Yup this the biggest problem I see too, collector line, cartoon line, store exclusive line, online only line and then all the gimmick stuff. Just give us all a main cartoon line and adult line and have a theme across the line aka that lines gimmick
@@galvon Honestly, this year we shouldn't have gotten any ss tfone figures. Just pure mainline for all the main characters and side characters then you can start ss the year or 2 after.
@@dillydraws the last two years we had two movies most were still trying to share the shelf earthspark and ss and United line way to much and then Walmart had there own exclusive line way to many lines for Hasbro to make. This is why most the good stuff is never on the shelf that and the stores are trying to fit all this in a 3 foot wide floor space
Legacy... is mainline, dude. It's literally generations, aka the line a vast majority of TF toys have been a part of for nearly 20 years now. It's on the box.
I don't understand why kids would even want the gimmick toys. When I was a kid, the gimmick toys were always a disappointment. I never wanted them and when I got a few as gifts, I never played with them.
My guess the whole point is that this makes you buy MORE TOYS. Because each individual toy is less fun. Buy toy. Play with it ONCE. Put it away. Get bored. Buy ANOTHER toy. Rinse and repeat
@@katamed5205 id disagree on this one, because once a kid knew that one gimmick toy is like that, they wouldnt buy it again, as you can see in the video and irl where these shitty gimmick toys are shelf warmers everywhere in the world. I think your point stands on a more meaningful TF Toyline like lets say ROTF, Prime or most older transformers line. They are one of the best and still being looked for to this day because of their fun gimmicks AND generally as a toy itself. I still think MechAlive and mechtech are one of the unique things Hasbro brought back then
Studio Series would have been my DREAM when I first got into the franchise in 2007. I never liked the inaccuracies, the gimmicks, or the wrong clownish colors. The "kids" toys are for nobody.
Second this. I wonder why Hasbro doesn’t do more role play toys? Gimmicky, transforming ion blasters like the one you see on 2007. Or TF one Megatron’s triple barrelled fusion cannon that you can actually mount on your forearm. Maybe a combining or transforming gimmick put into it! Matrix toys for crying out loud!
With Kamen Rider, I would say the Drivers are always going to work but with figures, not really. Gotchard didn't even finish doing figures of all forms and with Gavv, they realized that kids care more about articulation.
Eh, I wouldnt say so. With the Drivers, yes but the gimmicks are also an extention of the Driver. With the Gimmick figures (Like Gotchard's) they usually either shelfwarm or don't make it that far into the line.
Gimmick KR figures dont sell well because kids already know that they can either get the same figure for much cheaper (So-do) or with much better quality (S.H Figuarts) if they just wait a bit. Hell, most of the time those lines come out faster than the gimmick line
I mean that mostly works with things like the Drivers and weapons, most especially Heisei Phase 2 being a collectathon The figures however don’t have much and exist to represent the Rider you like most, still cool though
I used to work for Toys R Us. Hasbro requires a minimum purchase order that is really high & certain items have to be part of your order. They force you to buy games & toys they know don't sell well.
no wonder they are losing money Imagine if hasbro was normal and focused on stocking on what people want like those ss 86 optimus primes instead of gimmick toys nobody wants and actually reissued mainline figures they know will sell instead of waiting years upon years
One of the reasons Hasbro makes these cruddy gimmick toys is because they think kids above the age of toddlers don't play with toys anymore because they have tablets and PCs. While it's a very compelling argument, I don't believe that to be the entire case. Personally, I think it's actually due to the fact that they not only overload shelves with these knock-off quality kiddy toys but also the fact that they have the audacity to overprice them, like they somehow expect a kid or their parents for that matter to afford gimmick toys at such a price. They're not attracting newcomers; they're scaring them away.
TRUE! In fact, there are some rather rudimentary experiment's that have been done that PROVE that Kids are MORE THAN HAPPY to play with good old Analogue Toys... Not Tablets and Consoles IF WE LET THEM! Great one was done by Money Saving expert Martin Lewis here in the UK... He took a class of 30 Children whose families all said they were not interested in Toys, and he took them into a room where he told them "In here are presents, Now... All the boxes' are Empty but for the next hour you can do whatever you want with them" And they did... They had AMAZING FUN... Then they had an Hour where they could Pay with God Old Analogue Toys or Tablets and Console's ... Of the 30 Children, Only ONE picked up a Tablet! Kids want to be engaged, have fun, Use their Imaginations... The are not addicted to Technology, we simply lack the time to give them the attention they need!
i love gimmick toys but i definitely agree. i think the division of "cheap gimmick toys for kids" and "serious gimmickless figures for collectors" was ultimately bad for the transformers brand. I wish Legacy/AOTP had springloaded missiles or other silly stuff. Bring back Powerlinx with modern engineering! I miss the Prime Wars trilogy
Eh, I don't think a lack of gimmicks is an issue. Sure, they're neat if unobtrusive, but for transformers the sacrifices needed to include gimmicks into a figure is too much for what they provide.
@@vast9467 that's a design issue. figures that aim to strike a balance between gimmick and broadly usable toy are what they should be aiming at like, early CHUG/Thrilling 30 and the mainline movieverse and animated lines from around that time were pretty great at that with automorph and pop out weapons, firing missiles, lights and sounds... god, something at the very least.
Tbh I wish they would focus exclusively on SS, since that's what I've wanted them to make since I first got into tf way back in 07. All I ever wanted was toys accurate to the characters, no gimmicks.
Here’s the thing, if these gimmick toys were not made anymore, the plastic that went towards making them would instead be used for making the higher quality toys like the ones for Studio Series, War For Cybertron, and Legacy. If more of the higher quality toys were made, then they wouldn’t be so rare, there would be less scalping, and maybe even less overpricing them online in brand new condition on Amazon and eBay.
Hasbro fumbled the ball with TF One figures. Why the hell do I have to wait 6 months to get the 4 main autobots from the movie. Meanwhile Yolopark has the 4 characters ready to go in cogged and cogless mode.
My local store has some Pencil Rubbers, a couple rubber (material) statues and the Earthspark One Steps. Occasionally, there'll be a small Siege one, like some Aimless that rot on the shelf and there's like 35 Bumblebees
This is so real. My birthday is near christmas so bless my lovely mother suggested going to this store for it but I'd honestly just rather go to indemand physical store because they have both blokees and mainstream/collector lines
You’ve gotta wonder. Does Hasbro even profit from selling these? Like I actually wanna see the profit from these gimmick toys and then actual transformers
this is something i can get behind!! a lot of hardcore collectors just want the gimmicks completely gone. But honestly i prefer a more balanced approach to gimmick vs mainline remember: the old toylines also had gimmicks like 07 Cyber Slammers, Animated Activators, or other misc toylined like Bot Shots, so having it completely gone is unfair also cause i liked some of the silly gimmicks soooo (One Power Flip Optimus is actually so cool imo)
The problem now is that gimmicks arent fun. Old lines had gimmicks that made figures cooler, nowadays no figures come with any firing actions, moving gears, mechtech or even sounds and lights. Those were cool gimmick for adults and kids. Now I usually hunt in japanese aftermarket for ROTF figures and 2007 because they are just so much cooler toys
My younger cousin got one of the newer Optimus Prime toys, half of it was hollow and the vehicle form was stored ENTIRELY on the back so it could do some sort of pathetic half-assed attempt at transforming itself. Originally the one-step changers were a line. Now it is a feature that they'll put on random ones. Sure, you could argue that it makes transformers more accessible for younger kids or people with disabilities- but that isn't what they are at all! Half of them don't even have moving legs and only have swinging shoulders. They aren't getting to play with Transformers, they are getting to push a button, or accidentally tap a wheel, and getting jumpscared by the thing folding in half. They don't look cool anymore, and they keep leaving the backs hollow. Here's a challenge, find a Bumblebee that not only look presentable, but doesn't become see through when a light source so much as brushes an atom of it. Bonus points if he can be posed with elbows and knees bent! Whenever we get an actually decent figure it'll be scaled randomly and not fit the last decent figure, and it'll cost your grans kidneys to afford it. What was once standard issue is now seen as some sort of amazing reinventing of the wheel- like we couldn't do that 10-15 years ago for the cost of what most one-steps cost now. The one-steps are now the main toys, it's not that people actually like them more so they keep buying them, it's just all there is in shops anymore.
What pains me the most is that some of the gimmicks are fun but they are either so incredibly expensive for what they are worth or just too many of them exist that they clog up space that can easily be filled by a Studio Series or Legacy figure. Best example is the Cyber Combiners from EarthSpark. These are good sets if you want combining toys. However, they aren’t worth 30 bucks. The fact there is only two of them also hurt that we see the same Twitch and Robby set over and over again. If they were 10 dollars, I can see someone picking them up and being genuinely surprised by how fun they are. Oh yeah, prices suck. Why is a giant hallow Bumblebee with a eagle from his chest worth 55 dollars when you could’ve gotten a Legacy Leader figure and have better value from that.
Strongly agree, with both you and GotBot. I go to the local Walmart and see nothing but the same toys over and over. That sight doesn’t fill me with excitement; it makes me think Hasbro is running Transformers into the ground. It also brings up another issue that’s been raised with Transformers (and completely justifiably): the cost of the nicer toys. For example, the SS86 Bumblebee to my knowledge is quite a nice toy, very screen accurate to the movie, but it’s barely larger than a Core Class and is not worth almost $25. If Hasbro would actually focus on toys that appealed to collectors and kids alike, instead of stuffing the shelves with toys that appealed to neither, maybe they could bring down some of these prices and I’d buy Transformers more often.
So i run a small toy store, and i can tell you Hasbro would prefer we sell the deluxe figures, but the fact is we sell 60 core or legacy united for every deluxe figure. I used to insist on stocking the higher end figures, and the lack of leader class in stores was a part of my motivation, but anything over 30 bucks tends to sell in super small quantities. Basically, we cant stock the more expensive figures just to lose shelfspace for items that dont sell.
this image painfully proves your point. all the good figures just squeezed against the wall or shoved below to make room for earthspark 1-flip changers and bumblebee masks. so please, hasbro, *chill.*
This is a problem with all companies. What is the point of flooding the market with products that no one wants instead of spending the time and manufacturing on products that people actually want? Numbers say that the more products you can get out there by spending less money, the higher your profit margins can be.
I stopped seeing leader class figures at most if not all of my local Walmarts because ALL of that bottom shelf space is taken up by those big TF One gimmick toys. It was straight up annoying seeing all the section cluttered with that stuff for months while very little of the Star Raiders toyline arrived.
As someone who grew up with both Nerf and Beyblade, they made SO many shitty proprietary sidelines, specifically with Nerf and how they have so many proprietary darts in toy lines that never last long. In terms of darts (that aren’t compatible with each other) there’s elite, gelfire, rival, ultra, mega, mega XL, pro, hyper, and N series. Each of these darts have 2-3 blasters that ONLY fire their respected dart, and barely anyone is buying them because why would you buy a blaster that doesn’t use the same darts as every other blaster in your collection. Beyblades, around the metal era (early 2010s) had a huge amount of garbage that never sold, specifically Beywheels, XTS, beywarriors, and those garbage remote controlled Beyblades that barely ever worked. These always ended up being just a small present your aunt would get that would never get used because they weren’t a part of the main line of Beyblades, so why even use them?
I never understood why people believe kids don't know or care when toys are cheap. I hated cheap toys as a kid, I wanted the good transformers. I decided to start collecting transformers a few weeks ago because I couldn't afford them growing up, but all I can find is the cheap crap! The only decent ones I've found are blokees, and they were in an art shop, not a toy shop. Maybe I should just buy online.
ima be that guy today: transformers is still mainly a toy brand for kids, ofcourse gimmick toys are gonna be the main focus. collectors have their legacy series, they have masterpiece, they have haslab, they have a lot so i think it's fair to leave some fun gimmick toys for the kiddos on the shelves. i mean yea theres a lot but you gotta remember who the main demographic is here.
Honestly, this. Toy stores (and department stores with toy aisles) aren't for collectors, they're for children. If you want to buy collector lines, go to a collector store like RobotKingdom or BBTS. When they do exclusives in Generations, like the Star Seekers, G2, or Velocitron capsule collections, which their exclusive partner stores don't even bother stocking (especially when those partners rarely stock Generations in the first place) that's a problem, but that's a whole different video really
As a kid I never liked gimmicks I just wanted cool looking toys. Some gimmicks are integrated better than others but generally they make the figure worse.
I don't really agree with that, the entire Core Class came out afterwards and were amazing for small figures, and we've gotten a lot of Definitive versions of figures in Studio series etc. I agree with you on the actual selection in most stores tho
Spector Creative is one channel that explains the answer to a lot of these question from the perspective of a toy maker and stores. It is complex, but has to do with making sales to the dumb store owners, excluaive deals, dumb parents / grandparents who still confuse Nintendo and Play Station and much more.
Gimmick figures are good as a novel change of pace from the usual Transformers fare. Having 90% of all physical store stock be gimmick figures destroys any interest in going to the store to find a new figure, and they don't sell to kids either. I worked at Toys R Us, those things do not leave the shelf more than once in a blue moon.
We just got lucky here in the phillipines, On the main shelf there are the Transformer authentics and Gimmick toys. And another section encased in glass that has the deluxe class, studio series etc.
As @dillydraws has pointed out, we have five mainlines too many. Two are fine, one to promote the movies and one to promote a TV show. But when you have seven "mainlines", twelve exclusives AND three "evergreen" slots, it means you're pumping out far too much plastic tat without spending nearly as much money on quality control.
3:30, 3:50 look at all those deluxes sitting on the peg not selling. No wonder they cut down. Hasbro doesn't care if a store's shelves look full, they want their toys to look like they sell a lot. They will keep making what keeps selling. Gimmicks are well stocked because that's what retailers order because that's what sells.
1:13 Hey now, Hero Mashers are pretty cool. My 5 year old son loved them. They ARE fun. Swappable limbs is not a cheap gimmick if that’s the core play feature. Also, it’s not like the swappable play feature didn’t work.
Amd the deluxe toys cost 25 pounds/dollars too. And they're in a crappy box without a plastic shield that makes your brain think its a gimmick toy at first.
7:40 very true, when I was a kid I didn’t like the one step changer age of extinction Optimus bc it was very small and not that cool as a normal toy (despite me actually liking it more fondly lately), I wanted the actual age of extinction toys, with articulation and everything
I gotta say though i got a earthspark elita-1 flip changer in my stocking for Christmas, that thing ngl is kinda addictive lol. Its just fun the throw it and watch it transform
I like gimmicks but I hate the way Hasbro builds modern gimmick toys. During Cybertron every Transformer Hasbro made was a gimmick toy, they were also fun toys on top of that. Modern gimmick transformers don’t do anything outside of their gimmick, most of them don’t even have shoulder articulation. How is a kid supposed to play with an Optimus Prime who can’t even point his blaster at anything?
In my opinion, those Transformer toys don't have many articulations which doesn't peak my interest. They feel like a waste of plastic to make these toys.
I regret missing out on Prime and not having it part of my early childhood. I was of the age I got my first Optimus Prime from Transformers Prime when I was 5. Instead had to settle for RID15 a warning for what was to come.
Bakugan in a sense has and had this issue of gimmicks being more important than mainlines, I remember working at a Walmart and telling my co worker work did the toy aisles that he has stock that has been around more than I’ve been there (at that point it was over a year) and as soon as I told him and I went back on my lunch all of it including some shelf warmers were on clearance 😂
if they want to do gimmick why not try to emulate the rid 2000 one step changers like towline, that figure was a 1 step changer and was really fun but then again they might just charge 20
The spring action toys and click switch weapons were awesome as a kid I think those were gimmick enough but serious enough to still enjoy especially bc the transformers weren’t horrible morso everything post revenge of the fallen I thought was cool and even some of the g1-wfc stuff was really cool, still have my leader class voice line ROTF sword claws prime from when I was younger, the sideswipe corvette was one of my favorite figs, I had wfc bee, there was a bee that was g1 inspired I wish I could find. Used to do stop motion with them on my 3DS
Beast Wars had their own 1-step changers, but they also had ball joints and enough articulation that I can still enjoy them today. Pair that with good sculpts and Hasbro would be good to go.
Ok time traveler. Dead ass though, miss toys r us so much. Glad I grew up with it. It saddens me so much knowing toys r us wasnt even gonna close at all, it wasn’t having issues or anything, just crappy management and lackluster investors.
While watching the video... Something came up that I feel adds to the issue but its one that many choose to ignore or excuse... But We as consumers are PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE! One word... "Collectors"... That's the market Hasbro aims for with most of its mainline stuff - Actual Transformers... Marketing to people like me who grew up with the 1984 Transformers! But that's a limited market... I was about 11 when Transformers first hit the scene in 1984... What attracted me as a child was the Fun Factor... They were not just a Toy, They were a PUZZLE... I recall sneaking into my mothers bedroom, sneaking a look at my Christmas Presents and Transforming MEGATRON for the first time, then panicking to get him back into his Gun Mode before my mother came upstairs and realised what I was doing... Fast Forward a bit to when they released the Jumpstarters and I HATED THESE THINGS! They were BORING... One Step Transformation! We as older fans need to accept as Hasbro does that these are supposed to be TOYS... FOR KIDS! And Kids want to be Engaged! They want things to be FUN... One Step Transformers are NOT FUN! Hasbro are not looking to the Kids Market, They have it in their minds that Kids want Tech Not Toys... But there are experiments that have been conducted that prove this is NOT TRUE! Kids love their consoles and Tablets, yes... But we tend to allow it as we are short on time... I am Grandfather now, and while My Grandkids LOVE their Tablets, They spend more time playing with ACTUAL ANALOUGE TOYS! Hasbro as a company is always thinking Profit first... As long as Collectors are going to strip teh shelves when they do release a New "United" Optimus Prime - Which we do... Then resell them for Hundreds on Ebay... They are making Money! They have forgotten who they are! They are a TOY COMPANY... Make Toys for Kids... Sure, Have your Collectors stuff too... There is a Market and frankly, They can charge MORE to please us collectors! But get back to your roots and make toys FOR KIDS! Kids dont want "One Step BS" ... They need to be challenged Stop dumbing kids down and give them interactivity... Sadly though, Collectors will Strip Shelves... We are part of the issue... Sorry but it has to be said...
yeah, in my area in france, its a problem that's been killing the brand presence there for a while. a few years ago, you used to be able to see up to oeader class of titans returns with leader class from the first wave of studio series. nowadays, at the same spaces, IF you still have transformers, its 1 collumn with MAYBE if you're lucky, an earthsparks warrior class (all pegs or optimus). hell, at one of my local supermarket, the transformers section still has the rid2015 cardboard decoratio installed for the transformers aisle
I feel like a major problem is ever since studio series was released we have kinda had a lack of mainline toys, this was a really good example for transformers one, the toys released were either horrible, or actually good but few in numbers, and now were waiting months for newer tf1 toys to come out such as starscream even though he should of been one of the first toys released near the movies release date, and another thing is they could of just made so many recolours of starscream, due to the abundance of seekers in the movie, I mean this is just easy money for hasbro, yet they decided not too
Honestly I think the problem is that Transformers is increasingly not a toy-centric brand. When I was a kid, Transformers media existed to sell the toys, but now the toys only exist secondarily to the media.
It's the most annoying thing ever especially if you live in a country outside of the US. I always had a lot of places to go to if I wanted a figure of good quality like a deluxe class or even a voyager but now the shelves are just filled with either bootlegs that break out of the box or gimmick slop that not even kid me will enjoy. I think another problem is also the fact that the stores are too lazy. I have seen the exact same weaponizer figure from earthrise wave one on the shelf for probably years at this point
i stopped collecting transformers because of this. I moved to a big city and thought it would help my collecting having access to so many stores. I spent 8 years checking stores constantly for new figures. All stores ever had was the gimmick based crap no one wants, those baby 3 step formers, masks, no transforming statues, and NEVER any deluxes or better. I just gave up, 8 years of searching and nothing to show for it.
It's so bad here in Yuma that whenever I try to look for a deluxe or Studio series especially all I get are these stupid cheap gimmick toys and yet any Studio series figures I do manage to find are the ones no one cares about
I miss non studio series random transformer toys that were actually good, like a great 20 to 10 dollar transforming robot toy that can actually move heads and limbs,and not some hallowed out plastic mold
I really doubt kids are going to target all by themselves to get toys anyway. These kinds of toys should be sold at walgreens or gamestop not bigger retailers.
I started collecting TF recently after my father got back to collecting. I became a collector at 13, but in those, the Toy industry kind of went through the “modernization” of gimmick so that makes me one of the recent collectors. From where I live? IT’S A STRUGGLE! I get out of a toy store sticking to only one brand and sighing I did not see anything new from the market that was released. It’s for kids, I know, but I just saw a little girl being disappointed that there are no other toys of Starscream that transform AND looked good (poor kid, but it’s true!) All of the good ones are those like Blokees, Yolopark, or the 10 dollar TF toys that makes you do a double take for a bit (The line is either a yay or a meh). I want a gimmick that IS GOOD, Something that transforms, and the bigger version of it is not made up of 50% air. I am over here clutching my pearls at the amount of TF stuff that I have that most of them don’t even transform. I assemble them! The ones that do are… meh. Or EH?! (That’s transforms but is expensive and doesn’t look worth for its price). I want something that pleases the collectors, the parents, and the kids. The latter may appreciate whatever it is, gimmick or figure aside, but I swear in the heavens that kids will appreciate it more if it’s THE REAL DEAL. The charm. Gimmicks IMO, is a one time play for kids. They’ll see it, and never again.
Whenever I go to walmarts in my area I always stop by to look at the Transformers and see what else I could get, I'm only interested in Studio Series and Legacy (at least from retail) and I'm always disappointed when I see the same 3 or 4 figures that have like 7 copies, and the rest is just gimmick. I've been wanting Concept Art Megatron and Shockwave from the Bumblebee movie but because of all the clutter from gimmick and the shelf warming SS, they never came to my local stores and online are pretty expensive (On Amazon last I saw Concept Art Megatron was like $205, I'm gonna be looking other places but I mostly use Amazon)
It honestly sucks cus its only in recent years that I've finally been able to earn enough money to buy all the toys/figs I've wanted to buy growing up, and while getting older stuff is always great, I also wanna be able to get newer releases esp when its from newer media Transformers media like TFone. Problem is, 90% of the shelves in every store I've gone to is just overflowing with these things, and they're not only cheaply made and low quality, but also way too overpriced for any kid or adult to consider buying them, especially for newer fans and newcomers to the franchise as a whole. Nowadays, the only decent and/or good stuff I can see and buy from the shelves are Yolopark, Blokees, Studio Series and Legacy figs.
I mean the reason why we have stuff like this because parents complained about the transformers figures being too complicated at the time leading to hasbro to downscale their quality around rid2015, aoe, tlk It wasn't all bad... at first we used to have good figures during that time even with the need to simplify and down grade the quality. Now we have figures that are too simplified, cheap, and just a way to make kids feel bad because their transformers can't pose like the others can In short it start because parents went:"think of the children" leading what we got now, too be fair their not completely wrong but hasbro shouldn't have downgraded that much after those three series ended They should've taken some cues from the unicron trilogy and the 2007 toyline with their gimmicks that don't hinder the figures that much
Favorited this video! Thanks for speaking our minds. It pains me to see such a monumental waste of plastic with the gimmick toys Hasbro makes, for TFs and Marvel and Star Wars. Everyone sees them, no one wants them because for a few more bucks invested you can get a more timeless and durable figure like Studio Series that actually transform!! Im astounded the TF store is not stocked with “serious” collector’s TFs and instead stocked with cheap garbage gimmicks when the most serious TF fans are adults now with money! Hasbro needs to wake up and understand collectors should be their focus, not some phantom kids that are proving they are not interested in cheap tricks
The issue is.. There is no "Mainline" anymore. We got like 4 or 5 mainline then nothing else since the rest goes to SS or Legacy
Yup this the biggest problem I see too, collector line, cartoon line, store exclusive line, online only line and then all the gimmick stuff. Just give us all a main cartoon line and adult line and have a theme across the line aka that lines gimmick
@@galvon Honestly, this year we shouldn't have gotten any ss tfone figures. Just pure mainline for all the main characters and side characters then you can start ss the year or 2 after.
@@dillydraws the last two years we had two movies most were still trying to share the shelf earthspark and ss and United line way to much and then Walmart had there own exclusive line way to many lines for Hasbro to make. This is why most the good stuff is never on the shelf that and the stores are trying to fit all this in a 3 foot wide floor space
Legacy... is mainline, dude. It's literally generations, aka the line a vast majority of TF toys have been a part of for nearly 20 years now. It's on the box.
Generations is mainline, and legacy is part of Generations...
I don't understand why kids would even want the gimmick toys. When I was a kid, the gimmick toys were always a disappointment. I never wanted them and when I got a few as gifts, I never played with them.
My guess the whole point is that this makes you buy MORE TOYS. Because each individual toy is less fun.
Buy toy. Play with it ONCE. Put it away. Get bored. Buy ANOTHER toy.
Rinse and repeat
Yup its a one and done toy that you can play once then not play anymore.
@@katamed5205 id disagree on this one, because once a kid knew that one gimmick toy is like that, they wouldnt buy it again, as you can see in the video and irl where these shitty gimmick toys are shelf warmers everywhere in the world. I think your point stands on a more meaningful TF Toyline like lets say ROTF, Prime or most older transformers line. They are one of the best and still being looked for to this day because of their fun gimmicks AND generally as a toy itself. I still think MechAlive and mechtech are one of the unique things Hasbro brought back then
Studio Series would have been my DREAM when I first got into the franchise in 2007. I never liked the inaccuracies, the gimmicks, or the wrong clownish colors. The "kids" toys are for nobody.
Same
Kamen Rider is proof that a Gimmick heavy Toy line can completely work but Hasbro just doesn’t seem to understand how to do it right.
Second this.
I wonder why Hasbro doesn’t do more role play toys?
Gimmicky, transforming ion blasters like the one you see on 2007.
Or TF one Megatron’s triple barrelled fusion cannon that you can actually mount on your forearm. Maybe a combining or transforming gimmick put into it!
Matrix toys for crying out loud!
With Kamen Rider, I would say the Drivers are always going to work but with figures, not really.
Gotchard didn't even finish doing figures of all forms and with Gavv, they realized that kids care more about articulation.
Eh, I wouldnt say so.
With the Drivers, yes but the gimmicks are also an extention of the Driver.
With the Gimmick figures (Like Gotchard's) they usually either shelfwarm or don't make it that far into the line.
Gimmick KR figures dont sell well because kids already know that they can either get the same figure for much cheaper (So-do) or with much better quality (S.H Figuarts) if they just wait a bit. Hell, most of the time those lines come out faster than the gimmick line
I mean that mostly works with things like the Drivers and weapons, most especially Heisei Phase 2 being a collectathon
The figures however don’t have much and exist to represent the Rider you like most, still cool though
I used to work for Toys R Us. Hasbro requires a minimum purchase order that is really high & certain items have to be part of your order. They force you to buy games & toys they know don't sell well.
no wonder they are losing money
Imagine if hasbro was normal and focused on stocking on what people want like those ss 86 optimus primes instead of gimmick toys nobody wants and actually reissued mainline figures they know will sell instead of waiting years upon years
A lot of bit companies do that though, it's not exclusive to Hasbro.
@@Oeeshikthe ss 86 Optimus prime is out? Never seen it in retail. All the stuff at retail are at least 15 months old stock here in Australia.
@@UnsafeBasher Yep, he is out but hasbro screwed up the distribution SO BAD nobody can find him outside scalper prices.
Hasbro is so embarrassing
For me the gimmick with transformers is that they convert from something like a vehicle to a robot.
This needs to be repeated more honestly. Transformers are a gimmick to start with, why do they need more?
@mrscruffles801 I like that. I think this is how I rephrase that statement.
One of the reasons Hasbro makes these cruddy gimmick toys is because they think kids above the age of toddlers don't play with toys anymore because they have tablets and PCs. While it's a very compelling argument, I don't believe that to be the entire case. Personally, I think it's actually due to the fact that they not only overload shelves with these knock-off quality kiddy toys but also the fact that they have the audacity to overprice them, like they somehow expect a kid or their parents for that matter to afford gimmick toys at such a price. They're not attracting newcomers; they're scaring them away.
TRUE! In fact, there are some rather rudimentary experiment's that have been done that PROVE that Kids are MORE THAN HAPPY to play with good old Analogue Toys... Not Tablets and Consoles IF WE LET THEM!
Great one was done by Money Saving expert Martin Lewis here in the UK... He took a class of 30 Children whose families all said they were not interested in Toys, and he took them into a room where he told them "In here are presents, Now... All the boxes' are Empty but for the next hour you can do whatever you want with them"
And they did... They had AMAZING FUN... Then they had an Hour where they could Pay with God Old Analogue Toys or Tablets and Console's ...
Of the 30 Children, Only ONE picked up a Tablet!
Kids want to be engaged, have fun, Use their Imaginations... The are not addicted to Technology, we simply lack the time to give them the attention they need!
i love gimmick toys but i definitely agree. i think the division of "cheap gimmick toys for kids" and "serious gimmickless figures for collectors" was ultimately bad for the transformers brand. I wish Legacy/AOTP had springloaded missiles or other silly stuff. Bring back Powerlinx with modern engineering!
I miss the Prime Wars trilogy
Eh, I don't think a lack of gimmicks is an issue.
Sure, they're neat if unobtrusive, but for transformers the sacrifices needed to include gimmicks into a figure is too much for what they provide.
the stupid gimmicks that took up space on figures that could be used for transformation are useless imo
@@vast9467 that's a design issue. figures that aim to strike a balance between gimmick and broadly usable toy are what they should be aiming at like, early CHUG/Thrilling 30 and the mainline movieverse and animated lines from around that time were pretty great at that with automorph and pop out weapons, firing missiles, lights and sounds... god, something at the very least.
Tbh I wish they would focus exclusively on SS, since that's what I've wanted them to make since I first got into tf way back in 07. All I ever wanted was toys accurate to the characters, no gimmicks.
Much more interesting than another Optimus or bumblebee figure
Here’s the thing, if these gimmick toys were not made anymore, the plastic that went towards making them would instead be used for making the higher quality toys like the ones for Studio Series, War For Cybertron, and Legacy. If more of the higher quality toys were made, then they wouldn’t be so rare, there would be less scalping, and maybe even less overpricing them online in brand new condition on Amazon and eBay.
Hasbro fumbled the ball with TF One figures. Why the hell do I have to wait 6 months to get the 4 main autobots from the movie.
Meanwhile Yolopark has the 4 characters ready to go in cogged and cogless mode.
Not to mention blokees
@G55544 Exactly. Goes to show how bad Hasbro has become. You could find the complete team and some extra side characters in the store instantly.
Half the toys are crap that shelfwarm and half the toys people want (usually CHUG) are sold out and poorly restocked.
And something is cool and everyone likes but hasbro don't make it anymore like rts lugnut or hftd toyline
where I live it’s even worse, it’s ONLY gimmick toys.
same.
Same
My local store has some Pencil Rubbers, a couple rubber (material) statues and the Earthspark One Steps.
Occasionally, there'll be a small Siege one, like some Aimless that rot on the shelf and there's like 35 Bumblebees
This is so real. My birthday is near christmas so bless my lovely mother suggested going to this store for it but I'd honestly just rather go to indemand physical store because they have both blokees and mainstream/collector lines
I just got a blokees 01 for Christmas it was nice
You’ve gotta wonder. Does Hasbro even profit from selling these? Like I actually wanna see the profit from these gimmick toys and then actual transformers
well, Hasbro is being sued by investors.
Probably do but not enough
The wild thing is that Transformers ALREADY HAVE A GIMMICK and it's a good one
this is something i can get behind!!
a lot of hardcore collectors just want the gimmicks completely gone. But honestly i prefer a more balanced approach to gimmick vs mainline
remember: the old toylines also had gimmicks like 07 Cyber Slammers, Animated Activators, or other misc toylined like Bot Shots, so having it completely gone is unfair
also cause i liked some of the silly gimmicks soooo (One Power Flip Optimus is actually so cool imo)
The problem now is that gimmicks arent fun.
Old lines had gimmicks that made figures cooler, nowadays no figures come with any firing actions, moving gears, mechtech or even sounds and lights. Those were cool gimmick for adults and kids.
Now I usually hunt in japanese aftermarket for ROTF figures and 2007 because they are just so much cooler toys
My younger cousin got one of the newer Optimus Prime toys, half of it was hollow and the vehicle form was stored ENTIRELY on the back so it could do some sort of pathetic half-assed attempt at transforming itself.
Originally the one-step changers were a line. Now it is a feature that they'll put on random ones. Sure, you could argue that it makes transformers more accessible for younger kids or people with disabilities- but that isn't what they are at all! Half of them don't even have moving legs and only have swinging shoulders. They aren't getting to play with Transformers, they are getting to push a button, or accidentally tap a wheel, and getting jumpscared by the thing folding in half. They don't look cool anymore, and they keep leaving the backs hollow.
Here's a challenge, find a Bumblebee that not only look presentable, but doesn't become see through when a light source so much as brushes an atom of it. Bonus points if he can be posed with elbows and knees bent!
Whenever we get an actually decent figure it'll be scaled randomly and not fit the last decent figure, and it'll cost your grans kidneys to afford it. What was once standard issue is now seen as some sort of amazing reinventing of the wheel- like we couldn't do that 10-15 years ago for the cost of what most one-steps cost now. The one-steps are now the main toys, it's not that people actually like them more so they keep buying them, it's just all there is in shops anymore.
All because people were complaining about ROTF's complexity. 💀
i was 5 during the rotf line, and i loved transforming the more complex toys. couldnt get enough of em
What pains me the most is that some of the gimmicks are fun but they are either so incredibly expensive for what they are worth or just too many of them exist that they clog up space that can easily be filled by a Studio Series or Legacy figure.
Best example is the Cyber Combiners from EarthSpark. These are good sets if you want combining toys. However, they aren’t worth 30 bucks. The fact there is only two of them also hurt that we see the same Twitch and Robby set over and over again. If they were 10 dollars, I can see someone picking them up and being genuinely surprised by how fun they are.
Oh yeah, prices suck. Why is a giant hallow Bumblebee with a eagle from his chest worth 55 dollars when you could’ve gotten a Legacy Leader figure and have better value from that.
This needs way more likes
The gimmick should be good toys😭🙏
Strongly agree, with both you and GotBot. I go to the local Walmart and see nothing but the same toys over and over. That sight doesn’t fill me with excitement; it makes me think Hasbro is running Transformers into the ground. It also brings up another issue that’s been raised with Transformers (and completely justifiably): the cost of the nicer toys. For example, the SS86 Bumblebee to my knowledge is quite a nice toy, very screen accurate to the movie, but it’s barely larger than a Core Class and is not worth almost $25. If Hasbro would actually focus on toys that appealed to collectors and kids alike, instead of stuffing the shelves with toys that appealed to neither, maybe they could bring down some of these prices and I’d buy Transformers more often.
$25 Holy shit, here in Canada a deluxe is $37 before tax
@ yikes. Inflation is insane up there.
So i run a small toy store, and i can tell you Hasbro would prefer we sell the deluxe figures, but the fact is we sell 60 core or legacy united for every deluxe figure. I used to insist on stocking the higher end figures, and the lack of leader class in stores was a part of my motivation, but anything over 30 bucks tends to sell in super small quantities. Basically, we cant stock the more expensive figures just to lose shelfspace for items that dont sell.
Just remember they scrapped Core class, a line that actually did pretty well, to make space for this.
Please say “My name is Quandale Dingle” your voice matches very well
this image painfully proves your point. all the good figures just squeezed against the wall or shoved below to make room for earthspark 1-flip changers and bumblebee masks. so please, hasbro, *chill.*
lol the SS103 Rhinoxes have been shelfwarming for a year and a half at my local toy store, as has all the ROTB kids stuff
Throw out the current One-Step-Changers out and bring back the Activators (from Animated)
YES YES YES
The only good one-step changer for me personally is cyberverse whirl
This is a problem with all companies. What is the point of flooding the market with products that no one wants instead of spending the time and manufacturing on products that people actually want? Numbers say that the more products you can get out there by spending less money, the higher your profit margins can be.
8:04 you should've said "you don"t got the touch or the power"
I stopped seeing leader class figures at most if not all of my local Walmarts because ALL of that bottom shelf space is taken up by those big TF One gimmick toys. It was straight up annoying seeing all the section cluttered with that stuff for months while very little of the Star Raiders toyline arrived.
All I see at my local Walmarts are stelfwarming legacy voyagers and tf1 crap
As someone who grew up with both Nerf and Beyblade, they made SO many shitty proprietary sidelines, specifically with Nerf and how they have so many proprietary darts in toy lines that never last long.
In terms of darts (that aren’t compatible with each other) there’s elite, gelfire, rival, ultra, mega, mega XL, pro, hyper, and N series. Each of these darts have 2-3 blasters that ONLY fire their respected dart, and barely anyone is buying them because why would you buy a blaster that doesn’t use the same darts as every other blaster in your collection. Beyblades, around the metal era (early 2010s) had a huge amount of garbage that never sold, specifically Beywheels, XTS, beywarriors, and those garbage remote controlled Beyblades that barely ever worked. These always ended up being just a small present your aunt would get that would never get used because they weren’t a part of the main line of Beyblades, so why even use them?
wow i sure do love a shelf full of jhiaxus and sixcog and elita and transmutate and literally nothing else for months...
I never understood why people believe kids don't know or care when toys are cheap. I hated cheap toys as a kid, I wanted the good transformers. I decided to start collecting transformers a few weeks ago because I couldn't afford them growing up, but all I can find is the cheap crap! The only decent ones I've found are blokees, and they were in an art shop, not a toy shop. Maybe I should just buy online.
ima be that guy today: transformers is still mainly a toy brand for kids, ofcourse gimmick toys are gonna be the main focus. collectors have their legacy series, they have masterpiece, they have haslab, they have a lot so i think it's fair to leave some fun gimmick toys for the kiddos on the shelves. i mean yea theres a lot but you gotta remember who the main demographic is here.
Honestly, this. Toy stores (and department stores with toy aisles) aren't for collectors, they're for children. If you want to buy collector lines, go to a collector store like RobotKingdom or BBTS.
When they do exclusives in Generations, like the Star Seekers, G2, or Velocitron capsule collections, which their exclusive partner stores don't even bother stocking (especially when those partners rarely stock Generations in the first place) that's a problem, but that's a whole different video really
I don't think kids' toys for kids are a bad thing but I'd prefer better quality for younger fans
As a kid I never liked gimmicks I just wanted cool looking toys. Some gimmicks are integrated better than others but generally they make the figure worse.
@croakinc3670 the second better toys are put in a kid's toyshop collectors will have come and left nothing my guy.
this would make sense if kids bought the gimmick toys, in reality they do not, it’s why you see them shelfwarming and (for the most part) not CHUG
When I go to Target to find some transformer figures, I keep seeing the gimmick toys everywhere
The transformers toy section in stores and quality of the figures hasn't been the same since dark of the moon. It was all downhill from there.
I don't really agree with that, the entire Core Class came out afterwards and were amazing for small figures, and we've gotten a lot of Definitive versions of figures in Studio series etc.
I agree with you on the actual selection in most stores tho
Honestly I do not find the "gimmick" toyline necessary. When I was a kid I had zero problems with the mainline Beast Wars and Generation 2 figures.
Spector Creative is one channel that explains the answer to a lot of these question from the perspective of a toy maker and stores. It is complex, but has to do with making sales to the dumb store owners, excluaive deals, dumb parents / grandparents who still confuse Nintendo and Play Station and much more.
Gimmick figures are good as a novel change of pace from the usual Transformers fare. Having 90% of all physical store stock be gimmick figures destroys any interest in going to the store to find a new figure, and they don't sell to kids either. I worked at Toys R Us, those things do not leave the shelf more than once in a blue moon.
I literally just started collecting today and I’m glad someone is telling me stuff like this since I’m a newbie
@@WeaponizedToyCar Welcome to the hobby!
When I was a child I had some gimme toys. But I always valued the moving figures more
We just got lucky here in the phillipines, On the main shelf there are the Transformer authentics and Gimmick toys. And another section encased in glass that has the deluxe class, studio series etc.
My favorite Transformer was sixgun and he’s my first
As @dillydraws has pointed out, we have five mainlines too many. Two are fine, one to promote the movies and one to promote a TV show. But when you have seven "mainlines", twelve exclusives AND three "evergreen" slots, it means you're pumping out far too much plastic tat without spending nearly as much money on quality control.
1:20 no joke that was a pic i posted on reddit
3:30, 3:50 look at all those deluxes sitting on the peg not selling. No wonder they cut down.
Hasbro doesn't care if a store's shelves look full, they want their toys to look like they sell a lot.
They will keep making what keeps selling. Gimmicks are well stocked because that's what retailers order because that's what sells.
I will never understand why there are a Movie Line and Studio Series version of the same Transformers: One character
1:13 Hey now, Hero Mashers are pretty cool. My 5 year old son loved them. They ARE fun. Swappable limbs is not a cheap gimmick if that’s the core play feature. Also, it’s not like the swappable play feature didn’t work.
Amd the deluxe toys cost 25 pounds/dollars too. And they're in a crappy box without a plastic shield that makes your brain think its a gimmick toy at first.
7:40 very true, when I was a kid I didn’t like the one step changer age of extinction Optimus bc it was very small and not that cool as a normal toy (despite me actually liking it more fondly lately), I wanted the actual age of extinction toys, with articulation and everything
I gotta say though i got a earthspark elita-1 flip changer in my stocking for Christmas, that thing ngl is kinda addictive lol. Its just fun the throw it and watch it transform
I like gimmicks but I hate the way Hasbro builds modern gimmick toys. During Cybertron every Transformer Hasbro made was a gimmick toy, they were also fun toys on top of that. Modern gimmick transformers don’t do anything outside of their gimmick, most of them don’t even have shoulder articulation. How is a kid supposed to play with an Optimus Prime who can’t even point his blaster at anything?
In my opinion, those Transformer toys don't have many articulations which doesn't peak my interest. They feel like a waste of plastic to make these toys.
I regret missing out on Prime and not having it part of my early childhood. I was of the age I got my first Optimus Prime from Transformers Prime when I was 5. Instead had to settle for RID15 a warning for what was to come.
Bakugan in a sense has and had this issue of gimmicks being more important than mainlines, I remember working at a Walmart and telling my co worker work did the toy aisles that he has stock that has been around more than I’ve been there (at that point it was over a year) and as soon as I told him and I went back on my lunch all of it including some shelf warmers were on clearance 😂
i was in target the other day and was really disappointed that the only starscream in there had limbs that were basically hollow on one side
also a bunch of toys with like weird punch action spin things
1:07 this thing. this abomination. why. like even from an emotional standpoint if you watched the movie like. ???
As a thirteen year old i can say that i buy transformers for number one: the detail and two: FOR THE FRIKEN TRANSFORMATION
I try to challenge myself by transforming them without the instructions.
if they want to do gimmick why not try to emulate the rid 2000 one step changers like towline, that figure was a 1 step changer and was really fun but then again they might just charge 20
Blokees TF is amazing ngl
The problem I saw was the amount of studio series and the existence of legacys, in my country there's any legacy and it's rare to see a studio series
In the stores where I live they only sell gimmick toys, there are entire stores full of those cheap Earthspark toys and 1 or 2 decent TF One ones
One step changers are okay there kinda like fidgets
The spring action toys and click switch weapons were awesome as a kid I think those were gimmick enough but serious enough to still enjoy especially bc the transformers weren’t horrible morso everything post revenge of the fallen I thought was cool and even some of the g1-wfc stuff was really cool, still have my leader class voice line ROTF sword claws prime from when I was younger, the sideswipe corvette was one of my favorite figs, I had wfc bee, there was a bee that was g1 inspired I wish I could find. Used to do stop motion with them on my 3DS
Blame this mostly on online shopping all store are starting to look like these one. AN than the Scalpers that go and buy them all up.
*'Me coming fresh off the heels of Beyblade Burst:'* Oh! You don't say! :D
It sucks.
Finally a video less than 10 minutes what a godsend
Beast Wars had their own 1-step changers, but they also had ball joints and enough articulation that I can still enjoy them today. Pair that with good sculpts and Hasbro would be good to go.
3:24 So true!!! Happens in every single ToysRUs i go to
Ok time traveler. Dead ass though, miss toys r us so much. Glad I grew up with it. It saddens me so much knowing toys r us wasnt even gonna close at all, it wasn’t having issues or anything, just crappy management and lackluster investors.
While watching the video... Something came up that I feel adds to the issue but its one that many choose to ignore or excuse... But We as consumers are PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE!
One word... "Collectors"... That's the market Hasbro aims for with most of its mainline stuff - Actual Transformers... Marketing to people like me who grew up with the 1984 Transformers! But that's a limited market...
I was about 11 when Transformers first hit the scene in 1984... What attracted me as a child was the Fun Factor... They were not just a Toy, They were a PUZZLE... I recall sneaking into my mothers bedroom, sneaking a look at my Christmas Presents and Transforming MEGATRON for the first time, then panicking to get him back into his Gun Mode before my mother came upstairs and realised what I was doing...
Fast Forward a bit to when they released the Jumpstarters and I HATED THESE THINGS! They were BORING... One Step Transformation!
We as older fans need to accept as Hasbro does that these are supposed to be TOYS... FOR KIDS! And Kids want to be Engaged! They want things to be FUN... One Step Transformers are NOT FUN!
Hasbro are not looking to the Kids Market, They have it in their minds that Kids want Tech Not Toys... But there are experiments that have been conducted that prove this is NOT TRUE! Kids love their consoles and Tablets, yes... But we tend to allow it as we are short on time... I am Grandfather now, and while My Grandkids LOVE their Tablets, They spend more time playing with ACTUAL ANALOUGE TOYS!
Hasbro as a company is always thinking Profit first... As long as Collectors are going to strip teh shelves when they do release a New "United" Optimus Prime - Which we do... Then resell them for Hundreds on Ebay... They are making Money! They have forgotten who they are!
They are a TOY COMPANY... Make Toys for Kids... Sure, Have your Collectors stuff too... There is a Market and frankly, They can charge MORE to please us collectors! But get back to your roots and make toys FOR KIDS! Kids dont want "One Step BS" ... They need to be challenged Stop dumbing kids down and give them interactivity...
Sadly though, Collectors will Strip Shelves... We are part of the issue... Sorry but it has to be said...
yeah, in my area in france, its a problem that's been killing the brand presence there for a while. a few years ago, you used to be able to see up to oeader class of titans returns with leader class from the first wave of studio series. nowadays, at the same spaces, IF you still have transformers, its 1 collumn with MAYBE if you're lucky, an earthsparks warrior class (all pegs or optimus).
hell, at one of my local supermarket, the transformers section still has the rid2015 cardboard decoratio installed for the transformers aisle
I feel like a major problem is ever since studio series was released we have kinda had a lack of mainline toys, this was a really good example for transformers one, the toys released were either horrible, or actually good but few in numbers, and now were waiting months for newer tf1 toys to come out such as starscream even though he should of been one of the first toys released near the movies release date, and another thing is they could of just made so many recolours of starscream, due to the abundance of seekers in the movie, I mean this is just easy money for hasbro, yet they decided not too
Honestly I think the problem is that Transformers is increasingly not a toy-centric brand. When I was a kid, Transformers media existed to sell the toys, but now the toys only exist secondarily to the media.
Honestly those butterfly style one steps changers are my favorite the best kind of figet toys
Remember the Hasbro overproduction.
It's the most annoying thing ever especially if you live in a country outside of the US. I always had a lot of places to go to if I wanted a figure of good quality like a deluxe class or even a voyager but now the shelves are just filled with either bootlegs that break out of the box or gimmick slop that not even kid me will enjoy. I think another problem is also the fact that the stores are too lazy. I have seen the exact same weaponizer figure from earthrise wave one on the shelf for probably years at this point
Honestly what i want for transformers figures is just a figure of the character that can transform and i do like lots of accessories
i stopped collecting transformers because of this.
I moved to a big city and thought it would help my collecting having access to so many stores. I spent 8 years checking stores constantly for new figures. All stores ever had was the gimmick based crap no one wants, those baby 3 step formers, masks, no transforming statues, and NEVER any deluxes or better. I just gave up, 8 years of searching and nothing to show for it.
It's so bad here in Yuma that whenever I try to look for a deluxe or Studio series especially all I get are these stupid cheap gimmick toys and yet any Studio series figures I do manage to find are the ones no one cares about
It always has been like this... Ofc I'd love some normal transforming figures but this is a kid's toy
Hope Hasbro listens to the fans more because of the poor economy less people can afford to spend money on toys
The problem is that kids today are into IPhones and video games. Nothing against video games, but iPhones 📱, oof.
I dislike iphones with a passion and I'm not surprised
This is exactly why Earthspark failed.
0:16 there's actually a mainline rotb figure there
Ok that optimus with the wolf is actually cool and i really wanna find it even if im 14
gimmick toys are pretty normal and to be expected in the mainline for a tf film
they are all toys after all
I miss non studio series random transformer toys that were actually good, like a great 20 to 10 dollar transforming robot toy that can actually move heads and limbs,and not some hallowed out plastic mold
How did Zephyr get the strange “E” letter for the channel name?
I really doubt kids are going to target all by themselves to get toys anyway. These kinds of toys should be sold at walgreens or gamestop not bigger retailers.
I started collecting TF recently after my father got back to collecting. I became a collector at 13, but in those, the Toy industry kind of went through the “modernization” of gimmick so that makes me one of the recent collectors. From where I live? IT’S A STRUGGLE! I get out of a toy store sticking to only one brand and sighing I did not see anything new from the market that was released. It’s for kids, I know, but I just saw a little girl being disappointed that there are no other toys of Starscream that transform AND looked good (poor kid, but it’s true!) All of the good ones are those like Blokees, Yolopark, or the 10 dollar TF toys that makes you do a double take for a bit (The line is either a yay or a meh). I want a gimmick that IS GOOD, Something that transforms, and the bigger version of it is not made up of 50% air. I am over here clutching my pearls at the amount of TF stuff that I have that most of them don’t even transform. I assemble them! The ones that do are… meh. Or EH?! (That’s transforms but is expensive and doesn’t look worth for its price). I want something that pleases the collectors, the parents, and the kids. The latter may appreciate whatever it is, gimmick or figure aside, but I swear in the heavens that kids will appreciate it more if it’s THE REAL DEAL. The charm. Gimmicks IMO, is a one time play for kids. They’ll see it, and never again.
Whenever I go to target, the only ss figure I see in stock is tfone optimus. The rest are those cheap, crappy toys
What happened to mainline figures that featured gimicks?
I remember telling my dad i want transformers
Instead he gave me 5 crappy tlk 1step changer on my birthday
Whenever I go to walmarts in my area I always stop by to look at the Transformers and see what else I could get, I'm only interested in Studio Series and Legacy (at least from retail) and I'm always disappointed when I see the same 3 or 4 figures that have like 7 copies, and the rest is just gimmick. I've been wanting Concept Art Megatron and Shockwave from the Bumblebee movie but because of all the clutter from gimmick and the shelf warming SS, they never came to my local stores and online are pretty expensive (On Amazon last I saw Concept Art Megatron was like $205, I'm gonna be looking other places but I mostly use Amazon)
It honestly sucks cus its only in recent years that I've finally been able to earn enough money to buy all the toys/figs I've wanted to buy growing up, and while getting older stuff is always great, I also wanna be able to get newer releases esp when its from newer media Transformers media like TFone.
Problem is, 90% of the shelves in every store I've gone to is just overflowing with these things, and they're not only cheaply made and low quality, but also way too overpriced for any kid or adult to consider buying them, especially for newer fans and newcomers to the franchise as a whole.
Nowadays, the only decent and/or good stuff I can see and buy from the shelves are Yolopark, Blokees, Studio Series and Legacy figs.
Also when I was a little kid I bought the Lexus so this gimmick s*** is a real problem
I mean the reason why we have stuff like this because parents complained about the transformers figures being too complicated at the time leading to hasbro to downscale their quality around rid2015, aoe, tlk
It wasn't all bad... at first we used to have good figures during that time even with the need to simplify and down grade the quality. Now we have figures that are too simplified, cheap, and just a way to make kids feel bad because their transformers can't pose like the others can
In short it start because parents went:"think of the children" leading what we got now, too be fair their not completely wrong but hasbro shouldn't have downgraded that much after those three series ended
They should've taken some cues from the unicron trilogy and the 2007 toyline with their gimmicks that don't hinder the figures that much
where's the official transformers store?
@@poweroftheprimes7616 London, England
@@ProjectZephyrOfficialAlr, gonna have to wait for awhile
Favorited this video! Thanks for speaking our minds. It pains me to see such a monumental waste of plastic with the gimmick toys Hasbro makes, for TFs and Marvel and Star Wars. Everyone sees them, no one wants them because for a few more bucks invested you can get a more timeless and durable figure like Studio Series that actually transform!! Im astounded the TF store is not stocked with “serious” collector’s TFs and instead stocked with cheap garbage gimmicks when the most serious TF fans are adults now with money! Hasbro needs to wake up and understand collectors should be their focus, not some phantom kids that are proving they are not interested in cheap tricks