Percentage of Repaints

[Verno]

Repaints.

I don't know what marketing genius came up with the idea, and I'm fine with the idea in small doses, but what sort of percentage of lines are either repaints themselves or have been subsequently repainted?

I'll use the example of my beloved Beast Wars: Transmetals.

Razorclaw (Repaint of Original Razorclaw)
Airazor (Repaint of Original Airazor)
Tarantulas (Fox Kids Tarantulas)
Waspinator (Fox Kids Waspinator)
Terrorsaur (Armada Terrorsaur)
Rattrap (WalMart Rattrap [PackRat])
Cheetor (Fox Kids Cheetor) (Armada Cheetor)
Rhinox (Fox Kids Rhinox) (Armada Rhinox)
Airazor (Fox Kids Airazor) (Armada Airazor)
Megatron (Armada Predacon)
Scavenger
Optimus Primal (BotCon Apelinq)
Rampage (BotCon Shakoract)
Depth Charge (Universe Depth Charge)
Optimal Optimus (Beast Machines Primal Prime)

15 figures in total in the line, 14 of which have been repainted at least once, and I'm sure I've missed a couple. And this is just the Transmetals, let alone the TM2's or Originals.

The Armada ones make me laugh. The idea was that the mini-cons enabled missiles to fire or some other hidden feature, but when it came to the BW moulds, they just clipped on and that was the end. Ridiculous.

So, taking a line like DOTM or ROTF, moving into the future, are we to see figures from those lines super-imposed onto other lines? Or have they already been repainted enough within their own line? Nightwatch Optimus Prime. What a load of bollocks.

I like repaints if they are a different character. Without them I wouldn't have Tigatron or Blackarachnia, but the percentage of repaints in the line seems to be getting worse and worse with time - by worse I of course mean more.

TF: Prime is the new baby. What can we expect to see from it? Starscream painted into every other seeker out of principle? A Megatron repainted into a Galvatron, even though Galvatron isn't even in it (yet)? An Armada Unicron repainted to appear as a TF: Prime Unicron?

It's a bad, and seemingly ever worsening, habit that Hasbro have gotten in to. Yes, there were repaints in G1, but never to this scale.

[Golden Phoenix]

Interesting idea.
Would you include remoulds as a separate statistic or as the same as a repaint?

[Verno]

Interesting idea.
Would you include remoulds as a separate statistic or as the same as a repaint?

That's a tough one, and depends a lot on the amount of work done. Wolfang and K-9 are more or less the same mould, but then again, there is enough to make them different to be individual figures and counted as seperate. Megatron Croc and Iguanus are in the same boat.

So major retools would be seperate for me.

[kup]

Since 2001, the line has begun to increasingly be dominated by repaints specially after the second of third wave of a line.

[griffin]

Unfortunately it's a necessary evil to keep the costs down. Each time they can re-use a mould and sell the redeco (or even a new headed figure), the total investment for those toys comes down due to the cost of design, development and most importantly, the cost of the Moulds themselves. We may not see the cost saving in action, but for a long time during that period size classes like Deluxe was pegged at the US$10 price point, and I can imagine that they tried to prevent it going above that for as long as possible, despite inflation, cost of oil/plastic and weakening US$.

I don't like it either, but I'm willing to accept it if it means the toys are 20%, 10% or even 5% cheaper.
And on the plus side, it can also give us redecos that might look better than the original deco, giving "selective" collectors better choice on purchasing the best version for their "quality" collection. Even me as a "have to buy them all" collector, I will sometimes have a later deco at the front of a display shelf because it looks better than the first version.

[Verno]

Having said that though Grif, have the toys gotten cheaper in price with the increase of repaints over the years? Most of you, from what I read, only buy them when they're on sale anyway, rarely at full retail price.