Future suggestions/predictions thread

[JLK2707]

BoCo and Stepney would be cool. I'd just get them in a heartbeat.

[TrainFan97]

Hi all,

We appreciate the suggestions. We were uncertain as to how to handle this topic, but as it's come up many times now, I feel I need to address one piece of speculation:

Bachmann does not have a CGI "mandate" from Mattel. We are not required or forced to make exclusively CGI character and items, as can be seen from items like the 80th Anniversary set, the China Clay Wagons, the Museum Coaches, S.C. Ruffey, etc.

It's been our choice to focus primarily on characters that have appeared in the CGI series, particularly the engines. We do this in order to have a strong relationship with Mattel and to help promote their brand, by making sure to highlight engines that are most recognizable to children watching the newer seasons of the show. While all of our models do need to be approved by Mattel, they've never outright forced us to only create CGI products.

We'd love to do every character across all eras of the franchise someday- we just can't say when or if all of them will be feasible. But never say never!

After being discussed for like, several years, it was finally time for one of the admins to debunk the CGI mandate.

Turns out the CGI mandate isn't real, and was nothing more than a myth. Bachmann isn't forced to stick with characters that only appeared in the CGI series. They just CHOOSE to stick with engines that appeared in the CGI series in order to have a strong relationship with Mattel, and highlight engines that would be most recognizable to the younger fans. While it is true that all products do need to be approved by Mattel, they never forced Bachmann to ONLY make CGI series characters.

So this means that characters like Stepney, BoCo, or Duke are still worth discussing. Although they've never officially appeared in the CGI series, that doesn't mean they'll never be made. Though they do have fan-made CGI renders as seen in fan-made productions. Splatter and Dodge are still possible, especially since their tooling actually exists.

Now that the CGI mandate has been debunked, we can stop talking about that, and still suggest characters, even if they didn't appear in full CGI.

[JLK2707]

I just take back what I said about Mattel with this.

[JLK2707]

I would just love Splatter and Dodge in HO Scale.

[Coaltronn]

Please make splatter and Dodge! I think it would be cool to see some of the older model series trains in the AEG just because they can create toys for the younger kids like my son and use older fans would buy through bachmann. my son plays with all the trains with my HO bachmann and recognizes them. he would play with both a motorized duke and because of Magic railroad he loves splatter and dodge. he would play the crap out of HO bachmann. then when we are upstairs or we went away to grandmas house he would take the motorized ones.

The collector in me wants them all.

[Cheeky_ULP]

It's always good to get clarification on these kinds of rumors, now that theory can be put to rest. Mandates are a popular speculative topic among fandoms and it's not always easy for people working for respective companies to verify if they're true or not.

That said, I think this opens up another interesting topic: What -is- relevant to kids nowadays within the Thomas brand? All Engines Go has been going on for several seasons now, and BWBA was the last CGI related content the show got. My nephew also began watching Thomas recently and has been hooked, so the accessibility of Thomas content has been on my mind. With that said...

It seems there's two "easily accessible" avenues to watch Thomas: Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Amazon Prime Video is what my nephew has been watching, and that started him right off at Season 1, goes up to Season 7, Season 16, and then 18 to 22. Most CGI era specials are also available on Prime. Netflix continues behind that with the BWBA seasons and specials, as well ass AEG.

There's no doubt that the most recent content is on Netflix so that Mattel can get their moneys worth out of the investment, but once AEG took over the brand, most of BWBA just kind of melted into the rest of the CGI era. I don't think there's a whole lot of BWBA era characters that would be a worthy on return investment for a new tooling, given how mixed their reception was to fans young and old.

Rebecca is already in the Bachmann range now, and between her and Nia, seemed the safer choice of BWBA representation. Any other BWBA characters tend to be a combination of too niche and too expensive to warrant making a new tooling of. If Bachmann were to make anything else from the BWBA era, I feel like Nia is the only one that would get a new tooling, with Gina not far behind her; any other character would need to be something that can be repurposed from an old Bachmann USA tooling or one of the Class 08 repaints.

From there, you're left with two branches of engine picks for the range: CGI era in general, and "nostalgia" picks. There's still a lot of characters in both categories, and I feel like we might get a better gauge on what to predict next after Monday.