I'm not saying BFS can't do their own thing and profit well from it, and I sincerely hope they do, but really, talk about easily adaptable. And as I said, they do seem to be on good terms with the Club, so there's not much reason this can't happen at some point.

It's not easily adaptable. They'd have to use the entire body, since BFS does a different type of torso. Plus, the arm joins may be different too. There's no way in green hell that the club would ever put up enough cash for that many parts from outside Hasbro's catalogue. Ever. If you think they might, then you haven't been paying attention all these years.

_________________

This may be a little off topic, but in regards to a 2nd party Golobulous it got me wondering, how do the 2nd party transformer companies get away with such obvious copies of Hasbro characters? And is it possible to get the same type of thing in the future for GIJoe?

_________________

Easy: Hasbro knows but doesn't care because none of it really affects the retail market where they make their money.

As to Joe, it consternated me that nobody's tried to do any 3P vehicles, or the dumbfoundingly obvious 18th-scale Joe-compatible TFs. I'd give it a try if there were any good and easily-learned Android CAD apps. I'm wondering how close to 18th them Unrustable Bastards are, too.

_________________

Ahh, 3rd party, not 2nd party like I said. Would Hasbro look the other way if someone did a Golobulous ripoff?

_________________

I think '2nd Party' is granted a license, like the Club; but you rarely hear the term.

Based on what we've seen; I don't see why they'd care so long as Golly wasn't named the same or sold at b&m retail.

_________________

Or perhaps BFS could make the guy they showed with the Golobulous similar body and then sell another figure with a Golobulous similar head then we could buy both and swap the parts.

_________________

An interesting side note of what Hasbro hasnt allowed in the past. They put a stop to Smalljoes from importing the Funskool figures (which isnt even really 2nd since Hasbro owns Funskool), with the reason that it would hurt the image of their product due to the lower quality of the Funskool figures.

I am not sure that they legally had a leg to stand on but I am sure they could have made life miserable enough that it would not have been worth it. I am going straight out of memory for the above details and what was told to us about why he would not be restocking the toys so I am sorry if anything is not perfectly correct in my remembering the event but I think that I got it all right.

The difference there is that the FunSkool stuff was branded with the Joe logos, so there's a legit concern over (idiot) parents complaining about what they think is Hasbro product. It's a tiny risk, but it's easy to see a mom complaining online to her friends about shoddy GI Joe products. We hardcore collectors are going to be the only ones to know about the diff between Hasbro and FunSkool.

_________________

Hasbro did nothing about the Cobra Trooper bootlegs. If you didn't sell it with Hasbro trademarks or packaging, it's likely they woudn't care. Hasbro's big enough now that they can't be bothered with someone selling a few hundred or even a couple of thousand 3rd party items. If you packaged it and tried to ply it with Hasbro trademarks, though, then it's a different ballgame. (I'd also guess that if you used modern construction, Hasbro might be a little more interested.) But, since Hasbro's not actively selling Joe right now, their interest in stopping 3rd parties would be minimal.

I think the reason we don't see massing 3rd party Joe items is the lack of market. If the Joe market was the size of the Transformers or Star Wars markets, we'd likely see tons of offerings as it would be economically viable to do so.

_________________

That makes perfect sense and it's a damn shame. I have two 3rd party transformers (Rodimus and Megatron) and both are fantastic and I think superior, at least in aesthetics, to their Masterpiece counterparts. It would be so awesome if it was profitable for someone to make 3rd party GI Joe figures and especially vehicles.

_________________