From sitting in on all but one of their Presentations at BotCon, it isn't possible for them to plan too much in advance of knowing what toys they are given approval to do. And since each toy mould they request to use usually only has one (maybe two) character options in their plans for that year's theme, a mould & character are usually tied together with no room to move on applying that character to another mould available to them.
The whole plot could need to be entirely re-written or heavily reworked if they didn't get a character/mould that that story needed. Since they only have about 5-10 of their BotCon characters featuring in the annual comic, I think it would look out of place to have one or more of the "main characters" not be toys for that year.


Not that it really matters though, as they sell out of the box-set character toys before the convention, preventing any walk-in fan or kid from being able to buy up the "main characters" when they get the program guide/comic. Instead, they're stuck with only being able to buy 4 or 5 toys that often aren't even all in the comic.


While I think of it... if FunPub did the 3H way of just producing 2 toys (quality instead of profiteering quantity), they could do up a whole comic in advance with all their toy options included... like 3H did with their Wreckers comic story. In the end, we got most of the wreckers as toys, but it was certainly a tease and disappointment seeing BotCon characters that were never made as toys. And I think that's something FunPub want to avoid... they'll include background characters, but will try to avoid featuring a character/mould that they couldn't get from Hasbro.

The timeline sucks though, making them rush out a story, but since they plan ahead for a theme (like Animated Stunticons, or Beast Wars), they do have story concepts thrown up to aim for with their submitted toy/character requests to Hasbro, but don't want to lock themselves into a 'lets have X doing this" scenario before they know if they can get X from Hasbro.
I may not be a fan of their mass of toys, aimed at dealers... but when it comes to their comic & storyline, I can understand completely the limitations they have, based on how long it takes to get Hasbro approval on the toys and the comic itself.