The Energon Pub

What happens if 30 years down the road, Transformers aren't as popular?

What if they are not worth as much, because the collector fan base has collected everything they wanted, or gotten out of the hobby altogether and there is no one that wants any of this stuff?

Are 20+ year olds, 30 years from now, going to be interested in our 1984 toys, or are they going to be looking for the movie toys, or heck, even Beast Wars/RID/Armada/Whatever?

I am sitting here debating on weather or not I should buy that last missile for G1 Soundwave, or $20 pair of fists for Trailbreaker, to make them complete. Will it really matter down the road if he's complete or not, even if I plan on selling my collection?


I guess if we look at Spiderman/Superman/Batman/Star Wars we might get a better idea, they have been around longer then Transformers, but I still feel it's still too early for those.

What's going to be "cool" for the *nerds* of the future to collect?

SIGH!

look at the prices for mint condition 1950's non poseable, non transformable, non anything but paper weight-able toys and you will answer your own question. There will always be a demand.

And if i am wrong in this then that is all the more reason to collect for the sake of collecting and not using it as a form of funding.

Whoa, careful there deep thinker!

I think it is unlikely that Hasbro will stop making Transformers in the near future. Let's face it. Transformers have been outshadowed for the past 20 odd years in favor of other toylines(G.I. Joe, He-man, etc.), but TFs have still been hitting the shelves. And with the explosion of popularity following the movie, and the likely sequels....

In 30 years, Transformers will be half a century old, and a lot of us will be too old and senile to care, so our spouses and relatives will be selling all our old "junk" on e-bay and making a tidy fortune, while the younger generation buys our figures up. I can guarantee you that there will most probably be someone somewhere at any given time who would buy anything if given the chance.

But, honestly, I think that point is moot. I don't collect things because they're popular; I collect because I enjoy it. If I ever stop enjoying it, then I'll stop collecting. End of story. Until then, there are still plenty of figures I would like(many of which haven't been made yet!), so I'll keep collecting.

And I'm sure future generations of "nerds" will find their own obsessions.

As I have seen in the past with my parent's antique business, fads come and go and come again. it may die down soon, but it may rise again.

i don't collect because of popularity or whatever.

i collect because i love the toys.

if they aren't popular anymore, who cares. at least i know 20,30, 50 years from now, i'll still be able to enjoy my collection.

mechajol wrote:i don't collect because of popularity or whatever.

i collect because i love the toys.

if they aren't popular anymore, who cares. at least i know 20,30, 50 years from now, i'll still be able to enjoy my collection.

well said, fellow cybertronian.pher!

:MAX:

mechajol wrote:i don't collect because of popularity or whatever.

i collect because i love the toys.

Same here. However, when I'm buying figures I'm a little undecided about, in the back of my mind, I always think "at least it's not money down the drain. They always hold onto some of their value.", ... and that often pushes me into buying it.

Lately I've been thinking about currently available figures I haven't bought. If I change my mind and want them in years to come, will the price be too high?

TF will die down, but not die out.

There's always a demand for it.

Not gonna happen

Can't see it happening easily. Hasbro, for whatever reason, have realised that this concept can be endlessly redone and sold to the next generation of kids. Plus, you're always going to have the older fans wanting to buy the toys they grew up with. It's happened with G1 and Beast Wars, in a few years we'll probably see reissue Armada. And lots of threads saying "Yay! I just bought reissue Hot Shot! He was my first TF when I was seven. Wish I hadn't broken him."

Then I'll be able to get vintage TFs for cheap

20 Years from now, Masterpiece style Transformers will be the everyday TF, automorph will be autotransform, so ur kids press a button, a sound emitter plays the classic transforming sound, and ur car is in bot mode all by itself.

So ur vintage Trailbreaker will be even more valuable to a true collector who tells kids "In my day, we had to transform them using our hands" and the kids will go "whhhhoooooooooooaaaaa".

what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if...BLAH! Live in the present real world and don't panic. People that have time to wonder what if what if what if what if have too much time on their hands.

What if it turned out that all TFs are made of explosives, and one day Hasbro hit the detonator after we moaned about them once too often?

Transformers will still have an own new series, perhaps a new Movie. The TF company or whoever made TF is never going to stop.

olokin wrote:Then I'll be able to get vintage TFs for cheap

SO TRUE! wheeeeeeee!

:MAX:

DorkimusPrime wrote:what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if...BLAH! Live in the present real world and don't panic. People that have time to wonder what if what if what if what if have too much time on their hands.

...But what if robots are developed that are so intelligent and advanced that they can do anything humans can, then instead of turning evil, or overtrhowing us, they just undercut us and put everyone out of work.

Then everyone's so pissed off at robots that no one wants to give their kids transformers or any kind of robot toys to play with, and they wanna destroy everything that reminds them of robots. Having a display of robots in your home becomes a social faux fas akin to having a shrine of Nazi memorabilia.

Then one day an angry mob comes looking for your precious collection to pile high in a great bonfire. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure stuff similar to this happened in A.I..

Well I'm not WORRIED, perhaps I came off sounding worried.

I'm just thinking about how many of *us* there are right now, that are adults now who were kids when G1 TFs were starting to come out.

I mean, for me, i collect a lot of G1 now because when I was a kid I couldn't afford them, but now I can, myself.

So kids that were born say, today, when they are in their 20's, I wonder if there will still be the same concentration of collectors that age who want G1 specific toys or if it will have migrated to Beast Wars stuff or RID or Animiated.. etc just because of the time frame.

These past few years there has been a heavy want for G1, because I'd say most of the tf collector population was around for G1 and that's their main collection.

Oh well, I'll BM this thread and in 20-30 years we'll see what's popular, wouldn't that be neat

It should be considered that TFs did die in popularity back during the Machine Wars era.

TF, TMNT, GI Joe, He-Man, most toy lines live a phoenix style life... They rise-up, burn brightly, flame out, and come back three or four years later to repeat the cycle. Even Legos, a staple in toys, has its cycle of themes. Course, some toylines don't know when to die off and take time to regroup [Power Rangers].

But isn't Transformers the only (or certainly one of very few) toy lines that has been consistantly in production in one form or another since it began? He-Man disappeared from the shelves for what, ten years or more? Most other toylines have had a rebirth because the TFs are still going strong, and other companies want to cash in on that nostalgia. And, of course, it saves them coming up with a whole new concept with backstory, characters, etc.

easier pickins for us old timers who want to fill in their backstock..

skywarp-2 wrote:easier pickins for us old timers who want to fill in their backstock..

Yup, as long as toys were cheap and comics keep getting made, I realy don't care about the popularity with the general populace.

The Prime. wrote:What happens if 30 years down the road, Transformers aren't as popular?

Hell I went through that around the late 80's and early 90's

It was a horrible drought No Transformers or even Star Wars

Look on the positive side

What if there still big even in 30 years

Wheeljack35 wrote:

The Prime. wrote:What happens if 30 years down the road, Transformers aren't as popular?

Hell I went through that around the late 80's and early 90's

It was a horrible drought No Transformers or even Star Wars

Look on the positive side

What if there still big even in 30 years

God, I'll be so old. I'll have to move my collection down to Florida every winter.

Wheeljack35 wrote:

The Prime. wrote:What happens if 30 years down the road, Transformers aren't as popular?

Hell I went through that around the late 80's and early 90's

I remember that. Back then, I thought I was the only one still into transformers. Every year the toys became fewer, and worse.

The only thing that kept me going was the very rare occaision you'd come across a toyshop with some old unsold TF merchandise, or some other kid's old toys would turn up at a cake sale.