SDCC Transformers RID & MISC News and reveals

[griffin]

The RID cartoon video that was played at the RID presentation at SDCC has been officially released to youtube.

SPOILERS for those watching the cartoon and not up to the final episodes.

[reillyd]

Us fans might buy evil characters as collectors over the long term and of multiple toys... but we are supposed to be a very small portion of Hasbro sales.

Parents on the otherhand, who make up the bulk of Hasbro sales, prefer to buy hero toys... so if there were equal number of good and evil toys, then the evil ones will shelfwarm and clog the shelves
Anything more balanced to the ratio and Retailers are stuck with toys and it kills off the toyline for not being re-stocked by stores.

I understand the logic behind such a decision, but it's not true of all toy lines. Star Wars Rebels (which admittedly is being distributed poorly here in Au) has two packs with a rebel and an evil Imperial, and it's not a collector line. Gi joe is packed with cobra figures, even in waves that were kid focused like Renegades. Motu was a line with a zillion Skeletor repaints, and it was the lack of new characters rather than bad guys that killed the line. Turtles are now doing "Good vs Evil" two packs. Good stories and plots sell toys.

It reminds me of the old 'kids won't buy female characters" argument. The marketplace is big enough to cater to a range of tastes. Previous waves of movie toys were more Decepticon balanced, but AoE is a glaring exception.

Thank goodness for Combiner Wars for cons