Toy



Toys are the core of the Transformers brand, its reason for being. Most of the fiction exists to showcase, spotlight, promote, and in general to sell toys. Merchandise and other "artifacts" also generally exist in support of the toylines.

Transformers toys are generally created and marketed as part of a particular "franchise" (ie Beast Wars, Armada, the retroactively-named Generation 1 etc.), a whole merchandising family with associated characters and fiction; however, this article deals with the physical toys themselves, separate from their representation as fictional characters.

Design


Most Transformers are designed as a joint venture between Hasbro in America, and TakaraTomy (previously Takara) in Japan. Hasbro typically provides concepts and artistic direction, while Takara(Tomy) handles the engineering tasks of turning the designs into working physical objects.

Nearly all Transformers toys have a minimum of two forms, most commonly a robot form and an alternate mode. This means that even a fairly simple Transformer is much more complex than the typical action figure. Multiple alternate modes, articulation, and complex transformations can multiply this many times over.

Because of their world-wide marketing, Transformers must be designed to meet many widely varying safety laws. This often results in certain limitations, and even changes being made when toys are sold in the highly-litigious United States of America compared to their Japanese releases.

Related articles:
 * Hasbro
 * Takara
 * For safety reasons
 * Transformation
 * Alternate mode
 * Scale
 * Kibble
 * Shellformer
 * Partformer

Design Elements


Transformer toys contain a "vocabulary" of working parts -- joint types, and standardized design items that reappear across many figures. The vast majority are humanoid in their robot mode, and thus require a head, (at least) two arms, two legs and a torso.

The complexity of Transformers toys has grown over time, making several leaps forward during the course of Generation 2 and Beast Wars, then again during the recent Movie line. Beast Wars in particular featured a number of toys with extremely complicated transformations, and a maximum number of ball joints, providing a huge range of articulation. Other toy lines would revisit these levels of complexity, particularly Robots in Disguise and Alternators.

Related articles:
 * Articulation (see also: Brick)
 * Ratchet (mechanism)
 * Slide joint
 * Swivel joint
 * Ball joint
 * Peg
 * Hardpoint

Materials


The vast majority of the toys are made of plastic, held together with metal screws and pins, along with the occasional adhesive. Die-cast, used as an accessory material from 1984-1986, has all but been abandoned due to its excessive shipping weight and design limitations. The plastics used in Transformer construction have generally increased in flexibility and durability over the years, allowing toys to survive child-inflicted trauma that would have destroyed early Generation 1 toys.

Related articles:
 * Plastic
 * Die-cast
 * Rubber tires

Production/Manufacturing


Though the toys are designed in America and Japan through a collaborative process between Takara and Hasbro, most are manufactured in places like China.

The production process is complex and expensive. Before mass production can begin, a hard-copy prototype must be created. Steel-cut molds can then be made; this is by far the most costly part of the process. Once the molds are cut, one or more test shots are typically created, usually in random colors. If the molds are ready, mass production commences.

The expense of cutting molds is the reason that retools and recolors are such a common phenomena in Transformers.

Related articles:
 * Prototype (includes test shots)
 * Mold
 * Gang-molding
 * Retool
 * Sprue
 * Running change

Common Gimmicks


As if Transformers weren't complicated enough, Hasbro has seen fit to constantly revitalize and enhance the line with numerous special features, commonly referred to in the fandom as gimmicks. These may range from things as simple as a common decorative theme (such as vacuum metalizing on the Transmetal toys), to complex mechanisms that drive the entire design of a toy. Gimmicks have been a part of Transformers from Day 1, and continue to provide the line with diversity and interest today.

Main article: Gimmicks

Static Gimmicks

 * Sticker
 * Rubsign
 * Spark crystal
 * Light-piping
 * Energon stars

Active Gimmicks

 * Missile
 * Pull-back motor
 * Autotransform
 * Sparking gimmick
 * Soundbox
 * Combiner
 * Mini-Con
 * Cyber Planet Key (toys)
 * Automorph

Decoration


Most Transformers are cast in a limited number of plastic colors. To help bring them to life, paint, tampographs, and stickers are commonly used to bring them to life.

Stickers were common in the days of Generation 1, but have mostly dropped out of use as aesthetic tastes change and more complex paint operations become feasible. Today, faction symbols are typically applied via tampograph, with most other details called out by paint applications.

Related articles:
 * Paint application
 * Paint mask
 * Vacuum metalizing
 * Unpaintable plastic
 * Tampograph
 * Redeco
 * Repaint (see also: Black repaint)

Problems


Transformer toys are, to put it bluntly, not meant to last forever. They are marketed to a fleeting and transitory age group, with the notion that if they last a few years, their work is done. Thus collectors who have retained Generation 1 toys for many years can find some unexpected surprises as their toys age. Among these are plastic discoloration, deterioration of rubber tires (and rubber Pretender shells), and deterioration of sub-par plastics that can cause a toy to physically disintegrate.

Related articles:
 * Photodegradation
 * Gold Plastic Syndrome

Marketing


However awesome the toys themselves may be, they tend to sell better when they represent fictional characters. The marketing engine that promotes the toys is organized into franchises, each encompassing a range of related toys and a storyline built around them. A full-blown, flagship franchise typically features an animated cartoon, and often a comic book series as well. These fictional portrayals may be a source of considerable income for Hasbro/TakaraTomy as well, but ultimately they exist to sell toys.

The toy packaging also commonly supports the marketing effort, with biographies and package art of the characters being sold, as well as cross-sell ads promoting other toys currently available. Inside the packaging, catalogs and pack-in flyers further market other toys.

Related articles:
 * To sell toys
 * Franchise
 * Rebranding
 * Subline imprint
 * Tech spec
 * Bio
 * Package art
 * Catalog
 * Cross-sell
 * Pack-in flyer
 * Trademark
 * Blindpacked
 * Shelfwarmer