The Energon Pub

We've all noticed it. Transformers are getting smaller and getting fewer paint apps. The plastic quality and the overall quality control is getting worse. Chromed parts and rubber wheels are all but a distant memory.

In spite of all this cost-cutting, prices are going up.

I'm not here to complain or whine. I'm here to have a serious discussion about why Hasbro/Takara continues to offer products of a lesser quality at higher and higher prices.

Consider this: In 2012, the standard deluxe on the shelves is nearly unpainted, tiny, and fragile. Each one also costs upwards of 12 dollars (US). 11 years ago, during RiD, the deluxe Autobot brothers had lots of great paint apps, chromed pieces, and RUBBER TIRES. And they cost a mere $10. Adjusting for inflation, $10 in 2001 equals $12.70 (roughtly the same price current deluxes) according to http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm .

What happened?

I know there are many perfectly valid explanations. Today transformers are expected to be highly articulated action figures with complex transformations. Part counts have skyrocketed and so have engineering costs, and as such, the budget for paint and plastic quality has shriveled away.

But does that alone answer the question?

It is also apparent that Hasbro wants to keep the price points as near to $10, $20, etc., which necessarily means that figures must be poorly painted and smaller to battle the engineering costs. But the hovering price points are also a reflection of what consumers are willing to pay for a figure. We expect $10 to buy us a fully painted, wonderfully articulated, and well-built transformer. But this simply isn't feasible anymore. Why are we (fans and regular customers included) so willing to sacrifice so much of a figure simply because we are unwilling to pay a fair price for one?

Thoughts?

RiD was something of an anomaly as well. Since the 3rd year of G1 we weren't getting rubber tires (well, ok, on the G1 molds that were re-released in G2 as well, I suppose) and even chromed parts aren't all that common, the Beast Wars/Machines era had some, but it wasn't standard, and I personally don't feel that it's all that necessary on most toys.

Yes, the size of these things is getting smaller, and yes, they're maybe not always being painted as much as they used to. But coming from a childhood where the majority of the details were simply added with a sticker or two, I appreciate the modern molds for the detail they put it, and the engineering of the toys has been better over the last year or two than I've found it in ages. I honestly think the Generations styled figures, and upcoming Prime stuff (aside from a few clunkers here and there, of course, every line has them) look to be another step up from the sorts of toys we've seen in the first decade of the 2000s as the Beast Wars stuff was from G1.

About pricing, the actual retail prices of these aren't bad. I'd be happy to pay them. Where my problem is, is with the additional costs above that. Poor distribution means that for any toy I really want, I have to pre-order online. That adds at least a couple of pounds on straight away, more for postage. Triple the price of the toy itself if it is something I could only get from the US. Maybe only double the price if it's a Japanese one that a retailer in this country imports. Thats without me even daring to imagine that I'll get any of the Prime First Edition stuff now.

The above is mostly in relation to Deluxe class, and includes Voyagers as well, I suppose. Where I see it as actually being the opposite is the Legends class (now Cyberverse) where I've been greatly impressed with the sculpting and extras added, for little to no price increase. Commander class may still be a little high, but the £5 for the little guys, comparing them to the original G1 Minibots, well, I'd say it's much better value nowadays.

It's all fairly straightforward: the cost of manufacturing is increasing at a rapid rate due to the increasing cost of (to a minor degree) materials and (to a major degree) labor, and so are transportation costs. This equals greater expenses and less profit, so the manufacturers have to cut costs in whatever way they possibly can.

The days of being able to get extremely inexpensive mass-produced items manufactured in Asia are sharply numbered. Combine this with the increasing competition from virtual goods (such as video games) for your average child's (and their parents') money and the writing on the wall becomes pretty clear: the death, or drastic diminishment, of the mass-marketed action figure.

Transformers fans have things relatively good. The latest assortment of 4" Star Wars figures carries a MSRP of $9.99 to $10.99. Compare that to $4.99 seven years ago; it's easy to see that this increase has far outstripped the average rate of inflation.

(I do expect high end items to continue to be made for quite some time, though I imagine demand will taper off as fewer and fewer adults will have as many fond memories of their childhood action figures as those of our generations do....)

I've been putting a lot of thought into this recently and I think Hasbro (and oddly enough the customers) is the brand's worst enemy here.

Let's go back to 2001, with the release of RiD. How many products were on the shelf at one time. IIRC there were three Autobots (new Molds), 3 Predacons (repaints), one huge Optimus Prime and a new Megatron. That was it for a few months. Then the Decepticons came out, then a few more Autobots and so on and so forth. I think I once counted 11 original molds were made for the entire line alone. Hasbro could afford good materiels and paint apps because the line was really more of a side-project.

Then came Armada, which I think could survive a nuclear holocaust their plastic was so tough. While not winning any prizes for engineering they were good durable figures. This was at a time when resources were cheap, and at the same time the lines were simple with very little "other product." It was a few deluxes, voyagers and one or two larger figures to keep the line going. And at the halfway point, everything can be re-released in a new colour-scheme for more money!

Energon and Cybertron were more or less the same, although you can tell engineering is getting better, but Energon started introducing scout-sized figures which ran alongside the existing deluxes, voyagers etc, meaning more product had to be made. I believe there was a price hike here too.

Then came two things of great importance: the movie and the recession. Now EVERYONE wanted to remember their childhood and Hasbro had to deliver - this is where I see the root of the problem. On top of keeping up with new figures, in Legends, Scout, Deluxe, Voyager and Leader; Hasbro is also pumping out basic figures for young children, RPMs, and a bunch of other knick-nack figures that many of us overlook. I believe that with the wide spread of products they're making now relating to the narrow scope of 10 years back is what is leading to the poorer detail-work on the modern figures. I think Hasbro is now looking at quantity over quality, which is one of the main reasons I'm going Japanese more and more. Quantity also affect the asian labourforce required to put everything together - a higher quantity of workers is needed for a higher quantity of figures.

The other main factor here is the recession - oil prices are going up. Note that the oil that goes into the plastic is NOT the same oil that goes into your gas. The stuff that plastic is made of is crude bottom-barrel stuff that I don't believe has really changed in price over the years. Instead the oil prices that go up affect the cost of transportation and delivery; possibly much more than any of us realise.

So basically if we fans shut up and didn't keep demanding more, Hasbro would be able to make less and (hopefully) put more effort into it.

Mkall wrote:So basically if we fans shut up and didn't keep demanding more, Hasbro would be able to make less and (hopefully) put more effort into it.

I'm not so sure the fans are the entire driving force here; I'd put that more on the mass retailers, who are wanting to exploit any excuse they have to get people to come to their store in the first place (so that then we'll buy a bunch of other crap that we didn't come there looking for in the first place).

This is why perennial toy lines end up slightly changing their branding every six months to a year or so; to create the perception of newness to get people to browse.

In any case, I don't think there's much way of going back. Can you imagine the decline in total units sold if lines were cut back to four figures every six months or so?

really, the rise in price of the average TF compared to some things isn't a lot. When I started buying TFs as a lad, I could get a minibot for maybe £5. That's still true now. compare this to comic books, where, I could get 4 or 5 for the same price as my Red Bumblebee that I'd pretend was Cliffjumper, now I'll be fortunate to get change.

One wonders how much money Hasbro would have saved if they produced only one, or maybe even two, Deluxe sized versions of Bumblebee for each film? Was there that much greater cumulative sell-through rate for the infinite number of variations over having repeated the same one through multiple assortments?

I'm not bothered about lack of paint as I can fix that myself and do a far better job than Hasbro or Takara could ever do and it gives me another hobby.

Having said that, have you seen the colours of TFP figures? They have great paint.

I blame the film figures and/or any figures released on a deadline. Hasbro is forced to pump out as many figures as quickly as possible with as many age ranges included in time for the film. Combine this with inflation and you get a company that is scrambling to design and release as much crap as possible in time for the next Blockbuster, all with high prices.

And once the blockbuster is over, Hasbro can then return to decent quality figures.
(until the next blockbuster comes and all of the decent figures go to discount chains)

I've seen this cycle repeat with ROTF replacing Animated and then spawning the Generations/RTS toyline, and then with DOTM making Generations effectively cease to exist, and then after the DOTM craze we got the 'First Edition' Prime figures. However, it seems like Hasbro was in a hurry to release RID:Prime toys, which may explain their lower quality, seeing as we hardly got a glimpse of them or their prototypes before they flooded shelves. I mean, how many of us saw a leaked picture of Voyager RID Megs before they started showing up in Britain?

(This is all my personal opinion, if anyone who has noticed something wrong about my argument, then please tell me.)

Mykltron wrote:I'm not bothered about lack of paint as I can fix that myself and do a far better job than Hasbro or Takara could ever do and it gives me another hobby.

Same here. That's also why I rarely go Takara. Same more money and I can do better than them, plus give me something to do at night.

Mykltron wrote:Having said that, have you seen the colours of TFP figures? They have great paint.

Sometimes this part puzzled me. Around the same line, there are figures Hasbro didn't care to give any damn paint (like DOTM deluxe Sideswipe, RTS Jazz) but almost at the same time they did excellent paint job on some others (like DOTM deluxe Lunarfire Optimus Prime, Generations Warpath, Generations Thundercracker).

Comparing back to RiD line or even AEC line wouldn't be fair since the economic situations are totally different, but sometimes just comparing DOTM to ROTF, you see the difference. I somehow hope Hasbro can go deeper in one line, more characters to choose and more mold options to play with but now they have something here and something there and they are all kind of shortage each. PCC, Kre-O, Rescue Bots, etc. may all have potentials but Hasbro just touched it and go. Yes, I understand they want to expand and explore their brand to many different customers. Even Lego now has "Friends" line to almost girls only but they are build on top of the same brick. This is the market opportunity and why not try it, but at the same time I kind of feel directionless.

Imagine if they couldnt use slave labor and had to actually pay human beings decent wages.

JackStraw wrote:Imagine if they couldnt use slave labor and had to actually pay human beings decent wages.

Please keep that debate out of this. No need to reopen that can of worms.

I personally wouldn't mind paying an extra couple dollars to maintain the same quality (I'm Canadian, I've been paying extra all along), but I understand the average consumer wouldn't.

I'm even fine with the downsizing, but what I'm not okay with is raising prices AND reducing paint apps & complexity at the same time. If you're going to over-simplify the figures, at least give us a nice paint job. Actually, that is the biggest issue I have with modern TFs, lack of paint detail. Cars should have painted tail lights and wheels. It just looks cheap without it. Downsize and simplify if you must, but keep the paint apps.

I would say I'd go for Takara releases to remedy that but after Henkei the prices for Japanese releases have skyrocketed and they're no longer within my means unless they are the most special of exceptions.

kirbenvost wrote:I personally wouldn't mind paying an extra couple dollars to maintain the same quality (I'm Canadian, I've been paying extra all along), but I understand the average consumer wouldn't.

I'm even fine with the downsizing, but what I'm not okay with is raising prices AND reducing paint apps & complexity at the same time. If you're going to over-simplify the figures, at least give us a nice paint job. Actually, that is the biggest issue I have with modern TFs, lack of paint detail. Cars should have painted tail lights and wheels. It just looks cheap without it. Downsize and simplify if you must, but keep the paint apps.

I would say I'd go for Takara releases to remedy that but after Henkei the prices for Japanese releases have skyrocketed and they're no longer within my means unless they are the most special of exceptions.

I totally agree. I dont even mind the over simplicity....some of my favorite TFs are very simple, in fact in the case of g1 soundwave or optimus, that's the beauty of them.

Someone mentioned gi joe. Maybe they have gone up a little more, actually maybe even a lot more relative to TFs, (anyone remember when a gi joe figure cost under $2). Anyway, not much about them feels cheaper now, in fact they have brought detail and paint apps to a new level in my opinion. Same with Star Wars, and all three are Hasbro. I collect some of all three lines, as well as random other stuff and there's hasnt been a time I can rememeber where I bought something from any line other than Transformers where I got that "Oh they're really cheeping out on these things" feeling.
There must be some hidden costs associated with the engineering that goes into making a Transformer.

JackStraw wrote:
Someone mentioned gi joe. Maybe they have gone up a little more, actually maybe even a lot more relative to TFs, (anyone remember when a gi joe figure cost under $2). Anyway, not much about them feels cheaper now, in fact they have brought detail and paint apps to a new level in my opinion. Same with Star Wars, and all three are Hasbro. I collect some of all three lines, as well as random other stuff and there's hasnt been a time I can rememeber where I bought something from any line other than Transformers where I got that "Oh they're really cheeping out on these things" feeling.
There must be some hidden costs associated with the engineering that goes into making a Transformer.

well sure. Star Wars is likely the easiest one to sculpt for, since, in general the designs are meant to work on the one figure. There has been a bit of mixing and matching molds when it comes to Troopers and Jedi robes, but there are still a lot of unique molds in the line. GI Joe has always been a line where parts from one figure tend to end up being reused for at least one or two others, either in conjunction with newly sculpted pieces, or other repurposed parts from other figures, but most of the time it's not so bad. At any one time there's a relatively uniform layout of a Joe figure. I'd suspect there are base dimensions given to sculptors and certain limits on how much some bit can be changed. The addition in the 25th Anniversary line of separate web-gear/ammo-belts/etc for figures has made it even easier for them to use the same basic molds but vary them greatly with paint and accessories.

With Transformers, it's very difficult to get 2 completely different figures out of one toy, and mixing and matching parts between molds is virtually impossible. (maybe, on some, heads could be swapped out) A bit of very skillful engineering at the early planning stages could theoretically give us slightly different alt and robot modes (as seen in Tracks/Wheeljack) but, whilst there are a lot of differences between the two, one is clearly a retool of the other and it's not something that could work for many designs. You can take 3 Star Wars toys apart, and probably cobble at least one or two decent figures out of the parts. 3 disassembled Joes would probably yield 3 brand new okay looking frankenjoes, but take 3 random Deluxe class TFs, pop off their arms and legs and try to put those parts back together with anything other than the ones they're designed to do and it's going to look silly, at best...before you try and transform them.

Also, within reason, there's no set construction of a Transformer. Sure, there are familiar things that crop up from time to time (alt-mode on my back, shell-formers, car-hood chests, etc) but the number of parts and method of construction vary wildly between individual bots. Lets not forget that in Transformers, the designers are not just making a cool looking robot, or an accurate representation of a car or jet, but both of those things, out of one set of parts. I'd probably be able to walk into Hasbro's offices tomorrow and knock out a wave of GI Joes using even 60% of recycled parts with the rest new sculpts, and I'd not be surprised to learn that they could be completed and on shelves in less time than it takes to design some Transformers, let alone have them built.