Uncertain futures?

According to various sources brought to light by Nerf Mods and Reviews, the popular Nerf Alpha Trooper is becoming increasingly difficult to find, and perhaps has been discontinued. This stuns me quite a bit, since it is such a popular blaster and there seemingly is no reason for it's disappearance. Quite a large percentage of this blog's traffic is from searches about the AT.

I'm not sure what the stock levels are like here in Australia, since they are a Target exclusive and haven't been to a Target in ages, however I have noticed that the current stock levels of other blasters in other stores have been pretty sub-standard for a while now, which is more than likely simply due to the long period between the last toy sale and the next. So the whole lack of availability issue with the Alpha Trooper may simply be because of retailers only purchasing what they need to fill space on shelves until the next sale rather than putting much effort in to department that they aren't up-selling. Still, I wouldn't want to see the Alpha Trooper disappear.

In other news, I have discovered that the Urban Taggers blog has been temporarily taken offline due to some unknown legal issues with Hasbro. Updates on the future of the blog can be found on their facebook page. This worries me for two reasons. One: because Urban taggers is one of the very best Nerf-based blog out there, and it would be absolutely horrible to see it go down because of Hasbro's legal crap, and two: because this may effect every other blog that posts anything to do with Hasbro. By extension, this could mean blog authors may need to more closely monitor what they post, and assess whether or not it may land them in hot water too.

Call this a mini rant, if you want, but in my opinion I think it's unfair that Hasbro forced UT to go offline for what I presume is the leaked information on the upcoming Nerf Hailfire. Many sources of media leak information about other company's upcoming products and to be honest I don't see what's so wrong with that, since it builds interest for that product anyway. The way I see it, is if a company is worried about information being leaked early about a product, it's up to that company to guard the information better. Besides, at the end of the day, they're toy guns, and no one should really be taking things seriously and dragging the fun down with legal battles.

End rant, have a good weekend everyone!

Dart Tagging is never supposed to be serious, it's always about fun!