User:Nevermore/Sandbox/Multilingual packaging

Typical trilingual cardback: photos of the wrong toy representing a different character, with misidentified factions and swapped names. No room for characterization, function or stats, but a franchise description longer than the Gettysburg Address appears in three languages.

Multilingual packaging is essentially the standard way Transformers toys are available in countries outside the United States. Rather than producing packaging sporting texts in a single language for different countries, Hasbro saves money by putting texts in several different languages on the same packaging, which will then be released in all the target markets. (There are a few exceptions, such as places like Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore or the Philippines, which traditionally get their toys in the same packaging that is available in the United States.)

Multilingual packaging/translation

Multilingual packaging in the Americas

What, were you expecting a trilingual comic?

Multilingual packaging began in Canada back in 1984, was later expanded to also cover Latin America starting with Beast Wars in 1996, then replaced English-only packaging for the United States between 2001 and 2005, and again beginning in 2014. It was eventually merged with European multilingual packaging into one worldwide packaging type in 2019.

In detail:

• 1984-1995: English and French for Canada. When the original Transformers to line was introduced to the Canadian market in 1984, the packaging was bilingual (sporting texts in English and French). This language combination persisted for over a decade, up until the end of the Generation 2 line in 1995.
• 1996-2014: English, French and Spanish for Canada and Latin America. With the launch of the Beast Wars toyline in 1996, Hasbro introduced trilingual Transformers packaging, sporting texts in English, French and Spanish, now serving not only the Canadian market, but also Latin America. (Prior to that, Transformers toys had been distributed by various licensees in Latin America, such as IGA for Mexico, Antex for Argentina, HUDE, BASA, Abramowicz and Lynsa for Peru and Chile or Estrela for Brazil, with the packaging usually being entirely in Spanish or Portuguese.)
  • 2001-2005: English, French and Spanish also for the United States. With the launch of the Robots in Disguise toy line in 2001, Hasbro decided to cut costs by using the trilingual packaging for the US market as well, which meant they only had to design one type of packaging for three markets rather than two. Thus the standard United States packaging, traditionally sporting English-only texts, was replaced by trilingual packaging with texts in English, French and Spanish. This move was, of course, well-received by fans. In 2005, Hasbro's Transformers team successfully convinced the company's higher-ups that the multi-lingual packaging was so phenomenally ugly that it was costing them sales. English-only packaging was reintroduced with the launch of the Cybertron line, coinciding with the addition of English-only Alternators packaging intended for the US market.
• 2009-2019: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese for Canada and Latin America. Between the third and fourth waves of the various Revenge of the Fallen size class assortments, Hasbro changed the packaging from trilingual to quadrilingual, now adding Portuguese as a fourth language for the Brazilian market. For a while, the use of Portuguese remained inconsistent; for example, both Transformers: Prime (including its Beast Hunters subline imprint) and the generatons line's Fall of Cybertron and Thrilling 30 segments only featured English, French and Spanish, whereas the Dark of the Moon line featured Portuguese as well. By 2015, Portuguese became a fixed staple on North American Transformers packaging (for the most part).
  • 2015-2019: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese also for the United States. With the launch of the Combiner Wars toyline and the concurrently released Robots in Disguise line at the end of 2014, Hasbro once again made multilingual packaging the default for the United States (barring few exceptions).
• 2019-today: English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese for the entire world. Starting in late 2019 with the War for Cybertron: Siege line's Walmart exclusive 35th Anniversary subline imprint, continuing with the final waves of each of the line's general retail size class assortments and the Cyberverse line's Battle for Cybertron subline imprint/Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures rebranding, Hasbro merged the two remaining packaging types (American and European) into one worldwide standard format, adding German as a fifth language as far as non-European customers were concerned.

A few exceptions exist:

Everything must be translated. Everything.
Tout doit être traduit. Tout.
Todo debe ser traducido. Todo.

• Some store exclusives that were never intended to be released in Latin America were released in bilingual English/French packaging in Canada instead. Examples include the Walmart exclusive "Legacy of Bumblebee" three-pack from the 2007 Transformers movie toyline, as well as the 2018-2020 Walmart exclusive "Vintage G1" reissues.
• Shortly before Hasbro largely abandoned English-only packaging for a second time, various store exclusives from the Age of Extinction toyline and the Target exclusive Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters subline imprint Predacons Rising (with the exception of the Ultimate Class Beast Fire Predaking figure, which was only part of the Predacons Rising subline imprint in the United States but a general retail release in standard Beast Hunters packaging in all other markets) already reintroduced trilingual packaging for the United States market.
• After Hasbro had largely abandoned English-only packaging again in late 2014, some figures were still released in English-only packaging afterwards, such as the Combiner Wars Deluxe Class figures with pack-in comics, or various large electronic toys from the 2015 Robots in Disguise toyline. The Titans Return line eventually dropped the pack-in comic books, thus eliminiating any further reason for English-only packaging altogether.

Characteristics and oddities

In Soviet Canada, I'm an Autobot.

Beast Machines anyone?

• Bilingual Canadian packaging for the original Transformers toyline utilized a smaller printing font to fit the Tech Specs and bios in both languages onto the packaging. Even the characters' names required French translations! Sometimes errors slipped through; for example, Swoop is called "Tracks" in the English version of his bio, Frenzy is called "Frenetik" in English, and Soundwave, Buzzsaw and even Megatron are identified as Autobots!
• Whereas in the United States, the original Transformers toyline had ben canceled in 1990, Hasbro continued releasing new toys in Canada that were also concurrently available in Europe. Those figures would often sport different names, both in English and in French, than their European counterparts. For example, the European releases of Rotorstorm were named, well, "Rotorstorm" in the UK and "Storm" in France, while the Canadian version was named "Storm" in English but "Tempête " in French.
• The (now trilingual) packaging for the Beast Wars, Beast Machines and 2001 Robots in Disguise lines abandoned the need for additional French names of the individual toys. Due to the addition of a third language, the bios were now abbreviated compared to their counterparts from Hasbro's English-only United States packaging, in addition to the previously already used smaller print. Additionally, the titles for all three lines were now translated as well: Beast Wars was given the additional French title Guerre des Bêtes for Canada, and the Spanish title Guerra de Bestias for Latin America; Beast Machines was given the additional French title Mécanimaux for Canada, and the Spanish title Mecanibestias for Latin America; and Robots in Disguise was given the additional French title Robots Déguisés for Canada, and the Spanish title "Robots Camuflados for Latin America. Of note is that the French Canadian title for the Beast Wars toyline didn't match the French Canadian titles of the corresponding cartoon (Robots-Bêtes). Likewise, the names of subline imprints, size classes and gimmicks such as "Transmetals", "Deluxe Class", "Premium Series" or "Triple Changer" also have to be translated. When Robots in Disguise was used again as a tagline for the Armada, Energon, Cybertron, 2003 Universe and Alternators lines, it was again kept trilingual (using the same translations as for the 2001 toyline), whereas later waves of the 2003 Universe line, as well as all subsequent lines that used the tagline, were allowed to keep it in English only, even on multilingual packaging.
• In 2002, when the Armada toy line was about to be launched, someone (probably a lawyer) informed Hasbro that if any part of the packaging was trilingual, the entire contents had to be trilingual, including the pack-in comic books; this resulted in the comics' dialogue being in stilted, unpleasant prose, but on the bright side the unsightliness of the comics may have prompted the creation of the popular jaAm joke. Hasbro later realized this person was overcautious, and volumes 3 and 4 of the pack-in comic were printed in a much more eye-pleasing way: in English. Additionally, instead of settling for "incredibly short and banal" on-package bios, the packaging for the Armada, Energon and Universe toylines only featured lengthy summaries of the respective toyline's backstory (and, in the case of Armada, a description of the Mini-Con gimmick) in all three languages. Instead, kids were instructed to go to the Transformers.com website, where they were supposed to find bios for the characters. Unfortunastely, aside from being only in English at that time, the website was not very frequently updated, which resulted in many a toy's bio only being added months after it had already been released at retail, if at all. With the launch of the Cybertron line in 2005, full on-packaging bios made a return, not just for the English-only packaging used for the United States, but also for the trilingual Canadian/Latin American packaging. The Alternators line, meanwhile, still didn't get bios, although the second assortment launched in 2005 introduced a redesigned packaging that now featured mottos that were translated fo the trilingual packaging version. With subsequent lines, Hasbro realized that trying to put three times as much text on a packaging of the same dimensions (especially on Deluxe and smaller-sized figures) would result in having extremely tiny (and therefore, pretty much impossible to read) text, and thus tried to come up with other options to make the information from the English-only packaging available to non-US customers. Some toys therefore instead feature cross-sells on the back of their packaging, while other features such as tech specs, bios, quotes, stock photography etc. are moved either to the back of the instructions (Animated) or in a separate flyer inside the packaging (Universe).
• The requirement for multiple languages also leads to unfortunate omissions of pack-in material for the non-US markets, such as the comic reprints from the 2008 Universe comic two-packs and the Thrilling 30 and Combiner Wars Deluxe Class figures, or the DVD from 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime. This even leads to modifications of the toys themselves: In general, electronic toys that feature sound chips that contain voice clips will often differ between markets: The versions sold in English-only packaging in the United States will often say full sentences in English, while all their international counterparts sold in any type of multilingual packaging will typically have their voice chips modified so they only say their names. (Ironically, this includes toys released in the United Kingdom).
• In addition, trilingual packaging occasionally features odd errors, such as the packaging for all of the 2007 Transformers movie toyline's Scout Class figures sporting Autobot insignias on the packaging, regardless of which faction insignia the toy itself featured. Also, the cardbacks for the first three waves of Universe toyline's Deluxe Class figures only depict the character art of one "representative" toy per wave (Wave 1: Sunstreaker, Wave 2: Acid Storm, Wave 3: Ironhide) on the front of the card, regardless of which toy actually was in the packaging. (The artwork on the side of the bubble is correct, though.) Individual character art for the Deluxe Class figures was finally used beginning with wave 4. The trilingual packaging versions of the Voyager Class toys, meanwhile, feature no character artwork on the front of the box at all. This was repeated with the Generations Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class figures, which not only omitted the pack-in comics, but used a sticker featuring the package art for Orion Pax for the first two waves (subsequent waves use the correct package art for each figure).

Multilingual packaging in Europe

Just three languages? Europe should be so lucky.

In Europe, multilingual packaging goes back all the way to a European release of the Pre-Transformers line Diaclone by Takara licensee Joustra (with the packaging being in French, Dutch and German). European Transformers packaging has seen a plethora of different combinations, with various languages being added and dropped again at different times, multiple versions coexisting, all European packaging being merged into one single version in 2001, and more languages being added and then later dropped again. European packaging was eventually merged with American multilingual packaging into one worldwide packaging type in 2019.

In detail:

• 1985: German, French, Dutch and Spanish. When Hasbro subsidiary Milton Bradley started distributing the original Transformers toyline in mainland Europe (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Denmark) in 1985, the packaging sported four languages, namely German, French, Dutch and Spanish.
• 1986: English, French, Dutch and Spanish. For unkown reasons, the packaging dropped German texts in favor of English, even though the United Kingdom continued to get toys in plain English-only packaging. At the same time, the "MB" logo on the packaging was replaced by Hasbro's own logo, even though the local Milton Bradley branches still handled the distribution, and some of them weren't officially renamed into "Hasbro" until years later.
• 1987-1993: French and Dutch. The formerly quadlingual packaging dropped both English and Spanish, comntinuing as bilingual French/Dutch up until 1993.
• 1992-1993: English and Spanish. After Spanish-only packaging had been introduced in 1990, it was merged with the English-only packaging the UK had previously gotten, thus continuing as bilingual English/Spanish for two years. It was during that time that many toys that were never officially available in the the United States were released in Europe, such as the Turbomasters and Predators.
• 1994-1995: English, Spanish and Portuguese. With the launch of the European version of the Generation 2 toyline, Portuguese was added to the previously bilingual English/Spanish packaging version, thus making it trilingual.
• 1994-2000: French, Dutch and German. At the same time, German was added to the previously bilingual French/Dutch packaging version, thus making it trilingual as well. This language combination lasted throughout the Beast Wars and Beast Machines lines.
• 1996-2000: English, Spanish and Italian. With the launch of the Beast Wars line, Portuguese was dropped again from the packaging version that featured English and Spanish, replacing it with Italian instead. Italian Hasbro licensee GiG, which had previously released Transformers toys in their own, Italian-only packaging, had its logo featured on the back of the packaging for the first two years, but was eventually phased out in favor of a newly-formed Italian Hasbro subsidiary in 1998. This language combination also lasted throughout the Beast Wars and Beast Machines lines.
• 2001-2002: English, French, Dutch and German. With the launch of the 2001 Robots in Disguise line, both remaining European packaging versions were merged into a single version featuring four languages, dropping Spanish and Italian in the process.
• 2002-2005: English, French, Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish. With the launch of the Armada toyline, Italian and Spanish were added back to multilingual European packaging, thus bringing the number of languages up to six.
• 2005-2010: English, French, German,Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Polish and Turkish. With the launch of the Cybertron toyline and with the shift of the red Alternators packaging to the white bubble-style packaging, texts in Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Polish and Turkish were added to European packaging, thus doubling the total number of languages from six to twelve.
• 2011-2014: English, French, German,Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Polish, Turkish and Russian. With the launch of the Transformers: Prime toyline, Russian was added to European packaging, increasing the total number of languages to thirteen, the largest number of languages ever featured on Transformers packaging to date.
• 2014-2019: English, French, German and Spanish. With the launch of the Combiner Wars toyline and the concurrently released Robots in Disguise line at the end of 2014, Hasbro dropped nine languages from European packaging, leaving only four.
• 22019-today: English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese for the entire world. Starting in late 2019 with the War for Cybertron: Siege line's 35th Anniversary subline imprint, continuing with the final waves of each of the line's general retail size class assortments and the Cyberverse line's Battle for Cybertron subline imprint/Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures rebranding, Hasbro merged the two remaining packaging types (American and European) into one worldwide standard format, adding back Portuguese as a fifth language as far as European customers were concerned.

A few exceptions exists:

• The packaging for the European-exclusive 1992 releases of the non-combining versions of the Constructicons and the Rescue Force Were avaialble on language-neutral cardbacks that only featured textless instructions for all team members, and didn't even assign the figures individual names.
• The packaging for the Beast Wars line's European-exclusive VHS pack "Transmetal" redecos of Spittor and Claw Jaw featured the unique trilingual language combination English, German and Italian.

Characteristics and oddities

• While Canadian bilingual packaging for the 1984-onwards figures featured bilingual bios, the use of four languages on European packaging rendered full bios impossible. MB and subsequently Hasbro instead chose to only feature the characters' functions and mottos in all four languages. However, once the packaging became bilingual French/Dutch (and later English/Spanish), Hasbro decided that they could now fit full bios in two languages on the packaging. Although bios still remained on trilingual European Generation 2 packaging, the packaging layout was completely redesigned compared to their American counterparts, and the bios were alternatively heavily truncated, rearranged and/or rewritten from scratch. subsequently, European Beast Wars and Beast Machines packaging completely abandoned character bios in favor of trilingual summaries of the toyline's fictional backstory and a brief trilingual description of the character's function and the toy's features. The summary of the backstory also became increasingly truncated as time went on, and in the case of the 1998 Fuzors and Transmetals, deviated from the US version to varying degrees depending on the language, with the German version even featuring a completely different story (which arguably constitutes its own micro-continuity) that involves "genetic malfunctions" caused by unspecified "alien viruses".
• Beginning with the 1992 Turbomasters and Predators, the names for the individual figures, as well as their subgroups, often differed between English/Spanish and French/Dutch packaging. For example, Thunder Clash was named "Eagle" on French/Dutch packaging, Skyquake became "Crash", the Turbomasters were renamed into "Canon Masters" [sic], the Predators became "Scope Masters", Fearswoop was named "Black Omen" on French/Dutch packaging, and Calcar became "Roadraider". Typically, none of those names from the French/Dutch packaging versions matched the French names from the Canadian packaging for those toys (for example, Thunder Clash's French Canadian name was "Tonnerre", while Skyquake's was "Aéroséisme"). While at least the "English" names typically matched up between Canadian and English/Spanish European packaging, Rotorstorm was particularly weird: English/Spanish packaging called him, well, "Rotorstorm", French/Dutch packaging called him "Storm", and Canadian packaging also called him Storm… in English, while his French Canadian name was "Tempête". With Generation 2, the name differences between the various markets came to a halt, except for a few toys that were previously released in Europe before the official launch of the Generation 2 line, which were given different names for the United States (in some cases, they were reassigned the European names of other figures from the same batch). Beast Wars then brought back name differences: English/Spanish/Italian packaging featured double English/Italian names for most of the line's characters (with Optimus Primal's Italian names being particularly bizarre, starting with "Black Jack" for the Ultra figure, followed by "Metal Gorilla" for the Transmetal version and then "Optimus Primal" for the Optimal Optimus figure), while French/Dutch/German packaging changed the faction name "Predacon" into "Predator" for unknown reasons. With the launch of Beast Machines alternate names came to an end once again.
• Just like Canadian/Latin American Beast Wars, Beast Machines and 2001 Robots in Disguise packaging, European packaging was also given alternate titles: Beast Wars was given the additional title Biocombat for the italian market on English/Spanish/Italian packaging, and the additional title Ani Mutants for the French market on French/Dutch/German packaging; Beast Machines remained unchanged for English/Spanish/Italian packaging but wasgiven the additional tirle Ani Machines for the French market on French/Dutch/German packaging; and Robots in Disguise was given the additional titles Les Robots Mutants for the French market and Getarnte Roboter" for the German market on English/French/Dutch/German packaging.
• With the later waves of Beast Wars, the toys in Biocombat packaging started to include additional instruction sheets in Nordic languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish). The packaging itself did not include nor hint at those additional languages. This practice continued into early waves of Beast Machines with the English/Spanish/Italian packaging, but was abandoned with later waves of Beast Machines.