Play With This Too...

[Scaleface]

Thanks Scaleface - great effort! I had a look before and browsed through some of the team's bios. Seems like there's an error on the page now?

Also, so much awesome.. Boneyard.

Page working for you now?

BTW - Kickstarter begins February 27th, 2015. I believe they will ship the Kickstarter rewards to AU.

[Scaleface]

Oh, here is the prototype ofr Desolataur:

[Scaleface]

I don't think Archer's problem was with third party figures as such, just that they were basing them on existing characters, instead of creating new ones (which seems to be what Play With This Too seems to be doing)

If I can pick apart his words a bit more than mode, he specifically called out third party companies who were making figured that just looks like better versions of Hasbro character, for instance he mentioned FansToys making MP versions of Dinobots, which are 100% copies of the forms of Dinobots Hasbro owns.

Now compare that to what he is doing with Play With This Too, where no one can say they are merely copying Hasbro character, but taking massive new takes on characters. Like Aaron Archer's Ancient Astronaut, a guy infected tenticle by an alien in a space suit. Yes, it will look like Octopunch if you squint, but it's not just G1 Octopunch upsized or more articulation.

If he was calling out the 3P companies for not being original, just making Scoria be exactly like Slag, he's NOT guilty of doing that himself.

[Sinnertwin]

For comparison

[griffin]

So the argument is coming down to "where do you draw the line" on copying/replicating the original toy.
Some 3rd party stuff may well be replicating quite well, one or both modes accurately (which is the point of providing for the demand - there would be less interest if they didn't look much like the actual Transformers character)... but their engineering is still different to the original toy, otherwise they'd be noted/classed as KOs instead.

The PWTT items above are clearly based on the original toys, and I doubt there would be anyone who would claim otherwise. But like the 3rd party toys, they are not replicating the exact sculpting and engineering... so is there a line that PWTT think they haven't crossed that distinguishes them from other 3rd party toys replicating the originals?

(I'm not knocking them or specifically targeting them... I see them as being quite nice representations of the original toys, like a lot of other 3rd party toys are... but I don't agree that they have any grounds to claim that they are any different to those other 3rd party (unauthorised/unlicensed) toys that are also replicating original toys to varying degrees.)

[Scaleface]

For comparison

For comparison of the toy Archer remarked has no originality n his comments, it was Scoria being and Slag... You have to admit... he is right. It's a beautiful toy, but not horribly original.



Meanwhile for comparison, the toy Archer designed for Play With This Too:



and Octopunch:

[SuspectimusPrime]

The PWTT items above are clearly based on the original toys, and I doubt there would be anyone who would claim otherwise. But like the 3rd party toys, they are not replicating the exact sculpting and engineering... so is there a line that PWTT think they haven't crossed that distinguishes them from other 3rd party toys replicating the originals?

Their products do rip off vintage designs, however they may not be in direct competition with Hasbro's current offerings.

Whilst PWTT does replicate closely to the original vintage toys, Hasbro has so far not released anything like the original Pretender toys (plastic shells partnered with inner robots) - aside from their likeness in Generations toys such as Thunderwing/Skullgrin/Black Shadow. Other 3rd party producers are releasing popular iterations that are currently or may in the near future be in direct competition with Hasbro releases (i.e. multiple third party Brainstorms/Headmasters/Dinobots/G1 Devastators/other combiners).

I really like seeing successful 3rd party producers like Fansproject leveraging their brand name in an attempt to create unique lines - such as Steel Core (original design, -master homage), Retro-Future Glacialord (original design with 80's combiner scramble city type combination), and Trianix Alpha (Dai Battles homage).

[Paulbot]

You'd think a moderator would have split out all the third party discussion from this thread by now.

Almost missed the important notice to check my Pretender shells.

[griffin]

I didn't expect a comment about a potentially similar legal situation to Bratz dolls would generate debate about the classifications of different unauthorised items, but will move posts when I find an existing topic to move them to.

[griffin]

(moved about 13 posts from another topic, as a comment ended up generating significant conversation that ended up being off-topic for that topic)