what we see from Hasbro, but that's because Hasbro can't afford to cater to us. It's a sad fact that they have to produce to children. I don't know many children who could deal with PE Reflector or FP's Defender and Hasbro and the 3PPs know this.

This is why I think calling Hasbro on it is disrespectful. It's saying to Hasbro "These guys can afford to spend as much time as they want to cater to our precise abilities and wishes and you can't [insert Nelson laugh]"

[bionic_radical]

I agree with Mkall. Selling a product to retailers isn't the hardest thing for Hasbro to do. Keeping the interested alive is. They have to make sure that their retailers are selling the product that they're ordering. That involves getting a child's attention to the point that their caretaker buys the product. Video games are tough competition for action figures. A fully articulated camera robot isn't going to appeal to many children at all, and when releasing a figure, Im sure the thought process comes down to, "How many of these are going to reach clearance?" Lines that end up in clearance don't get renewed, and I don't need a pie chart to figure out how many cassette players are gonna make it to that bin in 2012. 3rd parties aren't governed by those restraints. Only whether or not the target market perceives the item in question as a "**** pile".

Im sure electric toy trains were unbelievably cool at one time, but is that what we wanted when we saw robot cartoons as kids?

[Gauntlet101010]

It's ironic that the 3rd parties have actually more resources and freedom than Hasbro. But it's true.

I say "more resources" because Hasbro has a budget to keep in mind. They can't make something in between deluxe and voyager with a billion parts and guns and charge whatever they think will fly. Unfortunately, things have to be roughly the same size to fit in that box and have to be budgeted so they'll make a profit while remaining in their size class.

Although I do sometimes wonder at what goes into their pricing decisions.

I'm kinda interested about this changing tone, having never been to Botcon.

[metaphorge]

They care about as much as Apple actually cares about media piracy, probably even less since makers of pricey third party product do very little or nothing to negatively impact their bottom line and the high-end Transformers market is not sufficiently lucrative to warrant the creation of a boutique company like Hot Toys or Sideshow that caters to our market. (This is unlikely to change since Michael Bay was the choice to translate the property into its "adult" form.)

Really, the entire business model of getting-things-cheaply-manufactured-in-Asia-to-sell-cheaply-to-first-world-countries is an endangered species, and companies like Hasbro know it; thus the desire to convert themselves into a media conglomerate, or at least make their media properties attractive enough so that a media conglomerate will want to buy them out if their bottom line becomes too anemic.

As an aside, I imagine having WalMart have you on a choke-chain is not an enviable position for a corporate executive....

[xyl360]

I actually wish Has/Tak would purchase some of these third party companies to produce special 'collector's lines' of TF's, targeted at us, and available via online only, shipped direct from a warehouse or even direct from the factory, that way they could do smaller production runs (since they wouldn't be filling every retail chain with them) and could just basically make them to order, or at least produce them in a small enough number that they don't end up with tons of overstock because they tried selling something only we older ladies and gents would be interested in vs the kids who want the toys sold in the stores.

[metaphorge]

I actually wish Has/Tak would purchase some of these third party companies to produce special 'collector's lines' of TF's, targeted at us, and available via online only, shipped direct from a warehouse or even direct from the factory, that way they could do smaller production runs (since they wouldn't be filling every retail chain with them) and could just basically make them to order, or at least produce them in a small enough number that they don't end up with tons of overstock because they tried selling something only we older ladies and gents would be interested in vs the kids who want the toys sold in the stores.

If they were interested in catering to such a niche market they could already do so. It's simply not worth their time.

[Mkall]

If they were interested in catering to such a niche market they could already do so. It's simply not worth their time.

They're already catering to us with Generations, which is awesome enough in its own right. I'm all for 3PPs contributing from the sidelines though.

[Gauntlet101010]

Generations, the Titanium line, the MPs, Alternators, homages in the various other TF lines, the reissues ...

You know, I remember a time when people loved Hasbro for their classics lines.

[metaphorge]

If they were interested in catering to such a niche market they could already do so. It's simply not worth their time.

They're already catering to us with Generations, which is awesome enough in its own right. I'm all for 3PPs contributing from the sidelines though.

I don't mean that they don't throw us a bone every once in a while, but compare and contrast with Sideshow Toys' Star Wars or G.I. Joe lines or Hot Toys' Marvel movie figures.

Our "high end" pickings are comparatively slim, even when you figure in third-party releases which usually aren't up to Masterpiece level quality, just prices and even when you figure in Takara-only releases which have to be imported at an inflated cost; I can only think of once in the last decade that Hasbro has sold a Transformers product that even approached $100 at retail (Revenge of the Fallen Devestator, which was hardly a collector-focused product).

I simply don't think Hasbro sees a profitable market segment there; I suspect that they are probably right about this.

This is my theory as to largely why they don't seem to care all that much about third-party fringe product that they have no desire to attempt to bring to market.

You know, I remember a time when people loved Hasbro for their classics lines.

Who said anything about Hasbro sucking? I certainly didn't; the reality is that there are a number of Transformers-based products that I want to own that Hasbro simply is uninterested or unable to make, so I'll happily buy them from someone who manages to do so.

There is no need for convertible-robot monogamy as long as you always use protection.