Why don't battle packs come with film-accurate weapons?

[ProvenceTristram]

Now, before you shoot me down with 'because they're meant for children,' consider these two points: 1) it's arguable that the people most concerned with 'army building,' and thus having the money and the will to acquire multiples of these packs, are AFOLs. If I had to guess, the majority of discerning parents - being neither huge Star Wars nor Lego buffs - aren't going to line up to buy many boxes of the same kit, reasoning that little Billy or Sarah already owns it. And 2) if the stud shooters were some kind of massive 'oh my God I've got to have this!!!!!' kid magnet - if their draw was so out of proportion to all other factors, and the need to have projectile weapons created this aether-level of impulse - then why haven't they replaced the traditional weapons in larger (and more expensive) sets?

The fact that I find the blasters completely worthless as a part is almost secondary here to my confusion regarding the weird double standard on their marketing.

Edited November 17, 2016 by ProvenceTristram

[Flandy]

They should come with both. Stud shooters are merely an efficient way to loose studs (later to be found by whomever vacuums).

[Stash2Sixx]

Stud shooters create more playability, I think we can all agree on that, in the target market LEGO goes after. They also look goofy, my opinion, and that makes them less realistic...and we know how LEGO feels about weapons.

If you have too many stud shooters, I understand. I have way too many black megaphones so I feel your pain.

As we are the ones who buy a ton of these figures, either army building or collecting, I always want them to look the best. I'll pick up third party blasters without hesitation. I just sell off my old stud shooters and blasters to pay for them!

[ProvenceTristram]

23 minutes ago, Flandy said:

They should come with both. Stud shooters are merely an efficient way to loose studs (later to be found by whomever vacuums).

Lol. If this forum had a +1 feature, I would have given you one. Definitely. I have shot one - as in single, lone, individual - stud in my lifetime, never to have seen it again. I don't understand what age group this is even supposed to appeal to - loading the weapons is tiresome, they shoot once before requiring a reload, and look like ungainly black hair dryers. I know that 10-year-old me would have found them just as annoying as 30-something-year-old me.

[bootz]

I replace all the stud shooters withthe traditional blasters, but some of you seem quick to forget that for years our blasters were just megaphones. The stud shooters are at least an improvement over that. I do see your point though, if they were such a draw why not replace all the blasters in the larger sets?

[Bardan_Jusik]

I have mixed feelings on stud shooters. On the one hand, I dislike them greatly myself and I know that my kid self would've felt the same. On the other hand, my kid loves them and I do recognize that they do provide more playabiity to kids in general. I guess I'm with Stash2Sixx and just buy third party blasters. The BrickArms E-11 is pretty awesome.

[Japanbuilder]

I also loathe them to bits and hope they include both types really. But as it is that is not looking possible and some sets are already packing stud shooters in place of more accurate moulds (Encounter on Jakku has one and the new Falcon has one for Chewie). 

I end up modifying a few of them into bazooka like weapons but generally I just buy regular blasters in bulk every few months so I always have a stash ready for the impulse battle pack or two I get. The plus side to being an AFOL is having that option I guess =)

My very small kids love the shooters though so I can also see why LEGO packs them in exclusively now. 

[ChiefPie]

The stud shooters are definitely meant for playability. I switch out the stud shooters for the regular blasters. But as I continue to get more battle packs, I will soon have more minifigs and not enough regular blasters. Now, stud shooters can be used in a good way, as in a  turret in walls or a rocket launcher. I'm not a big fan of them.

[brobert]

I don't like the stud-shooters either - as I don't think any AFOL does - but I think your reasoning for how AFOL-s are more likely to build armies is flawed. Kids like to build armies just as much - or at least I would've loved back in the time - and parents are probably willing to buy them (at least until they feel the pain of stepping on studs ). Let's not forget that LEGO is a toy brand, therefore targeted to children first and foremost, even the UCS-line is moving towards play features rather than satisfying AFOL-s  (but that's another topic alltogether) For us, any kind of projectile weaponry is utterly unnecessary really, they mostly just take away from the appearance of a good model - however designers are getting better and better at concealing the shooters by the day. But with handheld guns there's not much chance for improvement in design...but at least the normal sets come with multiple spare guns mostly, so there's a good secondary market for more realistic guns.

Edited November 18, 2016 by brobert

[Esvald Forceswoop]

I hate the new blaster types too, and it's kinda annoying how they put them into the battlepacks, the origins of most of my army.

Of course they are an improvement from the megaphone weapons, but a step back from the normal weapons we get in other sets. I modified a few of them into grenade launchers, but an army's core isn't supposed to be grenadiers. I would love to get accurate E-11's and DC-15's instead.

[gotoAndLego]

Is there nothing in here?

http://www.brickarms.com/scifi.php

[dr_spock]

I like the stud shooters.  They're more fun than flick fire missiles.  Also work better for target practice than pew-pew with megaphones.

Day 036 of 365: Stud Shooters by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

There are after-market sources for more realistic weapons if needed for your MOCs.

 

[RetroInferno]

I wouldn't have a problem with it if the after market price for these things wasn't so expensive: you either pay 0.50 cents each for a black medium blaster on bricklink, or 1$ each gun with Brickarms ( I heard they have an amazing quality but never purchased from them, but some purists don't like using thrid party in their display or MOCs ). And I'm not talking about shipping prices. 

Lego is expensive as it is, and stud shooter, as I imagine, cost a lot more to manufacture than a standard blaster, even though they sell a cent a piece. That's saying a lot of on offer and demand. I would really appreciate if they could include a blaster for each stud shooter in Battle packs. Don't remove them stud shooters, just add an alternative. 

[Cult_Of_Skaro]

More like 4 cents each on bricklink. Even if you absolutely must have 'new,' the average is closer to 40 cents.

[ProvenceTristram]

6 hours ago, RetroInferno said:

I wouldn't have a problem with it if the after market price for these things wasn't so expensive: you either pay 0.50 cents each for a black medium blaster on bricklink, or 1$ each gun with Brickarms ( I heard they have an amazing quality but never purchased from them, but some purists don't like using thrid party in their display or MOCs ). And I'm not talking about shipping prices. 

That would be me. I appreciate Brickarms and the others for their customs, and do not question the quality. But I hate even painting Legos, much less swapping out parts.

[Calanon]

To be honest, when they started adding the stud blasters I was quite surprised they didn't have the old blasters as well. It would definitely have alleviated many people's issues and best of both worlds. I did end up going to Brickarms in the end so I could properly distinguish units, but it would be nice if in battlepacks they had both options.

[mon-o-mat]

I don not see how they add much play-value. Using them with clumsy kid-fingers seems to be quite hard(It is for my clumsy adult-fingers). Then you only have one stud that will not go where you aimed and after shooting you have to get it from under the couch. I remember that when I was younger I never really liked vehicles that only had rockets and no guns out of that reason.

[fred67]

On 11/18/2016 at 8:50 AM, brobert said:

I don't like the stud-shooters either - as I don't think any AFOL does - but I think your reasoning for how AFOL-s are more likely to build armies is flawed. Kids like to build armies just as much - or at least I would've loved back in the time - and parents are probably willing to buy them (at least until they feel the pain of stepping on studs ).

I will disagree with you that kids are the more likely army builders.  Even if the parents are willing to by multiples, it'd be very unlikely they'd get the quantity that an AFOL army builder would get.

However, I do think that, while the point of LEGO being a toy is not lost on AFOLs, that some of them tend to lose sight - for every 100 figures you buy for your army, there's hundreds, if not thousands of kids getting a few.  No matter how you shake it, AFOLs are not the driving force of ANY LEGO sales, we're still just along for the ride.

[RetroInferno]

A driving force? Of course not. But they don't want so lose AFOL that's for sure; Architecture, Most UCS sets, large Technic sets and Ideas are very much aimed at a mature audience. 

We are not their main target audience but for a kid's toys we sure get a lot of attention, unlike other companies in the domain. 

[firefox]

I hate stud shooters for minfigs.

They are okay for some vehicules.

[brobert]

16 hours ago, fred67 said:

I will disagree with you that kids are the more likely army builders.  Even if the parents are willing to by multiples, it'd be very unlikely they'd get the quantity that an AFOL army builder would get.

However, I do think that, while the point of LEGO being a toy is not lost on AFOLs, that some of them tend to lose sight - for every 100 figures you buy for your army, there's hundreds, if not thousands of kids getting a few.  No matter how you shake it, AFOLs are not the driving force of ANY LEGO sales, we're still just along for the ride.

Yeah you get my point, however, I never said that kids are more likely army builders, I said they are just as likely to be into that stuff. But you're right about the amount. The "craziness" of an AFOL collector cannot be matched by a puny child 

[Flandy]

However you look at it, it would add fractions of of a Dollar/Pound/Euro to the cost of a set for lego to include a few regular weapons.

[ProvenceTristram]

15 minutes ago, Flandy said:

However you look at it, it would add fractions of of a Dollar/Pound/Euro to the cost of a set for lego to include a few regular weapons.

Which makes me think this is some kind of a pushback against "guns" internally... although how they then turn around and arm the figures in the larger sets with "military style" weaponry is beyond me. Frankly, if you have that big a problem with violence, Star Wars probably isn't your thing in general... people are constantly getting limbs lopped off, stormies die by the hundreds, imperials are killed by the millions in space battles, whole planets are wiped out - there's a lot of friggin' death! So for Lego to be making a policy push on the same front as marketing a giant space globe that sends billions of innocents to the grave seems sort of ill conceived at best. 

Edited November 29, 2016 by ProvenceTristram

[dr_spock]

The stud shooters are also used in other themes like CITY, etc.  It's not a licensed piece that is specific to one theme.  There is some economy of scale and better ROI for that part and mold versus blasters.

Perhaps AFOLs can try to engage Disney to force LEGO to put in normal blasters as a term and condition in their Star War licensing agreement. Convince Disney that stud shooters are hurting the SW branding. 

 

[broomhandle]