Last week at Hascon 2017, TFW2005 had the chance to interview two of the leading forces in the Transformers brand right now – Product Design Manager John Warden and Marketing Director Ben Montano. Both were eager to talk about the brand, where it is and where it is going. We touched on the future of Masterpiece, Transformers Cyberverse, possibilities for Apeface and other yet to be released Headmasters, state of the fandom, Transformers The Last Knight toys, and more. Read on to see what they had to say, and then sound off on the 2005 Boards!
TFW2005 Interview with Product Design Manager John Warden and Marketing Director Ben Montano
Ben: OK, you can fire it up.
TFW2005: OK cool. This is something that has been asked before, I’ve asked it before. Masterpiece. Anything on the horizon besides the movie stuff?
John: Nothing to talk about new at the moment. But, the response has been awesome (points towards movie MPs).
TFW2005: For the movie stuff…
Ben: Yeah. Have you gotten your hands on the movie stuff?
TFW2005: Bumblebee, I still don’t have Prime.
John: The response has been spectacular around the world and we’re really happy.
TFW2005: Anything for G1, beyond Prime?
John: That angle is controlled more by Takara Tomy.
Ben: If you’ve seen recently they’ve announced a re-release / refresh of Hot Rod, so expect that they’ll continue (on that path).
TFW2005: So Takara Tomy has lead on G1 stuff then?
Ben: You’ll see that there is a collaboration between Hasbro and Takara Tomy for Masterpiece in general. Movie Masterpiece was the first step in that. There is opportunity to continue to expand in the G1/Beast Wars universe.
TFW2005: So anything that has been done (over there) could be here, and anything could happen?
(group laughter)
Ben: Yes.
Ben: Masterpiece is something the fans are responding to from all story universes so there is no reason we shouldn’t look at ways to expand that.
TFW2005: Cool. Ok, so a while back there was a presentation about Cyberverse and some other stuff at the investor meeting. Is there anything you can tell us about that?
Ben: Not at this time (quick!)
Ben: Something we’ve been working on for a while that will be appealing to everybody.
John: We have a logo. (laughter)
Ben: That placeholder logo looked great. (laughter)
TFW2005: In a line with triple changing voyager headmasters, Apeface and Skullgrin were skipped. Any plans on touching on them in the future?
John: The fans of the Combiner Wars saga know we’ve followed through in the promise to bring back combiners, at least the mechanics, there are some really cool things on the horizon yet to be announced. So under that same pretense I think it’s important to note we’re always listening. When fans are vocal about it and talk about Apeface and it’s clear he’s one of those characters people really want, it’s one of those things we always have on the back burner and that we are thinking about, I think it comes down to when it makes sense. Ben and I work really hard to try and figure out what is the best way to release them, what chapter is it a part of, is there an anniversary it can line up with.
TFW2005: So just because a line ends doesn’t mean that toys with the same gimmick or features can’t appear later? (paraphrased, audio cut out)
Ben/John: No, no, doesn’t rule it out at all, absolutely not.
Ben: Even to date, not necessarily blurred, but there is a lot of cross over. The Machinima story line took the shackles off, of being so G1 true, we’re still true to that lineage and story canon, but there are stories they (fans) want told, so character A/B can be in this new story world.
TFW2005: On the toy side, fans are down with the idea of Combiners or Titan Masters tech continuing in the toys beyond their lines (paraphrased again)…
Ben: And that was so easy for us to architect…
TFW2005: Now that you have the tech you can toss them in there, so that’s cool.
Ben/John: Yes, yes.
TFW2005: So those were my primary questions, we kinda just did this. Everything in the case looks awesome (pre dinner reveal)
John: It’s interesting to be part of the fandom right now. There’s so much positivity happening. I remember 5 years ago, you’d get some really tough questions from fans. Nowadays people are really excited, they just want to understand what’s next. It’s a great place to be in.
TFW2005: I think that’s the vibe everyone has. Ok great, give me more, when’s it coming, I need it now.
Ben: There seems to be a good appreciation not just for our core Generations line but even Movie. What John and his team did with Nitro and Cogman, there are some tricks that we brought into that line, different aesthetics and design and detail that may not have been brought to the Movie series before. Even this week I’ve heard fans say that this is their favorite Movie line yet. Especially here at Hascon, they may like the Generations stuff but they may not have grown up with that, but they did grow up with the Movie line. But toy wise, they feel in the same universe.
TFW2005: Yeah, the toys for this (TLK) I think got a warmer reaction from hardcore fans than maybe the movie did. Not specifically commenting on any of that (movie situation), just saying 30-40 year old fans may have a different vibe than the general movie going public. They may be a bit harsher critics (of the movie) but the toys they were like “I’m good”. They had a good feel to them, the voyagers especially, all the way across.
John: That’s good to hear. I think what’s really good about those toys is that the essence of them is really cool. To think about a guy like Cogman, to do him as a properly done Headmaster that’s cross compatible with Titans Return it becomes a fun new toy. I think that’s what made Transformers cool even in the 80s, they started with really solid toy concepts and we’ve tried to bring that into The Last Knight toys as much as we can. There was a lot of really cool stuff to work with from a toy standpoint. Playing that up as much as we can, and we’ve learned a lot from Age of Extinction to the toys we have now, a lot of the toy technology with transformations are a lot more smooth. We’ve learned a lot about molding technology so we can do different things, and I think it was satisfying to be able to use a lot of that learning from Titans Return and apply it to a movie line.
TFW2005 would like to thank Ben and John for their time, and Hasbro for the opportunity to pick their brains a bit!
orangeitis
Don't put words in my mouth. Strawmanning never got anyone anywhere productive to the topic.
That might depend on the possibility of the excitement being "fake" in the first place. Just because something is required doesn't mean that all that one WILL put into it is just what's required.
Is Warden is proud of the work put in, would that excitement be fake? If he actually has things waiting to be revealed/finished that he honestly thinks that fans will love, is that excitement fake?
Assumptions on that level are probably going to get us nowhere.
That I could get behind. Even if the masses are as uninformed as they seem to be.
RKillian
So, you don't like anybody assuming they can but don't. Yet if somebody says they literally can't, that's not going to sit will either. What you're really angling for, it seems, is unconditional praise.
Actually, I'd prefer them to come out and say "legal won't let us" or whatever the reason was, so we could stop having to fake excitement over fake news stories.
Edit: On second thought, we should be able to rate articles. If the news' purpose is to inform, an article that does not will attract "uninformative" ratings or be flagged more accurately as an advertisement or editorial. That, in turn, would reduce the traffic and with it the flow of negative responses…
Lumpy
exactly. It's like people want them to finish the panel where they introduce a line to us, say it'll arrive in Decemberish, then want a post interview when they tell us the next year or more afterwards.
orangeitis
Because they're under non-disclosure agreements. They tell us too much and they'll lose their jobs. Or worse.
That's what a brand team interview looks like. They can't tell us what they're sworn to secrecy to under NDA.
You're comparing "we" to "you" there.
No company should release products based on what just one person wants or doesn't want. The fact that you didn't want them means nothing in regards to the popularity of their contents of their new products.
neospark1
This was not an interview. This was:
TF Brand Guys: Everything perfect. Nothing t see here.
TFW: Aww shucks. You guys are awesome and I agree with everything you just didn't say.
QUOTE="Tony_Bacala, post: 15036067, member: 1"]Was able to chat with Ben and John at Hascon last week. Was a crazy busy week here and the audio on my recording was wacked so needed time to do it right and salvage this thing.
These guys are really good at interview kung fu, they can pivot and redirect with the best of them. Hopefully there are some nuggets in there for everyone though!
TFW2005 Interview with John Warden and Ben Montano – Transformers News – TFW2005[/QUOTE]
YoungPrime
My point was that I didn't want any of these Primes but even if you skipped the 2 retail ones Hasbro still found a way of making get one by purchasing any of the 2 TR exclusive sets. That G2 Prime was the only figure that I didn't want in that TRU exclusive set. Which I spent 2 months trying to sell as a result.
Sol Fury
Being fair, three of those were exclusives. Only two were general release, in different size classes, and as two very distinct versions. PMOP in particular had been in demand for a while.
YoungPrime
1) Voyager TR Optimus Prime (Blitzwing Pre-tool)
2) Leader Class Power Master Optimus Prime
3) Voyager Class Lazer Prime from the TRU Set (Blitzwing Pre-tool……..again)
4) Leader Class Power Master Optimus Prime from the BBTS set. (Takara's Version)
And oh yeah….
5) Skate Board Optimus.
AutobotAvalanche
Voyager, G2, PMOP, and Magnus Prime.
Lumpy
If they made the box all beat up and faded, like that GIJoe SDCC set, that could be pretty cool, but also, that was a very special limited thing… not sure that would work at retail.
Yeah, they get stuff WAY later, so it's probable that it didn't sell as well to the intended retailer. We've known for years, maybe even decades now that stuff is ordered by retailers. So if they ordered a TON of wave one, and it sits around, they won't order as much wave 2 (like the CW Stunticons) but then might order more wave three because one has finally sold… so ultimately poor distribution is on the stores and their buying/not buying ability.
Absolutely. I'd rather have decent answers to slightly off questions than a lot of "NO" answers. Saying that they'll listen to fans, keep gimmicks alive and wait and see to me gives hope that Snapdragon and Apeface are planned, or at least on the short list of guys they want to do.
4? Retail, G2… am I missing 2 others?
I think a brick and mortar Hasbro Toy Shop COULD work, but it could also be like KB and just be a nightmare of a mess for them as well…
maltesefalcon
next time you can ask them about a retail store just for Hasbro stuff like lego does. that would solve a few problems
my area has stopped generations in most of the major toy shops to put in the last knight and more rid. I have never seen a complete wave of marvel legends since the avengers.
the stickers are not something that bothers me except when its on things like broadside where mine was completely messed up due to the fold, or on grimlock where they are unnecessary
YoungPrime
Not true in this case. Hasbro assumed we needed 4 different TR Optimus Primes at once. When in reality I didn't want any of them.
G.B. Blackrock
While I don't disagree about the distinction between sales at retail and sales from Hasbro, this seems to ignore the fact that sales from Hasbro to Ross/Marshalls/etc. were a considerable amount of time after the toys were first made available to retail (whether brick-and-mortar or online) outlets. That suggests to me that they didn't sell well before then.
That's really how Ross/Marshalls/etc work. They order stock that producers are keen to get rid of because they couldn't get rid of it through their normal outlets.
Sol Fury
Because there are a lot of things Hasbro straight up cannot / will not answer. It's always been that way with PR, there are things they simply cannot talk about for a variety of reasons (licensing / marketing / still going through the approvals process).
So when you know this, and you sit down to ask the questions, do you ask the questions you know from experience you'll never get an answer to, or do you go slightly more safe so that you can glean some interesting information and report back a more interesting conversation than "sorry, no comment right now", "cannot comment on our future plans", "care bears forever!"
zachprime86
I still don't understand why they always dodge the questions/ ask questions we've known before.
flux convoy
How well they sold at retail and how well they sold directly from Hasbro are important differences. They "sold well" for Hasbro because they made it to some form of market. That's their part of it, done. Their money was made. We can only assume they "sold well" for retail because they disappeared almost immediately. I find it hard to believe that either way is an obstacle other than their willingness to produce the sets.
G.B. Blackrock
I find that explanation doubtful, but the fact that they weren't otherwise available at physical retail is an important point. If the G2 sets had been more widely available at brick-and-mortar, they might well have done better.
That said, I imagine that the reason the G2 sets were online-exclusive (at first) had more to do with the lack of brick-and-mortar outlets willing to stock them.
Until Ross/Marshalls/etc snatched them up to sell them at a discount, of course. But I still feel confident that this was done because they didn't sell well to start with. Not because Hasbro always intended these toys to show up there.
flux convoy
They weren't available at other physical retail outlets. Who knows how well they did. For all we know, they were always intended for those stores.
Smitty.1981
They should have put out the box sets in October so they could get noticed by kids in time to bug mom and dad about wanting it for Christmas.
Hooper_X
Given how the G2 box sets wound up at Ross/Marshalls/other closeout stores, I'm guessing they didn't do as well as anticipated.
I don't know if it would have been "better" to do Defensor and say "NEVER BEFORE AVAILABLE" or stick to the possibility of nostalgia for "the one from the 90s", tbh.