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Post by supergetterv on Feb 6, 2016 14:46:41 GMT -5
Wanted to start a thread to gather the opinions on these 3rd party unofficial Transformers. Just a couple years ago, we were talking about the possibility of a 3rd party bubble burst as companies were competitng with each other. Reality is, the market for 3P TF's is booming and it's expanding exponentially. There are so much, can't keep track of it all. Wanted to keep this thread separate from the other thread cause that one is used for news and upcoming releases.
Personally, my current feeling towards 3P is that they aren't worth more than what I originally pay for them. I would say, they are like new cars, once you drive it off the lot, they start to lose value. This is based on my observation, experience and my opinion only. Now, I don't want to use the word "investment" since I never looked at my collection as an "investment" toward anything other than my personal enjoyment. But at the same time, it does suck knowing that I can buy a lot of these same toy at a later time for a lot less.
In the past, 3P figures do gain a lot on secondary market value. Some may remember how much the FP city commander set was at or the Bruticus x-fire set. Even Quakewave from a years back. My buddy sold his for $600 right after XTB Apollyon came out. There was demand for Quakewave because collectors wanted both Megatron and Shockwave together in their MP collection. Seeing the demand FT reissued 3 version of their Quakewave and even had their design stolen from Cloud9 and the announcement from TakaraTomy official Shockwave killed the Secondary market value of the original Quakewave. The window for making money on 3P release is small and getting smaller. Ox Max (MMC) version of Sphinx might command a little gain now, but it's gain is gonna come down once the recolor comes out and the value won't ever stay high. I say this because when demands are high, the company just do additional runs. So, these figures are always available at retail. Additionally, there are no protection from these releases, KO companies will rip off these designs and product replicas or Oversize version. I'll stop here cause I have a lot more to say about 3P. Wanted to see what the opinions of others before commenting more.
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Post by Yumcha on Feb 6, 2016 18:26:32 GMT -5
Well, FWIW, I do not giving a flying fark for the market value of an "action figure". I mean, we buy what we like, right? What matters most to me is the overall quality, look, and material used of the toy. So, with that in mind, MakeToys, FansToys, Mastermind Creations, and FansProject are the ones that have that "brand power" for me as I know what I'm generally getting (like when I buy a Bandai Chogokin). But, again, I really don't purchase with resale in mind since I don't plan on selling my collection anytime soon.
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Post by supergetterv on Feb 6, 2016 19:20:36 GMT -5
I don't buy these figures with an intent to sell either. But it sucks for anyone that paid $400-$450 for a Maketoys Giant or their Utopia and now it could be as low as $200. There is even a rumor that due to the overstock of these figures Maketoys is recalling all these figure and redistribute it as KO so they can sell it at a lower price. FP, MMC, FT and MT has all been Victims of KO. Some of these KO are of poor quality but in the some cases, like MMC Hexatron, the Clonedroid's version is cheaper and is considered better. Cloud9's Quakeblast, a retooling of Quakewave is a better deal at half the price. Warbotrons Bruticus has been KO'ed by WuKong and many have said the quality is the same. Again at half the price. It just seems like no matter what it is, it will be cheaper later. For this reason alone, I am not touching another combined set. To collect an entire combiner set at 400-600$ to which the value doesn't hold. Be better off buying it years down the road when demands for it is low and at a fraction of the price.
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Post by Yumcha on Feb 7, 2016 0:01:48 GMT -5
I don't buy these figures with an intent to sell either. But it sucks for anyone that paid $400-$450 for a Maketoys Giant or their Utopia and now it could be as low as $200. There is even a rumor that due to the overstock of these figures Maketoys is recalling all these figure and redistribute it as KO so they can sell it at a lower price. FP, MMC, FT and MT has all been Victims of KO. Some of these KO are of poor quality but in the some cases, like MMC Hexatron, the Clonedroid's version is cheaper and is considered better. Cloud9's Quakeblast, a retooling of Quakewave is a better deal at half the price. Warbotrons Bruticus has been KO'ed by WuKong and many have said the quality is the same. Again at half the price. It just seems like no matter what it is, it will be cheaper later. For this reason alone, I am not touching another combined set. To collect an entire combiner set at 400-600$ to which the value doesn't hold. Be better off buying it years down the road when demands for it is low and at a fraction of the price. That's fair. And it depends on how long one is willing to wait, really. The nature of collecting is sorta like this even for mainstream Japanese toys like Chogokin...In some cases you're in an e-fight to get in your preorder only to find out months or even years later, the value does not hold and you can get a minty new one on eBay or Mandarake online for cheap. Caveat emptor!
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Post by supergetterv on Feb 7, 2016 12:33:07 GMT -5
See, it was 3P that got me collecting TFs. If not for 3P, my Transformers collection would be really small as the official MP line would be the only ones I would have collected. The add ons back in the day gave me a reason to buy the regular run of the mill toys.
I would agree to some extent and really wanted 3P to be like Chogokins. That was part of the demographic it was intended for. Collectors with money that wanted high quality figures like Chogokins. But the comparison isn't a fair one. Official chogokin don't get bootlegged. They don't face the problem of having their designs ripped of and KO companies making exact replicas. So their value holds. The integrity of each release is also kept because limited production versions don't get remade and reissued. I just don't see any of these 3P products being made in limited productions runs where they sell out at retail instantly. It happened once with the FP shadow Scythe, but even that one, the demand for it came shooting down when KO version started showing up, again the value didn't hold up.
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Post by Yumcha on Feb 7, 2016 14:29:38 GMT -5
See, it was 3P that got me collecting TFs. If not for 3P, my Transformers collection would be really small as the official MP line would be the only ones I would have collected. The add ons back in the day gave me a reason to buy the regular run of the mill toys. I would agree to some extent and really wanted 3P to be like Chogokins. That was part of the demographic it was intended for. Collectors with money that wanted high quality figures like Chogokins. But the comparison isn't a fair one. Official chogokin don't get bootlegged. They don't face the problem of having their designs ripped of and KO companies making exact replicas. So their value holds. The integrity of each release is also kept because limited production versions don't get remade and reissued. I just don't see any of these 3P products being made in limited productions runs where they sell out at retail instantly. It happened once with the FP shadow Scythe, but even that one, the demand for it came shooting down when KO version started showing up, again the value didn't hold up. To your point about Chogokins not getting bootlegged, that's fair. But again, you also know in the 3rd-party world that you're buying a bootleg. Not a great example per se, but I recently bought the Square Enix Play Arts Kai Iron Man. And for fun, I started to track down the Star Wars figures...I was able to finally score a Boba Fett for a decent price off Mandarake BUT, this was before I discovered that Play Arts is subject to bootlegs as well. And yeah, the price difference is rather staggering, 18000JPY for the Boba Fett versus something I can get for $60 with shipping on eBay. I dunno, the entire premise of the 3rd-party was likely going to go down the path you're lamenting about because they are not licensed. In many ways, they do represent stolen intellectual property (gray area) and so, for whatever you're paying, it truly is buyer-beware, right?
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Post by supergetterv on Feb 12, 2016 16:33:53 GMT -5
Exactly to my point of this discussion. It's all buyers beware. 3P products are still relatively new (old to some) to the TF collectible market. So, I am trying to put it in perspective. Many may not know that what they are buying does not hold resale value. If only just collecting and doing it for fun, then none of what I say or mention in this thread matters. But the realization of spending thousands on these products and at the end, they aren't worth half of a quarter of the original price during resale. This is something to consider and to inform. I can't predict future values and can only base my opinion on my observation and experiences.
So here is my example. But say, to everyone that purchased and or is considering buying XTB's Apollyon, MP style Megatron. What if I told you that two years from now, it could be purchased for less than $50? Now this is just an example but say MT's version of MP Megatron is a hit. Perhaps another company like FT makes one even better. Apollyon also gets KO is now produced at a more competent factory with much better QC and sells for a lot less at retail. In this example, there will be 2 new products as direct competition, and a KO offering with better craftsmanship at half the price. Additionally the Apollyon product is still available at retail cause it either never sold out or another production run. Knowing this, would anyone still want to buy a Apollyon? This is kinda my projection on this MP Megatron figure but it kinda applies to almost all characters and why I feel the way I do in my original post that 3P aren't going to be worth more than their original retail price.
Let also look at FT's Quakewave. Original retail was around $150. There are now 3 reissue variants. The original production run for anyone that is trying to sell it now, can't get $150 for it. Demands and the market for the original production version is almost non existent. There is a cheaper alternative selling for less than $100, and its resale value is likely to take another hit in a couple months when the official MP Shockwave gets release.
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Post by rizuan76 on Feb 19, 2016 18:52:54 GMT -5
Just a simple question to add to the discussion:
Why isn't SOC or any other high end Japanese toyline ripped-off/KOed? Why is it mostly the TF toyline?
Regarding about value of 3P, just last week I got Gigapower Guttur on clearance from my local toyshop. That thing was only released last year..
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Post by supergetterv on Feb 21, 2016 13:32:29 GMT -5
Just a simple question to add to the discussion: Why isn't SOC or any other high end Japanese toyline ripped-off/KOed? Why is it mostly the TF toyline? Regarding about value of 3P, just last week I got Gigapower Guttur on clearance from my local toyshop. That thing was only released last year.. Many reasons actually. Main one being there isn't a profitable market perhaps. We won't really know until some 3P actually try to KO or make an unofficial Super Robot. Direct copies are maybe too costly to produce? The high end stuff like SOC, to replicate them probably cost too much and profits are way too low. The car MP are replicated cause it's mainly plastic. So it's probably a lot cheaper to KO. The bigger MP like Prime still cost a lot and aren't cheap cause they aren't cheap to produce. Has Ultra Magnus or Star Saber been KO? Probably not really profitable to KO those. Also, Takara and Hasbro just don't care about copyright infringement. Unlike the IP owners of the Super Robots which probably only owns the rights to specific titles, they go after anyone that tries and make any money off their property. So distribution is harder for anyone that attempts to make KO. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Recently there has been a 1/72 scale Aile Strike Gundam based on Metal Build style engineering. The Metal Build engineering was also KO and used for a SRW Huckebein or something. Although both products have been released, trying to buy them isn't as easy.
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Post by Yumcha on Feb 21, 2016 15:57:22 GMT -5
Also, Transformers has a significantly larger market.
Look at the utter turd-movies made by Bay and yet, they still sold like hot-cakes. There is a big market for Transformers. In the Chogokin world of Bandai, aside from nutbars like us who think putting down $200 on an action figure is normal, who else knows about "Super Robots"...?
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