On Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 12:27:29 AM UTC+1, Zobovor wrote:
> Now that there are dozens and dozens of new third party "Transformers"
> out there, here's a question for you: Does anybody feel as though
> you've got a third-party representation of a character that is so good
> that you would not buy a Hasbro version that was subsequently
> released? In other words, are there any third party toys you own that
> are pretty much exactly what you wanted in an update for that
> character, and you simply wouldn't see the point in buying an official
> version?
>
> Do you think that Hasbro considers the existence of the third party
> toys when addressing the notion of updates to G1 characters? Or do
> you think they ignore the existence of them completely when it comes
> to deciding what toys to produce? (Obviously they don't ignore them
> from a legal aspect, since they've banned the toys from BotCon.)
>
> The relationship between the third party toys and the official stuff
> is very interesting to me. Some of the third party accessories seem
> to be specifically timed to coincide with toys that were currently in
> stores, and thus easy for consumers to find (i.e., the Really Big Gun
> for Classics Cliffjumper or the replacement heads for Cyberjet Skyjack/
> fall, Kup, etc.) I wonder sometimes if it works in the other direction
> —if the third party guys come up with a really good version of a
> particular character and then Hasbro wants to do their own update as a
> response to it.
>
> I would say that the high-quality Jhong Zin "reissues" are
> specifically intended to fill the gaps in an existing reissue
> collection; almost all the ones available are toys that, for whatever
> reason, Takara has thus far failed to address. (It still baffles me
> that Takara finally got around to reissuing the Constructicons after
> they said for years that they were never going to.)
>
> Is it just me, or is Transformers the only toy line that gets the
> third-party treatment? I know there are fans who make unofficial
> reproductions of weapons for Star Wars, G.I. Joe, He-Man, etc. but is
> Transformers the only license for which people are designing entirely
> new, unofficial toys?
>
>
> Zob

A decade on, it feels like we’ve reached detente on this issue. Hasbro has stepped up its game immeasurably in recent years both in terms of quality and character representation in the CHUG line, rendering 3P CHUG efforts nearly superfluous (it seems the majority of 3P companies have long since shifted their focus to Masterpiece and/or Legend scale characters). FansProject’s pioneering City Commander, a legend in its time, has been eclipsed by Siege/Kingdom Ultra Magnus, who uses similar engineering to create a far better product.

That said, 3P seems to have found it niche in the CHUG world with add-on kits to fill gaps and provide the accessories that Hasbro routinely omits for cost reasons. In a nice bit of symbiotic symmetry, the current relationship between 3P and Hasbro harkens back full circle to the days of City Commander and the G3 or BTS trailers - where 3P meant enhancements for the official product rather than replacements.

That being said, I wouldn’t mind a rerelease of the G3 and BTS trailers, with modifications to fit Siege/Earthrise/SS-38 Optimus. The only available option for 3P CHUG trailers at present seems to be the KBB downsized MP-10 trailer, which some enterprising fans have managed to adapt for Earthrise Prime.