You can't please everybody. If you try, you'll just fail miserably. For Hasbro, the fandom is just a small but semi-significant chunk. If we are totally ignored by Hasbro, they wouldn't bother with these conventions, homages and other nods that they do. We already saw that G1 doesn't work these days, since most G1 fans don't collect anymore and for those who do, they probably liked the Takara versions more. I think HasTak is doing pretty well in Cybertron which is kind of a little of everything from beasts, realistic and futuristic vehicles. Most of the Geewun "OMG Force Chips and Mini-cons bastardized TFs and everything not-G1 sucks" whiners don't buy anything anyway so it's just deserving that Hasbro focuses no attention on them. If the homages and the Alternators fail to please them and they would never understand the difference between toy safety laws and trademarks these days and twenty years ago, it's a lost cause.

 

I think that while we have varying opinions regarding the Tfs these days, the only real divisions I find in the fandom are the mature ones, and those who aren't. I don't see any much bickering here at TFans since most of the immature trolls who show up eventually get banned for being what they naturally are. What's ironic is that a lot of these trolls are G1 purists, so they have to be pretty old, which is pretty pathetic.

There is no division - Transformers were always about "robots in disguise" and it's been like that since - nothing's changed. Why categorize yourself to subjective groups? G1/G2/Machine Wars/BW/BM/RID/Armada/Energon/Cyberton/Alternators/Universe - it's all the same.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

:pfx

 

Unfortunately, it takes the few people who want the "segregation" to screw it up for the rest of us that just want to be entertained!  Can't we all just get along?  :tfsad

I like them all really. I collect all lines, so I can see the good and the bad. Kind of like a view of the evolution of TF's if you will. I can even see the good part of Armada.

I've never cared for beast era toys (but I did like the shows).  I can't get enough G1 stuff though. So here's to reduxing G1 over and over till the freaking end of time baby!

 

Seriously though, If this new line that's supposed to be coming out (complete with gun megatron) is anything like I think it will be then I will consider my G1 lust fully sated and you beast fans can have a whole line dedicated to funky repaints just like we got back in the day.

They can put out whatever they want. I'll buy it. Heck, I bought those Animorphs toys so .... I'm such a loser

Animorphs... :wtf yeah, there's something wrong with you :wtf

there are about 6 dozen Transformers coming from Hasbro between now & Summer 2007. If fans can't find something to like without crying like spoiled children they don't deserve ANY of the toys.

Being a G1 rube and fundamentalist, I'll try to speak as objectively as I can.  The G1 faction enjoys a certain benefit not simply because TF was pioneering the expansion of transforming robots in the major market that the US was at the time, but also because the '80s were an era where toys/shows enjoyed perhaps its highest level of success due to the looser advertising/marketing laws of the time as well as a combination of various other factors that occurred back then.  The '80s were a bygone cultural phenomenon in terms of the sheer number of toys and amount of plastic that generation was convinced to shell out money for.  The '80s He-Man and MotU property generated some 1 billion US alone, I believe.  From what I've been told, it was the anti-toy and marketing regulations that came into effect afterwards that has pretty much killed the toy-show marketing combo for the entire industry ever since (with rare exceptions like Pokemon).  It wasn't merely regulations to prevent Megatron-like toys, but disallowing of advertising toys for the same property as commercials during the TV show for that property an' what not.  You see the same thing in the GI Joe property where the '80s Joe fans have an aversion to most of the lines that aren't 3-3/4" -- and from where I sit, they seem to outnumber the earlier '60s GI Joe fans too.

 

Even now, as has been stated, most fans from the G1 age have stopped buying.  And despite that, of those who remain and are still purchasing toys at all, they're a sizeable enough group in terms of purchasing power to get something of their way as shown by the reissues, homages, and recolor nods.  I'm not saying that this causes the production and supply of other TF lines to suffer, and if it does, I'm not saying that it necessarily should.  But if that's what the sales numbers reflect, that's the way it is.

 

Edit: I also find it amusingly hypocritical when people from the BW/Armada/Energon/Cyb/etc factions whine and complain about G1 peeps talking smack.. and then they turn around and do exactly the same to other fans of any other toy line that they aren't into.  Heh.  I don't care that much though -- it's a social dynamic that exists within any large groups.

theres no way to please everyone. especially this crowd. how about instead of hastak satifying every one of our needs (which wont happen) we satisfy one of theirs: not Starscreaming about every little thing. as long as prime doesnt turn into a bowl of pudding ill be fine.

Just keep them transformers coming.  Now if only my income would be the same. :redface