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On this episode we welcome former Hasbro designer Rik Alvarez and the crew from Play With This Too. We discuss Rik’s tenure at Hasbro and his work on the Transformers brand, and then we get into their independent toy company Play With This Too and what they have planned for 2015. We have all this and more on this episode of TransMissions!
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Show Notes:
- Play With This Too website
- Rik Alvarez on TF Wiki and WikiAlpha
- Trent Troop on TF Wiki and WikiAlpha
- Creator of BMOG Toys
- Octavirate Forge store on Shapeways
- Theft of the Golden Disk Video
- Candice Santora page on WikiAlpha
- Intro [0:01:00]
- Interview with Rik Alvarez, Trent Troop and Candice Santora of Play With This Too [0:01:38]
- Hasbro Transformers Work [0:01:38]
- Third Party Discussion [0:21:51]
- Play With This Too [0:28:00]
- Raw Bat (Previously Row Bat)
- Head Shots Volume 7
- Bloodbath Tech Drone
- Rapid Fire Questions [1:14:23]
- Closing [1:25:51]
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well i knew this was coming down the pipe, so i hope this is a great ep…what an i typing…. this will be great, its transmissions after all why would it be anything less?!
i own the books rik did back in the day, they are pretty neat to have, and gave me some peeks/insight on stuff i did not know then..i would love to see more work like that in the future from him…notes forth coming gang…
Dual Mirrored Gridwork
Interesting Episode.
I was torn about this one. Half of me is like WTF does this have to do with TFs other then they used to work for Hasbro and I have zero interest in anything they’re making…like zero, zip, zilch!
Now the other half of me was like awesome…toy designers and there perspective on building niche market toys. The little bit of insder Hasbro knowledge was also nice to hear as well. Regardless of my like or dislike for there toys it’s nice to here there thoughts on things since they where part of the juggernaut (Hasbro) and are now a small indy toy company. I’ll take a stab at there price point of around $40-50 USD. basically double the current market price for mainline 6″ figures…but I could see it as high as $60ish.
Regardless of my opinion, thanks for the late night listening material!
Just to point out that GCreation, while a new company to Transformers fans, is actually an established Chinese toy company who has made several non-Transformers related items before. Their Dinobot combiner is just their first attempt at moving into the TF market. It is sort of exciting to me that established non-TF related toy companies are moving into the 3PTF market. Master Made, who is doing a SD Metroplex, is also a Chinese toy company who did other non-Transformers things before and is moving into the TF market.
Seems to be there is more room for the vastly different Dinobots out there than you guys give it credit for. Yes, we have 11 different companies making Dinobots (and that’s not counting Play With This Too, who has Boneyard!), but most of them are vastly different. Some are cassettes, others are Smallest, others are Targetmasters, others are FOC designs, others are Masterpieces. Seems like only two sets of teams are really in competition for the same market:
1. FansToys and Gigapower are competing for Masterpiece Dinobots
2. Toyworld and GCreation are competing for a Dinobot combiner.
Everyone else’s products are unique to themselves.
Another Great show guys!!! Awesome to have not 1 not even 2 but 3 Guests!!! I can’t wait to see these figures from Play with This Too in hand. I love the idea of these figures and really look forward to them.