Corrections and comments from Eric - promo event. (Spoilers)

Passed onto me by the people at Hasbro, Eric wanted to comment and correct a couple of things from our reports covering the Hasbro Animated Promo event last weekend.
Overall he was pretty happy with how we covered the event, but a few things did need to be fixed up.

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Ozformers Write up - Good job overall! But some things wound up getting confused.

1) Mighty Muggs (i'm actually quite obsessed with the little guys and trying to go completist among all the different Brands) i'm sure i simply misunderstood a question you asked. Not a big deal... but it's funny that some of my friends in the fandom and at hasbro were kind of confused by that statement.

2) Toys designed - list wasn't posted on TFW2005. I'd just sent it to a friend on those forums. It has since been posted to the TFWiki site.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Eric_Siebenaler

3) Comment by Paulbot - i found this a little disrespectful and presumptuous. "Turns out the Hasbro group didn't need to run off straight away from Melb as we saw 'em having lunch in the very busy food court before heading back to the hotel they were staying at and their afternoon flight back to Sydney." ...Truth be told - we had checked out of the hotel before we went to KMart that morning, had 20 minutes to eat, and had to go directly to the airport from there... of which we were nearly late checking in.

4) No worries about the Constructicons comments (on the 2005 boards). This info is already out there, but most people haven't been able to make the connection between Movie/Animated constructicons from a business perspective yet. Technically, nothing is spoiled.

Minor things aside, i felt that you guys did a great job reporting what was said. I love talking to fans, answering questions, and getting feedback on stuff... but there's been times in the past where i had been misquoted and made to look like an @ss. I must commend you on your, and your board members' efforts.

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That tfwiki link has indeed been updated, and it is a HUGE list of stuff he's done.

And I don't think there was anything malicous intended in Paulbot's quote (he's not the sort of person to be nasty), but I can see how it could be interpretted as being rather harsh.

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Originally Posted by Eric

I love talking to fans, answering questions, and getting feedback on stuff... but there's been times in the past where i had been misquoted and made to look like an @ss.

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Sounds like typical nutcase Fandom to me... :rolleyes:

I'm glad Eric doesn't take those moronic comments to heart :) (It's the Fandom like that which leaves a sour taste on our reputation... *shakes head*)

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Originally Posted by griffin

And I don't think there was anything malicous intended in Paulbot's quote (he's not the sort of person to be nasty), but I can see how it could be interpretted as being rather harsh.

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Yes, it wasn't meant to be malicous or harsh, it was just meant to contrast between the "afterwards" of the Melb and Sydney meets and to comment on how busy Southland. :o

Griff, you might as well edit the original thread to fix these mistakes, since that thread was linked to various big international TF boards. Don't want to make Eric look bad or anything :D

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Originally Posted by griffin

That tfwiki link has indeed been updated, and it is a HUGE list of stuff he's done.

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Now that I realise he has his hand in designing both Animated AND Classics, my respect for him grows even more.

I have a lot of respect for Eric obviously playing a huge part in designing stacks of TF toys, but i find the terminology used on on TF Wiki a bit misleading (in saying "Toys Designed by Eric"). Specifically, this is because we have the interview with Alex Kubalsky, showing his concept sketches for Classics BB, Camaro BB and Classics Mirage. In my mind, a list of "Toys designed by Eric" should only consist of toys where he's 95% responsible.. or else there's no point providing the list really! I'm not implying Eric is trying to take credit for Alex' work, just that the TF Wiki almost makes it seem that way, so we can't really take the list on face value.

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Originally Posted by kurdt_the_goat

I have a lot of respect for Eric obviously playing a huge part in designing stacks of TF toys, but i find the terminology used on on TF Wiki a bit misleading (in saying "Toys Designed by Eric"). Specifically, this is because we have the interview with Alex Kubalsky, showing his concept sketches for Classics BB, Camaro BB and Classics Mirage. In my mind, a list of "Toys designed by Eric" should only consist of toys where he's 95% responsible.. or else there's no point providing the list really! I'm not implying Eric is trying to take credit for Alex' work, just that the TF Wiki almost makes it seem that way, so we can't really take the list on face value.

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I think what we say on the wiki is best way to say it given the process of design that they've informed us of.

Toy design is a collaborative process, which is why some toys are listed among different designers (eg. Hound & Ravage is by both Bill Rawley and Alex Kubalsky) The majority of new Transformers products begin their design process at Hasbro (design of modes, style, rough transformation), and then Takara interprets the designs into working toys (and there's back and forth discussion and tweaks). Eric told us that most of the time Takara is almost spot-on with translating his designs.

From what I understand, going by your definition nobody would get any credit for anything, since nobody is almost totally responsible for any toy.

Obviously :)
I was just suggesting something like you just wrote, should appear on the wiki to clarify that. Alex' page says "Toy Design" which is more vague than "Toys Designed By", which sounds more absolute.

I believe we say elsewhere what I basically said, that Hasbro begins a design process with the concepts and ideas, while Takara makes the final execution into a toy. It's a bit too wordy and specific to say in every Hasbro designer's page. By saying "designed" we make it clear that they had a hand in designing those toys, even if they didn't do absolutely everything*. Aside from Kubalsky and Hirofumi Ichikawa, we have no real idea who has done what at Takara, so it's hard to give credits to individuals on that side of the design teams.

EDIT: I've changed Alex's page to say "Toys designed by Alex"


*For me personally, part of this has to do with a number of people in the fandom who think that Hasbro has little involvement with Transformers toys, or that their concept art makes little difference. A few years ago some fans got into arguments with the people over at ToyBoxDX (some board for Japanese robot fans), the latter of whom were adamant that Hasbro had absolutely nothing to do with Transformers whatsoever, and that they were simply a small distribution company compared to the alleged industrial colossus of Takara. As I recall, they didn't believe a word Hasbro designer Joe Kyde said when he popped in to attempt to clarify things.

Yeah, they were true Japanophiles.

Thanks for clarifying :) Japanophile is probably too specific, i'd just go with plain old 'idiots'. Japanophile idiots, perhaps!