Transformers and the TMNT Effect..

[justprime]

we all since childern have been moved to complete collections (mostly by advertising.... to sell the most products) it becomes second nature,..(to parafrase "gotta catch em all" ) I need not say where this ad is from but it is an example of how we are cohersed to collect whether it is transformers or hockey cards. nothing wrong with sharing an Idea/opinion ,..sometimes it will bring about change I don't consider this online griping, just a discussion venue for people passionate about there hobbie after all these TOY'S , these TRANSFORMES have surpassed being just for Kids ,I believe everyone here can agree on that.Justprime

[Sun Swipe Prime]

There's one sure way to make your voice heard on this, and that's speak with your dollars. Don't buy that nth repaint. I don't mean to pick on completists, becauses really, what one does with their hard earned dollars is none of my business. But if you look at it a certain way, they help encourage the repaints. What I mean by this is when they buy figures that normally aren't that desirable, to at least collectors anyway. This helps to skew the sales data. When Hasbro, or who ever keeps track of this stuff, looks at it, they see results that may tell them that the 5th repaint of bumblebee did well enough to warrant a 6th repaint. Now, imagine if there was no such thing as completists. Maybe the data would tell the powers that be that that 6th repaint isn't a good idea beacause the 5th one didn't do well enough to pass that threshold that would trigger a 6th repaint. Just a thought.

BTW, I'm NOT saying it's the completists fault at all. I'm just saying if you're buying that nth repaint of a figure that maybe you're not really too hot on, it's not helping to discourage it in any way.

With that said. I'm enjoying the small break from new molds and using my dollars to pick up things that I missed.

[jackalprime]

Originally Posted by Sun Swipe Prime

There's one sure way to make your voice heard on this, and that's speak with your dollars. Don't buy that nth repaint. I don't mean to pick on completists, becauses really, what one does with their hard earned dollars is none of my business. But if you look at it a certain way, they help encourage the repaints. What I mean by this is when they buy figures that normally aren't that desirable, to at least collectors anyway. This helps to skew the sales data. When Hasbro, or who ever keeps track of this stuff, looks at it, they see results that may tell them that the 5th repaint of bumblebee did well enough to warrant a 6th repaint. Now, imagine if there was no such thing as completists. Maybe the data would tell the powers that be that that 6th repaint isn't a good idea beacause the 5th one didn't do well enough to pass that threshold that would trigger a 6th repaint. Just a thought.

BTW, I'm NOT saying it's the completists fault at all. I'm just saying if you're buying that nth repaint of a figure that maybe you're not really too hot on, it's not helping to discourage it in any way.

With that said. I'm enjoying the small break from new molds and using my dollars to pick up things that I missed.

Here, Here. Now lets all have some pie.

(ps, i only put the i like pie post because i felt that this thread needed some comic relief to break the tension)

[Sun Swipe Prime]

Originally Posted by jackalprime

Here, Here. Now lets all have some pie.

(ps, i only put the i like pie post because i felt that this thread needed some comic relief to break the tension)

You like pie? I like pie.

Wheelie say, have pie today.
Eat pie, make tenstion go away.
Crispy crust, oh so good.
Put smile on face, like it should.

Wheelie ask what you do with bat.

[Shepp]

I have a feeling that this sort of thing may be isolated to the movieverse (and somewhat the Universe 2.0 line).

We haven't seen this happen with Animated, and I don't think we'll see this with the next cartoon series.

The movie doesn't have nearly as many characters as a full cartoon series. There are a handful of Autobots and Decepticons, and there isn't really any room for cameo appearances. As with most movies, what doesn't appear on the screen isn't as popular as what does.

Hasbro's releasing so many Bumblebees so that at any given time, there will be one of the lead good guys available on the shelves. Most non-transformers fans new to the franchise will probably pick up a Bumblebee as opposed to any of the other figures. Also, most young children will ask Santa for a Bumblebee, and confused parents will be able to pick one up in a variety of packaging. After all of the cheaper ones are gone, the ones in larger more expensive packaging will remain, or the ones in multi-packs. As time wears on, parents will be picking those up.

And, in a way, Hasbro is also counting on all those completists out there to pick up all the various Bumblebees.

Now it is a really good thing that Hasbro's also offering us some non-screen Movieverse characters that are familiar to us. That's so that we fans have something to buy that we don't already have.

Now in comparing TF to Ninja Turtles and Batman, we aren't as bad off. Batman re-releases the title character with 50 bajillion different battle suits for a number of really specific situations. What they should have done was release a basic bare bones Batman figure, and then weapon and equipment packs instead of repacking the same figure only slightly modified so it can't use any of the other Batman accessories. Sure, "Sonic Fury" Batman can detect the villain from a neighbouring rooftop, but he has to be swapped with "Super Zipline" Batman to actually get to the other roof. And then to deal with the villain, since "Super Zipline" Batman can only attack from above, he has to be swapped with "Capture Claw" Batman. These figures are sort of the "anti-Batman" since they do one specific thing really well, but can't do anything else. I think Batman would rather go with versaility. Whats worse is that companies do this with non-gadget heroes like Superman and Spiderman.

Ninja Turtles does the same sort of thing, but they go a theme route rather than specific equipment.

For Batman and Ninja Turtles, I seriously don't know why they didn't just go with equipment packs and bare bones figures.

Barbie does it (but then that series also have a bajillion different versions of Barbie in addition to all of the clothes and accessories packs), the old 12" tall G.I.Joe action figure used to do it. Collectible card games have booster packs. Macross has a whole line of accessories for the Valkyries.


But I'm getting further away from the original point of this thread.

There are so many Movieverse Bumblebees because thats what they believe will sell to the target audience. Its not much different from having 5 different versions of Buzz Lightyear available in all sorts of sizes, no matter how little their "theme" or special function makes sense.

[Blurrz]

I've got another good comparison to Bumblebee.....

Wolverine in the X-men... They're both yellow, and I'm sure he's the most popular character in that series too. I bet their releases per wave are on par too..

[TFtoys]

Originally Posted by Shepp

I have a feeling that this sort of thing may be isolated to the movieverse (and somewhat the Universe 2.0 line).

We haven't seen this happen with Animated, and I don't think we'll see this with the next cartoon series.

hum, Elite guard Bumble is consider repaint too
It is just sad that repaint Soundwave has to be in the same package with NEST Bumblebee, not single package for picking up easily.

But repainting to G1 color seems to have the most positive feedback, as Takara Repaints EZ Collection Devastator in G1 Colors.
http://tformers.com/transformers-/12604/news.html.

[Richter]

Animated had its share of repaints: even worse, these repaints didnt even represent a new or different character!!

[justprime]

I would like to say that the comparision for Barbie, Batman and Turtles is not the same as Transformers,...the charaters base is limited to just a few and as such resculpts/repaints are quite common for these lines accs. packs were discontinued mostly....as there sales were not as good as with figures,some accs were just not worth packaging,.. to easy to be ripped open in store and pieces taken and it was better to sell a figure with the extra bits (from a sale's point) what does'nt make sense to me is to market under the movie banner charters that were not on screen market these under a different (universe) banner and it still makes new pieces and (AHH) repaints available to consumers,...there were lots of on screen charters for example the kitchen scean at the start would provide a number of new sculpts,.I relise that relesing superion/bruticus from cybertron repaint makes $ with out a new mold I just don't understand making it a movie piece. as stated before even a new sculpt will be reused somewhere down the line so mold cost can be recouped.

[Magnimus]

This doesn't bother me at all and I think you're exaggerating the "problem." We got an impressivly high number of original moulds in ROTF despite the limitations of cost and engineering it must take to make Transformers.

Look at just the 11 scouts, 24 deluxes, 9 voyagers, and 3 leader figures that have been released in Canada so far. 9/11 scouts are original molds, 14/24 deluxes are new molds (excluding Preview Bumblebee and Cannon Bumblebee), 6/9 voyagers are enteirely new moulds, and all 3 leader figures are new moulds.

68% of the figures in these categories (and I'm not even counting legends or FABs) are entirely new moulds all released in the span of four months. A number of the repaints also are retooled to some degree (i.e. new heads).

At the tail-end of a series, more repaints are going to appear, but that's understandable.

I can live with 68% new moulds. That's slightly over 2/3rds of all scouts, deluxes, voyagers, and leaders.