TFCC Transmutate is online now.

[griffin]

I don't mind it, I'm not sure I love it, I think I'll see if they have any available at the Club Store at Botcon. maybe after I see it in person I'll have a more congealed opinion on this one.

I was tossing up risking it as well, leaving it for BotCon to save all that shipping expense, but since the last few have sold out quite fast, I didn't want to risk missing out and paying a dealer about $100 for it. (which isn't far off what I paid anyway ).

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Just crunching the numbers to see if my suspicion was true or not...

Wow, that would have to be equal (or close)to the amount of local character releases Hasbro do for us here surely. Excluding GI joe.

But damn, no wonder they don't bother with interviews or cool stuff. Too busy busting out toys. They might as well just become a TF toy shop!

[griffin]

While I was going through various GIJoe sites for FunPubs numbers (there isn't a site like TFWiki that has all of FunPub's exclusives listed), I had a bit of a change of heart towards them.
Since the GIJoe line has had periods of suspension (including this year), the collector club producing 40-odd GIJoe toys would be like the best thing for committed GIJoe fans... a bit like Matty Collector is for committed MOTU fans at the moment.
So I was thinking, if it weren't for the massive amount of Retail product from Hasbro and TakaraTomy lately, wouldn't we be more embracing of FunPub's (overpriced and sometimes unreliable) products?

After the 3H era of BotCon, the number of exclusive TFs toys may seem waaay over the top, but to FunPub, it's their standard business model (they've been doing GIJoe conventions successfully for almost 20 years)... and even though it might be several years before the whole Movie craze dies off, what if we had another post-Gen2 period from Hasbro & TakaraTomy. The 3rd party groups might flourish, but what if Hasbro or Paramount had decided to flex their muscles on stopping mass-produced replica character toys (3rd party) from biting into their merchandise sales, as I'm sure Disney, DC and Marvel would, if a business started producing or selling toys in America that looked like Superman, Mickey Mouse, Batman or Wolverine (3rd party TFs are designed to look like TFs characters that are usually in something currently being licensed by several businesses, so they have a proprietary interest in the money those unlicensed businesses are making off their investment).
If that ever happened, the demand for officially released figures from the only remaining source would then be in greater demand.

I think while we have so much choice with Transformers product (official and 3rd party), we are more critical of the more expensive or problematic options... but I think that attitude would change if FunPub were the only source of figures aimed at the collectors.
(that might not happen in this decade, but it's worth thinking about how much more accepting we MIGHT be for TFs product if we were more desperate for it, like GIJoe fans probably are now... or even MOTU fans)

[Krayt]

How long was it between peopls orders and shipping?

I was late to buy, but it's been 4 business days and mine says still not shipped in my accont.

[Sky Shadow]

I think while we have so much choice with Transformers product (official and 3rd party), we are more critical of the more expensive or problematic options... but I think that attitude would change if FunPub were the only source of figures aimed at the collectors.

I only just read this, but it's a really good point. If there were no other Transformers released this year other than the FunPub exclusives, we would look at them differently. We'd still complain about them (as we do with Mattel about the MOTU Classic line) but at least they would be offering a fix we can't get elsewhere.

[MayzaPrime]

How long was it between peopls orders and shipping?

I was late to buy, but it's been 4 business days and mine says still not shipped in my accont.

It was about 2 weeks for me.