Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[SpacePolice89]

There are too many mechs across all themes. Mech sets should be reduced by 80%!

[Feuer Zug]

On 6/14/2025 at 3:56 AM, SpacePolice89 said:

There are too many mechs across all themes. Mech sets should be reduced by 80%!

As much as I agree, the mecha craze is here for now. Their only saving grace is the small sized Star Wars and certain superhero mecha do give us some options for minifig characters that often aren't in small/cheap sets.

[icm]

1 hour ago, Feuer Zug said:

Their only saving grace is the small sized Star Wars and certain superhero mecha do give us some options for minifig characters that often aren't in small/cheap sets.

That's no saving grace - it's easy to think of ideas to get desirable Star Wars characters and army builders in $10-$15 sets without resorting to mechs.

[danth]

On 6/16/2025 at 7:57 AM, Feuer Zug said:

As much as I agree, the mecha craze is here for now. 

This seems to be a Lego-only thing, strangely. I think it's more that people will buy Lego no matter what, mechs included, than any kind of "mecha craze". 

As big as anime has gotten outside of Japan, I think the mech genre is one of the least popular now. Mecha movies in the West don't even exist outside of Pacific Rim and, what, Robot Jox? You'll get an occasional powersuit in sci-fi movies. Even the Star Wars franchise shies away from anything but clunky walkers.

I think Lego designers really like mechs. They make total sense in Ninjago sets at least. And SW and Marvel fans will buy anything so it doesn't matter if they make sense in those themes. 

[Black Falcon]

54 minutes ago, danth said:

This seems to be a Lego-only thing, strangely. I think it's more that people will buy Lego no matter what, mechs included, than any kind of "mecha craze". 

That doesn´t really make sense though, there are so many sets out there, if they just care about Lego and not the Mechs, they would just buy something else. And aside from Adults, that probably buy many of them just for the minifig, especially in Licensed themes, kids seem to enjoy the mechs - probably because they offer more playability than vehicles do. 

[danth]

2 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

That doesn´t really make sense though, there are so many sets out there, if they just care about Lego and not the Mechs, they would just buy something else.

They do. People are buying all the non-mech sets too right? Otherwise Lego would only be making mechs. 

2 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

And aside from Adults, that probably buy many of them just for the minifig, especially in Licensed themes

Totally agree!

2 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

kids seem to enjoy the mechs - probably because they offer more playability than vehicles do. 

I don't think kids dislike mechs. I'm just wondering why mechs are a much bigger thing in modern Lego sets than, like, anything else right now. 

[Black Falcon]

12 minutes ago, danth said:

They do. People are buying all the non-mech sets too right? Otherwise Lego would only be making mechs. 

Yeah, because people also like other sets. The point was, if people wouldn´t like Mechs they wouldn´t buy them and Lego wouldn´t make more - now obviously people got different tastes and you won´t find a set that noone likes, but we have seen with other Sets and themes that people didn´t buy them and they were discontinued. 

12 minutes ago, danth said:

I don't think kids dislike mechs. I'm just wondering why mechs are a much bigger thing in modern Lego sets than, like, anything else right now. 

I don´t think they are. I mean sure, they are an important part of Ninjago together with the dragons and other vehicles. But if we look at City, we still got a lot of cars, some buildings and overall a mix of different things - well including the F1 stuff. No Consturction Mechs or anything - granted we got two small mechs in the Space subtheme, but that one was quite futuristic and the mechs just made sense there. So overall I wouldn´t say Mechs are by far a much bigger thing than anything else but I would agree that they are a bigger thing than they used to be in the past, though if we look back, Lego was doing them for a long time, Exo Force was basically all about them, Ninjago had them from the very beginning and Nexo Knights  had several aswell - and you will find more throughout Lego´s history, starting in the early space years, through Alpha Team, Atlantis, Creator and so on.

On a side note, with both Dreamzz and Monkey kid rumoured to retire, we might see less mechs in future.

[danth]

6 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Yeah, because people also like other sets. The point was, if people wouldn´t like Mechs they wouldn´t buy them and Lego wouldn´t make more

Agreed. I'm not sure I'm making my point very clearly...

6 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

I don´t think they are. I mean sure, they are an important part of Ninjago together with the dragons and other vehicles. But if we look at City, we still got a lot of cars, some buildings and overall a mix of different things - well including the F1 stuff. No Consturction Mechs or anything - granted we got two small mechs in the Space subtheme,

Agreed again. I really did not communicate what I meant very clearly at all!

I mean that I see more mechs in Lego than mechs in other popular things. Does Roblox have mechs? Does Fortnite have mechs? Do Marvel movies have mechs? Does Star Wars have mechs (do walkers count?). I'm gonna say no. 

The closest thing to mechs that has ever been popular in the West is Transformers (and Gobots or whatever if we're talking about the 80's transforming robot craze). 

So why are there so many Lego mechs, and how do kids just "get" what a mech even is, and how are they desirable enough in Lego form to consistently sell? 

Maybe a "giant pilotable robot" is just an easily understandable, effortlessly cool concept that kids get and like, and Lego is the only company (outside of Asia) that understands how to capitalize off the concept? 

[TeriXeri]

12 hours ago, danth said:

Maybe a "giant pilotable robot" is just an easily understandable, effortlessly cool concept that kids get and like, and Lego is the only company (outside of Asia) that understands how to capitalize off the concept? 

I think it's just a way to have an "action figure" of various sizes, without reinventing an entirely new character.

Or it could work as aa nostalgia trip like 60421 Robot World (City rollercoaster with mech from exo force)

Hasbro still makes action figures, altho I can't remember them every being as popular as LEGO in Europe as much, LEGO Star Wars probably was one of those things that internationalized Star Wars toys franchise a lot more for example.

LEGO did have their 2 decades of a lot more action figures instead of mechs as well ,  with their slizer/bionicle/hero factory/star wars buildable figs/chima figs.

In recent years they tried System action figures like 76226 Spider-Man Figure, and currently still available 76298 Iron Spider-Man Construction Figure , but I think "mech" sets like 76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom just sell better , as they come with minifigs. 

76316 Fantastic Four vs. Galactus Construction Figure is a bit of both, I doubt that would sell very well if it did not come with the 4 figures. 

 

Note, this is pure an opinion, and speculation, as Europe is big, and sales numbers aren't available.

Edited June 20 by TeriXeri

[Lyichir]

31 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

I think it's just a way to have an "action figure" of various sizes, without reinventing an entirely new character.

Or it could work as aa nostalgia trip like 60421 Robot World (City rollercoaster with mech from exo force)

Hasbro still makes action figures, altho I can't remember them every being as popular as LEGO in Europe as much, LEGO Star Wars probably was one of those things that internationalized Star Wars toys franchise a lot more for example.

LEGO did have their 2 decades of a lot more action figures instead of mechs as well ,  with their slizer/bionicle/hero factory/star wars buildable figs/chima figs.

In recent years they tried System action figures like 76226 Spider-Man Figure, and currently still available 76298 Iron Spider-Man Construction Figure , but I think "mech" sets like 76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom just sell better , as they come with minifigs. 

76316 Fantastic Four vs. Galactus Construction Figure is a bit of both, I doubt that would sell very well if it did not come with the 4 figures. 

 

Note, this is pure an opinion, and speculation, as Europe is big, and sales numbers aren't available.

I think this is a good analysis—mechs are an easy way to blend "action figure play" with the typical scale of Lego minifigures and vehicles. Even in cases where mechs aren't "canon" (like the Star Wars ones or the Knuckles mech from the Sonic the Hedgehog sets), they create an opportunity to evoke the details of characters in a buildable form, in a format that's more kid-friendly and playable than, say, a character statue like some of the various Star Wars droid sets or a static display figure like BrickHeadz. The introduction of small ball joints in the Mixels theme was especially a boon to making small mechs at an affordable price point, which is what you typically see in Star Wars and Super Heroes (bigger, more expensive mechs are more typical of themes where they're a greater focus like Ninjago).

And it's not like mechs are the only sorts of sets of that type (a small, cheap means of making a set focused on a minifigure character with some buildability/playability)—other examples include Star Wars' microfighters or Super Heroes' mighty micros. Like the mechs, those sorts of sets aren't really focused on representing an accurate depiction of the property in question so much as they are being fun entry-level sets for kids.

All this is to say that I don't think mechs are going away any time soon, but also it's not like they're straightforwardly taking the place of more "accurate" pocket money sets, because at that price point and age grade realism/accuracy isn't really the objective.

[Black Falcon]

17 hours ago, danth said:

I mean that I see more mechs in Lego than mechs in other popular things. Does Roblox have mechs? Does Fortnite have mechs? Do Marvel movies have mechs? Does Star Wars have mechs (do walkers count?). I'm gonna say no. 

The closest thing to mechs that has ever been popular in the West is Transformers (and Gobots or whatever if we're talking about the 80's transforming robot craze). 

Well, mechs are quite common in scifi franchises still, though they are often not the main part - you had them in Avatar for instance, Pacific Rim was all about them. So they are out there, though they are not the most popular thing ofc. 

17 hours ago, danth said:

So why are there so many Lego mechs, and how do kids just "get" what a mech even is, and how are they desirable enough in Lego form to consistently sell? 

Maybe a "giant pilotable robot" is just an easily understandable, effortlessly cool concept that kids get and like, and Lego is the only company (outside of Asia) that understands how to capitalize off the concept? 

Yeah, I think it shouldn´t be that hard to understand to kids that a mech is basically a piloted robot. As of why they are so popular among kids, I agree with @TeriXeri and @Lyichir - they are basically combining action figures that are still on shelves from other companies, with the Lego minifigure and the characters the kids love anyways - or characters, such as Darth Vader, which even kids that aren´t into Star Wars should be able to recognize.

For the question why other comanies don´t sell mechs, it is probably because many  of the toys you see nowadays picture stuff from other franchises, and as you mentioned above, there isn´t that much popular stuff out there, especially for kids (I´ve seen mechs from Avatar out there though, so it isn´t like there would be no mechs at all).

[danth]

On 6/20/2025 at 7:28 AM, TeriXeri said:

I think it's just a way to have an "action figure" of various sizes, without reinventing an entirely new character.

Agreed, sometimes a mech is basically just a brick built big figure (that probably looks better than a constraction fig anyway), especially the SW/Marvel "mechs" which don't make any effort to look mechanical in any way. 

[danth]

Luckily this mainly affects sets that I wouldn't buy anyway...but GOOD GOD, Lego set prices are getting out of control. Like 75413 for example -- literally double the normal $.10 PPP ratio without any overly large pieces, no large compliment of minifigs, and cheap stickers instead of prints. 

[Yperio_Bricks]

1 hour ago, danth said:

Luckily this mainly affects sets that I wouldn't buy anyway...but GOOD GOD, Lego set prices are getting out of control. Like 75413 for example -- literally double the normal $.10 PPP ratio without any overly large pieces, no large compliment of minifigs, and cheap stickers instead of prints. 

Maybe the owners want a fourth private jet 

But seriously, I can only repeat myself: no matter how much people will lament online (how the color of a stripe on a clones chest is wrong or how the old iteration of the vehicle many years ago was much better, or how the designers are trolling them with a upside down visor), the vast majority of them will go on and buy the sets in great numbers the very next day. Lego knows this and there is zero incentive to reduce the prices. Maybe even cut some more pieces next time and further up the price, eh?!?

The people have all the power and if they would just boycott one set, maybe the aformentioned set, until they hear Lego say "we understand"....

I for one, despite liking the minifigs very much, did not buy the abysmal disgrace of a set that is 75385 Ahsoka Tano's Duel on Peridea. But what can one man do? 

Edited July 1 by Yperio_Bricks

[Toastie]

9 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

what can one man do?

There is hope - we are two.

I never thought that TLG would finally lose me entirely: No - zero - LEGO sets since three years (and counting) anymore, after believing in the Gods of ABS Bricks since 1965 (OK, with dark age). And it doesn't even hurt with all these alternatives around ...

Best wishes
Thorsten     

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Maybe the owners want a fourth private jet 

But seriously, I can only repeat myself: no matter how much people will lament online (how the color of a stripe on a clones chest is wrong or how the old iteration of the vehicle many years ago was much better, or how the designers are trolling them with a upside down visor), the vast majority of them will go on and buy the sets in great numbers the very next day. Lego knows this and there is zero incentive to reduce the prices. Maybe even cut some more pieces next time and further up the price, eh?!?

The people have all the power and if they would just boycott one set, maybe the aformentioned set, until they hear Lego say "we understand"....

I for one, despite liking the minifigs very much, did not buy the abysmal disgrace of a set that is 75385 Ahsoka Tano's Duel on Peridea. But what can one man do? 

Remember 'people' are not one. They are millions of individuals often with little in common. The people complaining online, especially about prices, probably aren't the ones buying.  The price of the Juggernaut looks bad in terms of the awful PPP metric, but when you look at the parts and what they cost on PAB the price makes more sense.

You might have boycotted 75385 but it includes Thrawn. Many fans have been waiting for a remake of him with some willing to pay $50 to get one. He will have sold whichever small/medium set he was in, whether it was an interactive base type set like it turned out to be or a vehicle or ship. Some people might not like that style of set but other people are buying for the miifigures and everything else is just bricks no matter what the instructions say.

[Yperio_Bricks]

38 minutes ago, MAB said:

when you look at the parts and what they cost on PAB the price makes more sense.

When you check the part out value at Bricklink, every set has an great value. At least all sets I have checked so far, had a positive value compared to their real price in store. Often the numbers are insane, like for example the 10348 Japanese Maple Tree has a part out value of $200+. The finger leafs alone would cost €27 new at PAB online! The finger leaves and the smaller new stud with leaves start at around 50 cent at Bricklink. What I want to say is, that basically every set has a positive part out value. It remains to be seen how the Juggernaut will do.

48 minutes ago, MAB said:

You might have boycotted 75385 but it includes Thrawn. Many fans have been waiting for a remake of him with some willing to pay $50 to get one. He will have sold whichever small/medium set he was in, whether it was an interactive base type set like it turned out to be or a vehicle or ship. Some people might not like that style of set but other people are buying for the miifigures and everything else is just bricks no matter what the instructions say.

Yes, and that is exactly the problem i was speaking about! It's easy to boycott something that don't hurt yourself. I would like to own a Thrawn myself (and the other minifigs that come with the set), so I could put the minifig into mocs or use the parts for figbarfs, but I am not buying this ugly monstrosity of a set that Peridea is. Just boycott the set until Lego gets the message. People always want a Thrawn or the Clones or whatever minifig or set is in question. But then nobody should complain about the prices when they buy the sets anyway. Oh, and I am pretty sure most of the people who lament online about the CTT or the MTT will end up buying these sets.... That's what they always do. It's part of the folklore to lament about the prices or wrong details on a clone or question if the designers care and things like that. But I am not speaking about clones per se or the CTT that was brought up. It's a general problem. 

My long term hope is that Lego eventually will significantly start to loose market share and get's the message this way  

 

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

There is hope - we are two.

I never thought that TLG would finally lose me entirely: No - zero - LEGO sets since three years (and counting) anymore, after believing in the Gods of ABS Bricks since 1965 (OK, with dark age). And it doesn't even hurt with all these alternatives around ...

Best wishes
Thorsten     

Cheers 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

When you check the part out value at Bricklink, every set has an great value. At least all sets I have checked so far, had a positive value compared to their real price in store. Often the numbers are insane, like for example the 10348 Japanese Maple Tree has a part out value of $200+. The finger leafs alone would cost €27 new at PAB online! The finger leaves and the smaller new stud with leaves start at around 50 cent at Bricklink. What I want to say is, that basically every set has a positive part out value. It remains to be seen how the Juggernaut will do.

 

I was comparing to PAB as that (presumably) gives a relative cost of parts to LEGO. I assume that expensive parts on PAB are expensive because they are more expensive to produce, and that cheaper parts on PAB are cheaper because they are cheaper to produce. Of course, that is an assumption and LEGO might also price gouge on more in-demand pieces. But it should give a rough idea of what the _relative_ cost of a set might be compared to a set containing mainly smaller cheese slopes and tiles. Comparing to BL is much harder, as that gives the perceived cost to fans rather than a cost to LEGO. And we all know if they make something in a popular colour it can be worth a lot on BL, whereas in an unpopular colour it can be almost worthless.

I ignore the set part out value if I am going to buy a set (or multiple of the set) to part out to sell. I look at the actual parts, especially those with high part out value. Any new parts are always crazy high prices and early high priced sales will stay in the price guide for six months, keeping the listing price reasonably high, even though more pragmatic sellers that want to sell will be listing at a much lower price.

But yes, for nearly all new sets, the part out value is typically higher than the cost of the set. The rule of thumb used to be buy if the part out value is  at 2x the set price, but I don't think that works so well now as many parts will not sell at the average price as the market becomes flooded with other people parting them out. The opposite is true for older sealed sets. There, you normally find that the set is worth more sealed than parted out. Unless there are unique parts in the set, the part values have had time to stabilise to their likely true values which is often less than someone is willing to pay to get the sealed set to open themselves.

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Just boycott the set until Lego gets the message.

 

There is no concerted action here though. For everyone boycotting the set, someone else will buy it. 10+ years ago, huge discounts (50% off, 80% off, even more sometimes) were possible on stock that wasn't selling when LEGO was "just a toy" (so few adult fans compared to now), nowhere near as popular as now with kids or adults and not really looked at as an investment by many. These days LEGO is just too popular for those discounts to happen. 20% is possible, but I find that if they go to 30%, the shelves will be cleared. LEGO has become so popular - especially with adults - that enough people buy what they want rather than caring about the price too much, and even the design too much.

LEGO set prices based on what enough customers will pay. They don't care if they lose some customers due to pricing, if enough other customers keep buying. And they will keep buying.

My LEGO spend (for myself) is probably lower now than it has been for 20+ years. Partly as I feel there is less value in it but also partly as I have so much anyway, I really don't need the bricks. Anything new in a set is nice, but more bulk brick is not really worth it any more to me. I often build new sets using online instructions with my existing parts. I might buy the occasional set for the minifigs or the new parts, or I might buy those on BL. I doubt LEGO really cares if I don't buy though, as plenty of others are buying.

Edited July 2 by MAB

[DonQuixote]

Consumers of the world : unite! 

[danth]

As cynical as I am, and as much as I love to dog SW fans for buying everything, I think these prices are so ridiculous that even SW fans will wait until they go on clearance to buy them, or pass on them. Really. 

18 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

I for one, despite liking the minifigs very much, did not buy the abysmal disgrace of a set that is 75385 Ahsoka Tano's Duel on Peridea. But what can one man do? 

I don't know what's worse: the price, or the fact the build is simply the floor. I don't care if there are turntables. I don't want to build the floor. 

8 hours ago, MAB said:

The price of the Juggernaut looks bad in terms of the awful PPP metric, but when you look at the parts and what they cost on PAB the price makes more sense.

Can't tell if you're saying the Juggernaut has an awful PPP, or that PPP is an awful metric. 

Were there any particularly expensive parts you found on PAB for this set?

 

[danth]

Also do we need to talk about part shrinkflation? I don't even know how some of these smallish sets are 500-700 pieces. This thing is 567 pieces:

I just don't know where all those pieces are. There must be just a ton of small pieces. Maybe 100 per wing, 200 for the main fuselage, then somehow even more somewhere? How?

Compared to just 443 pieces for this:

And despite the major part shrinkflation, PPP is going up. And even main logos are stickers instead of prints. It's wild. 

[DonQuixote]

4 hours ago, danth said:

Also do we need to talk about part shrinkflation? I don't even know how some of these smallish sets are 500-700 pieces. This thing is 567 pieces:

I just don't know where all those pieces are. There must be just a ton of small pieces. Maybe 100 per wing, 200 for the main fuselage, then somehow even more somewhere? How?

Compared to just 443 pieces for this:

And despite the major part shrinkflation, PPP is going up. And even main logos are stickers instead of prints. It's wild. 

I prefer the second set

[Karalora]

Ultimately of course, we are going to have to adjust our expectations regarding PPP just due to regular inflation. We've been cruising at a rough ten cents per piece for a very long time and the main driver of price increases has been that the sets themselves are getting larger on average. But sooner or later, the PPP itself is going to have to go up across the board.

[MAB]

6 hours ago, Karalora said:

Ultimately of course, we are going to have to adjust our expectations regarding PPP just due to regular inflation. We've been cruising at a rough ten cents per piece for a very long time and the main driver of price increases has been that the sets themselves are getting larger on average. But sooner or later, the PPP itself is going to have to go up across the board.

I think it has already started. Pieces got smaller while the ppp ratio remained roughly the same but at some stage that has to break as the average part size cannot keep decreasing. You need some larger parts to hold all the 1x1 parts together.

Brickset has just reviewed one of the new JP sets and recorded the price per part as 25.1c and mentioned $50 is absurd for 199 pieces. Yet it contains a very large dinosaur and the pricing is not that out of line compared to similar Playmobil sets.

LEGO and fans should forget about using the ppp, it is meaningless when you don't consider what the parts are and t doesn't really contain information about value since not all sets have the same type of distribution of parts. 

[Toastie]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

LEGO and fans should forget about using the ppp

Did TLG ever "use" the ppp as some sort of figure of merit? I don't think so. Isn't it that TLG (naturally and aggressively) just asks for whatever they believe is most profitable for them? We have long departed from a company that “cares”. It feels, just that, it feels as if there was such a notion, in a galaxy, far, far away.

I believe the quote should read "LEGO fans should forget ...", or am I mistaken?

Best
Thorsten