A few months back, I mentioned that one of the things on the
list of goals for the Child Sized Coffin was to try out a third party figure or
two. Subsequently to be referred to by their common fandom moniker of 3P, the
3P market was one that I had always glanced at from afar, but never dove in to.
That changed with our trek to TFCon 2016, and while I have been behind in my
writing on the figures obtained, allow me an amount of time to talk about the
3P market in general before I get more focused.
I don’t know if it really needs to be said at this point in
the human experience, but the Internet can be a really negative place. It seems
that no matter the subject, there are people that just flat out hate it. I have
probably always known this, but it has really been over the life of my blog
that I’ve paid it any serious attention, I guess. I frequent the Transformer
fansites, and some other places online that give voice to toy collectors and
fans, so I, probably just like you, get exposure to a lot of information and
opinions on figures. The 3P Transformer scene is by my observation a cool one,
filled with some really neat and interesting pieces. What used to be the
seemingly exclusive domain of Constructicons and figure add-on sets, the 3P
world has bloomed into a fully formed industry, producing some simply
outstanding figures and ideas. Much controversy has been batted around
concerning the scene, ideas of whether or not a green 3P dump truck is a
vicious IP infringing crime that is heartlessly stealing food from the mouths
of Mr. Hasbro’s children. I’m not interested in taking up that argument,
because it’s stupid for too many reasons for me to deal with this morning.
Maybe some other time.
I personally have avoided the 3P market for a long time, for
a number of reasons. One of them being the price of admission: 3P figures are,
due to their low production runs and basically indie toy status, very
expensive. Quick searches through online stores or eBay result in prices
averaging $100 per figure; and, since in several cases the figures are part of
a combiner team, that adds up to a mind-blowing $500-600 per set.
This is compounded by a second issue: the Internet. If
2016’s 365 day garbage fire taught us anything, it’s that seeing something
enough times on the Internet will often cause people to believe it, regardless
of its actual truth content. Over the years, I’ve read a lot of opinions online
about 3P figures and their quality. All aspects of their quality: plastic and
materials quality, build quality, value, you name it. If you’re a member of the
fandom, doubtless you’ve seen it too. I’ve read countless pieces about the
plastic of 3P toys being substandard; all the while, official Hasbro plastics
have grown thinner and thinner. I’ve read countless pieces about QC issues and
breakage issues with 3P toys; all the while seeing things about Hasbro QC
issues and the like. I’ve read countless pieces on the value of the 3P figure
relative to its price; all the while, seeing things about how prices of
official Hasbro figures keep increasing, and the hollow plastic keeps
increasing, while the plastic keeps getting thinner, because the price of oil
keeps going up. The oil argument is a long debunked moron argument that claims
that the decline in Hasbro quality that occurred around 2010 is directly linked
to the increase in oil prices which occurred around 2010 and the Great
Recession. The argument claims that, in order to maintain its ever so slim
profit margins of over a billion dollars annually, poor, poor Hasbro had to produce
toys of seemingly lower quality in order to maintain their status as a global
corporation.
Prior to getting involved in the 3P market myself, these
Internet reports were all I had as a window into the realm. I’d read some
things that gave glowing reviews of figures, and I’d see images of fantastic
toys that checked all of the boxes for me and what I like. Then I’d read people
who decried the same figures as fragile hunks of plastic that were barely a
step above homemade customs, tales of figures simply tearing themselves in half
under the slightest manipulation; essentially robots held together with tape
just long enough to survive shipment, only to turn to dust in the hands of some
poor fool who was cheated of their money. People decried them as sub-KO quality
figures, $100 versions of the tragically flimsy “Transformers” that often come
in those big, all-included Easter baskets.
My first 3P hands on experience came at TFCon 2016 when,
passing by the display that FansProject had set up, which featured samples of a
number of their wares that you could not only look at but pick up, I picked up
one of their Masterpiece scale
Dinobots; I forget which one. But that doesn’t matter. I picked it up and
turned it over in my hands, getting a good look at it. I moved one of the
limbs, and heard a good, solid ratchet joint click. The sculpting was really
nice, and all of the figures on display were excellently detailed. TFSource had
a huge table set up and had some details on 3P toys for real cheap, so I took
the plunge and bought a few.
My second hands on experience, and the first of any adequate
length of time, came the next morning, when I opened FansProject Dinosan. I think
I handled the figure for three minutes before I knew that all of the negative
things I’d read online about 3P toys was wrong.
I was in love. And I was hooked.
Sure, everyone has their own opinion, and that’s fine. And
maybe I’m just a fool, because it seems like every day I realize again (AGAIN)
that the Internet is filled with people who exaggerate their probably
legitimate complaints into some kind of world-on-fire tragedy, just because. No
one has to like anything or everything, so for people who would reject 3Ps in
favor of the official product are certainly within their rights to do so. But
my 3P collection thus far consists of eight figures, and based on them, I make
the following assessments.
The cost of these figures is pretty steep, and not for
unreasonable reasons. 3P figures are (I imagine) designed and developed the
same way that Hasbro and other major companies do it, without the benefits of
being produced by billion dollar annual companies. I’ve gotten all eight of my
figures through some pretty good deals, but the standard retail cost of the
ones I own range from $69 to $99. I don’t know production numbers, as in how
many of each are made, or the production specifics, like whether there’s one or
two production runs of the figures and then they’re not run again, or anything
of that nature, but I have to think it safe to say that TFC Toys is not making
the same number of individual pieces that Hasbro is. That will contribute to a
higher cost per toy as well, as now there is a comparable investment cost to
make each one, but fewer will be made, presenting a steeper climb to recouping
that investment cost. I am no businessman, so I don’t really have any interest
in this part of the discussion other than what the figures actually wind up
costing me. I will say that, based on my still limited experience with figures
from two companies, the cost is pretty justified by the finished product.
Because there are so many companies operating in the 3P
scene, I’m sure quality varies wildly. While I’ve yet to have any problems, for
years I had heard stories of people buying these toys and having them break easily
or containing some kind of fatal issue in their construction. This I completely
understand as an issue and a very severe one. But while I’m not business
expert, I do know that a company charging $100 for an easily broken toy is not
likely to stay in business very long, and some of the 3P companies have been
around for nearly ten years by now, so some of them are obviously doing things
right.
So far, in my experiences, the 3P figures I own do some very
interesting things in terms of their transformation schemes, and they are most
refreshing figures to handle. They are interesting to transform, they are on
par with mainline Hasbro releases in terms of quality and articulation, and
perhaps best, they are toys of characters Hasbro is not making: the old “Hasbro
won’t release X” gamut. Hasbro won’t release say, I don’t know, a new Misfire,
and I want one. There’s a 3P company releasing an updated, 2017-quality Misfire.
Now I can get the new Misfire I want; and, probably, if I wait just a bit, I’ll
have a choice among a few Misfires, as 3P companies seem to make characters in
groups, as is terribly evident by virtually every company releasing Dinobots. And,
if you’re a Masterpiece collector,
and Hasbro/Takara isn’t producing fast enough or volume enough or variety
enough to satisfy your collecting, well, there are enough Masterpiece style 3P figures out there, with more being announced
every day. Combiner Wars addressed
another of the big 3P draws, that being G1 combiner teams that looked good as
individual bots and combined forms. But, as good a line as it was, and as much
a fan as I was, Combiner Wars didn’t
get all the teams in the lineup, and it was a couple years behind the 3Ps, who
had produced a pair of Devastators and a Menasor and Superion at least before Combiner Wars was announced. The 3Ps
just seem to be years ahead of the game, as one of them has been releasing new
Headmasters for like three years, while Titans
Return came out last summer.
As heated as the exchanges in the fandom get over 3Ps versus
official brand loyalty, there really is no reason the two figure worlds can’t
coexist on the same shelf. But I’m at this point the 500,003rd
person to type that, so screw it. I’m personally glad that I got in to the 3P
scene, later but far, far better than never. I’m also glad that 2017 is a
Transformers movie year, as I can substitute movie toy buying with 3P figure
buying, never minding the cost differences. As the movie lurches closer, I’m
sure I’ll author some musings on it and related subjects, so for now, let’s
leave that one alone. But in my limited 3P experience so far, I have been
nothing but happy, and my 3P shopping list has gone from “I’ll pick up one at a
convention if there’s something I like for cheap” to “I want this one and that
one and that one and this one, and oh, these over here too, and . . .”. A year
ago at C2E2 my wife was trying to prompt me to buy a 3P figure, but there wasn’t
anything that I really liked among the meager selection. We went to TFCon and
one of my goals was to get a 3P figure. Now, I think all the figures on my
radar are 3P ones, so, I guess experience made a believer out of me. I’m trying to keep this vague, as I’ll gush
about specifics when I get to specific reviews.
In closing, third party figures are really excellent
figures. I’m past the point of caring whether I have to mention that they may
not be for everyone, because they are for me. Now, I can get to the business of
writing on the 3P figures I’ve obtained, and believe me, I am excited to do so.
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