Why I've Been Absent

[Ultra Magnotron]

Yo! How is everyone? Long time no discussion...

So I have been gone for a long time. I do check in and read
posts every now and then, but to be honest Hasbro is changing.
I am not one to be afraid of change. I love change! Change is
supposed to be good; it keeps things from getting stale. The
change I am seeing from Hasbro is bad.

Hasbro is turning the Transformers line into something that is
far below my age demographic. I did manage to get my hands on
some RID 2015 toys and as hard as I tried to enjoy the EZ
transform gimmick... I can't. I just can't do it! They do
have some toys with a decent number of steps and some interesting
transformations, but not enough. The alternative to the main
line are the ones aimed at collectors, in other words the
expensive sh*t I can't afford. Hasbro doesn't have anything
in between these... so... I have come to realization that I'm
kind of done. This isn't a permanent done. This is just a "when
Hasbro has a toyline somewhere between 5 year olds and 'millionaire
rich people' I will return to the hobby" kind of done.

For now I've got all my current toys to enjoy and I'll be playing
with those. And only those...

To make matters worse I understand that the movies are now leaking
into the TV shows, so I won't be watching the TV shows until that
mess is done (and that could be decades from now by the looks of it).

To sum this up I'm not abandoning Transformers. Transformers is
abandoning me. There are is no product for me and nothing in the
Entertainment category is aimed at me. So... Hasbro is the one
forcing me away from Transformers. And it's too bad. I really enjoyed
Prime and I love the 80's stuff... there was some cool 90's stuff
too... Spattered in that decade here and there. But for the forseeable
future it's all downhill from here.

See ya later.

[Dave Van Domelen]

Not sure I'd call Titan Class Fortress Maximus (plus a fan vote to pick
between Titan Class Omega Supreme, Trypticon, or Scorponok), or updated Power
Master Optimus Prime "abandoning the demographic" exactly. The fact that
it's not ALL about you doesn't mean it's no longer about you at all.
If anything, if you're not seeing anything on the shelves you like, it's
because you aged out of the STORE'S demographic for toys.

Dave Van Domelen, can't decide which Titan to vote for, and only has a
few days to make up his mind.

[Ultra Magnotron]

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 10:28:53 AM UTC-8, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Not sure I'd call Titan Class Fortress Maximus (plus a fan vote to pick
> between Titan Class Omega Supreme, Trypticon, or Scorponok), or updated Power
> Master Optimus Prime "abandoning the demographic" exactly. The fact that
> it's not ALL about you doesn't mean it's no longer about you at all.
> If anything, if you're not seeing anything on the shelves you like, it's
> because you aged out of the STORE'S demographic for toys.

True. To an extent. I actually want to get my hands on those... but
the price has be affordable. So I'm waiting to see if they've be
priced somewhere in my budget.

If I have to fork over $100+ then forget it. Not worth it. They're just
toys for goodness sake. I can understand somewhere around $50, maybe $70,
but over $100? Nope. Hasbro just noped themselves out of a sale at that
point.

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 10:08:50 AM UTC-8, Ultra Magnotron wrote:
> Yo! How is everyone? Long time no discussion...
>
> So I have been gone for a long time. I do check in and read
> posts every now and then, but to be honest Hasbro is changing.
> I am not one to be afraid of change. I love change! Change is
> supposed to be good; it keeps things from getting stale. The
> change I am seeing from Hasbro is bad.

The Great Cheapening a few years back really has bit the toylines pretty hard.

> Hasbro is turning the Transformers line into something that is
> far below my age demographic. I did manage to get my hands on
> some RID 2015 toys and as hard as I tried to enjoy the EZ
> transform gimmick... I can't. I just can't do it! They do
> have some toys with a decent number of steps and some interesting
> transformations, but not enough. The alternative to the main
> line are the ones aimed at collectors, in other words the
> expensive sh*t I can't afford. Hasbro doesn't have anything
> in between these... so... I have come to realization that I'm
> kind of done. This isn't a permanent done. This is just a "when
> Hasbro has a toyline somewhere between 5 year olds and 'millionaire
> rich people' I will return to the hobby" kind of done.

Combiner Wars seems to be that. I think the quality has dropped a bit from the glory days of Generations with the Great Cheapening, but you're pretty much who those are made (with shoddy materials) for.

Return Of The Titans will bring back Headmasters in a big way.

> For now I've got all my current toys to enjoy and I'll be playing
> with those. And only those...

And slowly, bit by bit, they are breaking...

> To make matters worse I understand that the movies are now leaking
> into the TV shows, so I won't be watching the TV shows until that
> mess is done (and that could be decades from now by the looks of it).

I don't follow this -- they are their own separate continuity from the movie. There are some movie elements brought in (the gdmf allspark cube in TF:Animated). Has RID2 done something?

> To sum this up I'm not abandoning Transformers. Transformers is
> abandoning me. There are is no product for me and nothing in the
> Entertainment category is aimed at me.

There's a very, very G1 video game, and I think a Generations cartoon is coming out.

> So... Hasbro is the one
> forcing me away from Transformers. And it's too bad. I really enjoyed
> Prime and I love the 80's stuff... there was some cool 90's stuff
> too... Spattered in that decade here and there. But for the forseeable
> future it's all downhill from here.

The new toys leave me feeling a little disappointed more often than not.

[Zobovor]

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 11:08:50 AM UTC-7, Ultra Magnotron wrote:

> The alternative to the main line are the ones aimed at collectors, in other
> words the expensive sh*t I can't afford. Hasbro doesn't have anything
> in between these...

Point #1: I used to tell myself that I could never afford the expensive Japanese collectibles, and I was right. Then I realized maybe I could change the way I looked at things and realized maybe I could afford them, and I was also right. I am guessing you have disposable income that you could redistribute towards toys if you chose to.

Point #2: Yeah, Masterpiece toys and such are expensive, but what about, say, Combiner Wars? That's arguably aimed at fans like you and me, and it's no more expensive than the "regular" Transformers...

> To sum this up I'm not abandoning Transformers. Transformers is
> abandoning me.

I totally felt like that during the Armada days. It felt like a sad bastardization of Transformers, with some of the names and concepts but none of the heart or the love. It was like they were going through the motions just to keep the trademarks alive. I focused my energies elsewhere for a while (there was some very nice Star Wars stuff out at the time) and eventually Transformers approached something not-horrible again.

The great thing about Transformers these days is that it's constantly getting reinvented. You don't like the current incarnation? Wait a year or two. It'll be completely different.


Zob (in 2002, who could have predicted Alternators? In 2005, who could have predicted Transformers: Classics?)

[elde...@gmail.com]

More than one person has suggested the Combiner Wars toys
as a good middle ground. I hadn't even bothered with those
because the prospect of actually being able to complete
one of those combiners is pretty incredible. I still
haven't even seen a few of the characters that are supposed
to make up Superion... so... yeah not sure what us consumers
are supposed to do about that.

But I guess I can give the toys a chance. Of course I will
have to reach out to Amazon and Ebay to complete one robot.
Might be worth the effort though. Guess I'll find out soon
enough.

Let the experiment, and the hunt, begin!

[banzait...@gmail.com]

> But I guess I can give the toys a chance. Of course I will
have to reach out to Amazon and Ebay to complete one robot.

I buy almost all of my toys on bigbadtoystore.com. They are very competitive (but def not the cheapest route) in pricing, and you can preorder the whole upcoming line. Everything is in stock at least at the beginning. There are other sites that might be better, but I am just a creature of habit. I think TFSource.com has a similar selection, and they even award you points that you can user to get free stuff.
Do NOT buy anything off ebay unless it's an absolute last resort. It's a complete scalper ripoff rife with price fixing and collusion.

-Banzaitron

[Zobovor]

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 9:13:23 AM UTC-7, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:

> I buy almost all of my toys on bigbadtoystore.com. They are very
> competitive (but def not the cheapest route) in pricing, and you can preorder
> the whole upcoming line.

BBTS is my wife's go-to site when she's shopping for Masterpiece toys or whatnot during the gift-giving season. I personally had a bad experience with them (it literally took them three months to send me a shipping case of the TMNT Retro Collection series, and by the time I finally got it, market distribution had hit and I had a really tough time reselling the extra ones in the case).

> Do NOT buy anything off ebay unless it's an absolute last resort. It's a
> complete scalper ripoff rife with price fixing and collusion.

I agree that getting new stuff on eBay is generally not the way to go. I use it mostly for older collectibles that tons of people aren't actively searching for. (I just got 11 Darkwing Duck/TaleSpin action figures for $30 shipped, which works out to be like $2.72 per toy. That's a whole set of Darkwing toys for my little boy in one fell swoop, plus some custom fodder for me.)


Zob (is happy)