>>6422232It was for a variety of reasons. It began with Fansproject's upgrades for Alternators Prime and Classics Cliffjumper. Back in 200-09, no one believed they could get away with full figure releases, but could at least make upgrades to existing ones. TFClube released a Battle Rollar, which was clearly deriivative of a Transformers toy, but was still unique enough to be its own thing. It was the original release of these guys that rocked the 3p world. They were the first instance of fans pushing their legal luck with toy that were clearly Hasbro IP designed in copyright hell, aka China.
When these guys were a smash hit, then
>>6422244 happened in a very distinct style. When people saw there was a market for huge figures that cost almost 100 smackers to fill holes in collections, tons of people popped up. Still, no one thought they could make Transformers figures without tons of stylization. Then Mastermind Creations made their toys based on Hearts of steel, which were very faithful recreations of designs that never got toys.Many upgrades and stylized figures would be released regularly, like the PE cassettebots, Fansproject Springer, and a bunch more would follow.
I'm not of the history from there. I think the first unironic MP-alike figure that aimed for that scale and aesthetic was Quakewave, but the market was full of iGears, Mech ideas, Microblazes, and tons of others that clogged the market beyond recognition. Really, I think the desire to fill the MP market is kinda gutting the market. The Dinobot Wars meant there were lots of options, but we know they'll have official replacements, and we also know how fickle collectors can be. I think we need to go back to the stylish designs of before, relying less on Hasbro ip and more on unique designs. I'd love to see original transforming robot figures that are just themselves like
>>6422285 said.
