Originally Posted by
Zommael
It's obvious that we're going through a bit of a transitory period at the moment. Aaron Archer has left Hasbro and taken his expertise with him, and that means that the new design team will need to relearn some of the things that the old team had already discovered. With this in mind, the new figures will probably be somewhat similar to what we saw with the Unicron Trilogy toys, where gimmicks dominated the line and articulation and design were poor in Armada, were better but still dominated by gimmicks in Energon, and finally worked with rather than against the designs in Cybertron... before design and articulation were finally perfected with the Classics, and a whole new set of rules had to be learned for the movie toys that were then taken into the Animated, Classics/Universe/Generations, and Prime toylines. Gimmicks aren't such a concern these days as Hasbro finally realised after Cybertron that transformation is the gimmick, and that will probably remain as a feature. But the designs, especially with a mandated focus on simplicity, will probably be felt somewhat lacking by the fans for a little while.
Fortunately, this coincides with a general downturn/evolution of the toy collector market in general, with big companies like Hasbro and Mattel once again less interested in adult collectors and seeking to recapture their core - meaning younger - markets generally. Why is this fortunate? Because things move in cycles. Eventually the world economy will stabilise under whatever new paradigm emerges and people will, for however long, have disposable income again. That means that in a few years, the adult collector market will be important enough again for Hasbro to concentrate on it. Coincidentally, by that time the new TF design team will have gone through a few iterations of Transformers toys and learned some of the lessons the designers learned when they were led by Archer. As a result, while I doubt the focus on simplicity is going anywhere, the designs will once again be satisfying to collectors as well as full of play value for kids. That might be annoying to collectors who've been less affected by the GFC such as those of us in Australia, but for Hasbro, a company that mainly operates in America and is trying to push into new markets in Asia, it's vital.
As for simplicity itself as a concept, my overall feeling is that placing it as a core design principle is good for the line. Toys like ROTF leader Optimus Prime are amazing, but (especially iterations such as Taktom's Buster Optimus Prime repaint) more resemble high-end collectible items than toys. No doubt there are some collectors to whom that's very appealing - I own two versions of ROTFOP myself - but when those design principles are applied to items such as Prime First Edition Bulkhead, which feels like a mess of folding panels more resembling an origami than an action figure, it's to the detriment of the overall line. FE Bulkhead doesn't need to be like that, and a conversion similar to ROTFOP is possible without a crazy number of steps (I can scarcely believe it's actually just 25). There is an elegance in simplicity, and that elegance is something the brand needs to rediscover. Prime Soundwave is a good example of a toy that's not overly complex and yet seems to just work as a toy, exceptionally well, and even allow for character-showing gimmicks such as the Laserbeak accessory. We need more toys like that, not only because they have more appeal to younger collectors but also because they preserve the central idea of the brand; that of smooth transformation between robot and vehicle. Not every toy demonstrated that even in G1, but modern engineering allows for a much greater level of elegance and simplicity in the line whilst also giving us better sculpts and articulation.
tl;dr - simplicity is not a bad thing, the line is going through transition, everything will be fine. Sorry for the long post, I just suddenly realised I needed to get that off my chest!
