Wizarding World 2025 - Rumors & Discussion

[brickbride]

Most UCS sets have minifigs and (a very limited amount of) play functions. That doesn't make them playsets. For example, the 2020 Diagon Alley has the WWW mascot with the hat that can be raised. But it's still clearly a display set geared at adult buyers. The same goes for the UCS Burrow with the Floo function.

The Main Tower is in the same price range as the latter and, for me, fulfills the same role between its displayability and the inclusion of rare characters like Kettleburn (why would a child want this particular fig? What play scene would he lend himself to?).  Malfoy Manor is a set AFOLs - not children and certainly not their parents - have been clamoring for for years, the same goes for updated figs of Narcissa and Bellatrix. The sets is way out of a child's price range, is a facade maent for display that would probably fall down if you tried to play with it,  and what child wants to play "Death Eater meeting" anyway?

Edited Thursday at 11:27 AM by brickbride

[BrickBob Studpants]

@brickbride: That seems rather arbitrary. Disqualifying the Main Tower as a playset since it‘s also displayable and features an obscure character is rather silly to me when it also includes all the challenges, which are clearly meant as play features too. (Also ignoring that Kettleburn is the teacher for care of magical creatures and can thus be reasonably viewed as Fluffy’s caretaker. Same goes for the shopkeeper in the QSS that serves as both an incentive for collectors and to help act out the story of the set).

With such vague criteria, any playset above $50 of any theme could be discredited as such.

[brickbride]

You misunderstand me. To me it's not a playset if it’s primarily geared at AFOLs.

For example I'd argue that the Flying Lesson is a playset (if a massively overpriced one) because it depicts a scene children would like and has the characters to act it out.

But it's plainly unrealistic to expect a EUR 250 set to be predominantly geared at kids, and the Main Tower is heavily optimized towards displayability over playability: way too many stairs, no Quirrel, Mirror of Erised in a location that renders all the challenges moot (but looks pretty), inclusion of Kettleburn over actual plot-relevant characters, and so on.

Edited Thursday at 11:26 AM by brickbride

[Chocolate Frog]

The current Harry Potter line has a very particular target market - it isn’t ‘just’ aimed at kids, and it isn’t ‘just’ aimed at AFOLS, it’s aimed at buyers who grew up with the original books/ films, who now have children of their own and are buying them the toys they wish they’d had when they were children. The same thing happened with Star Wars when it came back in 1997. When the line restarted in 2018 it was intended as a kids line with a side order of nostalgia, but that’s because it had ‘entertainment support’ from new content, the Fantastic Beasts films. But those were clunkers, kids dismissed them and the line became more about capturing the budgets of adults who craved nostalgia and could buy themselves a present while pretending it was for their kids (can you tell I know a little about this? ;-)). I would have thought that after the series comes out most sets will be aimed at kids except for some sets based on the films that will be priced for AFOLS. 

[Virginia_Bricks]

1 hour ago, brickbride said:

You misunderstand me. To me it's not a playset if it’s primarily geared at AFOLs.

For example I'd argue that the Flying Lesson is a playset (if a massively overpriced one) because it depicts a scene children would like and has the characters to act it out.

But it's plainly unrealistic to expect a EUR 250 set to be predominantly geared at kids, and the Main Tower is heavily optimized towards displayability over playability: way too many stairs, no Quirrel, Mirror of Erised in a location that renders all the challenges moot (but looks pretty), inclusion of Kettleburn over actual plot-relevant characters, and so on.

The Main Tower is not optimized towards display-ability. 71043 and 76419 include a main tower geared towards display value and there is a huge difference between those sets and the Main Tower.

[BrickBob Studpants]

1 hour ago, brickbride said:

You misunderstand me. To me it's not a playset if it’s primarily geared at AFOLs.

Sure, but that also depends on how you look at it. Where do you draw the line? Is last year‘s $160 Star Destroyer more geared towards kids or adults? It has all the characters you‘d need plus an anniversary minifig for collectors, is a detailed model for display, but also has play features. I‘d argue it‘s both, just like the big HP sets

[Black Falcon]

10 hours ago, brickbride said:

Most UCS sets have minifigs and (a very limited amount of) play functions. That doesn't make them playsets. For example, the 2020 Diagon Alley has the WWW mascot with the hat that can be raised. But it's still clearly a display set geared at adult buyers. The same goes for the UCS Burrow with the Floo function.

I would rather say that something beeing a display Set doesn´t rule it out to be a playset too.

10 hours ago, brickbride said:

The Main Tower is in the same price range as the latter and, for me, fulfills the same role between its displayability and the inclusion of rare characters like Kettleburn (why would a child want this particular fig? What play scene would he lend himself to?).  Malfoy Manor is a set AFOLs - not children and certainly not their parents - have been clamoring for for years, the same goes for updated figs of Narcissa and Bellatrix. The sets is way out of a child's price range, is a facade maent for display that would probably fall down if you tried to play with it,  and what child wants to play "Death Eater meeting" anyway?

The inclusion of a single minifigure is hardly an argument for anything. Lego is well aware that people want certain minifigs, so they put them in sets so people buy them - no matter if the Set is meant for display or not. By your argumentation, the 60424 Jungle Explorer ATV Red Panda Mission would be a display set, because the fig is clearly included for adults that had the old adventurer sets ;).

And sure Malfoy Manor was made because the Designers know that AFOLs wanted to have such a set and also Narcissa. But the execution isn´t really the big UCS, just for Adult version either, so basically everything about is still looks like a playset to me. 

10 hours ago, brickbride said:

You misunderstand me. To me it's not a playset if it’s primarily geared at AFOLs.

For example I'd argue that the Flying Lesson is a playset (if a massively overpriced one) because it depicts a scene children would like and has the characters to act it out.

You mean like the Philosophers Stone challanges?

But anyways, I think people just have different takes on what is a display set and what isn´t. To me Sets like the microscale Hogwarts castles are Display Sets, all other Hogwarts we got a playsets, although of course you can still display them.

10 hours ago, brickbride said:

But it's plainly unrealistic to expect a EUR 250 set to be predominantly geared at kids, and the Main Tower is heavily optimized towards displayability over playability: way too many stairs, no Quirrel, Mirror of Erised in a location that renders all the challenges moot (but looks pretty), inclusion of Kettleburn over actual plot-relevant characters, and so on.

The mirror is just placed there because he fits there and IMO is meant to taken out to play, just like the modules are. And anyways, I would argue that the stairs beeing made for display doesn´t make much sense, because if you want to display that Set you would use the other side anyways - and even then you would at least need the great hall to make it look like Hogwarts. Just the Tower alone doesn´t make a good display IMO.