The Full Form of BTR is Built To Rule

Hasbro’s first attempt at capturing some of the “construction block” market pie, 2003’s Built to Rule! line attempted to blend the play patterns of some of Hasbro’s top brands with Lego-compatible brick-based construction. For the G.I. Joe and Tonka sets, this meant buildable vehicles with “traditional” brick-compatible action figure pilots. For Transformers, this meant building the robot and vehicle modes around a generic transforming core.

One of these concepts worked far better than the other. Guess which one.

Virtually every set also included some other action gimmick, usually a spring-loaded missile launcher, but electronics and gear-systems also made their way into later sets.

The line was incredibly short-lived, lasting barely a year at normal retail. The second series of Transformers sets only had a limited, test-market release initially in and around Cincinnati, Ohio. The sets later filtered out into some Tuesday Morning, Ollie’s, and TJ Maxx chain stores at drastically dropped prices. (It is uncertain if the second-series Joe sets shared a similar fate, but it’s highly likely. Tonka was dropped from the lineup after the first series.)

Despite this failure, Hasbro would try their hand again at the construction-block market a few years down the road with the more traditional, and more successful, Kre-O.