Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[JesseNight]

13 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Why? Because you think it is bad, in an ideal world everyone hast to think so? Personally, for what you are getting I actually don´t think that the smart brick sets are actually that expensive compared to normal Star Wars Sets. And if you are looking back at Light and sound and compare those with normal Sets, that system wasn´t cheap either.

Didn't mean it that harshly, more like everyone should at least think and make their own conclusion that it MAY not be a great deal if you want a good amount of LEGO for your money. And true, Light & Sound went for a premium price too but at least that system is durable and still works 40 years later. Personally I would call any system with an irreplaceable battery and special bricks and chargers not sold separately a bad deal. Pure e-waste in the long run.

[Alcarin]

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

[Yperio_Bricks]

46 minutes ago, Alcarin said:

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

Did Lego ever had a soul in the first place? The world was just much smaller in the 80s and 90s and licensing is much bigger nowadays. At least from my perception.

[Black Falcon]

6 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Didn't mean it that harshly, more like everyone should at least think and make their own conclusion that it MAY not be a great deal if you want a good amount of LEGO for your money.

Yeah, and in the end if you don´t care about the smart brick, there are still plenty of other sets around. Personally, to me the brick is interesting, and I also would like to try it out but right now for just trying it out I won´t buy it. In the end we will probably still see enough Smart Brick Sets, and maybe one day there will be one that I want to have anyways - or I see one with a nice discount.

6 hours ago, JesseNight said:

And true, Light & Sound went for a premium price too but at least that system is durable and still works 40 years later. Personally I would call any system with an irreplaceable battery and special bricks and chargers not sold separately a bad deal. Pure e-waste in the long run.

I cant totally agree with that. Same as LED lamps you get to buy nowadays which you can just throw aways as a whole instead of replacing the light bulb...

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

That is exactly how I feel. Back then they could make their own things and now everything feels soulless because of Hollywood. Now they can't even make Space sets because of Star Wars. It went in the wrong direction when Peter Eio got promoted and Poul Plougmann (he almost single handedly ruined Lego) got hired and tried to change Lego. They tried to become like Mattel and that caused all the economic problems (too much product diversification).

[Kit Figsto]

6 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

Yes and no, I don't think it's inherently the licensed stuff, but I think it's more that LEGO, to me, feels like they are trending away from the creative aspect that was a major part of their ethos for so long (and basically the entire plot of the LEGO Movie).  To me, there is a much higher emphasis on sets to be accurate and displayable versus rebuildable.  I know that the alternate builds on boxes have been gone for almost 25 years now, but it feels like nearly a third of LEGO's product line consists of sets where the only photos of the set are just it on display.  There's no suggestion of rebuilding it, it's just "build this thing and put it on a shelf."

This is just my personal opinion, but I've become a lot more disillusioned with the new practice of so many LEGO sets just being "real world object, except it's LEGO!" (and sometimes costing more than actually just buying the thing it represents in the first place).  I don't think that licensed sets are inherently bad (I own and enjoy plenty of them!), but I don't think every pop culture property needs to be LEGO-fied, especially as it feels like this pulled the focus away from the type of sets that I grew up enjoying.

[Karalora]

3 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

To me, there is a much higher emphasis on sets to be accurate and displayable versus rebuildable.

Oh, definitely. And in addition to de-emphasizing the creativity aspect, the focus on visual fidelity to source material is probably partly to blame for the recent explosion in new part shapes, which certainly has its upsides but also increases the price of sets overall (in order to amortize the cost of new molds) and makes it difficult to maintain a decent stock of general-use parts. Because if the thing has to be shaped perfectly, then there's a good chance you'll have to invent new shapes for it.

[Alcarin]

8 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

Yes and no, I don't think it's inherently the licensed stuff, but I think it's more that LEGO, to me, feels like they are trending away from the creative aspect that was a major part of their ethos for so long (and basically the entire plot of the LEGO Movie).  To me, there is a much higher emphasis on sets to be accurate and displayable versus rebuildable.  I know that the alternate builds on boxes have been gone for almost 25 years now, but it feels like nearly a third of LEGO's product line consists of sets where the only photos of the set are just it on display.  There's no suggestion of rebuilding it, it's just "build this thing and put it on a shelf."

This is just my personal opinion, but I've become a lot more disillusioned with the new practice of so many LEGO sets just being "real world object, except it's LEGO!" (and sometimes costing more than actually just buying the thing it represents in the first place).  I don't think that licensed sets are inherently bad (I own and enjoy plenty of them!), but I don't think every pop culture property needs to be LEGO-fied, especially as it feels like this pulled the focus away from the type of sets that I grew up enjoying.

Yes exactly this... I find old lego sets much more inspiring to be creative than whats coming out today... Also gazillion different things just screams boring licensed stuff to me... feels kinda liek the magic is lost...

I mean if i just look on legoleak its like Super mario fig, Tintin rocket, Jurassic Park, Pokemon, Dragon Ball... WTH... no thanks man 

[MAB]

18 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

It is not 90% of the time. It is still about 50:50 licensed to unlicensed when comparing numbers of sets. And if you look at sets aimed at kid ages, that swings slightly more towards unlicensed, as expensive collector sets tend to be licensed.

As to why the number of licensed sets is so high compared to 25 years ago, that is because they sell well and they bring in huge numbers of buyers. 

12 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

I don't think that licensed sets are inherently bad (I own and enjoy plenty of them!), but I don't think every pop culture property needs to be LEGO-fied, especially as it feels like this pulled the focus away from the type of sets that I grew up enjoying.

I take the alternative view that I don't need to buy every LEGO set and not every LEGO set needs to appeal to me, whether it is licensed or unlicensed. If LEGO can make something new and that brings them more income via new consumers, even if just for that set, it is good for them and it doesn't hurt me in any way.

The reason the focus has moved from the type of sets that adults now enjoyed as kids decades before is because society has changed and kids want different things now to then. But then that was also true of toys in the 80s and 90s compared to toys in the 50s and 60s. LEGO still produces hundreds of unlicensed sets aimed at kids every year, many more than in the past, but these tend to be in their big three evergreen themes of City, Friends and Ninjago. The last two continuing for over 10 years shows that the kids today are buying into these unlicensed themes just like kids of the 80s and 90s were buying into classic minifigure based themes.

[Wolfpack]

21 hours ago, Alcarin said:

Is it just me or it feels LEGO is losing its soul by just making licensed sets 90% of time and no more unlicensed pirates, castle etc... 

Absolutely. It is all just licenced stuff nowadays. The regular themes have been demoted to DBP. Since the start of it in 2024 we got exactly zero new sets for Castle, Pirates etc. Zero in three years!

There are only two non-licenced themes left! One is town and the other feels licenced anyway with all the characters and story set in stone. We came to the bizarre situation where the best theme, despite all the simplication and flaws, is Creator.

[MAB]

20 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

Absolutely. It is all just licenced stuff nowadays. The regular themes have been demoted to DBP. Since the start of it in 2024 we got exactly zero new sets for Castle, Pirates etc. Zero in three years!

There are only two non-licenced themes left! One is town and the other feels licenced anyway with all the characters and story set in stone. We came to the bizarre situation where the best theme, despite all the simplication and flaws, is Creator.

So there are only two non-licensed themes and one is town (City) and the other feels like it is licensed, so presumably this is Ninjago. Then there is the best theme Creator. That makes three. Yet there are only two non-licensed themes? And what about themes like Friends, Monkie Kid, Dreamzz, then hybrid themes like Icons, Ideas and Technic that contain both licensed and unlicensed.

There are plenty of unlicensed sets available these days, they are just different subjects to the 80s and 90s.

[Wolfpack]

I am talking about minifigure themes. Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz already ended.

So we have

Non-licenced:
town/city
Ninjago
+arguably Creator, which is not really a coherent theme

Lincenced:
Bluey
Spidey
Disney (Toy Story etc)
Batman
Fortnite
Animal Crossing
Super Mario
Sonic
Minecraft
Wednesday
Wicked
Jurassic World
Harry Potter
One piece
Marvel
Star Wars
Speed Champions
Editions
+
Lord of the Rings
Zelda
D&D
Simpsons
Pirates of the Carribean
...

So the ratio is something lige 2 to 20+.

 

[Black Falcon]

2 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

I am talking about minifigure themes. Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz already ended.

So we have

Non-licenced:
town/city
Ninjago
+arguably Creator, which is not really a coherent theme

Well in the end you are placing the arguments so that they fit your result. Wednesday and Wicked are mostly Minidolls, so if Friends isn´t allowed, they shouldn´t either. You don´t count Dreamzzz and Monkey kid, since both of them are retired (though Dreamzzz still got new Sets this year and Monkey Kid, while not getting new Sets is still not EOL yet) but D&D, Simpsons, PotC count.

As you mentioned yourself, Creator also exists, and then you also got Icons which is a mix of Licensed and unlicensed, as @MAB mentioned. Then of course there are more Themes like Architecture and Art (not completely unlicensed) or Botanicals, Classic but since you only want to count Minifigure themes those obviously don´t count anyways.

However, then we would still have Education, Chinese new year, Winter Village, Modular Buildings... ;)

 

[Yoggington]

3 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

I am talking about minifigure themes.

You know, if we're going to move the goalposts that much, you could just count the licensed sets alone. And then we can say that Lego doesn't produce a single non-licensed set!! The absolute gits!!

Edited March 13 by Yoggington

[Yoggington]

Why would you even count themes rather than sets? I've had a brief scour over Brickset just to check some numbers. Numbers in this post are very loose, I've just quickly tallied in five minutes.

Using the categories you provided (which have big holes in the first place), there were 127 unlicensed sets versus 250 licensed. So closer to 1:2 than counting by theme.

If you include themes like the icons sets that are unlicensed, or Dreamzz (rumours of it's death aside, it was going strong in 2025), that number climbs to 149:250.

If you include minidolls, because you already are with Wicked & Wednesday etc., then you gotta count Friends too. The ratio is up to 191:259.

If you include all the technic, botanicals, architecture, duplo, etc etc that you've overruled, then the ratio stars to tip in the unlicensed favour (although there are arguments about whether a set is or isn't that could tip it either way)

[Wolfpack]

Yeah, I am only interested in minifigure scale. If you enjoy playing with duplo, technic, scala, belville or whatever, great, but obviosly I am allowed to discuss the aspect of lego I care about.

36 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

Well in the end you are placing the arguments so that they fit your result. Wednesday and Wicked are mostly Minidolls, so if Friends isn´t allowed, they shouldn´t either. You don´t count Dreamzzz and Monkey kid, since both of them are retired (though Dreamzzz still got new Sets this year and Monkey Kid, while not getting new Sets is still not EOL yet) but D&D, Simpsons, PotC count.

As you mentioned yourself, Creator also exists, and then you also got Icons which is a mix of Licensed and unlicensed, as @MAB mentioned. Then of course there are more Themes like Architecture and Art (not completely unlicensed) or Botanicals, Classic but since you only want to count Minifigure themes those obviously don´t count anyways.

However, then we would still have Education, Chinese new year, Winter Village, Modular Buildings... ;)

 

I just went through the catalogue and wasn't paying anough attention for the themes I do not care for. However I see Wicked actually has sets with minifigs. I am not an expert for licenced themes so I do not know when the D&D, Simpsons and PotC retire, but some of them will probably continue with new sets. Even if you ignore those and Wednesday, the ratio stays cca. 2 to 20. So instead of cherrypicking wheteher it is 3 to 19 or 2 to 21, maybe we could focus on the real issue I presented.

Lego system used to be 100% original, but now only cca. two of 20 or 10% of all minifigure themes remain non-licenced.

I am talking about themes, because that it what i care about. I would prefer three themes I like with a few sets than a theme I do not like with 127 sets. If they made only two sets for Castle, Pirates, Adventurers, Space, Vikings and Western a year, I would not complain. For me it is not about the number of sets, but the variety of themes. If you do not like town, then there is only one theme left for you. And if you do not like Ninjago, there is also only one more left. If you do not like neither town nor Ninjago then tough luck. But on the other hand, if you do not like Star Wars and Harry Potter, you still have cca. 18 themes to choose from!

Edited March 13 by Wolfpack

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

I am talking about minifigure themes. Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz already ended.

They are still for sale at LEGO.com.

3 hours ago, Wolfpack said:

Lincenced:
Bluey
Spidey
Disney (Toy Story etc)
Batman
Fortnite
Animal Crossing
Super Mario
Sonic
Minecraft
Wednesday
Wicked
Jurassic World
Harry Potter
One piece
Marvel
Star Wars
Speed Champions
Editions
+
Lord of the Rings
Zelda
D&D
Simpsons
Pirates of the Carribean
...

So the ratio is something lige 2 to 20+.

 

These are all predominantly small themes in terms of set numbers compared to the huge City, Friends and Ninjago themes. When I go into a store, barely any shelf space is taken up by Animal Crossing or Wednesday compared to City. Yes, there are many more licensed themes simply because many of them get barely 5 sets. This is why it is far better to compare the number of sets than the number of themes. When I go into a store, I typically see about half the store is unlicensed and half is licensed. Lord of the Rings is not a separate theme in itself, the minifigure based sets are part of ICONS and the Brickheadz are obviously part of BH. Similarly, Pirates of the Caribbean is not a theme, the one set it has is part of ICONS. 

[MAB]

27 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

Lego system used to be 100% original, but now only cca. two of 20 or 10% of all minifigure themes remain non-licenced.

LEGO also used to be 100% no minifigures.  And long before that, it was 100% wood. Times change. Some people want licensed sets, some want unlicensed. LEGO caters for both, about equally. Similarly some want DUPLO, some want Technic. Some want big, some want small.

If LEGO did not do licensed products it would soon be dead. Other brick brands would be producing the licensed sets that many of LEGO's consumers want to buy and so that would soon become the dominant brand as customers soon get used to buying that brand for licensed sets and would also switch for that brands unlicensed sets too. If they cut out all the adult (Botanicals, Architecture, etc) sets as well, they would reduce further. And if they cut out mini-dolls, another chunk gone. And then if they cut out modern themes and only do sets for themes that existed a few decades ago, they'd be a tiny niche company doing retro toys.

Kids have moved on. Kids like Ninjago. It has been going 15 years. There is a reason for that. It is constantly refreshed and it contains many styles of sets and many types of play. Ninjago is 3 or 4 themes under the same banner.

Edited March 13 by MAB

[Black Falcon]

3 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

Yeah, I am only interested in minifigure scale. If you enjoy playing with duplo, technic, scala, belville or whatever, great, but obviosly I am allowed to discuss the aspect of lego I care about.

I just went through the catalogue and wasn't paying anough attention for the themes I do not care for. However I see Wicked actually has sets with minifigs. I am not an expert for licenced themes so I do not know when the D&D, Simpsons and PotC retire, but some of them will probably continue with new sets. Even if you ignore those and Wednesday, the ratio stays cca. 2 to 20. So instead of cherrypicking wheteher it is 3 to 19 or 2 to 21, maybe we could focus on the real issue I presented.

Lego system used to be 100% original, but now only cca. two of 20 or 10% of all minifigure themes remain non-licenced.

The point is that you are cherrypicking the themes to turn the facts into your favour. You clould have just said that there are to many licensed Sets for your liking, and you surely wouldn´t be alone here ;).

And whether it is an issue that Lego does have licensed themes is a very personal thing. There are many people in this forum that would wish classic themes like Adventures, Western, Castle, Pirates and Space back, same as there are tons of people that are fans of themes of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic World etc - and people wishing for like every IP existing to get Sets - in the end Lego doesn´t roll the dice deciding which Themes to produce, but what they think (and market research tells them) that sells well.

Personally I would love to get a new Castle Theme, space theme, western etc. but at the same time I wouldn´t be against an own D&D theme either for instance. 

And talking about ratios, I don´t think counting IPs really is telling us much here, most IPs get only one Single Set a year (+maybe GWP and Brickhead) or every few years, if not just once, while City and Ninjago get tons of Sets, and have a big selection of different things. City for instance had Space Sets just recently, this year we probably have more trains on the shelves than we got for a long time, then we had Safari and Jungle sets etc. 

[icm]

28 minutes ago, MAB said:

Ninjago is 3 or 4 themes under the same banner.

Yeah, counting "themes" isn't very relevant to how Lego actually does business and distributes products these days. @Wolfpack, a "theme" is more of a budgetary category for TLG than a content category, and most "themes" today are more of umbrella labels that contain a wide variety of content types. Like @MAB said, "Tintin", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "The Simpsons", "The Lord of the Rings", "Project Hail Mary" - none of them are really "themes" because they're all parts of the Icons budget, but if you counted them individually as different themes due to difference licenses that'll inflate your theme count.

Also, different people have different perceptions of what's a "theme" and what isn't. For instance, when I was a kid I thought of Divers, Arctic, Race, and Extreme Team as separate themes, so when I came across online Lego databases it was a surprise to see them all listed as part of Town. Similarly, I thought of Ninja as a separate theme from Castle. Similarly today, City gets a wide variety of subthemes that could easily be thought of as entirely separate "themes" if you wanted to: Space 2024, Arctic, F1, the various other Exploration subthemes.

Like @MAB says, the more useful metric is the number of sets of various distinctions in a single release year, or available at a single time. You can split those up according to a number of criteria and analyze them as you wish, but a simplistic "licensed vs unlicensed themes" split is one of the least useful ways to do it.

Minifig-playscale sets, minidoll-playscale sets, no-minifig sets

Licensed sets, unlicensed sets that try to model something in the public domain (ie Botanicals), unlicensed sets that don't try to model something in the public domain (ie Dreamzzz)

Pure playsets, pure display sets, sets that are good for both play and display

Sets by price brackets or parts count brackets

Sets that have some sort of story with named characters attached, sets that don't (some people get quite as attached to Ninjago canon and screen accuracy as if it was an entirely licensed theme that didn't originate with TLG)

Etc

1 hour ago, Wolfpack said:

Yeah, I am only interested in minifigure scale. If you enjoy playing with duplo, technic, scala, belville or whatever, great, but obviosly I am allowed to discuss the aspect of lego I care about.

I just went through the catalogue and wasn't paying anough attention for the themes I do not care for.

Lego system used to be 100% original, but now only cca. two of 20 or 10% of all minifigure themes remain non-licenced.

I am talking about themes, because that it what i care about. I would prefer three themes I like with a few sets than a theme I do not like with 127 sets.

So, you're cherry-picking.

So, you're cherry-picking.

No, Lego system was never 100% original. There have always been licensed products. The Shell license goes all the way back to 1962. It is true that the proportion of licensed products has increased dramatically since 1999.

So would we all. The problem is we all want a different three themes. For instance, I would like the following three themes: Thunderbirds, Interplanetary Patrol (my own silly space stories that I wrote and drew when I was a kid), and, I dunno, Mole-Men from Mars. But that's not going to happen because Thunderbirds is a fairly niche license, nobody knows about Interplanetary Patrol, and other people would rather have Bird-Babes from Barsoom.

[Wolfpack]

26 minutes ago, Black Falcon said:

The point is that you are cherrypicking the themes to turn the facts into your favour. You clould have just said that there are to many licensed Sets for your liking, and you surely wouldn´t be alone here ;).

And whether it is an issue that Lego does have licensed themes is a very personal thing. There are many people in this forum that would wish classic themes like Adventures, Western, Castle, Pirates and Space back, same as there are tons of people that are fans of themes of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic World etc - and people wishing for like every IP existing to get Sets - in the end Lego doesn´t roll the dice deciding which Themes to produce, but what they think (and market research tells them) that sells well.

Personally I would love to get a new Castle Theme, space theme, western etc. but at the same time I wouldn´t be against an own D&D theme either for instance. 

And talking about ratios, I don´t think counting IPs really is telling us much here, most IPs get only one Single Set a year (+maybe GWP and Brickhead) or every few years, if not just once, while City and Ninjago get tons of Sets, and have a big selection of different things. City for instance had Space Sets just recently, this year we probably have more trains on the shelves than we got for a long time, then we had Safari and Jungle sets etc. 

You can make a new list for yourself, if you still have some issues with mine. Just list licenced and non-licenced minifigure themes after the retirement of Dreamzzz in a few months. I am pretty sure the ratio will be similar.

And why haven't you quoted the whole post? I explained I would be more then happy with only one or two sets per year for Western, Castle, Pirates etc. It is not about the size of a theme. I would be even happy with completely new modern, fantasy, historic whatever non-licenced themes. I find it funny how people here are rigourously defending the huge reduction of proper non-licenced themes as something great.

And yeah, people can like whatever they want. I never denied that. Surely I can also like something then?

@icm Just open a lego catalogue, it is very clear what is a theme.

Edited March 13 by Wolfpack

[icm]

@Wolfpack, if it is very clear what is a theme and what is not, can you write down a definition that is very clear and that stands up to scrutiny? More to your point, if it is very clear what is a licensed theme and what is not, can you write down a definition that is very clear and that stands up to scrutiny?

Edited March 13 by icm
Typos

[Black Falcon]

43 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

You can make a new list for yourself, if you still have some issues with mine. Just list licenced and non-licenced minifigure themes after the retirement of Dreamzzz in a few months. I am pretty sure the ratio will be similar.

We don´t even know if Dreamzzz is going to be gone or not. All the info that was leaked was that Dreamzzz would only get one Wave this year - and people assumed it would be done after that, but no leaker (and neither Lego themselves) stated it would be over as far as I am aware - though probably people asumed it anyways so it wouldn´t be the big news if someone actually affirmed it. But eitherway, right now it is still here, as is Monkey kid. So you can´t just omit those and claim they don´t exist. And for next year we simply don´t know, we could get a new inhouse theme, or not... ;)

43 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

And why haven't you quoted the whole post? I explained I would be more then happy with only one or two sets per year for Western, Castle, Pirates etc. It is not about the size of a theme. I would be even happy with completely new modern, fantasy, historic whatever non-licenced themes. I find it funny how people here are rigourously defending the huge reduction of proper non-licenced themes as something great.

I did. Just that you apparently added something after I did so. That aside if you quote someone it is (among other things) so others also can comprehend what you are answering on, so just posting your answer under a whole text might not always be the best solution. And different people handle it differently. And nowhere did I defend the reduction as great, my point was just, that while you think it is bad, others thing it actually is great and for me it is just a mixed bag. I would love to get more inhouse themes back but at the same time I don´t see licenses as something bad either - IMO there is no right or wrong here, just different opinions ;).

43 minutes ago, Wolfpack said:

And yeah, people can like whatever they want. I never denied that. Surely I can also like something then?

Again. Noone argued against that you shouldn´t like something or your preferences in general but your arguments. As I said, there are many people here that would love more unlicensed themes again, so you certainly are not alone ;).

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Wolfpack said:

And why haven't you quoted the whole post? I explained I would be more then happy with only one or two sets per year for Western, Castle, Pirates etc. It is not about the size of a theme. I would be even happy with completely new modern, fantasy, historic whatever non-licenced themes. I find it funny how people here are rigourously defending the huge reduction of proper non-licenced themes as something great.

So why does the ratio of unlicensed to licensed themes matter to you?

LEGO could combine all of the Disney owned properties into a single theme and have Disney - Star Wars and Disney - Princess and Disney - Whatever and so on and call everything a subset of the Disney theme  just like they have done City - Stuntz, City - Space, City - Volcano, City - Forest Police, etc. Doing that would instantly decrease the theme ratio yet would make no difference to the numbers of licensed or unlicensed sets available and no difference to you as it does not introduce any unlicensed sets.

Similarly, they could increase the number of in-house themes by having Ninjago - future tech, Ninjago - historic, Ninjago - mechs, Ninjago - dragons, Ninjago - City all as separate themes with similar or the same characters. Or they could do "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids 1", "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids 2", etc. Both would make more in-house themes and change the unlicensed to licensed themes ratio. But that would not give you anything from the old themes from years ago. 

It is also important consider BDP sets as that is where nostalgic adults are spending their money on some Classic themes, especially Castle where buying each related set is typically of the order of at least $1000 per year, money that won't be spent on regular retail sets.

Edited March 13 by MAB

[Wolfpack]

33 minutes ago, MAB said:

So why does the ratio of unlicensed to licensed themes matter to you?

LEGO could combine all of the Disney owned properties into a single theme and have Disney - Star Wars and Disney - Princess and Disney - Whatever and so on and call everything a subset of the Disney theme  just like they have done City - Stuntz, City - Space, City - Volcano, City - Forest Police, etc. Doing that would instantly decrease the theme ratio yet would make no difference to the numbers of licensed or unlicensed sets available and no difference to you as it does not introduce any unlicensed sets.

Similarly, they could increase the number of in-house themes by having Ninjago - future tech, Ninjago - historic, Ninjago - mechs, Ninjago - dragons, Ninjago - City all as separate themes with similar or the same characters. Or they could do "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids 1", "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids 2", etc. Both would make more in-house themes and change the unlicensed to licensed themes ratio. But that would not give you anything from the old themes from years ago. 

It is also important consider BDP sets as that is where nostalgic adults are spending their money on some Classic themes, especially Castle where buying each related set is typically of the order of at least $1000 per year, money that won't be spent on regular retail sets.

Finally we are getting somewhere, those are the issues I am talking about.

1. Yes, that would certainly be a step in the right direction. It would be a huge difference if they would just make one Disney theme with combined Disney stuff. But the legal contracts are probably preventing them from doing that. As for City you are only talking about subthemes here. If they wanted to explore new directions and worlds, they should break it to different themes without the City label.

2. It will still be Ninjago though. I would be fine with "Unlicensed theme that you don't want as it is for modern kids" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. even if I personaly would not like them. That was my argument all along, I have no problem with "modernity". It would change the ratio for the better.

3. Yes, it would be. I very rarely spent money on BDP, but I would spend some on regular sets (with new parts) like LKC. So with only BDP and no original themes people like me spend nothing. But I understand that some people would buy anything just that it is vaguely related to castle or pirates, even if there are no instructions or new parts. So for those people they just outsource the process to BDP to reduce the costs.

icm, a theme is what lego labels as such. The themes are listed in a table of contents.  Each theme has its own definition. This is definition for City: Explore the bustling world of LEGO® City, where there’s lots to do! Visit fun town centre destinations, play exciting emergency services stories and discover new frontiers, including the ocean and space. Build cool vehicles, take a ride on the train or put on exciting arena stunt shows.

Edited March 13 by Wolfpack