No more JoeCon/Joe Club after 2016?

Dusty79 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 2:02 pm

MJTanner wrote:

Someone brought up a good point upthread...are there other companies that even do this sort of thing--3rd party fan clubs producing product and conventions?

Seems like if Hasbro doesn't renew the contract, the whole concept is going to die.

Apparently this company is lined up for Transformers---http://www.allspark.com/2015/11/the-transformers-experience-announced/

But where that leaves the Joe side I have no idea.

HypnoHustler · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 2:31 pm

What that company is doing is more in line with an exhibit than a con.

But there's a ton of other Transformers conventions. And on the Joe side there's Assembly Required, CoilCon, Joelanta, Roll Out Roll Call, etc. nothing on the scale of the MasterCollector shows, and no exclusive product sanctioned by Hasbro, but cons won't go away.

Dusty79 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 3:08 pm

HypnoHustler wrote:

What that company is doing is more in line with an exhibit than a con.
.

Another person said that Funpub had the rights to TF and Joe coupled to each other and they are being uncoupled. I don't know if that's true, but it seems Hasbro has plans to take TF some other direction with this exhibit and who knows what products being sold there.

And the more I think about this, why do TF fans need what FunPub was offering anyway? I think they were all just straight repaints of Hasbro stuff and with all the retail product, MP, Takara, and 3rd Party choices, why pay a premium for a different color? We wouldn't go for that if put in the same situation. Cetainly not at $30 per figure.

Lance Sputnik · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am **Location:** Pants

GITrekker wrote:

Bad at everything? There's Convention figures that introduced fascinating new characters and troopers to the line -- COIL Troopers, Dreadheads, Major Bludd's Skull Squad, updated versions of the Red Shadows, exclusive figures like Big Lob -- and when they started doing figures in the modern style, between the Convention Sets and FSS figures, they made not only a number of interesting new characters, but modern versions of established characters that Hasbro NEVER would have bothered with. Do you think there would be a modern version of the Oktober Guard without the Club? Or Topside? Or Pathfinder? Or many of the international characters? Or Pythona?

But, oh, no, Fun Pub was "bad at everything".

Like to see you do better with some of what they had to deal with along the way -- including ungrateful fans.

That's right. Flip your lid over a generalization. And do you REALLY believe that only people who throw conventions are allowed to be critical of a conventioneering organization? That's pretty narrow. This is an organization who didn't do a damn thing to address the multiple problems that they had for over a decade. Who gives a crap that they made a few good toys? There's more at issue than just the damn exclusives, many of which are, in fact, turds. Anyway. Enjoy your Kool Aide. It looks even more red if you wear rose colored glasses.

HypnoHustler · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:27 pm

Dusty79 wrote:

HypnoHustler wrote:

What that company is doing is more in line with an exhibit than a con.
.

Another person said that Funpub had the rights to TF and Joe coupled to each other and they are being uncoupled. I don't know if that's true, but it seems Hasbro has plans to take TF some other direction with this exhibit and who knows what products being sold there.

And the more I think about this, why do TF fans need what FunPub was offering anyway? I think they were all just straight repaints of Hasbro stuff and with all the retail product, MP, Takara, and 3rd Party choices, why pay a premium for a different color? We wouldn't go for that if put in the same situation. Cetainly not at $30 per figure.

Well, like the Joe exclusives, there are new heads and gear, some pretty involved new tooling on occasion too. Basically the source for bubble characters. Characters with enough fan demand to justify a Club sized run, but not enough to be on the radar for Hasbro or a 3rd party company. So while TF gets a lot more retail support, plenty of the characters the Club has done wouldn't have been made otherwise.

Even if it is just a decoupling of the two brands where shows are concerned, I'm not sure that Joe alone is worth the cost/effort for Master Collector. Without a retail presence, and con attendance seems to be shrinking, and now it seems to be feeding itself. Attendance drops, so the show goes to a smaller, harder to reach location, so attendance drops.

Dusty79 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:31 pm

I was wondering about the decoupling and whether that is a death blow to Funpub with the loss of TF even if they could still retain GI Joe. Sounds like yes it is.

HypnoHustler · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:35 pm

Well, we don't know much for sure at this point, but given declining attendance, and what seems like a lack of interest on the part of MasterCollector, I'm not certain they'd be interested in continuing with just the Joe license. It's also certainly possible that with the movie developments as far as putting Joe into a shared universe, Hasbro wants to pull the cons back and figure out how and who best serves the plans they have going forward.

Goldbug · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am **Location:** IL

HypnoHustler wrote:

What that company is doing is more in line with an exhibit than a con.

True but they also do conventions.
http://cityneon.net/portfolio/events

Perhaps Hasbro is taking over themselves? They can use this company to organize a convention.

jcast · **Joined:** Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:40 am

I'm wondering what the status of these figures will be:

ZombieGuide · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 9:03 pm

GITrekker wrote:

Bad at everything? There's Convention figures that introduced fascinating new characters and troopers to the line -- COIL Troopers, Dreadheads, Major Bludd's Skull Squad, updated versions of the Red Shadows, exclusive figures like Big Lob -- and when they started doing figures in the modern style, between the Convention Sets and FSS figures, they made not only a number of interesting new characters, but modern versions of established characters that Hasbro NEVER would have bothered with. Do you think there would be a modern version of the Oktober Guard without the Club? Or Topside? Or Pathfinder? Or many of the international characters? Or Pythona?

But, oh, no, Fun Pub was "bad at everything".

Like to see you do better with some of what they had to deal with along the way -- including ungrateful fans.

They certainly did a few things right, but the list of "LASER BLAST" they did wrong got longer and longer every year.

Allowing a credit card breach to go unspoken of for MONTHS is unacceptable to say the last. And lets be honest, it was never a "club". It was a business to sell exclusive toys, and thats it. They made no attempt to reach out to their audience, or to grow the fanbase. The conventions were a Thursday night sale and everything beyond that seemed to e an annoyance. I know you went to a convention of theirs in like 2004 or something, but another 11 years of BS has occurred since then.

Chief · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am

ZombieGuide wrote:

They certainly did a few things right, but the list of "LASER BLAST" they did wrong got longer and longer every year.

Allowing a credit card breach to go unspoken of for MONTHS is unacceptable to say the last. And lets be honest, it was never a "club". It was a business to sell exclusive toys, and thats it. They made no attempt to reach out to their audience, or to grow the fanbase. The conventions were a Thursday night sale and everything beyond that seemed to e an annoyance. I know you went to a convention of theirs in like 2004 or something, but another 11 years of BS has occurred since then.

It's cute how you think he's actually reading anyone's replies... ;-)

Dusty79 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 9:46 pm

jcast wrote:

I'm wondering what the status of these figures will be:

Probably not gonna happen. I would have bought them too. Rodimus was a childhood favorite.

AdrienVeidt · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am

I don't see why any of next summer's exclusives would be cancelled just because Fun is being curb-kicked next December. They're more likely gonna want to get every penny they can while the gettings good. The real question is what happens to any unsold items come 01/01/17, imho.

Dusty79 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 23, 2015 10:30 pm

AdrienVeidt wrote:

I don't see why any of next summer's exclusives would be cancelled just because Fun is being curb-kicked next December. They're more likely gonna want to get every penny they can while the gettings good. The real question is what happens to any unsold items come 01/01/17, imho.

Good point, for some reason I thought those were for farther out. Time flies and I didn't notice the 2016.

If they are smart, after 01/01/17, they will open an eBay account. I wouldn't bet on some blowout sale. Especially with their computer systems.

AdrienVeidt · **Joined:** Tue Jun 26, 2007 10:19 am

But if they lose the license, will they even have the right to sell the leftover merchandise? Lego doesn't get to sell any leftover TMNT stuff come January, so why would Fun?

No more JoeCon/Joe Club after 2016?

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