What's Takara Tomy's and Hasbro's stance on 3rd party bots?

[Tfiguy]

Does anyone know if Repro labels are officially liscenced?

[Sky Shadow]

Does anyone know if Repro labels are officially liscenced?

We know they're not.

[Bidoofdude]

Does anyone know if Repro labels are officially liscenced?

I'm pretty sure the official stance is Hasbro/Takara are not in the market for stickers and have no problem with reprolabels.

[Tfiguy]

I'm pretty sure the official stance is Hasbro/Takara are not in the market for stickers and have no problem with reprolabels.

I swear that I saw some official Transformer labels on Chimungmung the other day. They actually had Transformers written on them. But now I can't find them

[Tober]

I swear that I saw some official Transformer labels on Chimungmung the other day. They actually had Transformers written on them. But now I can't find them

Supposedly the Ocean Design sets are licensed.

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-...r-sets-181401/

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/m...category=10315

[philby]

Since my 10 second google search didn't give me an answer, I thought I would ask here: Why don't any of these companies like Fanstoys etc become licensed?

- They obviously have talented designers and engineers
- They found a niche market which is happy to pay a lot of money for the products
- Instead of trying to create new characters and creations they are focussing on existing ones so they want to use Transformers
- In a lot of cases they are making things that for whatever reason can't or won't be made 'officially' by Hasbro/Takara

If they could get officially licensed it may help bring costs and prices down by access to Hasbro/Takara's production and shipping methods, they could have official names and likenesses instead of changing things just slightly enough to be a little different, it would erase any morally or legally grey areas, they could combine knowledge and communication about plans and ideas.


There is obviously a market for higher end aimed at adult collectibles, if Hasbro/Takara are not as interested as much themselves why not join forces and add to their market share instead of watching the other companies essentially take money from them?

Is either side interested? I know there have been statements or quotes from official sources saying they are aware they exist, keep an eye out etc but the questions focus on 'what do you think about what these companies are doing?/what is your stance?' and not 'have you thought about working together?'.

I guess if the 3rd party companies remain independent then they keep, for lack of a better term in this case, 'creative freedom' but then they run the risk of things like losing sales potentially because an official item is announced which would directly compete.

Bit of a ramble but I didn't notice any info on it, what are your thoughts?

[Trent]

Since my 10 second google search didn't give me an answer, I thought I would ask here: Why don't any of these companies like Fanstoys etc become licensed?

- They obviously have talented designers and engineers
- They found a niche market which is happy to pay a lot of money for the products
- Instead of trying to create new characters and creations they are focussing on existing ones so they want to use Transformers
- In a lot of cases they are making things that for whatever reason can't or won't be made 'officially' by Hasbro/Takara

If they could get officially licensed it may help bring costs and prices down by access to Hasbro/Takara's production and shipping methods, they could have official names and likenesses instead of changing things just slightly enough to be a little different, it would erase any morally or legally grey areas, they could combine knowledge and communication about plans and ideas.


There is obviously a market for higher end aimed at adult collectibles, if Hasbro/Takara are not as interested as much themselves why not join forces and add to their market share instead of watching the other companies essentially take money from them?

Is either side interested? I know there have been statements or quotes from official sources saying they are aware they exist, keep an eye out etc but the questions focus on 'what do you think about what these companies are doing?/what is your stance?' and not 'have you thought about working together?'.

I guess if the 3rd party companies remain independent then they keep, for lack of a better term in this case, 'creative freedom' but then they run the risk of things like losing sales potentially because an official item is announced which would directly compete.

Bit of a ramble but I didn't notice any info on it, what are your thoughts?

Hasbro aren't interested.

[Tober]

From scratchy memory, the licensing fee for an official Hasbro convention was $50K. So you can begin to imagine why Fans Toys etc wouldn't want to have to pay fees for actual toys. And they wouldn't need any approval from Hasbro.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

^^ This/these, and also...

Hasbro/Takara-Tomy is more than capable of putting out the same level of quality releases as 3rd Party crews, but 1) they have to take into account child safety laws/regulations, and 2) HasTakTom price points. If, say, FansToys were to 'join up' with Hasbro, and some (let's say American) more-dollars-than-sense parent bought an 'adult collectible' TF for their spoilt kid, who then tried eating said collectible and choked to death, that'd be Lawsuit City for Hasbro.
If a 3rd Party outfit were to join the Official HTT Family, they'd have to both design their works to be dumb-child-proof, and (as likely as not) to make their production cost palatable for mass-release. Parts count, drop-test-survivable, moron-proof, paint apps...all of these factors would be pretty limiting to someone wanting to make high-end transforming robots for theoretically-mature, adult collectors.

Hasbro/Takara-Tomy has the design talent and resources to put out 3rd-Party-quality (and better) stuff already, but it's just not cost-effective - from a design and/or legal point of view. There's more money to be made by making mass-release, inferior-quality toys (which, to be fair, I often quite enjoy) to sell to a wider market than there is in making high-end, often-quite-delicate toys to sell to a niche market...which is what 3rd Party groups do. They don't have to worry about child-safety laws, and they don't have to worry nearly as much about product cost...they can just focus on making good toys.
In the same way as it's not in HTT's interests to 'adopt' 3rd-Party producers' works into their own portfolio, it'd also be really limiting to 3rd-Party producers to become Official.

[Lord_Zed]

As stated above licensing costs a fortune and Hasbro and co are more restricted, so I doubt there would be any cost benefit to the consumer. If you consider the limited amount of licensed 3rd party products that have been released like that Minerva and Alpha Trion figure they've all been rather pricey for toys that don't transform and reportedly not the best quality either.

Similarly I'm not sure the 3rd parties need worry as much about official Hasbro releases cutting into their sales, so much as they have to worry about all the other 3rd parties also releasing collector aimed toys of the same character.