Posted: 27 August 2008 at 9:47am | IP Logged

Disclaimer: Apologies if this has been posted before!!!

Yesterday my delivery of TF animated bumpf turned up, and whilst i like the figures (to a greater and lesser extent), there's one thing that bugs me.

The Voyager class figures are weighing in at approx £19.99 rrp here in the UK, and by and large they are physically not much bigger than the deluxe figures (approx £9.99 rrp).

Since we shifted to this 'voyager' class during the 'cybertron' range does anyone else feel that we are perhaps paying a little too much for figures in this range?

When I started seriously collecting during Beast Wars the following sizes and price points applied:

Basic £6.99

Deluxe £9.99

Mega (small box) £14.99

Ultra (large box) £19.99

Supreme (leader class) £24.99

Those price groupings remained pretty stable over the next ten years, but suddenly the 'Mega' price grouping has gone and all boxed figures are now charged at the higher Ultra/Voyager price point. Does anyone know why this is? Whilst this wont put me off collecting, I will be thinking twice about buying from the Voyager range as i don't think they represent good value for money. I mean, take Lugnut from Animated - he's barely bigger than Black Arachnia (a deluxe class figure) yet costs twice as much! Whilst its fair to say the vehicle mode is bigger, to my mind this figure should be a 'Mega' assortment and £5 cheaper than it is.

Which brings me neatly to my next little ramble. Why are ALL toys (not just Transformers, although they are some of the worst offenders) packaged on blisters, backing cards and boxes that are well over two thirds bigger than the size of the toy?

I appreciate that making one size of pack allows figures of varying size in the same price point to packaged a little cheaper, but just compare say, Animated Soundwave and Animated Lockdown to the size of the backing card and blister they are packed on. You get more packaging than toy for your money! Including those ever so lovely plastic coated wire ties (I love those. Whoever dreamt those up wants a slap!). It just suprises me that in an age of energy conciousness and with rising oil prices (plastic of course is primarily derived from oil), toy firms are still wasting money on over zealous packaging. The boxed toys are just as bad. Check out any of the voyager figures out of their box. How tiny do they look in comparrison?!

If I were a toy company, I'd seriously be looking at reducing costs through minimising the amount of waste produced on packaging. The Batman beyond figures of 1999 proved that economic packaging can be done, so why isn't it? And yes, in the UK we got multi-lingual packaging on these figures. Is it some over-zealous application of safety regs that sees toys packed with a mass of plastic packaging?

Any thoughts?

Posted: 27 August 2008 at 11:28am | IP Logged

Yup, packaging today is ridiculous. Way too much stuff comes in those heat sealed plastic containers that you almost need industrial cutting equipment to get into and which can still carve your fingers up into hamburger if you're not careful after managing to open them.

Why can't more stuff be packed in cardboard boxes? It may not look as aesthetically pleasing, but it's surely more enviromentally friendly and a hell of a lot easier to open!

Posted: 27 August 2008 at 11:49am | IP Logged

I had to buy some scissors the other day - which came packaged in that stuff, you can't open it without scissors! If I HAD scissors, I wouldn't be BUYING scissors!!!!

Posted: 27 August 2008 at 12:19pm | IP Logged

In terms of size, a mega tends to be the same size as a Voyager. They just renamed them a few years ago.

I do agree that prices in the UK are a joke, partculary compared to the US, but i can see the sense in some of the recent increases (ie Classic deluxes at £12) due to increases in the cost of materials plus with those figures, Hasbro probably have realised they appeal more to the older collector then kids

Posted: 27 August 2008 at 1:44pm | IP Logged

dannyannimus wrote: If you compare Japanese packaging to Western, theirs is far simpler, and often smaller. There boxes generally have no window, so they don't need to position the toy at a jaunty angle in the packaging. They also don't bother with crazy shaped packaging, just rectangles.

Unfortuantly European Law means thtey have to use the windows so that consumers can see exactly what their buying instead of relying on artwork on photoshopped images