Does it bother you when US fans equal "Europe" = "UK"?

[nevermore]

Hey guys,

some of you may know me from various "international" (i.e. US-based) forums.

It's also there that I've encountered a certain type of ignorance when it comes to other markets, particularly Europe. To some American fans, everything not related to their home turf is summed up as "international", and anything related specifically to Europe is reduced to "UK".

There are two predominant types of non-US packaging used by Hasbro: "Americas" (used for Canada and Latin America, sporting texts in English, French and Spanish, sometimes also Portuguese) and "European" (released in a plethora of markets, with texts in currently thirteen languages). Many American fans simply lump these together as "international packaging". Other times, European packaging is called "UK packaging", as if those twelve other languages were simply there for decoration.

I can understand this to some degree: The UK is the only part of Europe that has English as its first language. Therefore, UK-based fans are the most common type of European fans a US fan is likely to encounter on the intertubes.

This was even more true in the early days of the Transformers online fandom, when UK fans were the largest group of European fans interacting with their American counterparts. Therefore, a lot of tail-end G1 toys that were available in Europe but not in the US are still frequently referred to as "UK releases", because, well, there weren't than many fans from other European countries around back in the day to confirm that yes, these toys have also been available in other markets.

The other two larger groups of European fans with above-average English skills for the most part are our friends from the Netherlands and the Nordic countries. As a consequence, the infamous red Milton Bradley-packaged G1 Tracks is still commonly believed to have been released in the Netherlands only.

However, at this point, there are fans from many other countries frequently interacting with the international fandom. Myself, I'm from Germany (hi there, UK!), and I've always preferred to take a more international approach to things. Many years ago, I've started a short-lived mailing group called "Trans-Europe Express" that was supposed to gather information from as many European Hasbro markets as possible to get a clearer picture of the market situation. The experiment failed after a few months because of a lack of interest on behalf of many participants, but it did help give me a slightly better general idea of the whole situation.

I like to think outside the box, and for me, all the markets in Europe suffer from many of the same problems when it comes to Transformers distribution. Because Hasbro seems to take a more standardized pan-European approach, I would like to do the same and think less in terms of national markets, and instead of a general European market situation.

And therefore, it bugs me whenever someone ignorantly writes off the entire continent and limits the European market to one small island nation (no offense, folks!). In a way, this also backfires when certain toys are released in Europe but not in the US, and US-based fans are only looking at purchase options from the UK. But I guess for you guys, one man's loss is another man's gain.

Thoughts?

[Philip Ayres]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

[blueshift]

Oh hey, it's Nevermore! Hi there!

[Fortmax2020]

Welcome!

Weren't the Actionmaster Elites non-UK European exclusives back in the day?

English is the first language of the Republic of Ireland too.

[Philip Ayres]

I think it's believed a small number were officially released in the uk...... A VERY small number

[Toph]

Hi Nevermore! I've seen you around during my lurks on other boards.

On topic, no, I'm from Texas and I gotta say it doesn't bother me at all!
More seriously though, speaking for myself and a few other US fans I interact with closely (but not the community as a whole), we don't understand it.
Right or wrong, america sees Europe (and other blocks of countries) as similar to itself, only slightly more complex.
When reality is, Canada, Japan, and Australia are more like us in structure than europe.
This is due a lot to our shitacular schools not teaching us how the world works.
France, Spain, and Italy in our minds are more like ohio, oklahoma, and iowa.
When we look at a country on it's own, like australia, we just see it as a self contained country and nothing more. Australia is just Australia. When it's actually a collection of states that runs not too differently than we do. And most of us don't know MOST countries are like this. I certainly wasn't taught this in school.

So, most americans see europe as the closest thing they understand to america, and don't give it much thought. On top of that, australian and UK members seem to be the largest non-american segment in the english speaking TF communities. (Canadians get lumped in with "us")
Brits are the ones we have the most contact with on the european side of the fandom.
For better or worse, brits are the face of the european fandom and community.

On top of that, it's not well documented how lines worked in various countries in the pre-net days.
Or that hasbro licenses TF to other toy producers to distribute. American fans seem to think Hasbro UK encompasses all of europe (bringing back around to europe works just like us line of thought).

I have some other thoughts about this, but it takes so long to type on an iphone that i forgot half of them.
I personally have been trying to understand things better since I joined this board.

[nevermore]

I think Maz and Mijo of 20th Century Toy Collector have done a lot of the legwork in terms of trying to document European distribution in the earliest G1 days.

I guess it also has a lot to do with how much someone cares for certain semi-obscures corners of Transformers toy history. A hardcore Minibot completist can probably tell the difference between a Brazilian and a Peruvian release from the other side of a room, whereas some other collectors only know two types of toys: Authentic MISB US-packaged toys and "foreign releases".

What really baffles me sometimes is when the first look at a fully-packaged upcoming toy depicts it in European packaging, and some fans, including the staff of major US-bases fansites *cough*TFormers*cough* act completely dumbfounded, as if they've never seen European packaging before.

[Pinwig]

I think as CJ has explained; it's largely down to ignorance. Not deliberate, just a by product of education and awareness.

One of the podcasts I listen to, TFYLP, recently tried to address this by adding a Swedish guy to their regular team. His revelations about what TFs cost in Europe absolutely floored the American Crew, they could not believe what they were hearing.

I've always looked on the rest of Europe in awe when it comes to TFs because of the simple fact that I got a Swoop in Norway while on holiday in the mid 80s - my first experience of owning a toy not available in the UK. I've always whether rightly or wrongly assumed everywhere lose gets the toys we don't. Like are you now getting the non-movie Generations waves? Toys like Rhinox and Whirl?

[Shockprowl]

I love America. Always have. Love the culture. Never been but want to go. I think as a younger culture they have a lot to teach the world. But they're very insular. Or seem very insular. Happy to do their own thing and forget the rest of the world. Unless they feel the rest of the world may start to intrude on them. It's a shame! America is a great country, and I wish they'd get onboard the rest of the world, because I think the vast majority of Americans want to.

Europe? I'm something of an amature historian of Europe, and
as such I love Germany, the German people. Few countries have such a fascinating history and culture.

To group 'Europe' together as a single entity is maddness. Very different cultures. But as different as they are, they're stronger together. Just as the World is stronger when its different cultures are together.

..... I forget what the question was....

But! Welcome to Nevermore, hope to see more of you, and here's to wider universal distribution of Transformers toys in their own national packaging so we wont have to complain about it ever again!

[Kingoji]

The only thing that sometimes bothers me is when we get American product with multiple European languages on them. Because we KNOW that exact same product exists with *just the English*, and more information. That's the language WE GAVE YOU.
I am of course talking about toy packaging, where the US gets a fairly detailed account of a character and what they're about, but because we need to fit all those languages in we get something like "Windcharger is fast."

But that's about the only time.

[Pinwig]

Agreed. Not just for us in English though, but country specific backboards would mean everyone would get the full info.

An example would be that I didn't even know Beast Wars figures had tech specs in America because the euro ani-mutants cards were so cluttered with different languages there was no where for them to go. It was only seeing the specs on tfu.info that made me realise what must have happened.

[Jim]

Ah, Nevermore, yes, I remember you from my time on the Allspark forums. Welcome!

I'm not sure I've encountered this attitude enough to be annoyed by it. In fact, I feel quite privileged as a UK fan who got to grow up with the best fiction! So here's a sort of counter-question - do US (or non-UK) fans ever get annoyed with UK fans banging on about the UK comic? I've got the impression on other boards that some prominent fans like to ostentatiously dismiss Furman et al.

(of course they may genuinely feel that way, and that is fine)

-Jim

[Toph]

As a US fan, I certainly don't dismiss the UK comics!
A problem though is they're not easily accessible to us.
Sure, they've been reprinted in TPB, but those were expensive and hard to get when they were NEW.
And sure, IDW has reprinted some on individual levels, but they were sort of rubbish about it.

It would be nice if IDW decided to do the entire US/UK run in TPB format, all in order. So we can experience it the way you guys did.

And the Furman haters should get over themselves. If you don't like it, fine. But I've never seen anyone make a statement as to WHY they hate his work. Then they go on praising MTMTE for things that Furman was doing nearly 30 years ago, and worshipping characters he basically made (Wreckers, Scorponok, Bludgeon, Thunderbolt, Nightbeat, Grimlock, Nova Prime, Jhiaxus, and so on)

I'm convinced they are both jumping on a bandwagon, and just a massively vocal minority. And if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have had Shane McCarthy shoved down our throats.

[Shockprowl]

Aug 1, 2014 22:39:11 GMT Jim said:

....here's a sort of counter-question - do US (or non-UK) fans ever get annoyed with UK fans banging on about the UK comic?
-Jim

Gosh what a brilliant question! The UK comic did go above and beyond where the American comic went.

In my opinion.

[blueshift]

Aug 1, 2014 22:52:40 GMT Toph said:

Sure, they've been reprinted in TPB, but those were expensive and hard to get when they were NEW.
And sure, IDW has reprinted some on individual levels, but they were sort of rubbish about it.

They have been reprinting them in trades!

Though at the wrong size (British comics were always bigger, it was a real pain when titan first started reprinting the US stuff and I discovered it was teeny tiny!)

[Philip Ayres]

Yeah, but there's never been a reprint run that's done them mingled into the US stories which I think is what Jetty was getting at?

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I'm in the minority in that I'm quite happy with the reprints to date. I don't think it would do the UK comic any favours to reprint the US and UK stories in sequence as originally printed in the UK. It was OK at the time when coming in weekly doses, but I wouldn't want to re-read them like that. I think the flow is much better when the US comics are allowed to run one into another. Likewise, the UK stories are generally coherent spin-off sagas that read well in themed blocks in parallel to the US series rather than interrupting it: the Dinobot arc ('Wrath', 'Icarus', 'Dinobot Hunt', 'Victory', 'National Interest', 'What's In a Name?', 'Grudge Match'), the Galvatron/Magnus/Wreckers arc ('Target: 2006' to 'Time Wars', with 'Aspects of Evil' / 'White Fire' as an optional endpiece) and Survivors/Earthforce.

Just a few UK stories such as 'Crisis of Command', 'Worlds Apart', 'Race With the Devil', 'A Small War', 'Deathbringer' and 'Out to Lunch' are extra add-ons that enhance specific US stories and would work well printed alongside those US stories rather than interrupting their flow. And just a few US stories - the Movie mini-series and 'Big Broadcast' - belong with the UK saga.

I'm also quite content with most of the quality of the reprints - excepting 'Best of UK: Time Wars' and the recent US recolours. Not really bothered by under-sized reprints. I could live if I just had the Titan US reprint hardbacks and the new IDW UK Classics books. It's nice to have the UK stories from 'The Icarus Theory' to 'Time Wars' as large-format Titan TPBs but I could live without them.

Martin

[kayevcee]

Jul 31, 2014 21:23:17 GMT Fortmax2020 said:

Weren't the Actionmaster Elites non-UK European exclusives back in the day?

I saw them in Beatties (mostly known for their big range of R/C cars, but they did a fair amount of other toys) in St Enoch Square in Glasgow back in the day, along with the exo-suits and year 2 Action Masters. If only I'd known how much that weird assortment of luminous madness would be worth someday... I'd have hoarded them and reduced their value so they wouldn't be worth as much. Ah well.

-Nick

[nevermore]

Aug 1, 2014 20:01:15 GMT Pinwig said:

I've always looked on the rest of Europe in awe when it comes to TFs because of the simple fact that I got a Swoop in Norway while on holiday in the mid 80s - my first experience of owning a toy not available in the UK. I've always whether rightly or wrongly assumed everywhere lose gets the toys we don't. Like are you now getting the non-movie Generations waves? Toys like Rhinox and Whirl?

Here in Germany, we got the following Generations toys, all of them as Toys"R"Us exclusives:

Legends Class Optimus Prime/Roller and Bumblebee/Blazemaster, currently still warming pegs.
Deluxe Class Trailcutter, Bumblebee, Orion Pax and Stealth Megatron. Restocked several times to the point that I saw three (!) lone Trailcutters at the same store. Some Trailcutters are still waring pegs.
Voyager Class Soundwave/Laserbeak and Grimlock.

That's it. Nothing before or after that.

Beast Hunters also started a little late (if I recall correctly, last August, together with Generations), to the point that I only ever saw some of the early wave figures at Intertoys, a Dutch chain with stores mostly in the Western part of Germany near the Dutch border. And I have several dozen stores, all of them belonging to one of five major chains (Karstadt, Galeria Kaufhof, Real, Toys"R"Us and Intertoys) in several nearby cities at my disposal.

[Shockprowl]

So- the toys are hard to find in Germany... the toys are hard to find in the UK... the toys are fairly hard to find in the US...

There's a pattern here somewhere....

[Philip Ayres]

That's exactly the same as the UK got exclusive to the same store.... with the exception of Metroplex which we got in boxes with just English on it but with the voice parts gutted from the sound chip.

[legios]

Jul 31, 2014 21:49:33 GMT Toph said:

Hi Nevermore! I've seen you around during my lurks on other boards.

Indeed. Welcome to the forum, Nevermore!

This is due a lot to our shitacular schools not teaching us how the world works.
France, Spain, and Italy in our minds are more like ohio, oklahoma, and iowa.
When we look at a country on it's own, like australia, we just see it as a self contained country and nothing more. Australia is just Australia. When it's actually a collection of states that runs not too differently than we do. And most of us don't know MOST countries are like this. I certainly wasn't taught this in school.

I think you may be onto something there Jetty. Your description matches quite well with some of the things I have heard from friends of my own and of my sister who have gone through various parts of the US education system. The overall impression I have got was of a quite insular way of looking at the world which left many folk who went through it that the world divided into two general parts of roughly equal size "everywhere else" and "America", and that the information imparted about "everywhere else" seemed quite sketchy. (A friend of mine who went through a US High School informed me that at High School level he was taught that World War II was started by the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbour, which is not quite the way he saw it having been originally brought up in the UK for the first thirteen or so years. He also said that no-one in his class could name a single capital of another country, but they could name all the US state capitals). So I had been left wondering how good the US education system is about explaining that "everywhere else" is actually different.

As to the actual germane question of whether it bothers me. Not really. Partly because I don't really encounter it, having drifted to the spinward rim of fandom - Crazy Jetty is about the only regular poster we have from the continental US and he, as this thread shows, seems to be fairly clued-up about this stuff, so it isn't really a misapprehension I run into at all these days. And in honesty compared to some of the misapprehensions out there it never really registered with me - I get far more bothered by the perpetuation of the myth that the Sonokong releases are "Korean Bootlegs" (but even that seems to be fading away as time passes and information spreads).

Karl

[Pinwig]

Aug 2, 2014 16:22:34 GMT Philip Ayres said:

That's exactly the same as the UK got exclusive to the same store.... with the exception of Metroplex which we got in boxes with just English on it but with the voice parts gutted from the sound chip.

It is indeed. Which then does beg the question why do we not get more releases? Is it because no one else is interested in lines other than the main ones supported by TV shows and films, so TRU can get exclusivity cheaply for generations; or do TRU just pump out generations releases at the start of each series and add more only if sales warrant it?

I can't help but feel somewhere along the line there must be a better way to do generations in Europe. Maybe as a collectors' club type subscription deal. But then as long as Amazon.com have cheap prices and cheaper shipping most collectors probably wouldn't care.

Really interesting to know other places in Europe now get the same release patterns as us. I didn't know that.

[blueshift]

Aug 3, 2014 10:04:53 GMT Pinwig said:

Aug 2, 2014 16:22:34 GMT Philip Ayres said:

That's exactly the same as the UK got exclusive to the same store.... with the exception of Metroplex which we got in boxes with just English on it but with the voice parts gutted from the sound chip.

It is indeed. Which then does beg the question why do we not get more releases? Is it because no one else is interested in lines other than the main ones supported by TV shows and films, so TRU can get exclusivity cheaply for generations; or do TRU just pump out generations releases at the start of each series and add more only if sales warrant it?

Well, to be fair Hasbro can only sell what the stores want to buy.

[Llama God]

Aug 1, 2014 22:52:40 GMT Toph said:

I'm convinced they are both jumping on a bandwagon, and just a massively vocal minority. And if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have had Shane McCarthy shoved down our throats.

Now there's an image I didn't need at this time on a Sunday morning. (Especially considering it's now Sunday afternoon.) ;-)

blueshift said:

Well, to be fair Hasbro can only sell what the stores want to buy.

And that's a fair point. Stores aren't going to order in more product if it doesn't sell. And it doesn't sell because, I would guess, it doesn't get the same sort of advertising as it does in the US. Sure, the Prime toys got adverts, but those adverts were a long time before Cartoon Network UK actually started showing the cartoons. So do kids actually know what these lines are? I'm sure the movies help, but all the same, the only reason I know about and understand new products is because I read so much about it online. To the general public, they're just more robots, so why buy more of the same? Maybe. I dunno.

Also, hi Nevermore! I remember reading your posts on other boards. Good to see you here.

As to your original question - no, it doesn't bother me, really. Since I don't really understand the complexity of Transformers distribution myself, it's not as straightforward to me, either. But the reverse is an interesting situation, too. The usual view I have of the US from afar is that it is a paradise overflowing with toys on every street corner. In reality, from the short time that I spent there, it seems that the distribution is just as dodgy over there as it is over here. The only difference is that in the US you can generally expect most figures to show up somewhere at some point. In Europe, the best option is usually to order from online...

As to being bothered about my country being mis-identified... well, having now moved beyond the Wall, it bothers me when Scotland is mis-identified as being in England... ;-)

[Pinwig]

Aug 3, 2014 10:07:45 GMT blueshift said:

Well, to be fair Hasbro can only sell what the stores want to buy.

That's what I mean, is the Generations problem in Europe down to the fact TRU are sitting on their exclusivity and not utilising it fully by marketing it poorly, denying other retailers a chance; or is it that Hasbro could only sell Generations at all in Europe as an exclusive because no one else would touch it?

Maybe it's just one line too many, but the IDW comic is there to reprint and use as a marketing tool.

[nevermore]

Oh by the way, I haven't seen any of the AOE Evolutions two-packs at TRU yet.

[Pinwig]

Of those we've got slug and strafe readily available and Grimlock orderable online. No Prime or Bee, but TRU have got the Prime one on their system.

[Philip Ayres]

Bee's been online a week and found in stores today