Yeah, I actually like Strongarm's head, but her vehicle mode looks like someone stepped on it (and her robot mode's a bit taller/skinnier than I'd like).
Detritus and IDW Orion Pax.
At this point they do not get to whine if leakers post full reviews of Earth Mode Hound the day before the official reveal. It's 100% deserved.
Orion is at least a retool, and could just as easily be the Seige mold to any that don't keep up. Detritus however is straight up Earth mode Hound in Junkion colors.
Who's "they" in this scenerio?
Has anyone from Hasbro actually complained about leaks? It seems like the kind of thing they would just avoid talking about outside of the vaguest terms.
I don't think they really consider it worth fighting. The worst case scenario is that the leaks spoil a surprise they had been hoping to spring on us. They don't usually do anything to negatively impact sales. In some cases, leaks actually probably help keep fans excited about upcoming products.
I wonder how much advance knowledge of a redeco impacts sales (if at all) or how they could find out.
Passing on a Leader because "oh he'll be released as X" later (or whatever), only to find out that no, just A and B is annoying, but so is settling for A when you waaant B.
My guess is that it's a fraction of a fraction, but the higher the price point, the larger each fraction is.
(And while I'm way too lazy to crunch any numbers, I'm pretty sure that the higher price points tend to have fewer redecoes than, say, Deluxes.)
Passing on a Leader because "oh he'll be released as X" later (or whatever), only to find out that no, just A and B is annoying, but so is settling for A when you waaant B.
My guess is that it's a fraction of a fraction, but the higher the price point, the larger each fraction is.
(And while I'm way too lazy to crunch any numbers, I'm pretty sure that the higher price points tend to have fewer redecoes than, say, Deluxes.)
It's funny. After all the many uses of both the Siege and Earthrise Seeker molds, not a one of either has been a release of the still-in-demand G1 Sunstorm.
There's probably a shockingly high amount of intersection between "Fans who are regularly checking news websites that report leaks" and "Fans who were probably going to buy both versions anyway."
But you are right, that's the only way I could see it negatively impacting anything.
They usually brush it off, but there was one livestream a while back where they were noticeably salty about it.
Oh, I'm sure it's personally very frustrating if the team had been really looking forward to blowing our minds with a big reveal only for it to be spoiled a few days beforehand. But as a cost/benefit thing for Hasbro itself, I don't think they (the company decision makers) care.
Speaking of the team, that's one thing I did want to mention. I do really love the Transformers Tuesdays fanstreams. The way Mark, Ben, and Evan clearly love their jobs and are just as much fans as they are creators makes them super enjoyable to watch. It's a great behind-the-scenes as well as a preview.
I agree about the livestreams. Mark, Ben, and Evan are good at this. IIRC, the extra salty stream I'm thinking of wasn't them.
Honestly, I feel like they walk the line between "company mouthpieces" and "genuine love for the franchise" in a way that becomes counterintuitive.
When you have to talk about how absolutely balls awesome every toy that cross their paths is and not say anything negative, the enthusiasm can feel inauthentic. It's not their fault, after all it wouldn't really be proper if they brought out a bunch of their coworkers efforts and just shat all over them on stream. Also, no way Hasbro would greenlight a stream like that in the first place. So no fault of their own, but those things do make their statements feel a bit hollow.
It's like when Major Nelson at Xbox started with his own personal podcast but it eventually became the defacto offical Xbox podcast and suddenly now Nelson was having to defend stuff like the ridiculous prices for Xbox 360 harddrives. (I'm old, sue me.)
When you have to talk about how absolutely balls awesome every toy that cross their paths is and not say anything negative, the enthusiasm can feel inauthentic. It's not their fault, after all it wouldn't really be proper if they brought out a bunch of their coworkers efforts and just shat all over them on stream. Also, no way Hasbro would greenlight a stream like that in the first place. So no fault of their own, but those things do make their statements feel a bit hollow.
It's like when Major Nelson at Xbox started with his own personal podcast but it eventually became the defacto offical Xbox podcast and suddenly now Nelson was having to defend stuff like the ridiculous prices for Xbox 360 harddrives. (I'm old, sue me.)
I’m honestly shocked we haven’t gotten a Sunstorm in all of his orange goodness in Selects or mainline.