Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-51577-20140611213050/@comment-51577-20140611231910

Well, to give you some perspective, I'm originally a Transformers fan. There has been a major development in the Transformers toy field that started ca. 2011. Before that, the trend was for figures to get more and more complex; fans eventually complained when Deluxe Class figures saw the first of several price hikes despite the price for Deluxes staying consistently at $10 for over ten years! Also, European fans would be happy if they had to pay only the equivalent of $15 for a Deluxe.

But in 2011, with the launch of the third Transformers movie toy line (Dark of the Moon), Transformers figures (especially Deluxes) suddenly saw a reduction in size, and also in complexity. The subsequent Transformers: Prime line hen first saw a short-lived "First Edition" sub-line, and then the "Robots in Disguise" sub-line that consisted of all-new sculpts of the same characters previously released under "First Edition". Many fans complained that the RID figures were more simplistic than the FE ones.

Now don't get me wrong. Even though I don't necessarily mind "complex" transformations, some figures before the size reduction were almost frustratingly complex. Certainly not something I'd recomment to a child. The Revenge of the Fallen movie line was particularly bad in that regard. And despite what some fans think, "complex" doesn't necessarily mean "better", especially when many of the movie-based characters have robot modes where you have to look at the instructions (which have a tendency to be inaccurate) and then double-check with photos to make sure you're finished. So a reduction in complexity isn't necessarily a bad thing.

As time went on, fans noticed the increasing reduction of paint operations per figure. Now, I get that the economy sucks and labor in China is getting more expensive (which is a good thing for the Chinese workers!), but when you have a figure with barely any paint on it, you start to wonder what's going on.

The tail end of the Prime line's Beast Hunters subline imprint saw a further step towards "simplicity", with designs from the minature Cyberverse subline upscaled to Deluxe and Voyager size. Imagine a Bumblebee toy designed for a size of 5 inches, and then a Bumblebee figure designed for a size of 2.8 inches upscaled to 5 inches like one of these oversized knockoffs (with the ball joints replaced with more durable joints, but no new joints added for the knees or elbows!), but sold at the same price as the previous, more complex version.

With the new Age of Extinction movie line, Hasbro went another step towards simplicity by making the simplified gimmick-based figures (which used to be marketed as "secondary" side-line products for the previous movies) the main line (!), whereas the traditional size classes are now marketed as collector-aimed "Generations" figures, despite already being simplified compared to toys sold at the same price points during the previous movie lines.

The only thing I'm objecting is your criticism of redecos and retools. Those have been a typical Hasbro staple, at least as far as Transformers is concerned, ever since 1984 in one form or another. Redecos help recoup some of the development costs, and as long as they're only used to pad out a line, I don't mind.

On a more positive note, I've also compared both versions of the bandolier, with no real preference of either versions.