The Energon Pub

With the recent scandals surrounding the Chinese toy companies using lead paint in their production, new testing to prevent such accidents from happening again has been introduced.

However, these new safeguards to protect us from such an error from happening again is going to come with a cost, and it is predicted that toy companies will be passing the buck onto the consumers.

Current estimates from analysts at MSNBC.com predict the costs of Chinese made toys to go up by about 10% for the consumer, starting next year. Even still, there is the possibility that it could be even more than that.

We will keep you posted going into the next year on whether or not Hasbro intends to raise the price of Transformers or not as soon as possible.

WHAT!?!? Its bad enough that most stores jack the prices already but now this? This is frakin bullshit man. Hasbro has enough damn money. Maybe they should cut us some slack for a change and pay for it them selves. It could be like them saying "sorry for not shipping enough products out. Because we screwed you we'll pay for this". Thats what should happen.

I've yet to hear about Hasbro having to recall any product. I've only heard about Mattel and just recently Takara/Tomy. Nothing about TF product being recalled from Takara/Tomy either. As far as Transformers go, we should be in the clear.

Megatron_Wolf wrote: This is frakin bullshit man. Hasbro has enough damn money. Maybe they should cut us some slack for a change and pay for it them selves. It could be like them saying "sorry for not shipping enough products out. Because we screwed you we'll pay for this". Thats what should happen.

You wanna know what REAL bullshit is? Botcon exclusives!!! If the fandom doesn't mind paying $300.00 for a Botcon Thundercracker, a figure that's only worth $9.99, then this won't phase them in the least.

Oh come on they're expensive enough down here already.
$30 a deluxe is already raping my wallet.

Noisemaze wrote:

Megatron_Wolf wrote: This is frakin bullshit man. Hasbro has enough damn money. Maybe they should cut us some slack for a change and pay for it them selves. It could be like them saying "sorry for not shipping enough products out. Because we screwed you we'll pay for this". Thats what should happen.

You wanna know what REAL bullshit is? Botcon exclusives!!! If the fandom doesn't mind paying $300.00 for a Botcon Thundercracker, a figure that's only worth $9.99, then this won't phase them in the least.

I didn't pay $300 for one figure. I paid for six. Plus getting to see friends I made the year before, plus attending the panels, plus the ridiculous good time I had both years straight. Then, there's meeting Cullen, joking with the Hasbro folks, haggling and making jokes with vendors in the dealer room. You really open a heated debate by bringing in the Botcon argument. Especially where it doesn't have any bearing on this subject.

Flux Convoy wrote:

Noisemaze wrote:

Megatron_Wolf wrote: This is frakin bullshit man. Hasbro has enough damn money. Maybe they should cut us some slack for a change and pay for it them selves. It could be like them saying "sorry for not shipping enough products out. Because we screwed you we'll pay for this". Thats what should happen.

You wanna know what REAL bullshit is? Botcon exclusives!!! If the fandom doesn't mind paying $300.00 for a Botcon Thundercracker, a figure that's only worth $9.99, then this won't phase them in the least.

I didn't pay $300 for one figure. I paid for six. Plus getting to see friends I made the year before, plus attending the panels, plus the ridiculous good time I had both years straight. Then, there's meeting Cullen, joking with the Hasbro folks, haggling and making jokes with vendors in the dealer room. You really open a heated debate by bringing in the Botcon argument. Especially where it doesn't have any bearing on this subject.

I didn't say the convention is bullshit, I said the exclusives are complete bullshit! Idiots are paying $200 - $300 for Thundercracker alone on Ebay. If the fans have no problem paying that much for 1 deluxe figure then a 10% price increase won't phase them at all.

Its the end of tacky plastic crap toys, and the Transformers will be dragged down with it.

So Hasbro are going to charge us even more for their figures?

I won't mind too much if the figures go back to the higher quality figures we got in the Classics and Cybertron lines.

However if the terrible quality of the movie toys becomes the norm, I'll be extremely pissed off.

Noisemaze wrote:

Flux Convoy wrote:

Noisemaze wrote:

Megatron_Wolf wrote: This is frakin bullshit man. Hasbro has enough damn money. Maybe they should cut us some slack for a change and pay for it them selves. It could be like them saying "sorry for not shipping enough products out. Because we screwed you we'll pay for this". Thats what should happen.

You wanna know what REAL bullshit is? Botcon exclusives!!! If the fandom doesn't mind paying $300.00 for a Botcon Thundercracker, a figure that's only worth $9.99, then this won't phase them in the least.

I didn't pay $300 for one figure. I paid for six. Plus getting to see friends I made the year before, plus attending the panels, plus the ridiculous good time I had both years straight. Then, there's meeting Cullen, joking with the Hasbro folks, haggling and making jokes with vendors in the dealer room. You really open a heated debate by bringing in the Botcon argument. Especially where it doesn't have any bearing on this subject.

I didn't say the convention is bullshit, I said the exclusives are complete bullshit! Idiots are paying $200 - $300 for Thundercracker alone on Ebay. If the fans have no problem paying that much for 1 deluxe figure then a 10% price increase won't phase them at all.

Well, these are well worth it if compared to other exclusives that demand a similar price.

But, that is off topic.

You make a good point. If Deluxes become 11 or 12 bucks, it won't stop any of us from buying them.

I hope TF toys won't have a price increase. They're so expensive already!

Oi... so much whinning it's making me sick.

First off--we use a country with a cheap labor force to make these toys. We know it, you know it, etc. China labor is cheap because they don't have as many government restrictions.

Look at the scandal that came out recently about the contaminated cat & dog food that poisoned a large population of the world's furry friends. Where did this come from? China.

We have a love/hate relationship with them. But we can't stop using them, either. If company "a" decides not to use cheap labor, and instead uses, say, an American labor force, they will get beat out by company "b" that doesn't have the same ethics.

And so now we're having to pay a "little" for the inconvenience of making sure that our toys won't give us cancer or some silly stuff. Boo f-ing hoo. If the toys were actually being produced by a well paid working force instead of unregulated sweat shops, they'd be a lot more.

So what if a $40 toy will suddenly be $42. Is that going to kill you? Nope. Will get poisioned by said toy kill you? Well... I think you can answer that yourself.

Outside of the basic scout class, and the elimination of the $15 bots. TFs haven't realy gone up in price in a very long time.

My Beast Wars deluxe figures, off a TRU shelf $9.99.

My Movie Deluxes off that same shelf $9.99.

Hell, I even remeber paying close to that for KickBack WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY back in the day!

Price hikes are bound to happen eventualy, but we haven't had it so bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about it, and it is yet another reason to avoid the Animated line, but these things happen.

Liege Evilmus wrote:Outside of the basic scout class, and the elimination of the $15 bots. TFs haven't realy gone up in price in a very long time.

My Beast Wars deluxe figures, off a TRU shelf $9.99.

My Movie Deluxes off that same shelf $9.99.

Hell, I even remeber paying close to that for KickBack WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY back in the day!

Price hikes are bound to happen eventualy, but we haven't had it so bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about it, and it is yet another reason to avoid the Animated line, but these things happen.

That's all well and good for those of you in the USA.

We've had near constant prices rises here in Australia, mainly on the Deluxe line. Deluxes used to be around $22, but they had edged their way up to $28 by the end of Classics/Movie. Thats with the Australian Dollar getting stronger against the US Dollar.

Won't happen.

TFs will just get a little smaller.

Prices will remain consistant.

Hm.. since TFs are almost precisely twice as expensive where I live (Germany), I'm afraid that it will lead to a domestic price increase by 20%.

Hey we in Europe oredy pay duble from what you in the US have to pay, now they want even more?!
F that!

Dead Metal wrote:Hey we in Europe oredy pay duble from what you in the US have to pay, now they want even more?!
F that!

Now that is INSANE!!! I can't believe it costs that much for you guys. Or for Australians. Ridiculous.

Moonbase2 wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Hey we in Europe oredy pay duble from what you in the US have to pay, now they want even more?!
F that!

Now that is INSANE!!! I can't believe it costs that much for you guys. Or for Australians. Ridiculous.

A Deluxe costs from 15-18 Euros, Alt Ravage costs 27 to 30 Euros and Voiger from 25-30 euroes.
Now let that be translated into USD then rethink your post.

Bullshit.

Counterpunch wrote:Won't happen.

TFs will just get a little smaller.

Prices will remain consistant.

Maybe further on down the road but current and upcoming lines (Animated) already have their molds cast and done, I doubt they'd go through the expense of recasting those figures at this point. We'll probably see even cheaper grades of plastic or fewer paint apps before we see them get even smaller.

Rising labor cost in china and rising oil prices would only raise the production costs of TFs. Now maybe, Hasbro will now reserve the larger toys for more deserving characters.

I believe that Hasbro will continue to give us the quality products we've come to expect from them. TF's will not be smaller, or made cheaply. Hasbro knows they have a goldmine on their hands, and wouldn't jeopardize that. We will continue to see quality TF's come out, but yes, it may cost us a little more for them. Hasbro knows we will pay a higher price for TF's. Look at Ebay!!!...$65 for Concept Bumblebee yet people are still buying him. Hasbro knows that a dollar or two more for each fig won't scare us fans off. I for one don't have a problem with the price hike (if it happens). I enjoy collecting and displaying my TF's, and will continue to do so even if it costs me a few dollars more.

From what I can see this is just an excuse to raise Prices. All major manufacturers self-certify their products for safety and probably know the safety regulations better than the dedicated testing houses.

The problem comes when companies let their eye off the ball and miss someone cutting corners. As far as I'm concerned, companies should have a QC infrastructure in place to deal with this already, they just need to weed out those not doing their job properly.

Unless legislation is passed making third party testing manditory, this is just Mattel trying to claw back lost revenues and everyone else in the sales chain getting fat off their markup (which you can bet will stay the same even though they have done nothing themselves to justify the increase). The other toy companies will just follow suit because the precident has been set.

I'm not understanding why the general concensus is venomous. There haven't been any recalls by Hasbro or any specific TF product from Takara/Tomy unless I missed something. Wow, deja vu there. So uh, no sense in getting bent out of shape over something that doesn't really affect ya. Even if it did, a dollar or so more per figure isn't gonna break the bank.