TFCC Closing?

[DELTAprime]

Seibertron is reporting all TFCC Club Memberships will end December 2016. People seem to be taking this as a sign that TFCC is closing.

TFW Thread on this.

[CHILENO20]

Hmmmm, interesting

[UltimateGalvatron]

I haven't dealt with them before, is this good or bad?

[CHILENO20]

I haven't dealt with them before, is this good or bad?

A bit of both. Some great toys but their service, well it leaves a lot to be desired. And that's putting it mildly.

[Trent]

You know you're doing something right when news of your clubs closure excites the fandom more than anything you ever did with the license you held

[Paulbot]

I saw this and wondered if they were moving instead to a year by year membership. Primus knows they have trouble keeping things organised so if everyone's membership expired at the same time that in theory would be easier (if their system could cope!).

Still if it's on Seibertron, the official news site of the Club and hasn't been officially contradicted yet...

[DELTAprime]

If they are closing as the fandom is speculating I hope Hasbro brings the club figures in house. Much as I like a bunch of their figures the QC issues (and price) really scare me off.

[kup]

You know you're doing something right when news of your clubs closure excites the fandom more than anything you ever did with the license you held

Yeah a lot of the fan forums are really positively excited on this news. Sure reflects how horribly they have ran the official fandom and cons.

[griffin]

Still if it's on Seibertron, the official news site of the Club and hasn't been officially contradicted yet...

That's the telling thing isn't it... if it is posted on Seibertron as news and not taken down or corrected by the admin or their FunPub spokesman (Jesse), it does mean that something is definitely changing. (it's just typical of FunPub to stay silent when the fandom's rumour mode snowballs out of control)

But I don't think the Club is closing at the end of 2016... because they are promoting their 2017 Subscription set in the next issue of the Magazine.

I agree with what Paulbot mentioned - that it is likely they are moving to a January-December membership cycle, to make it easier to track, as well as align the club comic to it (which would always be one issue out for their March membership drive/cutoff that a bulk of member would sign up to for the Membership toy). It might also be to give them more consistency with the membership fees, so that people aren't able to squeeze two BotCon discounts out of the one membership fee if you have an April/May convention after a June-September convention.
The drawback of this will be for those who transition and get less than 12 months membership in 2016 despite paying for the full 12 months (even if they get all the same things like the Membership toy and BotCon discount).
It would also make it difficult to encourage people to register between February to October (like at BotCon to get walk-ins to join), as people won't want to pay too far in advance of the next year's membership cycle.

Or... they could be dropping the membership element of the Club completely, and just be a Convention organiser and online store. After all, they can drop the magazine or have it as a paid subscription, and sell the Membership toys like their other exclusives, and business would actually continue as normal (with everything just having a single price instead of a non-members price that no one probably even pays anyway).
After the last few years of no members website or incentive to join if you aren't using it for a BotCon discount or access to a Club exclusive like the Subscription sets, the membership concept is a bit of a dead weight for FunPub, and it couldn't have been making them any money after 6 colour magazines and Deluxe toy (the various member discounts wouldn't be a loss to them as the non-member prices would have instead been a bonus).


For me and for other fans, I just hope this doesn't impact on BotCon, or see its demise, as it is still an iconic event... but a growing number of people are just preferring to sacrifice that experience to make sure FunPub don't get their money.

[griffin]

I was kinda surprised to see people on Seibertron being so openly against FunPub, as I would have imagined that six months of partnership would have seen them more embraced or tolerated.

I think it will be worth showing both Seibertron and TFW links to Hasbro and see what they think.
(I don't want to see them shut down if there is no viable and willing substitute, but if Hasbro can step in to improve operations by setting standards and targets for customer satisfaction & sales, we'd end up benefiting as fans.)