I was just browsing the store looking at the Star line from YYF (protostar, northstar, etc.) when I noticed something. They all look strikingly like my old Hectic. Its the same basic shape but the Star’s are more angled toward the gap. Don’t get me wrong they all rock it’s just an observation I made. Thoughts?
Many people always attack yyf for reusing the same shapes over and over. I, for one, love the fact that I don’t have to be limited to just one yoyo. I love the Star profile, look at all the options. Everything from completely undersized to oversized.
Not to mention all the yoyos that stem from the Genesis
I am by no means attacking YYF. I have played most of the stars (i personally like the protostar) and they all have unique traits to suit almost any player. I love the profile and the fact that they offer so many options. I just noticed how similar the hectic was and found it interesting at best. I love YYF and their products.
As far as the things coming from the genesis the 2.0 looks like it did and I REALLY wanna get my grubby little hands on one of those.
I have nothing against re-using shapes.
The Northstar and Protostar seem to essentially be different weights of the same thing.
The DieNasty, Whip and PGM that I have all seem to basically use the same shape.
Let’s face it, how much variety can there be? Granted, there can be a lot, but sometimes it’s best to let other companies experiment.
They run out of ideas for shapes, so they just take that same shape, and make a slightly different yoyo out of it.
Yes g-funk, super g, genesis, hubstavk genesis and i might be missing one
The Avant Garde has a cool unique shape.
Yyf can produce a high amount of yoyos at one time so they produce different yoyos for everyone’s preference in weight, size, shape, and color
I think that its great how they offer so much variety
they reuse shapes so often because molds are expensive. yyj uses the same mold too, but they change up the rims.
Rockstar 2012 and Catalyst if you’re considering the hub area, but only that.
Don’t even get us started on that again.
The YYF production line makes it look like YYF are looking for something great, and just releasing every prototype on the way, not necessarily a bad idea.
Personally, I think that is YoYoFactory’s weak point. YoYoFactory is one of, if not the best at mass producing quality yoyos. However, I think that their designs are not as varied and unique as companies like YoyoJam.
Copied from Takuto’s Auldey L4…
Thats what I was going to say so really not unique one bit.
When a yoyo is designed it then enters the public realm. At this stage, everyone else who is making yoyos is influenced either consciously of subconsciously by its design. It may be in a positive way or even in an opposite way.
Design wise YoYofactory began playing with shapes for the first time with the 401k. It wasn’t revolutionary shape wise but it was memorable. Ironically it was the PPK variant (200 pieces produced) which was bootlegged by the thousand 
The G5 was YoYoFactory’s first big ‘shape’. The Envy pictures were released around the same time with a good name for their take on the design concept and ‘H-shape’ stuck. For Us however it was always a stepped profile, and something we continued to make a design element, even if it was purely cosmetic, in our newer models (888, Grind Machine 2, Genesis, Skyline, superstar… etc). This stepped profile is now used by many other companies. In fact take the Avant Garde, remove the overhang, it is just another stepped profile.
Protostar was born out of necessity. The shape allows the weight to be distributed in an extreme number of locations in the yoyo, it is wide but it allows rim weight to be centered or pushed to the rim offering wide variety of performance characteristics. We certainly see its design influences in a number of other manufacturers products too.
Our own designs are certainly where we base a lot of our development.
G5-G5+,GM2-888-Skyline-PGM-whip (with many others in the middle)
protostar-rockstar-popstar… and no, the design chain is not finished on either of these.
One of the chains which is interesting (to me anyway) is based on the High wall 888s (2007) which were the first time ‘wall’ as a concept was discussed. From here we went to zero wall (Catch 22) and many others (most notably Kentaro) introduced the bump away from the pad to reduce ‘wall’. Its also a design concept we have not finished developing and again, the Avant Garde is another which could fit in this chain, but certainly is not the final destination.
Players have demands, be they size, weight, material or budget. We certainly try to fill all the demands for our designs rather than need someone else to do it for us.
I love how everybody hates on YYF for using similar shapes on different yo-yos, yet nobody ever talks smack on YoYoRecreation who use the EXACT SAME SHAPE ON EVERY YOYO.
and just remember THEY’RE TOYS, SO STOP COMPLAINING AND GO PLAY
Lol thats a good point. I really love YYF, they’re my first good yo-yo. I do agree with ThePants. but the difference if that YYF is a key player in the yo-yo community, where as YYR is kind of new (newerish) so with that people focus on the bigger company because they cast a larger shadow. quite frankly it just comes down to what plays the best
im certainly fine with having choices… ;D
options benefit everyone
“if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
The YYF products have been proven to work, so there is no reason to change. For example, the g5 made the step-hshapes popular. The genesis was, and still is, a very good yoyo, even though it was the g5 shape. Also, like other people have stated, all the yyr products are very similar. Some have rounded instead of sharp edges, but are still mostly the same there really is no reason to change it, so they don’t. It is also much easier if you use similar shapes. It means less prototyping and more money it the final production