Rank 1 - New or Inactive
I wouldn't have thought HasTak had the power to shutdown a website that didn't actively sell the figures. At worst, I thought they would stop dealing with them in terms of press release and such. I mean, there are numerous products on the front page of TFSource and BBTS right now. Why not them?
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Originally Posted by Oberon Sexton
HAHA, yea I got it.
following posts after that, I've always understood that any licenced product is a third party product.
Unlicensed product is not technically third party.
Well over a year ago maybe even 2.
Wow, the hammer finally dropped somewhere.
I have certainly noticed that since Seibertron stopped front paging "Third party" news it has become more of a focus of the TFW2005 pages.
I have also noticed that BBTS don't advertise it as hard as TFSource do. it's harder to find in their menus even though individual items are often called out on their front page. I noticed that the last issue of the club magazine had a pamphlet from both stores. BBTS was mostly official product and TFS was Nearly entirely "third Party"
I like third party add ons personally and I don't think that's something that Hasbro have ever had a problem with, the situation they have going with Shapeways supports that. It may also be a trigger for harder crack down on more complex "third party" products if Shapeways are paying much for this arrangement. A lot of earlier "third Party" add ons created incentive to purchase Hasbro Products that otherwise would have shelf warmed.
Of late a larger volume of very expensive "third Party" product has entered the market and Hasbro may be becoming less comfortable with it, especially as so much of it is becoming more specific and less 'approximate'.
What confuses me about the whole situation though is the Roadbots line that came out a few years ago, it was sheaper than transformers, clearly using the same basic concepts but never seemed to be challenged by hasbro. It spent a long time on regular retail shelves.
I hope we see the return of TFW soon, while it can get a bit heated in the forum pages it's a large part of the international community and it would be a loss for the fandom and Hasbro if it simply dissapeared.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Hasbro aren't ingratiating themselves with the fandom with this. Even if you weren't into third party stuff, you just lost your biggest online community. Hasbro, instead of being dicks, could have had a quiet word behind the scenes to the TFW owners and they would have lowered the profile of non-official stuff instantly. Instead, as you said Griffman, they shut down one of, if not the biggest TF resource on the web.
This doesn't make me want to rush out to support Hasbro.
Who is starting the petition to send to Hasbro to bring back TFW?
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
The other thing is that Hasbro and TFW have had a good relationship, they had direct interviews with them when they brought out this quarters financial report. whether it was just TFW or they were part of a larger teleconference, it's still clearly a good releationship if they are invited/allowed to engage at that level.
Rank 10 - Admin
That's the unusual thing about this.
It's as if someone high up has forced the issue, without giving a warning first. As a warning would have resulted in TFW side-lining the unauthorised stuff like we do... which would still appease the fans, without headlining it as news (getting to the point of 1 out of 3 or 4 news postings being non-Transformers items) and upsetting someone at Hasbro.
I've looked around and none of the other major American sites or dealers have been shut down, so there has to be some specific reason or ulterior motive in play (hence the possible FunPub factor, trying to shut down their competition of TFCon by forcing Hasbro to shut down its operator TFW2005).
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Or it is just a server migration issue.
I foresee so much legal speculation, anti/pro-Hasbro, anti/pro-3rd party and ruined forever declarations that I might just stay way from the TF Internet for a week.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Just stay on this site Paulbot... Its the best anyway
But wow!if Hasbro have shut the site down it seems like a massive knee jerk reaction.
Rank 10 - Admin
The scary thing about this is that there is no definite timetable with resolving this. It could be back in a day, it could be a year... it could even be permanent.
And I feel sorry for the thousands of fans who are active members there, trying to log in with no idea what is going on, and no back-up plan in place to know what is going on. (something I've always worried about, so at least we have the twitter and yahoogroup as a backup notification... and a facebook page run by some of our senior members)
Think of all the hundreds of fans doing transactions on that site that are now up in the air.
Something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things in the real world having an impact on so many people... it really makes you think about what happens when a big website suddenly disappears instead of slowly dying off.
I'm going to check in with the Hasbro people tomorrow, to see if anything has filtered from Hasbro America about this... and to see if there is something more significant behind this, like if it is something more global and if it is something we need to worry about here.
Just be prepared for ANY possibility, including being told to remove the unauthorised toys section if we are warned of meeting the same fate if we don't. (it might be unlikely, but always be prepared for any possible situation)
Rank 10 - Admin
This is what I'm hoping... but if it was, they would have sent out a notice, email or tweet about it. Particularly since they don't really have a quiet time like we do (2-4am) which is when I do maintenance or backups to be the least disruptive.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
No doubt whatever happened will become clear in time. In the meantime let's go nuts!
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