>>8309840siege and earthrise are designed with the third party market in mind, they're obviously a response... just look at the yarn to thunderclash and optimum prime, or hot rod to override, or any of the many others out there who design a good figure and crank four or more colors and versions out with minor tweaking.
compare the designs of ironhide and prowl, or optimus, or other bots, this is clearly a design aiming at third party market, and I believe TLK megatron was the breaking point, because who bought rendsora instead of buying the official mold? it was directly responsible for that line failing so hard.
aside from new age/iron factory, I see this as likely to be the first of many other "stop it" moves.
doesn't help that the countries are now acting like spoiled children and shunning each other harder because one shut the other out first.
steel core was our hope for them to survive, the world war two line is an attempt to find a new frontier as well but is too close to studio series product to really be tolerated., people didn't want that, they wanted nicee and squishy boobs for orgasm face arcee and geeewwwuunnnnnn
third party is ending.
