>>11840314
Autism, that's how

>>11840314
Transforming robots are cool, and inherently the best toy.

For the same price as a single dinosaur or action figure toy, you get: A robot that changes into a car/plane/dinosaur/whatever.

That's basically three toys in one: the robot, whatever it turns into, and the puzzle/mechanism to get it from one to the other.

>>11840314
Old fag TF fag here. Because they’re finally giving us what would be considered the definitive version of G1 characters rather than inspired by. This will be the last chance in my life to get particular characters. While they’ll always be Optimus prime and Starscream, things like Venin which I’ve waited, literally 40 years for a new toy of tend to be more special because of their lack of exposure.

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE MODERN TF MEDIA. This is strictly a nostalgia thing for me..

Cool robots, and they kept a rather consistent pretense. Also it adapted to different trends pretty well.

>>11840314
Cartoons. In the 90s and early 2000s, Transformers kept getting cartoons that were bringing in successive new generations of fans, while, particularly in the Beast era, throwing enough bones to the older fans from the G1 era to keep them around, by the mid-2000s Hasbro had mastered managing several different Transformers lines at once, one for the kids based on the current cartoon, a baby's first Transformers line to hook them when they're really young, and a line for the by-then adult collectors who'd been around since the 80s. Then the live action movies and even more cartoons kept Transformers going for another ten years. I'm not sure how many kids are getting brought in by the recent cartoons and movies though, it may be a situation like TMNT where they desperately need something to bring in newer generations again.

Other 80s brands like MOTU and GI Joe tried in the 90s and 2000s, but none of their relaunches managed to pull off the trick of bringing in new fans in enough numbers to sustain the brand, and some of those relaunches weren't embraced by the older fans either.

Massively broad appeal, very pokemon-esque in it's variety of characters and designs.

Joe and MotU have a more narrow appeal and Super Sentai/Power Rangers has just been aggressively mismanaged for years.

>>11840314
I don't like this current focus on the Primes. They're not bad toys, it's just that leaders (size class and general character) should be one per wave

>>11840778
The Primes aren't really leaders in a factionwide sense, more like founders.

>>11840778
I just think they're lame.

>>11840314
Bringing in a new batch of fans, whether it be a casual or more long term fan, Transformers keeps a new fan base at all times. Transformers seems to be in some form of media at all times, whether it's movies or cartoons or comics so even if you don't buy the toys you know the characters and designs. I think the constant presence of transformers and the wide variety of toys you can buy are big reasons why the franchise continues.

>>11840314
It's cars that turn into freakin' robots—freakin' alien robots—and shoot freakin' laser beams!

well we can finally get the toys that are what the show looked, like, recent studio series , grimlock, prime and seekers are very good.

Jetfire was really good, has everything you want

Snapdragrons based and

Trypticon was really good and best of all was black zarak

Black zarak is possibly the single best transformer toy I have had, it's massive, great head sculpt, radically different modes, Strong joints, and picked it up for about 100$ US.

That's value.

Even the box knocks it out of the park.

>>11840314
The series constantly reinvents itself and it's concept is inherently evergreen compared to the other franchises named. The transformations on modern figures aren't nearly as complex as what the fuck they did with the revenge of the fallen toy line though. Never again.

>>11840314
Rhino farts

>>11840755
Also the characters being robots allows for more violence.

>>11840314
While recent movies flopped the bay films were so successful they guaranteed eternal life support

>>11840409
>Because they’re finally giving us what would be considered the definitive version of G1 characters rather than inspired by
They were so close. Without licensed alt modes, they aren't definitive. If they were licensed, they would be some of the best toys ever made.

>>11840409
>>11843890
can g1 uncs ever stop being sch whiney fags?

>>11843893
I don't think it's that whiney to expect a perfect product just once after 40 years. Like 40 fucking years... I think it's actually crazy to not perfect the original even once in all that time and just make other random stuff

>>11843912
>its crazy nightmar on elm street kept changing the premise every film
>its crazy halo kept changing the story every game
>its crazy ferrari keep changing their models every year
>its crazy star wars kept changing the characters every film
>its crazy markets keep changing the prices on things

>managed to stay afloat even during the 90s

Beast Wars. Then to a lesser extent RiD2001. Then to a far greater extent Armada. Then the Bay movies.

>>11840314
Its just a really good series with generational apeal that had really good character writing

>>11840314
I suggest you go outside instead of reading retarded tweets by 14 year olds. Transformers is around because its still popular, because robots are cool and evergreen while being really easy to adapt, the toys are still liked and if you genuinely think recent toys are too complex you might genuinely be brain damaged.

>>11840700
G2 kid here, this is exactly how they hooked me. As a kid, the cartoon—which was new to me in the early 90s—was just so cool it got me into the toys.
> Other 80s brands like MOTU and GI Joe tried in the 90s and 2000s, but none of their relaunches managed to pull off the trick of bringing in new fans in enough numbers to sustain the brand, and some of those relaunches weren't embraced by the older fans either.
I enjoyed the 2002 MOTU revival a lot but think it worked on me because I had a passing familiarity with the original. I think that was the case, more generally: it brought in older kids who weren’t going to buy toys but liked the show anyway. Not sure about GI Joe, what exactly happened there? Honestly, I’ve heard nothing about Joe except the shitty live-action films, and my son doesn’t even know what Joe is, let alone being interested in it.

>>11844186
>Armada
I remember people hating on that show a lot, but I always enjoyed it because it was like a loose anime version of transformers, with a lot of anime cliches and funny dialogue. The transformation sequences were so over the top, what fun.

>>11845482

The show is debatable, but the toyline was a massive success, especially with little kids. They loved the Minicons.

>>11845549
Yes, the Armada toys were really cool. My brother had a few of the core set of Autobots. The detail and transformations were a lot better than previous gens. Breath of fresh air after beast machines.

>>11845479
>I enjoyed the 2002 MOTU revival a lot but think it worked on me because I had a passing familiarity with the original. I think that was the case, more generally: it brought in older kids who weren’t going to buy toys but liked the show anyway.
That seems to be broadly the case from my own experience, fans of the original embraced it in a way they didn't embrace New Adventures, but they were all adults by 2002, and not enough of them were buying the toys to keep the line alive, while for whatever reason, it didn't really do any better than New Adventures in creating a new generation of young fans. The toys overloading on He-Man and Skeletor variants and other characters being difficult to find didn't help either.

>Not sure about GI Joe, what exactly happened there?
The 1980s line finally ended in 1994, and during the same time frame as Transformers getting G2 and Beast Wars, GI Joe got Sgt Savage and then GI Joe Extreme, both were in larger scales with less articulation, and none of the 1982-1994 characters carried over. Sgt Savage only got one cartoon episode on a video packed with one of the figures, while Extreme did get 2 seasons of cartoon and 2 comic miniseries, Hasbro seem to have pulled the plug on the toys before the cartoon was done.

After that, Hasbro largely retreated to aiming GI Joe at the now-adult fanbase in the late 90s and early 2000s, but then relaunched with the GI Joe vs Cobra line in 2002, backed by a new comic and some CGI animated movies and had some success, but then shifted to bigger scale figures and an anime-style show with Sigma Six, and again the older fans didn't support it and it didn't bring in enough new fans. They went back to the usual figure scale for the Anniversary line and the movies, and were doing reasonably well until the 2nd movie getting delayed for a year basically killed the toy line, most retailers just didn't order the later waves after Hasbro wanted them to return the first wave figures they'd ordered.

>>11845764
> That seems to be broadly the case from my own experience, fans of the original embraced it in a way they didn't embrace New Adventures, but they were all adults by 2002, and not enough of them were buying the toys to keep the line alive, while for whatever reason, it didn't really do any better than New Adventures in creating a new generation of young fans. The toys overloading on He-Man and Skeletor variants and other characters being difficult to find didn't help either.
Didn’t help that getting traction for the dormant He-Man brand in 2002 meant competing against the first big mainstream anime adoption wave in the US. I remember watching MOTU 2002 on Toonami: it surrounded by Gundam, DBZ, TF: Armada, and lots of other anime and even older shows. Hard to stand out in that environment, especially when all the competitors had toy lines. Not to mention Star Wars prequel toy mania at the time and the tartakovsky clone wars stuff about to come out the next year.

>>11846323
Having to compete with all of that probably helps explain why the 2002 MOTU cartoon was built around EPIC FIGHT SCENES so much though. It was a better time...

>>11845764
>Hasbro wanted them to return the first wave figures they'd ordered.
hah how are they always mismanaging everything, MtG quality and oversaturation, Beyblade quality fuck ups. It's fine and expected to have product lines and shows not take off for whatever reason but these guys go out of their way to fuck things up.

>>11846655
Yeah, the show had great animation, and the fights were very well done.

Transformers is still doing well, but I really think we're about 10 years away from the lack of truly successful new TF media for 10 years becoming an issue.
RiD2015, despite being controversial with the fandom, did well. And maybe it being all in on appealing to kids even at the expense of its continuity to Prime or faithfulness to G1 characters helped.
Stuff like the Bumblebee movie or One, despite under performing, has it's audience.
But as time goes on, it's going to be increasingly harder to sell G1 over and over(especially as inflation will make it harder to live up to older figures under a certain price). They can ride out BW, Armada, the movies, Animated, and Prime for more nostalgia. But those audiences will also get older, there's going to be a point where you can't resell them the same characters every 5-10 years(BW is already going through this with the 3rd or 4th rerelease of the Kingdom figures.)
The franchise was a well oiled machine cycling new and old from 1996 through 2011, but since then there's been diminishing returns on the new and more focus on just nostalgia.

>>11847155
>The franchise was a well oiled machine cycling new and old from 1996 through 2011, but since then there's been diminishing returns on the new and more focus on just nostalgia.
Children used to drive toy purchases, now the demand is coming more and more from adults, so I’m thinking the legacy TF characters and brands are safe for a good while, like you said. The media environment is so fragmented that idk how you sell kids on new TF shows when you’ve now got media companies mining creepypasta for inspiration. I don’t even know where kids watch cartoons now (mine don’t, really); Cartoon Network is basically dead.

>>11847262
They watch online. The current TF cartoon is streamed on Youtube. And five minutes long.

>>11847155
>>11847262
like anon >>11847281 said kids watch online, and it's not just cyberworld, they watch all the old stuff animateds first ep has 1mil views and beast wars has over 2mil views, so they end up liking those shows and characters too, which makes the generations figures of those figures actually desirable for the kids too, this is also why Optimus Primal keeps showing up in toylines, he's just popular, so Transformers doesn't really need channels like CN, all their stuff is online or streaming services.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP72deF2QGY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ1Rgx_tunA