Quote Originally Posted by Galvatran View Post
Commentary like this does absolutely nothing to define the Line's success or failure. It's a throw away line that rears it's head ever so often in the fandom. I can't speak for Hasbro but I'm pretty sure they set themselves targets for success: Net sales value, profit, distribution, brand invigoration, etc. It would not involve putting this Line on a pedestal.
That can also depend on what proportion of the line these toys occupy. The current/new stuff we have on shelves atm are:
* Power of the Primes
* Studio Series
* Cyberverse
And later this year we'll also have the Bumblebee movie toys.

So yeah, Cyberverse are occupying approximately a third of the toyline, and by year's end it will be roughly a quarter. This isn't nearly as bad as what happened in 1990 where the horrible compromised toys occupied half of the toyline. And we know that that was the beginning of the end for G1.

Another thing to consider is brand momentum. Another reason why Action Masters helped to kill off G1 is because Transformers had already been losing momentum since 1987. It was already a shrinking brand by the time Action Masters came along and kicked the brand in the janglies. Now compare this with say Beast Machines and Animorphs which followed the highly successful Beast Wars. As widely disliked as those toys were, they still didn't kill off Transformers because the fandom was still riding off the coattails of Beast Wars' popularity. From Beast Wars Transformers had fallen from a high into a low, but then recovered by the time Car Robot/RiD came along. There was another dip in 2002, but again the momentum was still there, and it recovered again in 2003 with Armada - enough momentum that Hasbro was convinced to go ahead with the idea of a live action film for Transformers.

The problem with Action Masters was that it took Transformers from an already low point - the cartoon had already been cancelled and the fandom was already weakened - to a much lower point. The brand can take "hits" if it's coming from a position of relative strength. And yeah, the brand at the moment is incredibly strong, so I would not at all expect Cyberverse to really put much of a dent in it.

So I'm not at all crying "RUINED FOREVER" with these toys and saying that these figures will spell the end for Transformers. We've all seen Transformers survive through much, much worse than this (like Action Masters). We remember what it was like being a Transformers collector through way tougher times (like the mid 1990s). These toys aren't concerning me from a POV of it ruining the franchise... but they're still inexcusably poor toys. And shelfwarmers hurt the brand. Probably not enough to ruin it, but it's not doing it any favours either.

And yeah, "throw away line" pretty much encapsulates the inherently flawed philosophy behind these toys.