Quote Originally Posted by griffin View Post
A third article from gizmodo looks to go into the over-complicated engineering of the recent Movie toys, and claims that Hasbro is trying to pull it back to more simplistic, intuitive designs. (I guess the feedback from kids and parents was that they were too complicated to be fun, playable toys)

The TFPrime and Beast Hunters toys are certainly getting simpler, as most of the Beasts just stand up to be transformed. Okay, to be fair, the Generations toys are an improvement on the element of balance of complexity and playability, which can make the toys more fun, but still provide a challenge to kids.
The third one is not nearly as good as the first two IMHO.

I think the simplifying started with DotM. Maybe the marketing guys found out that even the parents couldn't get those amazingly CGI-accurate yet puzzlingly complicated RotF figures to transform even remotely near what was shown on the back of the packaging..


Quote Originally Posted by Trent View Post
I agree. There would be the toy you want to design, and then there would be the toy your budget allows you to design to.
Yup, so the designers always design to their best capacity first and then cut back on design elements to meet the budget and other constraints of a certain price point/class. Part of the reason I'm very looking forward to the Japanese-exclusive TF Go combiner teams. Takara has a more flexible pricing structure so that the designers could really achieve most of their design intentions without compromising too much to plastic weight, part count, etc.