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Gold Plastic Syndrome (commonly shorthanded to GPS) is fandom terminology used to describe the phenomenon of a toy's plastic decomposing and becoming brittle to the point of shattering or crumbling under minimal-stress conditions. In the most extreme cases, toys have been reported to spontaneously crumble to small bits without any applied force at all, even if they're fresh out of their unopened package.
This breakage is different from the relatively more common stress-fracture type of plastic breakage that can occur in some Transformers toys. The condition takes its name from the gold plastics of late Generation 1 through to Beast Wars, that have proved the most prone to this sort of breakage. However, despite the name, Gold Plastic Syndrome has been known to affect other types of plastic—most of them noted for a pretty metallic swirl in the plastic.
