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

[philby]

^^ 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.

why would they have to do that suddenly if they aren't now? why don't they have to do that now? nothing would have changed.

I guess I'm thinking they could just continue to do what they already do, but make it 'official'. that licensing fee does sound pretty steep, but it would be a one-off cost wouldn't it or at least not be every year or something?

how cost effective are these 3rd party companies then? i know hasbro/TT could probably do these figures if they wanted to and think it isn't worth it, but if these companies are doing it then it seems to me that there's something there.

[GoktimusPrime]

philby: Some 3rd party Transformers products are officially licensed. These include...
* Revoltech TFs
* CM Corps (Ginrai, Minerva, Hi-Q, Nightbeat)
* Super-deformed Fortress, Grand and Brave Maximi
* Gigantic Action Mega Zarak & Black Zarak
etc.

I completely agree with you that the 3P KO makers should go legit and purchase licence from Hasbro. Also, in Australia, the licensing cost is $10,000. That's how much companies like JayJays would've paid. At the end of the day, we all vote with our wallets. If you object to unlicensed third party toys, then just don't buy them (I don't).

[philby]

i know about the revoltech ones and stuff cheers, i meant more like scoria and quakewave etc.

i'm more just curious. i don't feel as...strong...about it as you and some others do and i personally wouldn't go as far as calling some of them knock-offs. that's just me though.

hercules and green giant to me are not knock off's because in my mind a knock off is reverse engineering or stealing the mold or something, like the 'fake' MP prowl and lambor etc. hercules and green giant are to me more like modern re-interpretations of a character for which there isn't an 'official' counterpart or alternative. it is someone else's character though.

if some of these companies could come to agreement with hasbro/TT it seems like everyone would win. hasbro gets more money from licensing and new sales. they don't lose as much as the other companies are still making the product but maybe give them access to bigger buying power/production means. fans win because they get more 'masterpiece' style figures or combiners or whatever else which are official. 3rd party companies win because they can get access to maybe r&d or technology, new distribution and aren't in a legal grey area any more.

[llamatron]

Hasbro / Takara are very unlikely to give up control of the core function of the brand - the Transforming action figures. It's their bread and butter and it's likely to stay in-house for a long time. Selling licenses would dilute their product.

[griffin]

Hasbro / Takara are very unlikely to give up control of the core function of the brand - the Transforming action figures. It's their bread and butter and it's likely to stay in-house for a long time. Selling licenses would dilute their product.

Bearbricks are transforming, and so are the Sentinel pens... so there is now precedent of licenses being issued to 3rd parties to produce and sell converting Transformers (as of last year). It's just very hard to design and produce converting toys, and then have to go through all the hefty added expenses of safety testing, trademarks/patents, and licensing (something that the unlicensed people don't have to spend money on), so probably no one in the past has been able to do it before on a major scale.

[llamatron]

True, but those are "novelty" items that are very distinct from mainline Transformers (i.e. existing products being produced by Hasbro/Takara). The vast majority of current unlicensed third party Transformers are designed to look and operate in a manner functionally identical to the Masterpiece and/or Generations lines.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Leaving aside the semantics debate over the technical VS common-use definition of 'Knock-Offs'...

why would they have to do that suddenly if they aren't now? why don't they have to do that now? nothing would have changed.

I guess I'm thinking they could just continue to do what they already do, but make it 'official'. that licensing fee does sound pretty steep, but it would be a one-off cost wouldn't it or at least not be every year or something?

how cost effective are these 3rd party companies then? i know hasbro/TT could probably do these figures if they wanted to and think it isn't worth it, but if these companies are doing it then it seems to me that there's something there.

Almost but not quite: one thing would have changed, and that's that Hasbro would have become officially affiliated with the 3rd party products.
And thus, open to legal culpability if little Timmy got one, broke it (the aforementioned 'safety standards' bit), and then hurt himself trying to eat the non-child-safety-designed shards of his Hasbro-affiliated Wrist-Cuttor transforming action figure.
Sure, 3rd party groups could really benefit from Hasbro's production scales and market reach, and there's niche-market money to be made for Hasbro, but ultimately the money to be made is peanuts for Hasbro (unless they reduce costs on their newly-acquired "Masterpiece Shockwave" somehow, most likely with reduced parts-count and/or paint apps, i.e. reduced 'quality'), and/or with the possibility of legal hassles for non-mass-market production values.

From a 3rd-Party point-of-view, it'd involve making a hefty payment to have Hasbro tell you how you had to limit your designs, either for customer safety and/or for reducing production costs so Hasbro could sell more toys.
I'm pretty sure someone like Joe Kyde could easily top most of what, say, Maketoys puts out if he didn't have to worry about price-points and idiot-proofing his designs, but that's not Hasbro's market strategy. They make most of their money by selling toys to 10-year-olds and parents-thereof, while 3rd party groups go after high-end collector adults who are willing and able to spend stupid amounts of money on "the best" toys they can get without having to worry about child safety standards. If they became 'part of Hasbro' then they'd have to start factoring in all that stuff, because either Hasbro's accounting division would complain about making less profit per unit than their "Fast Action Puncher Bumblebee with New Hat" line, and/or Hasbro would be open to lawsuits when some moron American kid got shot because he went out waving formerly-Apollyon-now-MasterPiece-Megatron-Mk.2 and some overzealous cop shot him thinking it was a real gun.
TL;DR version: if 3rd party groups teamed up with Hasbro, then they'd become officially legitimate, and that would open them - and Hasbro - up to lawsuits and cost-benefit-type production values.

I get where you're coming from and I agree in principle, but in practice it's not really in either Hasbro's or the various 3rd party groups' interests (or ours) for them to 'join forces' like that. It's more risk for less money and/or design freedom.

As for the level of money involved, from what little I know about it, it seems that there's enough money in the 3rd Party scene to keep a bunch of small-time companies going, but nowhere near the mass-release profits Hasbro gets from its mainstream toylines. It's like McDonalds VS a local high-quality hamburger joint - the local place might make enough to get by, maybe even expand their menu a little, but it's still peanuts compared to what McDonalds makes, and it's not really worth their time and energy to try for that particular niche burger market.

[philby]

thanks for the info! I'm curious as to why Maketoys etc don't need to do safety testing. Or do they just choose not to? If it is clearly labelled and marketed to adults or something then couldn't Hasbro just skip it for them if they already skip it?

[5FDP]

thanks for the info! I'm curious as to why Maketoys etc don't need to do safety testing. Or do they just choose not to? If it is clearly labelled and marketed to adults or something then couldn't Hasbro just skip it for them if they already skip it?

They choose not to. It keeps the cost down. Hasbro is a global brand and with that comes an elevated responsibility so they'll do their due diligence when it comes to safety requirements.

[GoktimusPrime]

i'm more just curious. i don't feel as...strong...about it as you and some others do and i personally wouldn't go as far as calling some of them knock-offs. that's just me though.

They are actually knock offs though, as knock off is a product which uses the distinctive likeness of someone else's intellectual property, but isn't actually a replica of it. A counterfeit is an unauthorised replica. I know that some people use "knock off" as a synonym for counterfeits, but technically and legally there is a difference between the two.