Hasbro Q&A answers to CreatureCantina!!
Posted by: Bill Cable 03.07.07 12:01am
I say to thee HOLY CRAP! For several months I've been receiving messages from a guy affiliated with the Hasbro Q&A program asking for questions. I honestly don't even know how is scrubs at CreatureCantina.com got on the list. I figured it was some oversight. A few weeks ago, on a lark, I told my staff "What the hell, let's send in some questions!" So we wrote some up. Beedo wrote most of them, if memory serves. But the rest of the staff pitched in as well. I put together the best, and I think we sent in six or so. And I expected never to hear from Hasbro again... or at most maybe getting a injunction against us forbidding us from ever contacting representatives from Hasbro for the rest of our natural lives. But much to our surprise, Hasbro Answered!

So I guess you'll want to see our Qs and their As. God's honest truth, these are authentic! And the answers are from Hasbro. No kidding!! So all you web sites out there that put together Q&A "round-ups" make sure to include our contributions, else your archive is incomplete!

CreatureCantina.com: You've announced previously that in 2008 you'll be revisiting Bespin for a wave figures. Will you include Willrow Hood in that wave? If not, do you realize collectors will storm the Hasbro parking lot and smash the windows out of all your cars? Rhode Island is a small state... we'll find you. I mean, to do a Bespin wave at this point and NOT include Willrow? You may as well just spit in all our faces.

Hasbro: We will base any future Empire wave (realizing that not all Empire waves are Bespin-focused) on the most important characters that we feel need to be re-visited or new ones that should be introduced, and not simply because he was the 10th-ranked figure in the fans' choice poll. At some point, you will probably see a Willrow figure, but not in 2008, so the community will have to be patient.

CC: How come we haven't seen any Super-Articualted (SA) Rebel Soldiers? I mean it would super cool to see a Evolution 3-pack with a Rebel Fleet Trooper, Hoth Trooper (with a re-sculpted bearded face sculpt from POTF2) and a Endor Trooper all SA. We get SA Imperial Troops(including Clone Troopers) all the time and almost every wave. But they're the bad guys who stand for evil, oppresion and tyranny. Rebel Troopers are freedom fighters and soldiers for liberty. Does Hasbro have a pro-Empire leaning? Is Hasbro against freedom? If Hasbro doesn't make SA Rebel Troopers, the terrorist win.

H: Now hold on….many of us pay taxes to the empire but oppose the tyranny ourselves, and are working in secret to make sure that the seeds of rebellion are properly cultivated. Good fun aside, yes, we hear ya and the SA rebels will not be forgotten, if and when the opportunity presents itself next; that's the key, though, since the demand for Imps is so high that it just takes a while to work in the new rebels. But when we do, we'll evaluate as you suggest.

CC: Could you please describe the marketing strategy for the Star Wars Transformers line? Obviously, there is a lot of overlap between the two fan bases. I for one am as likely to bore my friends for hours on end describing the Hegellian dialectic operating in the Transformers Movie as I am to discourse on the Roman historical parallels at work in the Star Wars saga. That being said, why didn't we see a greater synthesis in this hybrid line? Maybe a Sith would be so narcissistic as to want to drive a giant robot with his own augustan likeness, but it seems to me that a simple headswap could have had Starscream transforming into an Imperial Shuttle. Did you conduct market tests that showed six-year-old boys preferred vehicles that turned into giant versions of Star Wars characters rather than Transformers that turned into Star Wars vehicles? I'd wager that the 35 year old collector market would have enjoyed the latter.

H: Excellent question and one of the decision points we were faced with when our Star Wars R&D team created the idea for the line. We very clearly kept the Star Wars Transformers line focused on the *functional* aspect of transformation rather than an intellectual property (IP)-based transformation to deliberately not confuse the "real" Transformers storyline. This was especially important considering the upcoming Transformers movie this Summer. For the same extent, we have not as a company pursued any GI Joe-vs-Transformers toys even though the cross-over comics have been very successful. It's keeping the communication very clear from a kid standpoint, which was our primary focus. Believe it or not, we did not factor the collector very heavily into the SW TF line thinking at the beginning, since we were not confident that collectors of either Star Wars or Transformers would be converts to the line. Since this super-cool line has been well-received by both kids and collectors alike, you have seen us delve a little deeper to deliver more collector-focused concepts like transforming Imperial Shuttles, Clone Wars deco-vehicles, and Snowspeeders to deepen the collecting and playing experience.