Knock Offs

When I started collecting I bought a job lot of those crappy combiner KOs, terrible plastic and in some cases the wrong colours. I quickly realised my mistake, and sold them on (on ebay and I clearly labelled them as KO).

I've since seen the Constructicon KOs in a local shop, and I can't help thinking that it seems quite harmless. Hasbro/Takara aren't producing them (except the Combaticons I admit), no one buys them thinking they're the real deal, and they're not decent replacements for the real thing. Dodgy possibly, but useful kitbashing material. Verdict: Harmless.

(Incidentally I later picked up a set of Trainbots made by the same company which I intend to kitbash into something a bit more decent.)

After that first brush with KOs I stayed well clear until the WST seekers started being produced. When Dirge and Ramjet were produced I quite happily snapped them up to complete my collection, that's fine perhaps since there are no official versions. Skywarp and Thundercracker on the other hand were officially produced, these can go for US$100 odd on ebay. Somehow though this didn't produce too much outrage, perhaps because the official figures were blind packed and so cost the same as the normal figures. I picked up these KO versions because I wasn't prepared to pay US$200 for the real thing. Then the WST Dinobots were produced, again, no official versions exist but still unofficial/unlicensed product. I suppose you could argue that because there was no attempt to pass them off as official that there no duping. Verdict: Widely accepted but I'd be pissed if I'd spent that US$200 on Skywarp/Thundercracker.

Then there are various 3rd party add-ons, and unlicensed models. I won't name any, but this would seem to be in the same category as the Dinobots. Personally I think they're great, but legally speaking I suspect there is some infringement. Perhaps, my wanting these items, means that in my mind at least, I'm prepared to ignore the legal ambiguity. Verdict: Dodgy ground.

So there seems to be a pattern here - low cost items which are clearly different from official products seem to be accepted, but if you've ever come across a discussion on KOs on a online forum, it gets pretty nasty pretty quickly. Typically some poster will suggest that KOs are a cheap way of getting the figures that he/she wants in brand new condition, and someone will then reply to this that they still don't have the figures they want and that they're damaging Hasbro/Takara.

The figures that people really feel strongly about are the ones that imitate the real thing, for people in the know (i.e. people who know what figures have been reissued), these are usually quite avoidable - if you see a MISB Wheeljack for US$50 then it's a knock-off. Now I've seen it theorised that people new to the hobby will buy these, find them to be terrible quality and give the hobby up. It's possible I suppose, but reissues form quite a small part of the Transformer market, and for people shopping in their local TRU or Walmart, they're not going to come across them. Also reputable online shops either don't sell them or clearly label them.

I think the problem lies with KOs of figures that have been reissued. No one in their right mind would buy a KO when a reissue is available, and this is where the deception comes in: Metroplex. Metroplex was KO'd and reissued around about the same time. I'm not defending the people who produced the KO, but I imagine what happened was that they set about producing the figure (and probably spending a fair amount of money), Takara then come along and reissue the figure. If that reissue hadn't been produced, people would have bought that KO - it's a large figure with lots of accessories and prone to yellowing. The reissue was produced and so no one cared about the KO. The people who produced the KO were set to lose a lot of money and so created a box which imitated the Takara Encore box and sold their figures that way (to online stores who were unaware of this). Again, I'm not defending them, their business practice is clearly undefendable, but presumably they decided that they didn't want a warehouse full of Metroplex figures. Verdict: Terrible situation.

I hope that experience means we won't get any KOs of large figures again (which presumably are higher risk than the likes of Sunstreaker, Mirage, etc). So figures that haven't reissued; tempting, but personally I'd rather have (and in fact do have) a slightly battered authentic Sunstreaker. The problem is when they produce a figure which is prone to breaking and the original is very expensive. Case in point: Shockwave. I can't deny I'm not tempted, he's one of the few G1 figures left I want, finding a complete one without a broken/cracked hose and/or gun arm for a decent price is impossible. A reissue looks extremely unlikely since no one seems to know who owns the rights to the mold.

I think a common discussion point about this is who gets hurt by this? I know what I'm getting (i.e. a KO), Hasbro and Takara aren't going to suffer since there is no rival product (I buy shed loads of their product and buying a KO Shockwave won't change that). The place where people get hurt by this is the second hand market - if I buy a KO Shockwave someone out there who is selling a authentic Shockwave will not get my money, the market for Shockwave will get a little bit smaller. Of course it's not just me, lots of people will buy/already have this KO, I could argue that I don't really change things in the same way that me recycling doesn't really make any difference to the environment.

Perhaps what it comes down to is conscience - do I want to support a group of people who are producing figures which will ultimately reduce the value of my (authentic) collection? My most expensive Transformers is Deszaras, if they create a KO of him then my Deszaras will be worth less. Do I care? Should I care? I have no intention of selling him so it's only potential money, perhaps I could be annoyed that I spent a certain amount of money which if I'd waited I could have spent less. But perhaps that's life, that's no different to what happens with lots of items.

At the moment it is quite easy to avoid KOs, if it's too good to be true, then it's likely to be a KO. But what about in 10 years time? At the moment all KO Shockwaves are in 'mint' condition, give it 10 years and they will have 'authentic' signs of age. You go to buy a Shockwave on ebay in 10 years time and people who are buying KO Shockwaves now might not want that figure anymore and so sell it. They might not be honest and sell it as authentic. Maybe people buying that non-authentic figure might never realise in which case do they suffer in anyway?

I think I've covered most of the arguments for and against KOs but one argument I haven't considered is the legal argument. KOs are illegal. I'm a good citizen so therefore I don't want to break the law. To me that would be a particularly poor argument, I am of the belief that people pick and choose which laws to obey, in any country. It is very common for people to break the law if they perceive that no-one gets hurt or it's a low cost item in question. I'll give an example, you have $1 in your hand, you go to a vending machine and there's $1 already there. You see a $2 item you want, do you really just buy a $1 item and leave the other dollar there? It would be stealing because the true owner of the dollar might come back and claim it, would you let that worry you? The question is where do you draw the line? Verdict: Down to your conscience.

So that KO Shockwave; I'm tempted, very very tempted.