The position and future of Friends and minidolls in Lego?

[El Garfio]

Due to the repetitive use of the same minidolls, better include two wigs into CMF bags o copy Playmobil and create a hairdressing set with a lot of wigs.

[Mooch]

Due to the repetitive use of the same minidolls, better include two wigs into CMF bags o copy Playmobil and create a hairdressing set with a lot of wigs.

Or they could make new minidolls ;)

[El Garfio]

Or they could make new minidolls ;)

I wish it, but seeing that the side characters are a combination of the Girls face with other wigs...

[Aanchir]

I wish it, but seeing that the side characters are a combination of the Girls face with other wigs...

To be fair, this is probably because reusing simpler faces with neutral expressions is more economical than designing new faces that are more specialized in design or facial expression. A collectible minifigures series has much more of a budget for new parts and decorations than a typical line of sets, so the designs wouldn't have to be borrowed from existing figs or designed with similar reuse in mind.

More faces and facial expressions would definitely be a good thing. And I think that's an evolution in fig design we're going to see in time, just as was the case with the development of alternate faces and expressions for traditional minifigures.

[Dorayaki]

I'd love a CMF Minidoll series - more adults! More clothing! It would be great to market as a 'fashion' line - heck, they wouldn't even need to include a head! We have so so many of the same minidoll - mostly because the 'interests' of the doll align with my daughter's - so we have four Olivia's, for example, and 3 of the exact same Stephanie (plus two in other outfits).

Are you implying "CMD"?

So far Friends are trying to give more kinds of cloth prints, though in the first wave there were not too many choices. I don't think the City minifigures have enough diversity of clothes and hairpieces besides the police/fire uniforms and caps, too.

What I'd like to see is to include more kinds of different characters that can fit in a Heartlake canon. There had been a teacher and a waitress, but the others are mostly teenage girls with some boys. I'd love to see adults of different careers that can create stories (eg, the mayor and the karate sensei from cartoon), or babies and kids that allow girls to babysit.

To be fair, this is probably because reusing simpler faces with neutral expressions is more economical than designing new faces that are more specialized in design or facial expression. A collectible minifigures series has much more of a budget for new parts and decorations than a typical line of sets, so the designs wouldn't have to be borrowed from existing figs or designed with similar reuse in mind.

More faces and facial expressions would definitely be a good thing. And I think that's an evolution in fig design we're going to see in time, just as was the case with the development of alternate faces and expressions for traditional minifigures.

I still don't think there are enough amount of face and expression designs that allow little consumers to create their own generic minidoll (while minifigures have enough materials that allow AFOLs to MOC), though they can obtain hairpieces from minifigure lines. For main characters, I think they should have different expressions in different sets just like licensed characters.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Dorayaki

[Gryphon Ink]

Is anyone noticing that Lego Friends is completely cleared out in the stores around you?

I even went to Lego Shop at Home and all of the sets are Out of Stock!

Yup, completely empty Friends shelves here. It's kind of funny, when I went to Target a few days ago I thought they must have moved Friends to a different aisle or something. Then I realised that the great big empty section was where Friends was supposed to be. All that was left was the display case.

Good thing I already bought the sets I wanted to get my girls for Christmas. I'm hoping my wife did the same for my Christmas Lego.

[Dorayaki]

You know when a theme works when Chinese knock-off's start appearing......link to the clone images....http://www.aliexpres...1373733704.html

Hate to be Chinese, cause there are so many shameless Chinese copy cats.

Anyway, I regard myself as a Hongkonger.

Well, this Chinese company is nothing more than a copycat. They've also cloned the Superhero minifigures.

http://www.aliexpres...1455440345.html

http://www.aliexpres...1345055213.html

One good thing of being a Chinese-oriented Taiwanese is, you don't have to deal with the fakes from China. Uh, though there are sometimes original China brick brand toys appear in local 7-11.

If we have to find positive examples for Chinese brick brand, here is one:

http://www.taobao.co...t/小魯班-粉色夢想.html

While this company Sluban have copied some Lego products, they also own some original themes: Military, Three Kingdom and this Dream series.

I don't think the buildings are better than Lego's Friends. These products are obviously girlier than Lego Paradisa and Friends (the amount of pink bricks are very horrible, honestly), but they still become part of their brand without any problem. Regardless of the terrible faces and hair, the skirt design is also an interesting part.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Dorayaki

[El Garfio]

Look at this:

Friends in Duplo size

[LukeWarmTea]

Actually this: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=18920731579 is kinda awesome. The Friends camper has been remade into a news van for this wave, but it so could have just as easily been a food truck - and how great would that be?!

[Dorayaki]

Look at this:

Friends in Duplo size

Nothing to discuss with this topic I think.... deteriorated copycat.

.

Actually this: http://item.taobao.c...?id=18920731579 is kinda awesome. The Friends camper has been remade into a news van for this wave, but it so could have just as easily been a food truck - and how great would that be?!

There is going to be a new ice cream truck for Lego Movie (and there was one for Joker). A truck that sells lunch and sandwiches would be neat for both City and Friends. I'm not really sure of the news van since it possibly fits in a City theme more.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Dorayaki

[Dorayaki]

The new "For Young Builders" sets are intended to be transitional between Duplo and System, same as previous series like 4+, Jack Stone, and of course the beloved classic Fabuland. Of course, they are set apart from those in that they use standard minifigures and aren't as heavily stylized as Fabuland (which had a cutesy cartoon aesthetic) or Jack Stone (which went in an exaggeratedly streamlined, almost sci-fi direction).

And some LEGO Friends sets DO skew younger than a lot of Star Wars and Super Heroes sets, but the same can be said of City. The simplest City and Friends sets tend to be recommended for ages 5–12, while the simplest Star Wars sets tend to be recommended for ages 6–12.

I'm actually alittle curious about how the Juniour/Young Builder sets work (including some pink boxes). Those sets are obviously targeted at young starter girls, but TLG, who thought Friends can do a better job in appealing more girls, didn't make any Friends starter set in their plans,

If the pinky starter sets work, I don't see why TLG can't add such kind of things to regular City or Castle sets. (eg, a pink bedroom for the princess in King's Castle

Obviously 4+ didn't target at starter girls. This theme is composed of typical action and police elements as they usually do, while Tina, the only female 4+ character was included in Creator sets. Belville was the theme for girls, but was it able to be for starters?

Edited December 28, 2013 by Dorayaki

[El Garfio]

I don't know the reason of the new young builder sets for girls.

Some of the Disney Princess sets are built with pieces bigger than the ones these sets include.

I have a lot of doubts about that because:

- TLG has redesigned the cover of the pink suit case from young builder to juniors brand.

- The princess playcastle is an update of My first LEGO princess (discontinued after only one year in catalog).

- I have bought the Pink brick box with a hard discount (also discontinued in 2014).

That means that pink brick and more sets has no relevant sales. Why? Maybe girls hate minifigs, maybe due to Friends success,..

I think there are a big group of girls that buy Friends but are not builders. They are attracted by Heartlake City world due to the TV serie and some roles that they can identified with. They assemble the sets because they have no option (the toys of other brands need assembling also, even not being a building bricks toy) but are not interested into rebuild or MOD the sets. And due to it, they only use the sets as playsets.

Answering to Dorayaki: Other toys manufacturers launch some extension sets. I think it could be something that TLG should have in mind. Some sets that could have sense individually but that could be attached to other main sets from city or castle.

[Legoist]

Nice thread!

Our 6yo daughter is becoming a fan of Friends, she has something like 5-6 small sets. We've talked about minifigs vs minidolls before, and after reading this thread I briefly interviewed her again on the topic before posting :)

She says she prefers minidolls first and foremost because they look more real. She spontaneously mentioned a specific issue she has with feet: she says she likes how minidolls show skirts & trousers design as well as shoes, while minifigs normally have one-colours legs without shoes. She also likes that minidolls have names. OTOH, she doesn't seem to think models or colours to be a reason for her preferring Friends sets to City or Creator sets, in general she simply favors houses, plus anything that has to do with animals.

As for me, I largely prefer minifigs hands down. Minidolls cannot walk and cannot sit. As an AFOL I am interested in building and not in action-playing, although I do that with my children, so in theory I shouldn't care if a character could or could not walk properly, but still... I think movable legs should be fairly easy to make on minidolls too, so I hope for a 2.0 version.

In general, as an AFOL I have always wanted more female minifigs, and at least I'm very happy that 2013-2014 City (and not only) sets have clearly more female characters than before. I also think that in general Friends sets themselves are well done, and since for myself I would buy sets for the bricks rather than the models, I really like they provide interesting and useful parts, unusual colours, and plenty of minifig accessories. It's really just the minidolls I dislike. I would have much preferred Friends to have minifigs and thus be like a re-envisioning of the Paradisa theme.

I think the minifigure is one of the greatest pieces of design in modern culture. It's up there with the Mini, the angle poise lamp and the London Underground map.

I couldn't agree more! :D

But minifigs can still be improved without changing their shape at all. With reference to my own daughter's comments:

- feature printed shoes (or at least different colour at the legs' end) more often

- give a name to each minifig in a set

[emilstorm]

In my opinion the friends theme is brilliant. The way I see it, anything that brings new costumers in is a win for all of us. I would never buy it for myself, this also goes for things as Ninjago, superheroes and Bionicle, but the fact that those themes sell like crazy keeps the business going, gives us new parts and colors, and in the end I always end up buying a set or two just to check it out or get specific new parts. It is stuff like this, and off course mainly licensed themes and video games, that got Lego out of its crisis and back on track, to the point where they are now the worlds second largest toy company.

I would also rather see my own daughter play with Lego Friends than Barbie. She is not even born yet but I already got her some Duplo's, in fact the other day my wife asked if I would buy her the "Lego cruise set"( the Friends set with the big boat :)). Lego is a great toy for children development ( creativity, motors kills etc.), and I think girls should not miss out on this, just because Barbie and Hello Kitty are "more pink".

Plus I can now do all my Christmas shopping for my nieces and nephews in one shop :)

[Dorayaki]

- TLG has redesigned the cover of the pink suit case from young builder to juniors brand.

- The princess playcastle is an update of My first LEGO princess (discontinued after only one year in catalog).

- I have bought the Pink brick box with a hard discount (also discontinued in 2014).

That means that pink brick and more sets has no relevant sales. Why? Maybe girls hate minifigs, maybe due to Friends success,..

I think there are a big group of girls that buy Friends but are not builders. They are attracted by Heartlake City world due to the TV serie and some roles that they can identified with. They assemble the sets because they have no option (the toys of other brands need assembling also, even not being a building bricks toy) but are not interested into rebuild or MOD the sets. And due to it, they only use the sets as playsets.

I'm not sure whether girls' natural building ablility is better or worse than boys, but I can say that Ninjago and Chima are more like a TV animation commercial product. Friends only have several short episodes and special long stories that show how the physical products relate to the girls in Heartlake City. I hope that TLG can come up more new stories for Friends, though sadly in theory their story wouldn't be as long as action themes.

Friends is to be a different kind of "Lego City", and the theme still has generic elements as same as City. I think the story of five protagonists is simply a showcase to tell little consumers about how can we develop own interests and personalities instead of being bounded by stereotypes.

I'm not sure the princess from the starter sets works very well. For adults, these minifigures are no new design or new part, and I'm not sure girls would be interested in such kind of a "generic princess". Uh, other police officers and knights are also nothing new, but they're just what they in the regular sets, while "Princess" isn't an important role element Lego System Castle (though there have been some princess minifigures). At least I want to see a really distinctive minifigure princess design that is able to attract girls.

Edited January 2, 2014 by Dorayaki

[El Garfio]

When I say that a lot of girls are not builders I don't talk about skills, I talk about the approach or the way they use the sets.

When I was young I took out my bricks for building something (a car, a boat, a house,...) sometime I created a master piece and other a bunch of ugly assembled bricks. I passed hours and hours building. More than the ones I spent inventing stories/playing with my creations.

Seeing the new sets I understand why TLG has renamend Young builders to Junior (because there is no place for new creations with sets composed with that huge pieces and only few basic bricks.

Maybe a lot of boys that buy LEGO are also not builders and buy them as playsets (city, ninjago, chima,...) or as collective (LOTR, SuperHeroes, Star Wars,...) but in girls the number of not builders is more relevant.

As Legoist said, most of the girls want figures with names and a bio to be identified with. They assemble the set and play with it as an scenario, making no MOD or only time to time.

[Dorayaki]

Nice thread!

Our 6yo daughter is becoming a fan of Friends, she has something like 5-6 small sets. We've talked about minifigs vs minidolls before, and after reading this thread I briefly interviewed her again on the topic before posting :)

She says she prefers minidolls first and foremost because they look more real. She spontaneously mentioned a specific issue she has with feet: she says she likes how minidolls show skirts & trousers design as well as shoes, while minifigs normally have one-colours legs without shoes. She also likes that minidolls have names. OTOH, she doesn't seem to think models or colours to be a reason for her preferring Friends sets to City or Creator sets, in general she simply favors houses, plus anything that has to do with animals.

As for me, I largely prefer minifigs hands down. Minidolls cannot walk and cannot sit. As an AFOL I am interested in building and not in action-playing, although I do that with my children, so in theory I shouldn't care if a character could or could not walk properly, but still... I think movable legs should be fairly easy to make on minidolls too, so I hope for a 2.0 version.

In general, as an AFOL I have always wanted more female minifigs, and at least I'm very happy that 2013-2014 City (and not only) sets have clearly more female characters than before. I also think that in general Friends sets themselves are well done, and since for myself I would buy sets for the bricks rather than the models, I really like they provide interesting and useful parts, unusual colours, and plenty of minifig accessories. It's really just the minidolls I dislike. I would have much preferred Friends to have minifigs and thus be like a re-envisioning of the Paradisa theme.

But minifigs can still be improved without changing their shape at all. With reference to my own daughter's comments:

- feature printed shoes (or at least different colour at the legs' end) more often

- give a name to each minifig in a set

Very interesting and useful report. I think you're a very typical case that TLC think what most consumers are: AFOLs love minifigures but young girls love minidolls more. Adults can ignore the shape and just focus on the design or print, while younger girls also focus on shape.

Now more and more minifigures have printed shoes (even though that doesn't mean your daughter would love them), and it's owed to the growth of printing technology. Maybe after a decade we can hardly see more non-printed legs.

As for names, it's actually happening in many other themes. The Chima warriors (Lennox, Ewar) and The Lego Move citizens (Cardio, Sharon) are given a specific name but have little to do with the main story. (but again, that doesn't mean your kid would love them more than Friends) In the past, usually generic minifigures are not given names because there are over hundreds of them being created every year, or TLC weren't able to produce specific characters in early years. Also TLG should leave consumers some room for naming or creating MOCs. I think there are still some girls who want to create their own MOC minidoll character and gives it a name.

The reason why TLC name each generic Friends character could be that their combinations of faces and elements are limited, so they need to give each combination a name. Also girls enjoy a story canon more than boys who play City.

You may check my signature below if you're interested in Friends having minifigs.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Dorayaki

[RCS]

All three of my daughters love the Friends line and I think we have just about every set released before Christmas. My oldest (10) got the Dolphin Cruiser. I was pleased that it was a top toy and that moM and dad were smart enough to have purchased it in November. :)

My daughters like building the sets but they don't take them apart. They are used as playsets for the dolls that they can build on their own. I think the minidoll size was brilliant because they are about the same size as many of the other dolls my daughters have and the playsets that accompany them. There is opportunity to have cross play with other non LEGO toys.

My daughters did play with LEGO before Friends, but they were short periods of building something then putting them away. Now they desire new sets that get released and they are played with after they are built.

One of the education subjects that comes up nowadays is how to get girls interested in engineering. I think the Friends line is one of those things that was needed to start bridging that gap. It is classic LEGO play style with figures that the girls recognize as a doll and not an action figure. While I'm all for gender equality I'm not sensitive to needing many gender neutral toys. Boys and girls just naturally like the things they like, so why not cater to that?

[Dorayaki]

One of the education subjects that comes up nowadays is how to get girls interested in engineering. I think the Friends line is one of those things that was needed to start bridging that gap. It is classic LEGO play style with figures that the girls recognize as a doll and not an action figure. While I'm all for gender equality I'm not sensitive to needing many gender neutral toys. Boys and girls just naturally like the things they like, so why not cater to that?

Sorry, I disagree with 90% of your comment or maybe your viewpoint is different. The topic never said that we should force all targeted consumers to love certain product (like asking all Hot Wheels lovers to play Barbie and throw mini cars into trash can). The part I agree with you is that Friends is an entrance that can more easily introduce construction toys to girls, which is a very good thing.

This topic is about how TLC define "Friends". In the actual needs of the Lego system, Friends represent a "theme", not a seperate toy "line". Consumers can buy "Friends" but they won't forget they're playing "Lego" at the same time. We all know that Lego System toys can integrate with each other, even they're from different themes. And for those who get a Friend product as the very first toy in their life, they can also diversify their own town by getting sets of other themes. However I don't think TLC have done enough job to spread this idea for Friends (while in The Lego Movie, we can see Lego City and Batman together).

As a viewpoint of parent, you may encourage your kids to get what they like. I respect you or your kids' choice and interests, since even not all KFOL boys buy Lego action theme products. Still, we can only say that girls are the major target of Lego Friends, but not all girls should naturally love dolls or Lego Friends and don't touch other things. That's all I can say.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Dorayaki

[RCS]

I understand what you are saying.

I hope to see male figures introduced as part of the Friends line. It looks like that is already planned for this year. To me, Friends was an experiment and it has been successful. I am interested to see where TLG goes with it now. I'd like to see male figures listed as the 'main' character on a few sets to see how they sell, and a more varied color scheme. Then we will start to figure out what the real driver for the customer is. Was it the minidolls and pink/purple parts, or the concept as a whole?

[Sarah]

As a viewpoint of parent, you may encourage your kids to get what they like. I respect you or your kids' choice and interests, since even not all KFOL boys buy Lego action theme products. Still, we can only say that girls are the major target of Lego Friends, but not all girls should naturally love dolls or Lego Friends and don't touch other things. That's all I can say.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.

Of course not all girls love dolls and Lego friends, etc.

Not all boys love cars and shooting things up either. (There are even boys who -gasp- don't like Legos.) But does that need to be said to be sure everyone is on the same page?

I look back at the way I played with Legos, lo these many years ago (I got into Legos in the late 1970s) And I would have LOVED Friends. I managed with what was available. and eventually my interest petered out. I got into Lego because of Farm, Kitchen, Bathroom. Building a set from the instructions. Trying to figure out how to make the alternate pictures on the boxes. But most of what I did afterward was play with the figures in that scene. I had so much fun, it propelled me into other Legos -- Space Ships, Fire Stations, etc. But evidently there was not as much play value in those sets for me because my interest flagged. I've come back to Lego here and there over the years. But there are long years of not doing anything.

And one of the main things I DID with the minifigures as a kid? I incorporated them with my Barbie play as the little kids everyone took care of. I incorporated them with my Dollhouse play to have MANY more people to play with. I wrote up individual tiny sheets of paper on every minifigure -- giving each a name, a birthday, and some information about what they liked/didn't like to set them apart from each other. Which are all things that now happen in Friends, as well as being able to play in the sets with your dolls. I think my interest in Lego would not have waned as it did if I had a constant infusion of new playsets to build like this.

Lego is great because you can modify your sets and customize them. But I've not yet found the "bug" to invent it all myself.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Sarah

[LukeWarmTea]

These last few posts have been great reading. I've always been into Lego and was always a 'builder' - I don't remember minifigs holding much sway for me, it was always the construction, the repeated disassembly and new creation that did it for me. However, once I moved away from the Basic bricks (and Town) and into themed sets, there was a bit more role play (I had Robin Hood and his merry men) but building really still rang my bell. This all changed of course, with Bellville. I only had two sets and I was overwhelmingly disappointed with the lack of any kind of building, but the highly poseable figures booted out my old fashioned wooden ones from their dollhouse - and they still live there, happily ever after.

I do agree though, that in general, girls aren't like me. They want the narrative, the reason behind the building. And my daughter is one of them. So completely unbelievable obsessed with pretend play! Like me she has been raised in a home without gender biases being reinforced, she opts to wear 'boys clothes' (dark blues, dinosaurs, red cars etc) and generally would be described as a tomboy - with a small City collection under her belt. Then for her 5th birthday she gets given Olivia's Treehouse, and the whole world flipped on it's head. She LOVES Friends. She reenacts the few Friends episodes she's seen and creates hundreds of her own, real world stories. She still builds, but she builds with purpose - the Pet Shop became a Vet, and then when she needed an airport for one of her stories the Vet became an airport terminal. A lot of what she 'builds' is really decorating, covering everything in 1x1 round plates. It's kinda fascinating.

But back to the topic of the minidoll, here we have an interesting study - currently (and not surprisingly) we have only female minidolls, and lots of male or generic minifigs. So minifigs became men (and old people!) and minidolls are women. I picked up a few more female figs that I thought would appeal to her (CMF older cat lady and scientist, ambulance driver and firefighter) but they've largely been discarded or used as 'grandma'. They really just don't appeal as much. Her favourite figure is a minifig, a male called 'Mike the big brother'. What I'm keen to know is, if she gets (somehow!) a male minidoll, would that replace the male minifig for her? Will it integrate, or dominate? I can't wait to find out!

[Dorayaki]

I would also rather see my own daughter play with Lego Friends than Barbie. She is not even born yet but I already got her some Duplo's, in fact the other day my wife asked if I would buy her the "Lego cruise set"( the Friends set with the big boat :)). Lego is a great toy for children development ( creativity, motors kills etc.), and I think girls should not miss out on this, just because Barbie and Hello Kitty are "more pink".

It's nice that Friends provide many different light colors that can bring greate visual combination and also do good to MOCs, not just lots of horrible pink (like the fake toy picture showed above) Well, Barbie and Kitty products do have other colors, though they're famous for magenta and pink. I believe many fathers who were KFOLs would also happy to see daughters playing Lego in the same way.

[Dorayaki]

I understand what you are saying.

I hope to see male figures introduced as part of the Friends line. It looks like that is already planned for this year. To me, Friends was an experiment and it has been successful. I am interested to see where TLG goes with it now. I'd like to see male figures listed as the 'main' character on a few sets to see how they sell, and a more varied color scheme. Then we will start to figure out what the real driver for the customer is. Was it the minidolls and pink/purple parts, or the concept as a whole?

There have been girls-oriented Lego products. but not successful enough. I'm not sure it was meant to be a "revolution" since Friends is the losing part that City could have done better with (female characters, new colors of bricks), but as an independent theme it does work.

I agree the newer male minidolls included in new sets are not that interesting, while girls have at lease a new clother in each set. If we need male recurring characters, it still has to rely on TV animation stories. So far we don't see Jacob or the Heartlake mayor appears in any set (it could be reasonable if the mayor attends the Horse Show).

[ZORK64]

http://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv159/Dorayakichan/Wherearefriends.jpg

I know, I'm probably a bit off-topic with the following, but that was my initial thought seeing this:

To be frank, I have the same thought regarding LEGO's constraction themes, especially Bionicle (but Hero Factory as well). They are by now a very important part of LEGO, and they even got Mini-Figures, but nothing of that could be seen yet in the Movie.

So I would be sure glad if some Mini Dolls and robots at least show up in crowd scenes among the normal Mini Figs.

Yeah, I would not like to see mini-dolls work their ways into themes that currently use minifigures. I would not be at all opposed to new themes, aimed either at girls or at both genders, using mini-dolls instead of minifigs when the time is right.

I can't help but feel mini-dolls would be right at home in a manga-inspired theme like Exo-Force — after all, that theme already had minifig face designs that were incompatible with other LEGO themes, so why not go all the way with a more naturalistic-looking figure?

I really like this idea. So far, the male Mini-Dolls look rather dull to me, and something like a Manga-inspired theme could solve this, especially something like a Mecha series, where the focus of the action lies on the robots, not their pilots, so the limited articulation of the dolls wouldn't be a big disadvantage.

I'm myself a fan of the MegaBlocks figures for Halo, since they are very poseable despite their short size (to me, they are LEGO-compatible Action Figures), but I like the MiniFigs as well, simply because their simplistic yet versatile style has a charme of its own.