High Moon Studios pitched the project to Hasbro by sliding a picture of their depiction of Bumblebee across the table during a conference and saying "What do you think?". However, while they were seemingly confident in their more "adult and realistic" take on the franchise, internally for them it was extremely nerve-racking with Jim Daley (Lead Designer) saying it was like "George Lucas looking at [someone] redesigning Luke Skywalker". Hasbro as it turns out really liked the idea and were excited to see the intense Cybertronian war fleshed out more.