by the fans for the fans

HP.... WOW....JUST WOW. AM I SURPRISED? YES.

AND... POINT WELL TAKEN.

I'm sorry. As a professional who is in sales and business development, I cannot see how they can manage this franchise into the ground and still have jobs.

Biollante wrote:

and just for the record I had neither a cigarette or a beer when I made this post.

Lies! Its not a harsh statement although I'm sure some will perceive it as such. Its the reality of the situation, and the most valid point to put accross.


Convoy, I can agree to your view. However its because you do have that professional experience, that you expect a similar or at best level from HG. I'd feel the same, however, the industry points between TV Production/licensing, and say a secure high street buisiness. They do not rely on day to day sales, or the ammount of product they release or divulge. They work on the basis of the single sale of a product, not to the fans or the target ordience, but to other companies, to generate their income.

The proffit for HG in late hasnt been the slow sales of products, but the one time sales of licensing, trademark royalties, and of course the selling of Warner Brothers, the option to to secure a live action movie. Even if this fails to go ahead, the option will run out, then if HG works the movie companies again and secures another company to take that option, then they have made proffit once again.

The products sold, the toys, the dvds, hell even the wallets although garner some slight profit after running costs are just figures for HG to use for reeling in companies into the production.

Plus the sales are not fully represented accurately eitherm unlike retail chains and other similar buisiness. Everyone finds it strange that HG claims to have sold millions of copies, but each time to see the DVD its often in a cheap discount bin or something not being shifted. The Sales figures are taken from distribution. If Walmart bought 1million DVDs for all their stores but only sold 2 actual copies. the Statistics will say 1million, because thats how many they sold to Walmart, not the fanbase/target audience. Each run of the MPC's that are sold out on rt.com, the figures will say 15000sold, even if you still see them in a collector store or generic sci-fi for sale.

TV/Production, even the Movie Industry as a whole on the buisiness side, is based on and operates on liberties, fraud, deception, pure commercial enterprise, lowest bidder-highest buyer, and yes, silencing what is not liked. Its not your average everyday business venture.

rtsurfer wrote:

Which is ironic considering some of the things Steve said in chat might have been considered inappropriate

Well, when he belittled Southern Cross fans it cemented in my mind that he's a fucking douchebag. Don't like the series, fine. However that is completely unprofessional to belittle your fucking CUSTOMERS.

You both speak well and true. I think HG blurs things a bit though... Yeah their primary profit comes from licenses and royalties and technically they are not responsible for the products the licenses produce but they may sorta be:
Is it true that HG maintains creative control over RT products produced by licensees?
Does HG provide or tell the licensees what art to use for promotions and product packaging?
Does HG contribute or influence the design or scripting phases of licensed products?
Does HG have products produced exclusively for the rt.com store?
Does HG feature licensed products on rt.com?
Does HG offer exclusive licensed products, with say signatures other stores only have by buying from them?
Does HG take credit for the licensed products at say cons or on the message boards?
Isn't rt.com essentially an elaborate online store dedicated to selling Robo-Tech products, OSM products, and the con tour?

blackconvoy_D01 wrote:

I'm sorry. As a professional who is in sales and business development, I cannot see how they can manage this franchise into the ground and still have jobs.

Because their main business is Real Estate, that's how they still have jobs.

Biollante wrote:

blackconvoy_D01 wrote:

I'm sorry. As a professional who is in sales and business development, I cannot see how they can manage this franchise into the ground and still have jobs.

Because their main business is Real Estate, that's how they still have jobs.

It doesn't make sense Lynn. The three themselves have nothing to do with the real estate portion of HG's business

blackconvoy_D01 wrote:

Biollante wrote:

blackconvoy_D01 wrote:

I'm sorry. As a professional who is in sales and business development, I cannot see how they can manage this franchise into the ground and still have jobs.

Because their main business is Real Estate, that's how they still have jobs.

It doesn't make sense Lynn. The three themselves have nothing to do with the real estate portion of HG's business

Mike aka Seto Kaiba on macross world, once told me they are involved in the Real Estate portion of the business, but its obvious they have other jobs outside of HG because they couldn't survive on HG alone.

I hope I'm making sense cause I'm pretty disoriented right now

rtsurfer wrote:

You both speak well and true. I think HG blurs things a bit though... Yeah their primary profit comes from licenses and royalties and technically they are not responsible for the products the licenses produce but they may sorta be:
Is it true that HG maintains creative control over RT products produced by licensees?
Does HG provide or tell the licensees what art to use for promotions and product packaging?
Does HG contribute or influence the design or scripting phases of licensed products?
Does HG have products produced exclusively for the rt.com store?
Does HG feature licensed products on rt.com?
Does HG offer exclusive licensed products, with say signatures other stores only have by buying from them?
Does HG take credit for the licensed products at say cons or on the message boards?
Isn't rt.com essentially an elaborate online store dedicated to selling Robo-Tech products, OSM products, and the con tour?

We dont know for the most part in order to answer those questions. Anything to do with the actual licensing agreements would probably be private domain, with just registrations and trademark listing as public as I'm sure there are laws in the USA to make them public. Just like the stuff you found out online RTsurfer.


The only signature 'Robotech' products RT.com carried were the MPC's, Signed by George from Toynami and I cant remember who else. I think it was Allan Letz for the VF-1 series, who was the RT divisions exec./check writer. Ourside of that you had and still do, Signed copy of Carl's book War Eagles, and I think maybe the Mari Iijima CD/DVD is signed too?

Thats just right for RT.com. The Website is a commercial store front. The forum communities are an abnormality for the site. It wasnt expected. Back in the day the Forums were there just for product feedback, technical stuff about Robotech. Most of the current forum was just not there. They gave people points for actual posts in order to encourage feedback, promising that people who help them will get access to sneak peeks, and test stuff before general release. Never happened. They simply got forum spammed by fans of the shows, forced to change the point system and write the Terms of Use as it stands in part today to ward off people. My original RT.com user account is still perma-banned there for excessive spamming in order to get my LT. rank in under a month, hahaha oh well, never said I was perfect.






Convoy. IIRC, Steve Yun is a licensing worker(Manager I think) for HG Companies, the whole thing, not just Robotech. I could be wrong since I havent kept up to date with HG staff for like 4-5yrs almost, sure Memo can clarify better, perhaps.

^While that's true, there may be some indications HGs involvement goes beyond the initial licensing agreements. There have been claims or reports of HG staff being personally involved in the creation, editing, re-editing, and/or final approval process for the WS comics, Palladium RPG, Robotech Remastered & Extended Edition, Robotech Legacy (although I think Macek worked for ADV at the time), and the reissued Novels. I also seem to recall that George Sohm worked closely with HG on the first Masterpiece VF-1.
IINM there were other signature and rt.com exclusive stuff, I think they still have some of the signed Prelude TPBs and speed racer stuff on rt.com.

RT.com has always been a store front and that's even clearer looking back in hindsight and at the lack of site maintenance and improvements. Whatever their actual intent was for the site it was portrayed as the "official" Robotech site.
Before it even launched it was described by them as
web.archive.org/web/20000817234409/http://www.robotech.com/

THE OFFICIAL ROBOTECH WEB SITE
Coming Soon!

featuring:
BEHIND THE SCENES
Coverage on Recent ROBOTECH Projects
What's Happening with RT3K
The Making of Mattel Interactive Video Games

ROBOTECH COMMUNITY
Chats, Bulletin Board and other Fan Participation

CHATS and INTERVIEWS
with the ROBOTECH creators in the US and Japan

ROBOTECH ART GALLERY
Official Art and Fan Art

FAN FICTION

GLOBAL ANIME NEWS

ROBOTECH ENCYCLOPEDIA
Everything you've ever wanted to
know about the original series

ROBOTECH GAMES and CONTESTS

And more...

The beta forums launched with: Robotech, Hardcore Robotech, Fandom Forum, Robotech Gaming, The War Zone, Robotech.com, and The Lounge.
web.archive.org/web/20010221214940/http:...forum/viewforums.php

I think the points and promises of sneak peeks were actually more to encourage activity and fan participation on the site, I just don't think they were ready for what they stirred up. Yeah, a lot of it was just spam but I think many people were trying to get into the coveted Officer/Lt's forum before they shut the point system down. I remember how upset people who weren't in the beta test were about the changes to the point system.
RT.com had a profound effect on the fandom, A number of fan sites shut down or stopped updating since they were no longer needed or thinking they couldn't compete with the power of the official site. Portions of this new site created by staff from some of the more well known and most used Robotech fan sites at that time. It drew a lot of fans out and together but where are they now.
At some point HG apparently decided they didn't need the hassle from all the other site crap, so they concentrated on the store, pretty much stopped updating the site (ironically they don't update the store itself most of the time lol) except for sales and con articles, and turned the forums over to fan mods who knew what they expected.