>>8018568Transformers died in the 80s because they stopped giving a fuck about the cartoon after The Rebirth and trying to rely on gimmicks to survive with the times (Kids like GI Joes, lets make action figure Transformers (Actionmasters)!, Kids like Micro Machines, lets make tiny transformers (Micromasters)!, Kids like weird animal monsters like TMNT, lets make monster transformers (Pretenders)!) instead of making a good unified line.
Let's look at Armada for example. Across the line you have one major theme across every figure in the line: the Mini-Con. They came packaged in every figure in the line (Well, except Lazerbeak but you'll find more people defending ROTF Skids and Mudflap's personalities than that figure), and each minicon could interact with any of the larger figures. The only other thing in the line you could say was a gimmick was Prime's combination thing with Jetfire/Overload, but that's about it. This is why even though the line had shitty toys like Scavenger or Sideswipe it's still fondly remembered, and that same philosophy of a single linewide gimmick is why this general fucking loves Titans Returns because it was a fun line with a single unifying gimmick (The Titanmaster).
Now let's take a look at G1 in 1988
>Mini-Cassettes (Even though Soundwave and Blaster were off the shelves at this point) >Combiners>Six-changers>Targetmasters >Headmasters >Clones>Monsterbots>Powermasters>Pretenders>Pretender Beasts>Pretender Vehicles>Triggerbots/Cons>Sparkabots/Firecons>Faction changing (Counterpunch/Doubledealer)That's FOURTEEN different gimmicks on the shelves, and that's before 89 introduced Micromasters and the other Pretender variants.
Transformers didn't die off originally solely due to Action Masters, it died off because it was struggling to find an identity for itself by constantly changing itself while lines like GI Joe and TMNT remained fairly consistent in their play patterns.
