The Energon Pub

Botcon is gone. And Hascon, I don't know about you but it doesn't feel remotely the same. But that doesn't mean I'm displeased with the current events. So let's examine...

There have actually been a lot of exclusives come down the pipe lately. And if you ask me, they feel Botcon'ish, or even better because in hand they're more polished. Here's the list as I see it so far:
(and help me out if I missed any)

SDCC Combiner Wars Devastator



SDCC Combiner Wars Combiner Hunters



Entertainment Earth Combiner Wars LioKaiser



SDCC Titans Return Fortress Maximus



SDCC Titans Return Titan Force



TRU Titans Return Chaos on Velocitron



BBTS/TRU (Canada) Titans Return Siege on Cybertron



Walgreens Titans Returns Brainstorm



Hascon Titans Return Arcee



Walgreens/EB Games Titans Return Clones 2-Pack



NYCC Titans Return Grotusque



Amazon Power of the Primes Nemesis Prime



Walgreens/EB Games Power of the Primes Wreck-Gar



Amazon Power of the Primes Blast-Off



Amazon Power of the Primes Punch/Counterpunch



Amazon Power of the Primes Repugnus



SDCC Power of the Primes Throne Primal



Have these fellas been ticking your fancy?
I think that this is pretty much the same amount of repainting and retooling we'd have gotten from Funpub, even more. Some simple repaints like Blast-Off, to new heads on old bodies like Wreck-Gar Nemesis Prime and Arcee, to heavy retools like Repugnus and Grotusque, to a brand spankin new mold like Punch. And like I said, they feel more polished and professional than Funpubs offerings. Which no offense, as I was a big fan of their too.

One of the reasons I like the new direction, is because these guys aren't impossible to find. Another, is that these don't require the selling of a kidney to afford (or offered in a set of 5 costing around two kidneys). And I thought the loss of of the little guys would mean our exclusives would also mean loss of the soul, but hey we're getting some pretty obscure dudes. Not to mention Hasbro proper has been dipping into the obscure lately too, just look at Battletrap or the upcoming Micromasters.

What do you think about the current state our exclusives seem to have taken?

shajaki wrote:Have these fellas been ticking your fancy?

Counterpunch, Repugnus and Grotusque. Cobes hooked me up with a Brainstorm for which I thank him again because he's a good figure.

I still do not like "exclusives" though. I know the market for toys is shrinking with more and more stores stocking less, and so these exclusives work well to drive people to their online sites, but unfortunately that tends to be restrictive to a lot of fans outside of the US as a deluxe suddenly becomes the price of a leader.

If we're only talking in the respect of Amazon's versus Botcon (and not exclusives in general) then I gotta disagree. They're cheaper and more widely available than the one-time-only-for-a-bajillion-dollars. But you know me, if it were my way I'd buy everything from local stores as opposed to online.

But can't most people buy from Amazon.com? I did, and I'm way up in the fabled Canadas

shajaki wrote:But can't most people buy from Amazon.com?

Most, yes. Except Australia unless we tap into our criminal nature and circumvent their geo-blocking.

One thing that 3H did when they ran BotCon that I liked was their exclusives were unique/obscure characters, ones you would NEVER see the light of day as they simply didn't have the popularity or were created for BotCon specific fic.

Most of the exclusives we've gotten from Hasbro over the last year or two after the end of BotCon have honestly been way above and beyond anything FunPub would have been able to give us, which was usually no more than repaints with new heads (sometimes) and even less often, remixed accessories. Figures that are completely new molds, like Punch-Counterpunch and the Autobot and Decepticon Clones, are things we would have never gotten from BotCon, the Subscription Service, or even the TFCC Store. Even the figures like Arcee, Brainstorm, Grotusque, and Repugnus are above and beyond in that each has unique new tooling from their base mold beyond just a head swap.

On the flipside, we're getting a lot more mainstream entries than the "totally left field" ideas that FunPub has been known for. I imagine some would see that as an advantage, though, focusing more on the original G1 toyline and cartoon and less on more obscure sources like the Marvel Comics or original creations. Though, with that said, Hasbro has been surprising us with a lot of Japanese G1 love of late!

My wish is for Hasbro to ramp up on these special releases or even to set up a "subscription service" to give us some of the perceived "holes" in our collections over the past few years, like finishing up the rest of the Autobot cars from '84 and '85 as combiner limbs (and Grapple as a Voyager torso), Greenlight and Lancer, Autobot Targetmasters with Titan Master compatibility, the Omnibots and Powerdashers, the '87 Minibots, and the Deluxe Insecticons. A few more Pretender shells for Prime Masters and Titan Masters would be welcome too. That would help make the "Prime Wars Trilogy" feel like a fairly complete collection of modernized G1 1984-1987 toys. That'll make the "reboot" that is supposed to be the new "War for Cybertron" trilogy seem more exciting when we've statisfied our "Classics"/Neo-G1 desires first (or at least concurrently).

Burn wrote:geo-blocking.

Well that's some super lamesause

Burn wrote:One thing that 3H did when they ran BotCon that I liked was their exclusives were unique/obscure characters, ones you would NEVER see the light of day as they simply didn't have the popularity or were created for BotCon specific fic.

This lil guy begs to differ

Wolfman Jake wrote:On the flipside, we're getting a lot more mainstream entries than the "totally left field" ideas that FunPub has been known for.

True. But what will really be missed? Only thing I can really think of is the pre-BW stuff. Things like SG were a total fabrication of theirs, and some oddball things were even dismissed by the superfans (like the Machines Wars set, though being a personal fave of mine).

Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

Actually yeah, really good call! Can't believe I missed them, but also you're right. Five figures, new heads, repaints, new molds, totally closest to Botcon outside of Botcon.

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

No problem. We also got skateboard prime which was basically nemesis prime using the Hasbro PMOP mold. There are the 2 upcoming bumblebee and cssette packs. Also Grotusque was not a NYCC exclusive, that is just where he was revealed

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

They annoyed the **** out of me. Really only wanted a couple of figures from each one, but both sets were hard to get.

Burn wrote:

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

They annoyed the **** out of me. Really only wanted a couple of figures from each one, but both sets were hard to get.

So be fair though (in seriousness) is there anything EASY for you folks to acquire?

shajaki wrote:

Burn wrote:

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

They annoyed the **** out of me. Really only wanted a couple of figures from each one, but both sets were hard to get.

So be fair though (in seriousness) is there anything EASY for you folks to acquire?

Cane toads?

Emerje

shajaki wrote:Entertainment Earth Titans Return LioKaiser

...I'm sorry, I must be reading this wrong. His head is firmly attached, so I've been told.

Also yeah, those exclusive gold SS Bees with the cassettes should be on here too.

Nemesis Primal wrote:]...I'm sorry, I must be reading this wrong. His head is firmly attached, so I've been told.

Fixed.
Wasn't he released during TR though? It was definitely late.

Nemesis Primal wrote:]Also yeah, those exclusive gold SS Bees with the cassettes should be on here too.

I hesitate to add those though, being part of two genres (Bayformers and G1) neither of which fall in to Generations, which is mainly what this is about.

Maybe I'll add them later

Nemesis Primal wrote:Also yeah, those exclusive gold SS Bees with the cassettes should be on here too.

Pretty sure he was only going for Generations exclusives, there's been a metric ton of movie exclusives in the past two years and BotCon never had a one (not going to count Most Wanted Megatron).

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:Also yeah, those exclusive gold SS Bees with the cassettes should be on here too.

Pretty sure he was only going for Generations exclusives, there's been a metric ton of movie exclusives in the past two years and BotCon never had a one (not going to count Most Wanted Megatron).

Emerje

Fair enough, but since the list only said exclusives past Botcon and not Generations exclusives past Botcon, I figured I might as well mention them.

Although, are the included cassettes supposed to be movie characters, or the characters they originally were? Those cassettes weren't released here in G1, right?

I didnt realize the distinction of generations figures, that makes perfect sense, especially with the botcon replacement discussion. And to answer the main question, i am very very happy with how more readily accessible and reasonably priced these exclusives have been in comparison to club or botcon exclusives. Sure, its still not ideal, living outside the US, but actually possible.

Nemesis Primal wrote:Although, are the included cassettes supposed to be movie characters, or the characters they originally were? Those cassettes weren't released here in G1, right?

Movie incarnations of the G1 characters just like (nearly) everyone else in the movies. The Bee Movie taking place in the 1980s seems to have given them some strange exclusives ideas, almost as strange as exclusive Beast Wars dinos in Age of Extinction.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:Although, are the included cassettes supposed to be movie characters, or the characters they originally were? Those cassettes weren't released here in G1, right?

Movie incarnations of the G1 characters just like (nearly) everyone else in the movies. The Bee Movie taking place in the 1980s seems to have given them some strange exclusives ideas, almost as strange as exclusive Beast Wars dinos in Age of Extinction.

Emerje

So the Target exclusive Frenzy is not meant to go with the Titans Return Rumble?

shajaki wrote:

Burn wrote:

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Shajaki, you dont count the Titans Return bixsets we got? Those felt the most Botcon like of all.

Crap, good call

They annoyed the **** out of me. Really only wanted a couple of figures from each one, but both sets were hard to get.

So be fair though (in seriousness) is there anything EASY for you folks to acquire?

Fun story - Remember how I found Moonracer and Blackwing locally? Yeah, apparently I'm one of the few in Australia to do that. A lot of people in major metropolitan areas haven't seen them.

So I guess they were easy for me?

Oh and then there were the few Takara Masterpieces we got. But that's definitely not happening any more.

Burn wrote:Oh and then there were the few Takara Masterpieces we got. But that's definitely not happening any more.

Weren't they wildly overpriced though?

While i do miss the nostalgia of the Botcon sets, even though i never attended, i have been very happy with these exclusive releases. From large box sets to individual releases, unless they are a redundant figure i already have a representation of i.e. Nemesis, I have been very intrigued with most of the offerings.
Saying that, the problems of importation and availability for the rest of the world seems to be a large gap in how these items are handled. Which shouldn't be the case as these should be easier to get than exclusives from a singular Con. After I hear of someone, like Burn, having a frustratingly bad time trying to get hands on an item that shouldn't have an issue in acquisition, this points out one of the large gaps in the exclusive plan.
If Hasbro plans on global sustainability, then global availability needs to be addressed immediately. Otherwise they are literally leaving money on the table in an economy that requires asset profitability at every turn.
Keep the exclusives coming & ,just make them more accessible to the global fandom!

I get what you guys are saying about availability, but still, it's gotta be better than how Botcon offered their stuff.