The Energon Pub

Nemesis Primal wrote:As someone who also wants you to be right: why would the listing just call it Tigatron then?

Name recognition? I mean they couldn't even let Puffer be his own character without a convoluted back story. Plus there's also the negative connotations of "night prowler" which is often synonymous with murder and rape.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:As someone who also wants you to be right: why would the listing just call it Tigatron then?

Name recognition? I mean they couldn't even let Puffer be his own character without a convoluted back story. Plus there's also the negative connotations of "night prowler" which is often synonymous with murder and rape.

Emerje

...but if they could use the Nightprowler name in the listing for the Sideswipe one, shouldn't that mean that connotations aren't an issue? And even though yeah, they came up with the fusion backstory for Puffer, it's not like that's on the box anywhere, you'd only get that info if you read that description. To the uninformed Amazon shopper who sees the listing, it's just a new character named Puffer. Having one of the exclusives be called "Nightprowler Tigatron" or something as it's name in the listing and on the box, on the other hand, would eliminate some of those potential customers who would see the listing and say "Whoever I'm buying this for already has a Tigatron, don't need this", as opposed to if they just named it Nightprowler and then had the product description say he used to be Tigatron or whatever.

In other news, someone figured out where the Wheeljack silhouette is from, and wouldn't you know it it's the same image the Bee and Sideswipe ones were from: So Wheeljack confirmed to be a placeholder, in case that was still in question.

the Gobots rights are fickle but hasbro have like 90%

but they don't have rights for the challenge of the Gobots tv series that's warner brothers and they don't have rights to the original toys they still belong to bandai

which is one the reasons the 2004 gobots are different colours etc

oh the quagmire

Using Nightprowler on a listing so early the figure didn't even show up in the box doesn't necessarily mean they were going to keep the name to the end either, it just means the character was planned at some point. I'm not saying it'll happen, just saying don't be surprised if it does since everyone seems to think Tigatron will either be orange or pure white (or a Ravage repaint, but I don't think he alone fits the price point).

Emerje

Overcracker wrote:Interesting though awkward. If he's supposed to be Gobot Road Ranger, then he should have a red cab. I never had G1 Prime asa kid, so I always used Road Ranger as my Prime.

Anybody got any pre-order links for these?

Bruh

I preordered the pair, they look neat! Road Ranger has sharp colors, and Puffer's story plus an IDW Pipes head just add icing to the cake. Puffer will gladly chill with Tigerhawk!

King Kuuga wrote:

Overcracker wrote:Interesting though awkward. If he's supposed to be Gobot Road Ranger, then he should have a red cab. I never had G1 Prime asa kid, so I always used Road Ranger as my Prime.

Anybody got any pre-order links for these?

Bruh

bruh.jpg

I totally missed that. Thanks.

Pre ordered, but man that fiction is gimmicky. Puffer just feels more like a re color Pipes than a fusion.

Gonna be a troop filler guy

What's a fusion?

o.supreme wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:

o.supreme wrote:With ER I believe when the Galactic Odyssey sets were announced we knew there would be 5 (and some if not most of the contents). I know some of the contents of the Golden Disk line have been leaked, but do we know exactly how many sets there will be?

Amazon and Pulse say there are 4 packs, and we had 4 listings (Terrorsaur, "Ranger/Puffer", Jackpot, & Tigatron) but this one was the only one to mention multiple figures in the listing, so if they are all multipacks then we only know at most half of each set's contents.

Actually, I think this reveal along with the packaging show us the other 3 may end up being single figures, or figures with extras. Look at the photo of the 4 packages making up the golden disc. This set is by far the largest box by area on the side they are using. I would expect the others to be single figures, but possibly with extras.

Unfortunately, looking at them altogether now I fear you may be correct. I've ordered many Selects, and the size of the deluxe box has been the same since the first 2 (Ricochet & red Swoop) in 2019. However with the Centurion Drone last year, and Tricranius this year, we see they can add a whole accessories pack, and still not change the size of the box. The box for deluxes could *technically* be smaller. I would not be surprised if we saw that change occur starting with any future Selects after WFC is done.

But the first box (bottom right) is definitely the biggest. The 2 on the left will be deluxes, and the one on top-right will be the Voyager. Oh well...so much for these all being multi-packs

Going by box sizes compared to each other, I'm guessing that numbers two and four might be voyager figures and number three is a deluxe + something else. One voyager would be Tigatron. The other would hopefully be Terrorsaur as some sort of extensive retool of Airazor like Ravage from Cheetor. The deluxe would be Jackpot. The addition with Jackpot could be Sights from Pteraxadon.

It just looks to me that boxes two and four are wider than half the width of box one (two deluxes) which could accommodate a voyager. Box three is wider than boxes two and four but obviously not as wide as box one which is why I think a deluxe with a Battle Master. They'd give the Battle Master display room within the box and not just be crammed into a smaller box as with the extras with Centurion Drone and Tricranius. Which would make the space needed larger than a voyager (boxes 2 and 4) but smaller than two deluxes (box 1).

Or it could also be that two and four are just deluxes, Jackpot and Terrorsaur, with three being Tigatron as O.Supreme said.

Coptur wrote:the Gobots rights are fickle but hasbro have like 90%

but they don't have rights for the challenge of the Gobots tv series that's warner brothers and they don't have rights to the original toys they still belong to bandai

which is one the reasons the 2004 gobots are different colours etc

oh the quagmire

I see this spread like gospel, but as far as I can tell it's untrue. I went on a whole rant on it over at TFW.
https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/ ... t-19574786

WB's own text on the DVDs acknowledges Hasbro's ownership of the characters. As for Bandai's "toy rights," that's not really a thing. Toys aren't protected by copyright but by more limited patent laws, and they expire in only twenty years. I don't doubt that Hasbro and Takara have been conservative in the past, but I think it is fundamentally inaccurate to say that Hasbro does not own sufficient IP to make Go-Bots that look like Go-Bots.

Flashwave wrote:Pre ordered, but man that fiction is gimmicky. Puffer just feels more like a re color Pipes than a fusion.

Gonna be a troop filler guy

william-james88 wrote:What's a fusion?

Puffer is a fusion of Pipes and Huffer. Except here he's functionally just Pipes with a white chest instead of Huffer in Pipes's colors, because Road Ranger already uses the Huffer mold and I guess they didn't want to double dip.

From the Seibertron article:

Bounti76 wrote:The description given with these two has some very interesting information. It [...] describes Pipes and Huffer being caught up in another wave of quantum energy and arriving on prehistoric Earth fused together as Puffer!

From the Amazon product description:

Amazon wrote:CHAPTER 1: THROUGH THE VORTEX: The quantum surge causes a time vortex, intercepting the GoBot Road Ranger and the Autobots Pipes and Huffer, pulling them through time and space. During the wild journey through the vortex, Huffer and Pipes fuse and arrive on prehistoric Earth as Puffer

william-james88 wrote:What's a fusion?

It's a Dragon Ball Z thing. Goku + Vegeta = Gogeta or Vegito depending on method. Goten + Trunks = Gotenks (shown below). Some of the videogames have come up with really crazy combinations.



There's going to be a lot of pictures of Pipes and Huffer doing the fusion dance to become Puffer.

Emerje

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Coptur wrote:the Gobots rights are fickle but hasbro have like 90%

but they don't have rights for the challenge of the Gobots tv series that's warner brothers and they don't have rights to the original toys they still belong to bandai

which is one the reasons the 2004 gobots are different colours etc

oh the quagmire

I see this spread like gospel, but as far as I can tell it's untrue. I went on a whole rant on it over at TFW.
https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/ ... t-19574786

WB's own text on the DVDs acknowledges Hasbro's ownership of the characters. As for Bandai's "toy rights," that's not really a thing. Toys aren't protected by copyright but by more limited patent laws, and they expire in only twenty years. I don't doubt that Hasbro and Takara have been conservative in the past, but I think it is fundamentally inaccurate to say that Hasbro does not own sufficient IP to make Go-Bots that look like Go-Bots.

Hasbro own the characters but they don't own the likenesses of those characters from CofG remember when jim sorenson used the the image of cy-kill on his q&a FB page he had to stop using the CotG image of Cy-kill for legal reasons and switch to another.
WB archive confirmed they own it (linked to wonder on 2014 below).

The models are owned by bandai same with the deluxe Insecticons which is why Hasbro tread carefully when using them and how they're different enough from their original appearance when in plastic etc.

You have to ask if Hasbro do own everything Gobots then why do they only drop names etc but no actually likeness in over 30years.

See the wondercon panel
https://youtu.be/BsS0Y9RL6Jo

The Warner guy with glasses I asked directly when I was on Twitter and he confirmed that CotG is their's 100% but they wouldn't be able to create anything new using Gobots as that is with Hasbro(currently).

It's not clear cut as we also have ActionToys using the Revenge of Cronos IP for their toyline which is hundred times looks wise closer to the original Gobots than the Hasbro Bugbite or Road Ranger.

Coptur wrote:The models are owned by bandai same with the deluxe Insecticons which is why Hasbro tread carefully when using them and how they're different enough from their original appearance when in plastic etc.

You have to ask if Hasbro do own everything Gobots then why do they only drop names etc but no actually likeness in over 30years.

That's just it, they did use the likenesses:
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Go-Bots_(comic)

From what I've read on the subject--and I've tried very hard to learn about this short of actually going into law--copyrights are much more robust than toy rights. I fundamentally don't understand the argument about Warner's: if what is claimed is true, then why wouldn't Sunbow own Transformers characters instead of Hasbro? Warner's owns the miniseries but not the related IP, which was licensed to them for the show.

I need to see much more convincing arguments then a Facebook header and an individual Twitter reply. I can't tell you why Hasbro or Takara legal makes the decisions that it does, I can only tell you that I see no evidence that there's any real underlying legal principle at work.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Coptur wrote:The models are owned by bandai same with the deluxe Insecticons which is why Hasbro tread carefully when using them and how they're different enough from their original appearance when in plastic etc.

You have to ask if Hasbro do own everything Gobots then why do they only drop names etc but no actually likeness in over 30years.

That's just it, they did use the likenesses:
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Go-Bots_(comic)

From what I've read on the subject--and I've tried very hard to learn about this short of actually going into law--copyrights are much more robust than toy rights. I fundamentally don't understand the argument about Warner's: if what is claimed is true, then why wouldn't Sunbow own Transformers characters instead of Hasbro? Warner's owns the miniseries but not the related IP, which was licensed to them for the show.

I need to see much more convincing arguments then a Facebook header and an individual Twitter reply. I can't tell you why Hasbro or Takara legal makes the decisions that it does, I can only tell you that I see no evidence that there's any real underlying legal principle at work.

Well that could be down to what the contract was with Sunbow/Hasbro being a lot more savvy compared to Hanna Barbara/Tonka.

I know it's on the wiki which isn't set in stone but it explains the quagmire quite well tbh.


https://tfwiki.net/wiki/GoBots
Modern era section
Also the JS info link
https://web.archive.org/web/20200808175 ... try3159052

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Coptur wrote:The models are owned by bandai same with the deluxe Insecticons which is why Hasbro tread carefully when using them and how they're different enough from their original appearance when in plastic etc.

You have to ask if Hasbro do own everything Gobots then why do they only drop names etc but no actually likeness in over 30years.

That's just it, they did use the likenesses:
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Go-Bots_(comic)

From what I've read on the subject--and I've tried very hard to learn about this short of actually going into law--copyrights are much more robust than toy rights. I fundamentally don't understand the argument about Warner's: if what is claimed is true, then why wouldn't Sunbow own Transformers characters instead of Hasbro? Warner's owns the miniseries but not the related IP, which was licensed to them for the show.

I need to see much more convincing arguments then a Facebook header and an individual Twitter reply. I can't tell you why Hasbro or Takara legal makes the decisions that it does, I can only tell you that I see no evidence that there's any real underlying legal principle at work.

Well that could be down to what the contract was with Sunbow/Hasbro being a lot more savvy compared to Hanna Barbara/Tonka.

I know it's on the wiki which isn't set in stone but it explains the quagmire quite well tbh.


https://tfwiki.net/wiki/GoBots
Modern era section
Also the JS info link
https://web.archive.org/web/20200808175 ... try3159052

It seems any reluctant use of the Gobots appears to be related to original bandai designs but in truth nobody truly knows, which is a shame as I love the Gobots

Coptur wrote:

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Coptur wrote:The models are owned by bandai same with the deluxe Insecticons which is why Hasbro tread carefully when using them and how they're different enough from their original appearance when in plastic etc.

You have to ask if Hasbro do own everything Gobots then why do they only drop names etc but no actually likeness in over 30years.

That's just it, they did use the likenesses:
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Go-Bots_(comic)

From what I've read on the subject--and I've tried very hard to learn about this short of actually going into law--copyrights are much more robust than toy rights. I fundamentally don't understand the argument about Warner's: if what is claimed is true, then why wouldn't Sunbow own Transformers characters instead of Hasbro? Warner's owns the miniseries but not the related IP, which was licensed to them for the show.

I need to see much more convincing arguments then a Facebook header and an individual Twitter reply. I can't tell you why Hasbro or Takara legal makes the decisions that it does, I can only tell you that I see no evidence that there's any real underlying legal principle at work.

Well that could be down to what the contract was with Sunbow/Hasbro being a lot more savvy compared to Hanna Barbara/Tonka.

I know it's on the wiki which isn't set in stone but it explains the quagmire quite well tbh.


https://tfwiki.net/wiki/GoBots
Modern era section
Also the JS info link
https://web.archive.org/web/20200808175 ... try3159052

If you read Sorensen's reply in the thread, he basically rejects the arguments that you make. I'm making the same claims over at TFW: it's not that Hasbro doesn't own the rights, it's that they don't want to build up an IP that they basically share with Bandai.

At any rate, I'm genuinely grateful that you tracked down this thread, it's very helpful for me.

I believe that, although they own the IP, Hasbro can't make TOYS that are identical to the original Bandai versions, as they don't own the rights to them. Takara, in Japan, can't have anything to do with them, as it's Hasbro that owns the rights to everything but the original molds outside Japan.

primalxconvoy wrote:I believe that, although they own the IP, Hasbro can't make TOYS that are identical to the original Bandai versions, as they don't own the rights to them. Takara, in Japan, can't have anything to do with them, as it's Hasbro that owns the rights to everything but the original molds outside Japan.

This is false. Toy likenesses aren't protected IP. Toys are generally governed by patents, which are limited, and expire after twenty years.

primalxconvoy wrote:I believe that, although they own the IP, Hasbro can't make TOYS that are identical to the original Bandai versions, as they don't own the rights to them. Takara, in Japan, can't have anything to do with them, as it's Hasbro that owns the rights to everything but the original molds outside Japan.

Exactly and agreed.

It's complicated and not black and white.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

primalxconvoy wrote:I believe that, although they own the IP, Hasbro can't make TOYS that are identical to the original Bandai versions, as they don't own the rights to them. Takara, in Japan, can't have anything to do with them, as it's Hasbro that owns the rights to everything but the original molds outside Japan.

This is false. Toy likenesses aren't protected IP. Toys are generally governed by patents, which are limited, and expire after twenty years.

That's not completely true. Although in the case of most TF toys, it's the insignia, character names, etc that are legally protected (via patents, copyrights, etc), making full copies of products can be illegal. Usually, it's up to the IP holder to make a claim, which is why so many knockoff or "3P" products are "legal". However, if Bandai wanted to take action against Hasbro for, say, making near identical (Gobots) products, then they might have a case.

The difficulties with IP are linked to the issues you have stated, but they're also linked to others and aren't so black and white.

Similar issues have arisen regarding "Robotech" and other IP from Japan too, and these have occurred after 20 years of expiry.

If you're using "identical" narrowly to refer to counterfeiting, that's fundamentally different. But honestly, even the original designs could probably be remade, because the patents are expired, but I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

In context, though, I'm talking about reengineered Generations-style updates. There are no toy rights restrictions to something like that.

AcademyofDrX wrote:If you're using "identical" narrowly to refer to counterfeiting, that's fundamentally different. But honestly, even the original designs could probably be remade, because the patents are expired, but I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

In context, though, I'm talking about reengineered Generations-style updates. There are no toy rights restrictions to something like that.

Like I've said, there's no clear answer for this. It's why Apple and Samsung have gone to court over reverse engineering, and many other similar lawsuits. I daresay Hasbro doesn't want to suffer any potentially legal or financial problems linked to it.