Least successful Lego line/set (Galidor excl.)

[gylman]

OK people, which do you think was the biggest Lego bomb ever? I am talking about popularity and sales success, not whether or not you personally like the sets. Also, not just a single set out of an otherwise successful line (some Star Wars or Bionicle sets can be obtained for 1/4 price, but overal the line was successful)

If you have any actual data to back it up, that would be great, but I doubt such data is available.

My vote is for the recent sports line. Soccer I think was a modest success, but then it all went horribly wrong. Oh the humanity....!

From what I can see at the discount stores, The "Ultimate NBA arena" set 3433 and hockey's "Slammer Stadium" (set 65182.. why the weird number) are sitting there in piles, and no one is buying either. I see 3433 being sold at nearly 80% off (19$ for an 89$ set, Canadian dollars), but no one is buying any.

Welcome your inputs!

Gyl

[Mister Phes]

I'll take a guess going by themes that were only aroud for one or two years.

Time Cruisers

Rock Raiders

Antartic

Aquanaughts

Or was LEGO just going through a shot gun theme phase where they intentionally released themes that never went anywhere?

[gylman]

Time cruisers seems to have died a very rapid death. Agree it would be one of the faliures. I have the big Time Cruisers set and it appears to be a big mishmash of leftover bits from other series and sets. No consistency of colour, construction, or anything.

Rock Raiders and Aquanauts seem to have a decent resale value on eBay, so I don't think they were totally unpopular, but I doubt they failed on the scale of Lego Basketball.

The arctic sets I don't know much about admittedly.

[The Middleman]

Aquanauts were actually pretty popular. I would say Time Cruisers, Time Twisters, Galidor, Jack Stone, and Znap are the least popular themes of all time. Time Cruisers was actually pretty good for a cross-theme parts pack.

[ImperialJohn]

If we are talking money that LEGO really lost it must be.

ta-da.

Switching from DUPLO to EXPLORER. LEGO said themselfs that they lost $100.000.000 on that change *wacko*

So I think EXPLORER should take the prize. :f)

[Mister Phes]

Does anybody remember Toolo?

[Centaur]

Anyone remember the old Dinosaurs line? That one gets my vote.

[gylman]

Does anybody remember Toolo?

That was duplo's version of technic.

I think it did quite well. At least it did at my house when my kids were 4 and 5 years old. We have a big box full of it I have to list on eBay one of these days. My kids sold all their duplo on Ebay 2 years ago, but still are still unwilling to part with the Toolo.

They were still selling it, although under another name I think, in the stores last year, but I have not seen it this year.

I doubt that the Toolo line was a financial disaster.

Gyl

[WesternOutlaw]

Galidor and Jack Stone. I actually liked Antarctic. Never bought a Rock Raiders or Time Cruiser set but at least these had regular figs. Baketball and Soccer sets didn't do too much for me either.

[Mister Phes]

Death to Jackstone! Especially the 4+ Pirates!

[gylman]

Hey people, read the title of the topic. We all agree Galidor was the most spectacular failure, that's a given.

Also, 4+ pirates and Jack Stone may suck, but Lego is not losing big bucks on them. They appear to be successful series that are being continued even now.

So far we have:

Time Cruisers

Sports (esp. Basketball)

Lego Explore (dumb duplo)

Gyl

[Dark_Avenger]

I always felt like one of the only people who collected all the Rock Raiders and loved them. Maybe it was because I was 9, but they carry fond memories.

[MattZitron]

I loved Rock Raiders and Aquanauts.

The latter I can't really see as failling seeing as it went through 3 different generations.

I think Basketball, seeing as it is the worlds hardest game. My fingers never got a ball in.

What about Hockey? Did that do anything?

[yoda601]

Football* did great, in Europe, at least. I think basketball did crap, but the first sets had some pretty good faces. I got the stadium for $15. :-D

*Football will always be football. Americanised rugby is not football.

[MattZitron]

*Football will always be football. Americanised rugby is not football.

Yoda is king. And very correct. The dead giveaway at the name is that in Football the majority of the game is played by kicking the ball, not running with it.

[gylman]

I'm quite sure soccer (football in Europe and rest of hte world) did quite well. It went on through several years and two generations of fields, accessory packs, etc. I played it and it was quite fun, and my kids kept it and used it for quite a time.

Basketball was (and is) a dismal failure. It's in every bargain bin and S@H sale. It is totally unplayable, and the sets are useless even as parts packs.

I think hockey was a failure, but not on the scale of basketball. It is a bit more playable, and I have seen a good number of hockey figs on eBay as parts of loose lego sales. I think the hockey sets had more useful pieces for MOCs etc.

Basketball remains my vote for the worst failure, although it may well be that Duplo to "Explore" change cost Lego more money.

We should make a poll out of this:

Basketball

Time Cruisers

Explore (Duplo)

Rock Raiders

Hockey

Any others?

[Josh120]

To say that Aquanauts did not do well would be silly; if Aquanauts sold poorly, why did the Aquazone line continue on until 1998? I always had the impression, actually, that Aquazone did extremely well and is a model theme from a product development/design/quality standpoint.

LEGO has released a lot of stuff that just never got off the ground and lost them money. I feel that their insistence of coming up with more pointless lines constantly negates the profits of the one time they struck gold (Bionicle). Rather than taking a hard look at the market and delivering specifically what will get purchased, I feel like they release every strange idea that they can think of hoping that one will actually work.

The Dinosaurs may not have sold on a Star Wars scale but I don't think they were a disaster; at least everybdy can recognize and appreciate a dinosuar. The NBA sets have to have been the worst blunder besides Galidor; no doubt they never even got back the cost on the NBA license.

-Josh

[gylman]

LEGO has released a lot of stuff that just never got off the ground and lost them money.  I feel that their insistence of coming up with more pointless lines constantly negates the profits of the one time they struck gold (Bionicle).  Rather than taking a hard look at the market and delivering specifically what will get purchased, I feel like they release every strange idea that they can think of hoping that one will actually work.

The Dinosaurs may not have sold on a Star Wars scale but I don't think they were a disaster; at least everybdy can recognize and appreciate a dinosuar.  The NBA sets have to have been the worst blunder besides Galidor; no doubt they never even got back the cost on the NBA license.

-Josh

It's very hard to predict what would succeed though.

The soccer and basketball games are not much different, yet the soccer was probably a success, but basketball a disaster. I think that probably they didn't market test Hockey and Basketball too much, but just saw them as an extension of the soccer line. However, the basketball game is just not fun to play, and the giant curved pieces are useless outside the sets.

If ANYONE here would have seen the bionicle designs before release, they would undoubtedly have predicted total disaster. It was a radical change for Lego... yet I am told that Bionicle basically has kept Lego alive the last few years.

Galidor was looking very hot on TV a few years ago, but then died over night. Not really TLCs fault. They obviously would have been better off with a Reboot license (Megabyte woudl have been quite a cool build), but maybe that license was gone.

It's easy to secondguess. I am pretty sure they do a lot of testing before they fire up the molds for a whole new line (but would bet they skimped on the market-testing for Hockey and Basketball)

"Explore" was a marketing mistake, not a new line.

Gyl

[SuvieD]

Failure series are very few for LEGO. I know Galidor totally bombed but few series were ever even close to that loss. Products that had a short life span didn't mean failure though. NINJA was only around for two seasons yet it is among the most successful and valuable series to own or to resell. I would say that the items that even when over 50% off still sit on the self are not very good.

Failures not including Galidor

Basketball, two for a dollar formerly $8 sets, practically can't give away these sets, nothing has ever been so poor. I hope they can pay for the license fees and break even. LEGO & sports is not a very good combination it seems like.

Harry Potter, though it does well for a short time after the movie it tends to collect dust after a month or two. If you collect you get them right away. If you are a parent you get them as soon as they go on sale or at Christmas. I can't begin to explain how many of these sets I saw on clearance. Maybe it was just that year and the expected sales but it seemed like either they made too many of them (and the SW sets) or they just weren't that popular. I also know that TLG took a loss on HP (licensed sets in general) that year.

Jack Stone, though it is a good idea it really is not needed. Mid-sized figures and sets for younger builders would be great but Duplo is fine for children up until 6 at the most and then System seems to be great until death! If another company had made these they might have done better but LEGO is already so versatile that they didn't need another step added. If these were not so overpriced then they may have done better. Though I don't think they are gone for good. The new pirate line proved they could be used in other ways and it is ultimately up to parents to decide if these are worth the money or not. I don't think we have seen the last of Jack or his ancestors so this theme has either too much merit or it has made enough money for LEGO to attempt to fine tune it.

I don't count Znap as that was doomed from the start due to lack of advertising and promotions.

Regardless of people opinions it seems that this last years sets were very nice. They were sold often and when they went to 30% off many of them wer sold out. 2005 was a very good year as far as sets go. I think 2004 wasn't as nice but it was decent. 2003 sets did poorly I think. Hopefully these new 2006 sets will do really well. We shall soon see.

[prateek]

galidor

[gylman]

galidor

LMAO

Read title of topic. Galidor is obviously a disaster, and no need to discuss it further.

Excluding Galidor..... what do you think?

Gyl

[xwingyoda]

What about Rock raiders and artcic themes ???? (I kind of like those, but I don't think they sold much !!! Only one season...)

EDIT: I shall also nominate the Outback theme (yeahhhhh, only 4 sets !!!!) and the divers (also only one wave hehe).

[L'Exocet]

I definately vote for Time Cruisers (& Twisters). No one liked it, no one defended it, but many got really upset and angry ( *devil* ) about it - I remember the beating it got everytime someone just mentioned the word "time" in the same or next sentence with "Lego". That theme made some serious damage to the image of TLC.

[Mister Phes]

I got a Time Cruisers set the other day and I think its really good. Its so innovative with all its features, but I can understand why people think they're stupid. I've only see this one set though. The others may make me think differently.

[Dino_Bot]

I bought like ten of the old dinosaurs...

Now they are used in Jedi Business!

But my friend and I bought wayy too many Dinos...We built a "tree of life" and thats what we fed to the Dinos.