Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Dolor]

Let's hope Dreamzzz will end NOW and we get maybe Agent related theme or something interesting. The with has personality. Dreamzzz does not know what it is.

[Wolfpack]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

It is fairly clear that you just don't like licensed themes and also that you don't like that other people enjoy licensed themes. That is your problem, not their problem and definitely not LEGO's problem. You have to accept that LEGO make products for other people to enjoy and that, in doing so, they might make products that you don't enjoy. If you cannot find something that you enjoy out of their now vast product range then that is your problem, not theirs. Because there are plenty of people that are buying their modern sets. Some because they enjoy one or more of the licensed themes, some because they enjoy one or more of the unlicensed themes, and some because they enjoy both unlicensed and licensed. LEGO can easily afford to lose stubborn past consumers that don't like their current sets and insist on them being the same as they were decades ago and refuse to buy if they are not.

With such strawmen arguments you tell more about yourself then about me.

It is funny how you can enjoy that I cannot enjoy and how I should not even be a consumer because I expressed some unpopular opinions (all backed by stats) about the direction of the company in the thread intended just for that. Basically your only "argument" is: What you like is wrong and if you do not like what we do, get lost.

[MAB]

4 hours ago, icm said:

• New parts designed for licenses are not license-locked and get wide uses in other themes, 

It depends what they are but when it comes to new parts designed for licensed themes, I sometimes prefer them to be detailed to really represent the thing they are meant to be and have them license-locked ather than for LEGO to generalise the part so it doesn't necessarily represent exactly what it is meant to be as well as it could just so it can be used in other themes. There are so many new parts made these days, especially for minifigure hair, headgear and accessories that having some of them licensed-locked when detail is important  doesn't matter.

I'm not a big Doctor Who fan, for example, but I'm glad they did the sonic screwdriver to look like it should and only used it in Doctor Who sets rather than make a new unidentifiable long thing just so it could be used as some other long thing in another theme.  Whereas something like Hobbit hair or Luke's hair and of course the lightsaber hilt, they look good enough in a form that can be used for other themes. But if they had done C-3PO as a standard printed head or Chewbacca as a printed standard head with long hair, they'd look terrible.

29 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

With such strawmen arguments you tell more about yourself then about me.

It is funny how you can enjoy that I cannot enjoy and how I should not even be a consumer because I expressed some unpopular opinions (all backed by stats) about the direction of the company in the thread intended just for that. Basically your only "argument" is: What you like is wrong and if you do not like what we do, get lost.

Fake stats. And yes, I do now enjoy that you cannot enjoy LEGO. 

Edited March 20 by MAB

[icm]

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

It depends what they are but when it comes to new parts designed for licensed themes, I sometimes prefer them to be detailed to really represent the thing they are meant to be and have them license-locked ather than for LEGO to generalise the part so it doesn't necessarily represent exactly what it is meant to be as well as it could just so it can be used in other themes. There are so many new parts made these days, especially for minifigure hair, headgear and accessories that having some of them licensed-locked when detail is important  doesn't matter.

I'm not a big Doctor Who fan, for example, but I'm glad they did the sonic screwdriver to look like it should and only used it in Doctor Who sets rather than make a new unidentifiable long thing just so it could be used as some other long thing in another theme.  Whereas something like Hobbit hair or Luke's hair and of course the lightsaber hilt, they look good enough in a form that can be used for other themes. But if they had done C-3PO as a standard printed head or Chewbacca as a printed standard head with long hair, they'd look terrible.

Yeah, it's really a case-by-case judgment call whether a part designed for a licensed theme should be bespoke to the source material or a little abstracted for wider use. The Golden Snitch and sonic screwdriver are minifig accessories that benefit from the bespoke treatment, as are most character heads and sandwich boards, but sometimes I feel like bespoke animated character heads are too widely used. As a rule of thumb, I think it's better to start with a more abstracted design with wider application that can be produced without an IP lock, and then dial it in closer to the source material if necessary. The Golden Snitch accessory is a lot more fun and a lot better looking than the 1x1 round plate used before, so in that case the bespoke accessory is a good move. But I'm glad that lightsaber hilts, astromech heads and bodies, battle droid bodies and arms, Mjolnir hammers, Captain America shields, etc, were kept abstracted and in-system so that they could be used elsewhere, because all of those parts I just listed have been very useful in a lot of other themes.

13 minutes ago, MAB said:

Fake stats.

I'm gratified that @Wolfpack took the time to link not one but two statistical analyses of part specialization and lifespan over the decades, but I'm going to have to take some time to pore over the methodology before I take the conclusions at face value.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, icm said:

I'm gratified that @Wolfpack took the time to link not one but two statistical analyses of part specialization and lifespan over the decades, but I'm going to have to take some time to pore over the methodology before I take the conclusions at face value.

For me, there is no point when the claim that LEGO only produces two unlicensed themes keeps getting repeated. 

Part reuse also doesn't matter to me, as a specialised part is still a specialised part. The Roman shield is a specialised part. That was introduced in 2012, repeated a few years later in a licensed set, then reused in an unlicensed set as late as 2025. It has longevity in use and breadth as it has been used in four themes (in four sets in total). But is no less a specialised design than a snitch or Vader's helmet.

[Wolfpack]

And for me it maters. It can be used in Romans, Castle, Greeks, Ninjago, even superheroes etc. I love that! It is what I want lego to be.

I really do not undestand what is wrong with me expressing that.

[JesseNight]

12 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

It is funny how you can enjoy that I cannot enjoy and how I should not even be a consumer because I expressed some unpopular opinions (all backed by stats) about the direction of the company in the thread intended just for that. Basically your only "argument" is: What you like is wrong and if you do not like what we do, get lost.

Aside from stating what we do or do not enjoy, there's honestly not much point in endlessly discussing it or defending our personal taste. Taste is very subjective in the end.
The final solution is simple. Buy what you like, ignore what you don't like.

I admit being in the camp not liking licensed sets and longing for more in-house creative themes like in my youth. I am in fact very happy that we did get a few remakes of old sets in the past few years. And most were very good ones at that (like the Galaxy Explorer). That's more than many businesses would do for their nostalgic fans.
 

39 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

And for me it maters. It can be used in Romans, Castle, Greeks, Ninjago, even superheroes etc. I love that! It is what I want lego to be.

I really do not undestand what is wrong with me expressing that.

Nothing wrong with that, just don't overdo it. There's no right and wrong here, only different taste and opinions.
And if you want new themes that don't exist... there's always the option to try making one and submit it to Ideas.

[danth]

16 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

It is funny how you can enjoy that I cannot enjoy and how I should not even be a consumer because I expressed some unpopular opinions (all backed by stats) about the direction of the company in the thread intended just for that. Basically your only "argument" is: What you like is wrong and if you do not like what we do, get lost.

There are "status quo warriors" on this website who will pathologically defend "the way it is now". If you so much as hint as preferring classic themes, they will argue with you mercilessly, and generally use tired, fallacious arguments, and accuse you of "being trapped in nostalgia" while defending the repeated release of sets based on 40 year old designs/movies. When you go a few rounds with these people, defending your preferences from their dismissals, you'll be accused of "whining" or "going on and on," when they are the ones who can't stop, who can't let you have your opinion.

They project, assuming our preference for sets not tainted and burdened by attachment to terrible movies, is driven by something like their mindless acceptance of the status quo. "It must just be nostalgia." 

16 hours ago, MAB said:

Fake stats. And yes, I do now enjoy that you cannot enjoy LEGO. 

This is truly nasty. 

4 hours ago, JesseNight said:

just don't overdo it.

Please tell that to the people dogpiling him for daring to have an opinion that isn't "Everything is perfect the way it is now."

[Paul B Technic]

I found this today on FaceBook, which makes a lot of sense and does not paint a good picture for the future...
By https://www.facebook.com/andytgeezer?__cft__[0]=AZa79moYgYDNdocuZWy8NOJqvhDgD0Vp8ueINOx8JmfPxlNHQEI_-J99_-BuW78puAGKO13-rNz_xgltBd7iRalQ5erjjv8lAUaCPq4jvb6ea9DlRvKOTTMiC_zoUqNr68M52hrsgID-aQjekMEXCnOchBsFGoYOFIXhVxIaEk81kqoyu-dAWiF3cFRPorT26QYQsxurM6vPbPh62VvRbWuAOogPRzM_6kBFHSOoGoFMpQ&__tn__=-UC*F

Has LEGO turned its back on curiosity?

Following my last two posts on FIRST LEGO League I've been thinking a lot about what I have always loved about LEGO and why what they're doing right now that makes me so uneasy and I finally put my finger on it.

There's a much bigger thing happening here than LEGO losing interest in robotics.

The more I look at the direction LEGO has taken over the past few years, the more it feels like the company has been slowly shifting away from encouraging active curiosity and more towards passive consumption.

For many of us, and for a huge number of engineers I’ve spoken to, LEGO lit a fire in us.

It spoke to us and became our language giving form to the ideas in our head. If we could envisage mechanisms, linkages, ridiculous contraptions, LEGO could actually bring them to life. You could see it working. You could feel how it moved.

There’s something magical about that.
Watching gears turn. Understanding cause and effect. Tweaking something and seeing the result. For some young people, like me, that moment casts a spell they never quite recover from, and it sets them on a path towards engineering.

But I’m starting to worry those experiences are becoming harder to find if you're a LEGO fan.

These days I often hear kids saying, "I've built this set and that set" rather than “I invented this from random parts" and from experience I find that children who only build from the instructions in sets really struggle to create anything new.

Anyone can follow instructions.

That’s not the same as thinking.

By training children to follow steps, not to solve problems, we are creating a generation of consumers.

To become a creator you really have to take things apart, to see how it works, improve and put it back together again differently.

But LEGO don't make many kits like this any more, but instead are selling a lot more high tag, licensed partnerships instead. Think Star Wars, Marvel, Disney.

The thing about these partnerships is they come with very distinctive characters, logos and IP. The last thing that these companies want you to do with their characters is put them in some other universe outside of their control, (which most creative imaginative play ends up doing) so most of these sets only come with a single set of instructions and you're not encouraged to take them apart and put them with anything else.

When you look at the Technic range over the last few years, instead of highly mechanical, complex models, it's been a steady stream of licensed race cars. Bugatti, Maclaren, Ferrari. All cars and all licensed IP.

And again each model usually had instructions for only one model. They don't want you turning their beautiful car into a helicopter with a BMW logo on it, the company just want you to make their vehicle and admire it.

There's a picture on the box and that's what they want you to make.

But that's the problem. It’s not just about what they’re selling.

It’s about what they’re encouraging.

By moving towards models where you build only one thing and are only shown a single way to put the bricks together, LEGO is creating a generation of consumers rather than nurturing the creators of the future.

This is no doubt great for the bottom line, but as parents and Educators we should be concerned.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Paul B Technic said:

To become a creator you really have to take things apart, to see how it works, improve and put it back together again differently.

But LEGO don't make many kits like this any more, but instead are selling a lot more high tag, licensed partnerships instead. Think Star Wars, Marvel, Disney.

The thing about these partnerships is they come with very distinctive characters, logos and IP. The last thing that these companies want you to do with their characters is put them in some other universe outside of their control, (which most creative imaginative play ends up doing) so most of these sets only come with a single set of instructions and you're not encouraged to take them apart and put them with anything else.
 

The last point is equally true of unlicensed sets.

Although I disagree with their POV. I frequently take sets apart and redesign sections to be what I want rather than follow instructions, as do others. That is why we have the term MOD as opposed to MOC. I wonder if people that write stuff like this have ever visited forums like the Star Wars forum here or elsewhere or ever look at licensed MOCs online or at conventions. There are loads of creative people building what they want and not just following instructions.  They seem to have their own definition of what creativity is and deny anything and anyone that doesn't fit their definition.

[Dolor]

https://brickset.com/article/130655/the-lego-group-requests-your-feedback

Why so many Hard-Core fans are leaving lego... looking for other options...

[danth]

A new "Dollhouse Suitcase" Friends set has leaked. It has two new, ginormous dollhouse "halves" that interact with what appear to be new 2/3-brick-tall plates. 

I think it's a bit funny that some people were arguing that modern Lego has somehow "ascended beyond" large single use parts. And then Lego immediately cranks out new ones. Although with all the giant Jurassic Park dinosaur molds and things like Vidiyo boxes, I'm not sure why the argument was ever entertained. 

But also, if they can do giant dollhouse halves, I'm not sure why they can't do raised baseplates. Fundamentally the same thing. 

[icm]

Just off the top of my head I'd say that dollhouse is a lot more like the brick-shaped carrying cases and storage boxes (eg https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?O=60270-1#T=S&O={"iconly":0}, also see https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Gear/subtheme-Storage) that they've been doing for years than it is like a raised baseplate. Like those, it's a large carry case without any actual Lego connection points. The "rooms" in the house are 8x16 plates that slot onto shelves. So there's room for higher tolerances in the molds there. Raised baseplates need to have the same precise stud grids as any other part. Not fundamentally the same thing.

The 8x16x2/3 plates used in the dollhouse sets aren't new. They've been used for several years now in sets with low age ratings. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2629#T=C

Edited March 31 by icm

[danth]

1 hour ago, icm said:

Just off the top of my head I'd say that dollhouse is a lot more like the brick-shaped carrying cases and storage boxes (eg https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?O=60270-1#T=S&O={"iconly":0}, also see https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Gear/subtheme-Storage) that they've been doing for years than it is like a raised baseplate. Like those, it's a large carry case without any actual Lego connection points. The "rooms" in the house are 8x16 plates that slot onto shelves. So there's room for higher tolerances in the molds there. Raised baseplates need to have the same precise stud grids as any other part. Not fundamentally the same thing.

I think it's still fundamentally the same. You're building on a large raised structure. I don't think having studs matters -- there are studless base plates.

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=53588pb01&in=S

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=64649&in=S

A new raised base plate design could use the same idea as the dollhouse; slot those 8x16 plates into it, and build on them. 

1 hour ago, icm said:

The 8x16x2/3 plates used in the dollhouse sets aren't new. They've been used for several years now in sets with low age ratings. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2629#T=C

Ah, thanks. I've seen those before. I couldn't see the indentations from the blurry leak pics, so I didn't recognize them. 

[icm]

The thing is, though, with the dollhouse you're not building on a large raised structure. You're slotting plates into tabs between dividers. In the way it's designed and probably in the way it's manufactured, the dollhouse carry case has a lot more in common with a sorting box (https://brickset.com/sets/5006974-1/Sorting-Box-Blue) than with a raised baseplate. I doubt the dollhouse carry case is manufactured in-house along with the rest of the set. It's probably a Gear item contracted to another company.

Edited March 31 by icm

[Devsan]

I do find it slightly amusing seeing going to bat for the old raised base plates deployed on the side of older Legos. I recall running into more than a few older Lego fans back in the day who HATED raised base plates as Lego going downhill and making things seem bigger well skimping on bricks.

[danth]

19 hours ago, icm said:

The thing is, though, with the dollhouse you're not building on a large raised structure. You're slotting plates into tabs between dividers. In the way it's designed and probably in the way it's manufactured, the dollhouse carry case has a lot more in common with a sorting box (https://brickset.com/sets/5006974-1/Sorting-Box-Blue) than with a raised baseplate. I doubt the dollhouse carry case is manufactured in-house along with the rest of the set. It's probably a Gear item contracted to another company.

Hmm, yeah I guess with separate slotted in plates, you're pretty limited, you can only build something relatively small on them. Something like a castle probably isn't feasible, since you'd probably have to span multiple slotted in plates, and they'd slide around, or worse, be on different vertical levels. 

16 hours ago, Devsan said:

I do find it slightly amusing seeing going to bat for the old raised base plates deployed on the side of older Legos. I recall running into more than a few older Lego fans back in the day who HATED raised base plates as Lego going downhill and making things seem bigger well skimping on bricks.

I hope it doesn't look like I'm going to bat for raised baseplates. I loved them as a kid, but I can see the downsides. I will say that I don't find building "the ground" fun at all. Give me BURPs or whatever to get those builds over with!

[Lyichir]

Don't remember if I'd ever posted this one here: I generally don't like chrome colors. For some rare things (things specifically intended to have a chrome or mirror finish), they're okay. But for most purposes that I'd want something metallic, they're WAY too shiny and gaudy. For things like coins and treasure, arms and armor, unpolished metal or mechanical detailing, I'd much rather have "pearl" or lacquered metallic colors which don't reflect their surroundings and don't clash as much with other plasticky Lego colors.

Add in the fact that they show scratches and wear more easily than other colors (something I'm hyper-aware of with many of my childhood chrome parts scratched or chipped), and I have no regrets at all that Lego has largely moved away from chromed parts.

[danth]

On 3/25/2026 at 12:52 PM, Dolor said:

https://brickset.com/article/130655/the-lego-group-requests-your-feedback

Why so many Hard-Core fans are leaving lego... looking for other options...

Wow, so many people saying too many stickers and too much focus on licensed themes. Here on Eurobricks, you'd be gaslit into oblivion for saying such things!

It's almost like they're popular sentiments across the fanbase!

Edited April 2 by danth

[Renny The Spaceman]

On 4/1/2026 at 1:42 AM, Devsan said:

I do find it slightly amusing seeing going to bat for the old raised base plates deployed on the side of older Legos. I recall running into more than a few older Lego fans back in the day who HATED raised base plates as Lego going downhill and making things seem bigger well skimping on bricks.

'Tis the cycle, when you grow up with something it's gonna be the baseline you judge everything else against consiously or no. I'm sure if I was a stupid chud baby today when I was old enough to be on here I'd be biased to Smartbricks, not care for original themes and say LEGO should bring back their 2020s Funko Pop model instead of the hit new Asbestos brick they put in all their new sets.

Not saying people inherently are blindly saying what they grew up with was best, but it does affect what you accept as normal for good or ill

Edited April 2 by Renny The Spaceman

[Darth_Bane13]

On 4/2/2026 at 4:13 PM, Renny The Spaceman said:

'Tis the cycle, when you grow up with something it's gonna be the baseline you judge everything else against consiously or no. I'm sure if I was a stupid chud baby today when I was old enough to be on here I'd be biased to Smartbricks, not care for original themes and say LEGO should bring back their 2020s Funko Pop model instead of the hit new Asbestos brick they put in all their new sets.

Not saying people inherently are blindly saying what they grew up with was best, but it does affect what you accept as normal for good or ill

I've heard people say that Smart figures will be similar to how light up lightsaber figs are viewed nowadays. I'm not sure though considering the poor sales of smart brick sets, and the fact that they have trashcans on them.

[GameyRaccoon]

Here are mine. I don't know if they're necessarily "unpopular," (especially here) but you could definitely call them "hot takes." Each take builds on the last. I apologize in advance if this reads more like a manifesto than a list of hot takes; I've been sitting on these opinions for a while.

1. Lego Star Wars fans/investors more or less ruined this hobby. Let me explain.

These people are ONLY fans of Lego Star Wars and don't care about other themes, and usually, only care about minifigures. Their obsession with buying and selling sets and minifigures in order to make a profit has bled in to other themes, which attracts more scalpers and encourages TLG to make enormous multi-hundred dollar D2C sets that retire in months. I noticed that ever since the pandemic this problem has gotten much worse.

2. TLG buying Bricklink was catastrophic.

Lego now gets to double dip their profits with revenue from Bricklink, which further incentivizes them to overprice sets and make FOMO D2Cs instead of affordable, good sets. Also, they have completely ruined the site by messing with the catalogue (combining different molds together, messing with colors, etc) and by forcing users to get a LEGO account. I admit that it's my fault, but I did not hear about the latter until it was too late and as a result lost everything. My wanted lists, my stud.io cloud projects, and my order history.

3. TLG focuses far too much on licensed slop instead of original creativity. (Bit of a manifesto, forgive me.)

Have you noticed that nearly every single theme now is in some way tied to external media? A movie, a TV show, a comic book, a video game, an app, etc. The last year we had an original action theme that wasn't tied to a TV show or external IP was 2015 with Ultra Agents. Kids now who want a fun, original action theme ala  Adventurers, Pharaoh's Quest, Space Police, Monster Hunters, or Atlantis (let alone Castle, Pirates, or Space) are more or less SOL and had better be happy with the occasional Creator 3 in 1 set or an extremely overpriced set from a movie or TV show tie-in. Want Adventurers? Sorry, out of luck. We do have your choice of 3 expensive Indiana Jones sets, though. Want space? We have Dune and Star Wars.

When I bring this up with other AFOLs, they often tell me that kids these days don't want those things, which I can at least anecdotally tell you is untrue. I'm 21 and have been a LEGO fan my whole life, and I was always most interested in the original action themes and big bang castle/pirates/space offerings. Sure, I liked Star Wars and Minecraft sets, but if you gave kid me the choice between a classic space set and a star wars set I would have gone with the former. For the vast majority of my childhood, these types of sets were just not on the shelves and I was always disappointed. I'd be interested to know how abnormal that is for my generation. 

Now as an adult, I had better be happy to shell out crazy money for an 18+ tribute set or limited time BDP set.

4. TLG would rather be an adults-focused luxury brand than a toy company.

This has been a problem for a long time now. I'm no dummy, I know exactly why  this is the case. It's because licensed slop makes so, so much  money for TLG. From a business standpoint, why would you cater to children when you could cater to manchildren ? TLG has realized that there exists a huge market in childless hipsters with deep pockets and nostalgia that makes them more money than parents and children ever did. Even most licensed  themes these days cater to this demo. Why make a full wave of Lord of the Rings or Legend of Zelda playsets when you could make one or two D2C 18+ icons sets instead? TLG wants to be a luxury brand that caters to adults, and this is evident in their marketing. The 18+ marketing materials all depict some hipster model in a furniture catalog building the set. If TLG is a luxury brand, then they can get away with charging whatever high prices they want. Those on a budget need not apply.

[Toastie]

13 minutes ago, GameyRaccoon said:

I've been sitting on these opinions for a while.

And rightfully so, in my very personal opinion. I do share almost everything you wrote.

There will be some serious flak coming, I fear. You know, from the grandparents who have grandchildren, the parents who have children, and so on. They will count sets TLG makes for "children" vs. sets for "adults" - the diversity of pieces, the glory of TLG. 

Personally (I am 64 years old and have children as well) have reverted to just buying (occasionally) and playing (regularly) with old/used LEGO. Nothing for the shelves, but for experimenting. And yes, I know, I should grow up, and that children like the new stuff.

It is what it is; your post was a very nice read.

All the best
Thorsten 

[Black Falcon]

1 hour ago, GameyRaccoon said:

1. Lego Star Wars fans/investors more or less ruined this hobby. Let me explain.

These people are ONLY fans of Lego Star Wars and don't care about other themes, and usually, only care about minifigures. Their obsession with buying and selling sets and minifigures in order to make a profit has bled in to other themes, which attracts more scalpers and encourages TLG to make enormous multi-hundred dollar D2C sets that retire in months. I noticed that ever since the pandemic this problem has gotten much worse.

I don´t actually think, you can really blame Star Wars for it, unless that it probably Lego´s biggest IP and surely a part of the reason why Lego as a whole is so popular nowadays. And with that popularity comes demand, with demand you can make money, and where people see a way to make money they do, whether it is in Star Wars or other themes.

1 hour ago, GameyRaccoon said:

Lego now gets to double dip their profits with revenue from Bricklink, which further incentivizes them to overprice sets and make FOMO D2Cs instead of affordable, good sets. 

It is hard to belive to me that bricklink has much influence on either the sets they make, or the prices. Especially did they start doing more D2Cs well before they bought bricklink, simply as a result from people buying them.

1 hour ago, GameyRaccoon said:

3. TLG focuses far too much on licensed slop instead of original creativity. (Bit of a manifesto, forgive me.)

Have you noticed that nearly every single theme now is in some way tied to external media? A movie, a TV show, a comic book, a video game, an app, etc. The last year we had an original action theme that wasn't tied to a TV show or external IP was 2015 with Ultra Agents. Kids now who want a fun, original action theme ala  Adventurers, Pharaoh's Quest, Space Police, Monster Hunters, or Atlantis (let alone Castle, Pirates, or Space) are more or less SOL and had better be happy with the occasional Creator 3 in 1 set or an extremely overpriced set from a movie or TV show tie-in. Want Adventurers? Sorry, out of luck. We do have your choice of 3 expensive Indiana Jones sets, though. Want space? We have Dune and Star Wars.

The thing is probably, that it is harder to sell something kids don´t know, hence they make a lot marketing including series for their new original themes like Ninjago or Dreamzzz. Would be kinda interesting to know if without the series Ninjago would also be so popular nowadays, and I would guess that it wouldn´t.

1 hour ago, GameyRaccoon said:

When I bring this up with other AFOLs, they often tell me that kids these days don't want those things, which I can at least anecdotally tell you is untrue. I'm 21 and have been a LEGO fan my whole life, and I was always most interested in the original action themes and big bang castle/pirates/space offerings. Sure, I liked Star Wars and Minecraft sets, but if you gave kid me the choice between a classic space set and a star wars set I would have gone with the former. For the vast majority of my childhood, these types of sets were just not on the shelves and I was always disappointed. I'd be interested to know how abnormal that is for my generation. 

Now as an adult, I had better be happy to shell out crazy money for an 18+ tribute set or limited time BDP set.

I don´t think that stuff like Adventures, Castle, Pirates etc. wouldn´t sell anymore, it is probably just that other stuff would sell better and it wouldn´t even surprise me if those themes would be more popular among adults rather than kids. Still hoping we will get more than one retro set here and there for those themes again one day, though.

1 hour ago, GameyRaccoon said:

4. TLG would rather be an adults-focused luxury brand than a toy company.

This has been a problem for a long time now. I'm no dummy, I know exactly why  this is the case. It's because licensed slop makes so, so much  money for TLG. From a business standpoint, why would you cater to children when you could cater to manchildren ? TLG has realized that there exists a huge market in childless hipsters with deep pockets and nostalgia that makes them more money than parents and children ever did. Even most licensed  themes these days cater to this demo. Why make a full wave of Lord of the Rings or Legend of Zelda playsets when you could make one or two D2C 18+ icons sets instead? TLG wants to be a luxury brand that caters to adults, and this is evident in their marketing. The 18+ marketing materials all depict some hipster model in a furniture catalog building the set. If TLG is a luxury brand, then they can get away with charging whatever high prices they want. Those on a budget need not apply.

That Lego has been doing more and more sets marketed at adults surely is no secret, but if you look at their products it is more a fact that they are building a very wide assortment to cater a big varity of interests - including kids. Just look at Ninjago, City, Friends Dreamzzz, Harry Potter etc.

[GameyRaccoon]

6 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

It is hard to belive to me that bricklink has much influence on either the sets they make, or the prices. Especially did they start doing more D2Cs well before they bought bricklink, simply as a result from people buying them.

TLG had done a small handful of big D2Cs a year long before they bought BL, that much is true, but after 2019 there was a huge uptick. Icons launched the next year. Its obvious that TLG started putting more effort in exploiting the AFOL market around then.

9 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

The thing is probably, that it is harder to sell something kids don´t know, hence they make a lot marketing including series for their new original themes like Ninjago or Dreamzzz. Would be kinda interesting to know if without the series Ninjago would also be so popular nowadays, and I would guess that it wouldn´t.

I was the right age for Ninjago when it first started and I'd say you're probably right that the TV show was a big motivator in my interest. I'm sure it's probably the same with Dreamzzz with today's kids. 

12 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

I don´t think that stuff like Adventures, Castle, Pirates etc. wouldn´t sell anymore, it is probably just that other stuff would sell better and it wouldn´t even surprise me if those themes would be more popular among adults rather than kids. Still hoping we will get more than one retro set here and there for those themes again one day, though.

When I was a kid, I had a LEGO Minifigure Sticker book that had minifigs from all sorts of early 2000s themes. Later I had the LEGO Minifigure Encyclopedia they put out around 2013. These books exposed me to all the original themes I missed out on, (like Adventurers, Western, etc) and I remember really wishing I could play with those themes instead of what was being offered in the store. (star wars, super heroes, city.) I didn't recognize any cynical aversion to capitalism or brand tie-ins, I just wanted to play with fun toys. Also, what kid isn't interested in pirates or knights or cowboys or generic sci fi? Do kids today not read books? Do they not have imaginations? 

Also, I don't think anyone could really say TLG is exactly in touch with what kids actually want. Do kids think paying a hundred dollars for a juniors sized X Wing and minifigures you can't even take apart is a good deal? More importantly, do their parents? Expecting kids/their parents to pay that much money for a small-medium sized playset in the first place demonstrates just how out of touch they are.

And by the way, as a kid, I thought it was lame on the few occasions TLG tried app-integration (Life of George, Ultra Agents, certain Friends sets) because I didn't have a phone! I'm sure that it's the same with today's kids, based on Hidden Side. Which as far as I know was overpriced and a failure thanks to the gimmick.

30 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

That Lego has been doing more and more sets marketed at adults surely is no secret, but if you look at their products it is more a fact that they are building a very wide assortment to cater a big varity of interests - including kids. Just look at Ninjago, City, Friends Dreamzzz, Harry Potter etc.

I mean, how diverse are we talking? If you want an original, action theme, you have the choice between an Asian-inspired techno-martial arts fusion IP... and an Asian-inspired techno-martial arts fusion IP.  City and Creator have to be the home of anything else non-licensed that TLG puts out these days. Which, by the way, ends up meaning present-day scientific researchers (or gimmicky police/fire sets that cost too much) in the case of city, and the occasional 3-in-1 set in Creator's.

And say you're a kid or parent and want something that is branded. You actually have less choice than you think. Does your kid like video games? If he wants Pokemon sets, you can get him an adult-level sculpture of one for 300 dollars. If he wants Zelda, it's a similar story. If he wants Mario sets, he'd better be stoked about the electronic gimmick that makes the sets cost far more than they should. So really, they're left with Sonic.

(Animal Crossing I will say is a pleasant exception in modern LEGO, to me. There's no outside gimmick beyond tying in with a video game, the sets aren't vehicles, and they're more or less fairly priced. It feels a lot like if TLG tried to bring back Fabuland.)

If he wants Lord of the Rings sets, he technically has the choice of 3 insanely expensive D2C display pieces, but in practice he can't get those, either. So he has the same choice he's always had between overpriced Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Marvel sets you mostly can't afford.

So yes, a lot of this comes down to "LEGO is expensive" but that's because of smaller pieces, more detailed sets, licensing fees, larger display sets, and gimmicks like SMART play or an app or TV show that TLG has to recoup the price for.