Visual fidelity vs engineering

[kup]

I chose the Gobots because my answer is much more balanced than the two absolutes given in the poll.

Both engineering and character recognisability go hand in hand - The TF1 Movie toys nailed the balance pretty well - The Autobots were not very movie accurate (far from it) but the characters were still very much recognizable at the same time as being well engineered such as Ratchet, Bumblebee and Ironhide.

[GoktimusPrime]

That's the problem we had with Beast Machines - the show models were so toy-inaccurate that it turned people off the franchise. Compare the first BM Optimus Primal toy with his show appearance. They released more show-like toys later on, but by that time it was too little too late.

Something that SilverDragon pointed out is the toy-accuracy of the show models on Cybertron/Galaxy Force because the animators created the show models based on 3D scans of the toys. Mainframe Entertainment also did the same thing when they created Beast Wars, although they took the liberty of making creative refinements of those scans (like giving Blackarachnia curves! ), but on the whole Beast Wars had pretty decent toy-accuracy too.

I wonder how well toys like movie Devastator/Constructicons would sell if they were just released as toys without a movie to help market it. A well designed toy will sell like hotcakes, even without a cartoon, comic or movie to help market it (although those things certainly do help!). Remember when RiD first hit shelves here? The cartoon hadn't aired yet, but the toys flew off shelves! Conversely Beast Machines toys continued to shelf-warm even after the cartoon came out (although only being on FoxTel probably didn't help). Transformers Animorphs shelfwarmed epically despite being part of a big book franchise with a TV show.

[SilverDragon]

I wonder how well toys like movie Devastator/Constructicons would sell if they were just released as toys without a movie to help market it. A well designed toy will sell like hotcakes, even without a cartoon, comic or movie to help market it (although those things certainly do help!). Remember when RiD first hit shelves here? The cartoon hadn't aired yet, but the toys flew off shelves! Conversely Beast Machines toys continued to shelf-warm even after the cartoon came out (although only being on FoxTel probably didn't help). Transformers Animorphs shelfwarmed epically despite being part of a big book franchise with a TV show.

I think there would be other factors which caused Beast Machines to shelfwarm besides the toys not looking like their on-screen personas (e.g. the cartoon failed to really reach it's target audience, toys were pretty much 'stand up and switch heads' from what I've heard, etc), but that's a topic unto itself.

[GoktimusPrime]

Oh yeah, it wasn't the only factor... but the lack of toy-accuracy in the show certainly didn't help!

[Golden Phoenix]

I think looks are more important.
A toy can have weak engineering but if it looks decent enough then I'll still grab it. Universe Ultra Silverbolt is one of these. He looks pretty good in both modes, but he is a "oh I fell down" transformations. But he looks good enough so I think I'll still grab him for the right price.

On the other hand, no amount of engineering wonder will help me pick up some toys. The movie toys are like this for me. Some have great engineering but I ain't gonna have that sitting on my shelf

[dirge]

Engineering for me always wins. I'd prefer some shortcomings in visual accuracy than a simple toy which looks like the film/cartoon but is ridiculously simple.

Of course balance is important - Cybertron & BW _did_ strike a good balance here. The ROTF Constructicons might provide visual accuracy in one sense but through failing to combine (or convert to robots, if you like), they end up sacrificing movie likeness in another way...

Engineering is linked to likeness in that respect. Another example - how many BW fans lamented that Rhinox's toy lacked a chain gun?

I can appreciate that there'll always be compromises, and ideally I'd like to see balance, but I'd still favour engineering over accuracy. In the case of Devastator, I don't see balance nor the level of engineering I'd like.