![]() ![]() This let them get out a whole year before Transformers, but with no tie in media until 1984’s “Challenge of the Gobots” no real plan for the overall story was in place or characterizations of any of the characters. In comparison Gobots just showed up on store shelves on 1983. All of this was done with the idea that a firm narrative and actual characters meant kids get attached to the series which would lead to better sales. Just getting a toy would give a the owner the basic plot of the series and a bio for the character, some of them with more personality on those bios then would show in the comics or cartoon. They also reached out to Sunbrow to create a cartoon for the toy-line Sunbrow worked directly with Marvel to make sure that the overall points of the series all lined up across the toys, comics and cartoons. They got in contact with Marvel comics to have them create a background and characters for the franchisee, along with a comic series. Hasbro would create the Transformers well Tonka would make the Gobots,but Gobots actually hit the US first because Hasbro was busy laying ground work. Tonka got wind of this and struck a deal to the same with a bunch of Bandai’s transforming toys. In 1983 Hasbro got the idea to take a bunch of Japaneses transforming toy, re-brand them into a single franchise and bring them over to the US. ![]() Time for a simple history lesson in Transformers and GoBots. But the real questions Gobots raises are, “why did it fail?” “Why did Transformers succeed?” And “are these answers applicable to Digimon and Pokemon?” ![]() Digimon has not reached anywhere near that low, I don’t think it can, I doubt the Pokemon company would ever be interested in grabbing Digimon no matter how low it falls, so it’s safe from that particular humiliation. This franchise was so so badly beaten it’s was bought out by Hasbro and in one Transformers series had Leader-One, the head of the good guys in Gobots, made into the personal slave of Megatron. It’s hard to outdo Gobots when it comes to being utterly destroyed by your main competitor. The battle between Hasbro’s Transformers and Tonka’s Gobots winner and a loser. Other times these marketing conflicts end with a clear victor and losers. Even if one of these two giants is doing a better the other calling either of them a a failure would be insanity. Some times these competing franchises are able to co-exits, Coke Cola and Pepsi are a famous example of this. Throughout the history of brands and franchises often there are two or more products target a similar audience or at least a have similar products. ![]()
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