Bricklink and LEGO.com Account Merge

[Peppermint_M]

Got to say, I have very mixed feelings about this. I don't like implications for the TOS changing. The change for a site built for/by adult fans and collector engagement having to be forced even further into a bland uncritical corporate approved framework.

It returns the concern in my mind of the resale of older licenced themes and parts being prevented due to new contracts and agreements. 

There is potential for older parts that no longer conform to current regulations being banned from sale. 

I am glad bricklink was saved, but will it truly be bricklink much longer?

[Mylenium]

It's of course one of those million dollar questions, but I doubt they'll move too aggressively on that. Sellers jumping ship and moving on to other platforms cannot be in their interest.

Mylenium

[Slegengr]

I share the same concerns.  Hopefully, they handle this carefully similar to the original acquisition of BrickLink.  How long can it really last in general for a company to own the main secondary market for the product?  Regardless of what this change means and as disappointing as it would be for BrickLink to lose status as the best secondary market, a shift to other secondary markets seems inevitable to me.  BrickLink is already not as free and open as its creator wanted it to be, but some of the changes seem inevitable in light of the tragic loss of the creator, and thus a loss of the original plans and insights or goals.

It is fine that TLG uses BrickLink for marketing research, but it would be ironically like Lord Business to seek to control the secondary market and how people choose to use the product after initial purchase.  I know all businesses seek to make a profit, but I hope the heart of the original LEGO ideals is not completely lost in pursuit of profit.  I will always love these bricks and pieces as a creative artistic and engineering medium for imaginative play, but this does not seem to be the top goal of the company today.  If TLG uses ownership of BrickLink to control the secondary market too much to restrict what we choose to do with the plastic we buy, the market will likely shift away from that corporate control.

My wish and opinion is that the two site logins should not be merged and TLG should remain mostly hands-off for the secondary market, but I don't get to make the decisions except for where my money goes for future purchases.

[Mylenium]

17 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

to seek to control the secondary market and how people choose to use the product after initial purchase

The the risk of LEGO achieving world domination via Bricklink is probably non-existent. They can't control every distribution channel to begin with and we can have a whole debate over property rights, intellectual property, consumer rights and so on and how it works out in different countries. And let's be real - Bricklink isn't their money maker. Provisions and fees probably just about balance out with the operating cost and the only real cash comes in when people rush to the Bricklink Designer Program releases. It's good for PR, but not essential to their business. With that in mind the question really becomes whether they would want to destroy all that good will and drive sellers towards other marketplaces. As I said above already if they handle this too aggressively it will only hurt them. The sense of fusing the accounts can still be questioned and I don't like it as much as the next guy, of course, since casual buyers and hardcore collectors, MOC builders and so on are completely different demographics, but I'm willing to believe that they have a good rationale for it at least from a technical and security perspective.

Mylenium

[Murdoch17]

I would be willing to bet all the people who've been blacklisted from LEGO.com and probably gonna be banned from Bricklink too in a few months once the change is complete.

[JesseNight]

4 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Got to say, I have very mixed feelings about this. I don't like implications for the TOS changing. The change for a site built for/by adult fans and collector engagement having to be forced even further into a bland uncritical corporate approved framework.

It returns the concern in my mind of the resale of older licenced themes and parts being prevented due to new contracts and agreements. 

There is potential for older parts that no longer conform to current regulations being banned from sale. 

I am glad bricklink was saved, but will it truly be bricklink much longer?

I feel the worries. I'm afraid this was a matter of time since the takeover, because I do understand they want to simplify management and keep all their sites on the same account management. That makes total sense.

Bricklink won't be the same since the takeover. How much it will change, we'll have to wait and see. Will LEGO put its maintenance and updates  under the same management as all their sites, or do they still have a dedicated group that was involved in the original Bricklink? Will they still have influence? Will they listen to users or do what many megacorporations do, keeping it in line to suit their commercial best interests?
Time will tell...

[SpacePolice89]

This is not a thing that I want to happen but on the other hand I don't believe that the changes will be so drastic. In Swedish we have a saying "man ska inte inte måla fan på väggen" which translates to "do not paint the devil on the wall" and means that it is not good to assume the worst thing to happen because it leads to negative things. Maybe all this will turn out okay after all.

[Peppermint_M]

I am really hoping my concerns are just that. "do not paint the devil on the wall" is a good saying for this case. I have a habit of spotting patterns that do not always play out as I thought they would, and looking for patterns to avoid (something of a defence mechanism, and sometimes a positive as I can nip a problem in the bud before it is a big crash).

So I am trying not to see this is another step up the "wedge" that began pushing in with a lot of MOCs being hidden away as they didn't follow the LEGO playbook. (No Guns, War, Religion etc). 

Of course, other markets will grow if Bricklink is squeezed too much but it an established place is what we all prefer. 

Glad I am not the local tin-foil hat wearer and alone in these thoughts!

[Slegengr]

6 hours ago, Mylenium said:

The the risk of LEGO achieving world domination via Bricklink is probably non-existent. They can't control every distribution channel to begin with and we can have a whole debate over property rights, intellectual property, consumer rights and so on and how it works out in different countries. And let's be real - Bricklink isn't their money maker. Provisions and fees probably just about balance out with the operating cost and the only real cash comes in when people rush to the Bricklink Designer Program releases. It's good for PR, but not essential to their business. With that in mind the question really becomes whether they would want to destroy all that good will and drive sellers towards other marketplaces. As I said above already if they handle this too aggressively it will only hurt them. The sense of fusing the accounts can still be questioned and I don't like it as much as the next guy, of course, since casual buyers and hardcore collectors, MOC builders and so on are completely different demographics, but I'm willing to believe that they have a good rationale for it at least from a technical and security perspective.

Mylenium

Oh, I know they will not achieve world domination, just hoping they do not wish to or try to do so too hard.  I think it is obvious that they treat BrickLink as valuable market research; that may be the primary purpose of the acquisition.  I agree with all your points, especially the likelihood of aggressive market control attempts only hurting them.  Of course, I think the rationale of the account merge is due to technical and security perspectives.  I just prefer a secondary market separated from the primary market, as BrickLink definitely seems more geared to towards collectors of discontinued sets and towards MOC builders rather than to children in the market for new sets.

In TLG's original acquisition of BrickLink, I was initially apprehensive but optimistic that they could handle it correctly, and that is my opinion to this day; TLG did cut out sales of customs or anything non-LEGO, which makes sense to me, but otherwise kept the site mostly intact the way it was.  I do hope this current merger does not affect the functionality of the set too much, but in a fairly optimistic view similar to most any technical update to user interface.

 

2 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

This is not a thing that I want to happen but on the other hand I don't believe that the changes will be so drastic. In Swedish we have a saying "man ska inte inte måla fan på väggen" which translates to "do not paint the devil on the wall" and means that it is not good to assume the worst thing to happen because it leads to negative things. Maybe all this will turn out okay after all.

That is my general view and a fitting saying, though (as probably most here would agree) I would still prefer that the primary and secondary market were not literally merged into one login...

 

1 hour ago, Peppermint_M said:

I am really hoping my concerns are just that. "do not paint the devil on the wall" is a good saying for this case. I have a habit of spotting patterns that do not always play out as I thought they would, and looking for patterns to avoid (something of a defence mechanism, and sometimes a positive as I can nip a problem in the bud before it is a big crash).

So I am trying not to see this is another step up the "wedge" that began pushing in with a lot of MOCs being hidden away as they didn't follow the LEGO playbook. (No Guns, War, Religion etc). 

Of course, other markets will grow if Bricklink is squeezed too much but it an established place is what we all prefer. 

Glad I am not the local tin-foil hat wearer and alone in these thoughts!

I remained optimistic with TLG's acquisition of BrickLink and it mostly played out fine so far; hopefully this change will be similar even though I would prefer no merge of the accounts.

Strange on that "wedge" concept: just today I looked up set 6716 to get digital instructions for the set and found that it apparently cannot still be called "Weapons Wagon" as it was in all of my central USA magazines... but it is still fine to leave the original "Indian" names.  I also found it strange that most sites list this from the "Western" theme, so I had to go back and check if it was some sort of Mandela effect that I thought it was called "Wild West" in the catalogs.  The catalogs did indeed label the theme "Wild West" as I had remembered, and set 6716 was indeed called "Weapons Wagon".

Indeed, being too aggressive in the secondary market will just push the market to other sites.  I also would prefer to stay with my well-established place on BrickLink, so I hope not much changes.

You definitely are not alone in these thoughts, though I do suspect more agreement to come from those of us that are older collectors and MOC builders that are 30+ years old and are not in LEGO's target demographic (unless you count the crazy amount of 18+ huge expensive sets for display rather than play).

[SpacePolice89]

7 hours ago, Slegengr said:

That is my general view and a fitting saying, though (as probably most here would agree) I would still prefer that the primary and secondary market were not literally merged into one login...

Yes, so do I. I also would prefer them to be as separate as possible. It also feels a bit sad that iconic Bricklink features such as the ID cards will disappear. I joined Bricklink in March 2002 and it changed my Lego hobby in tremendous ways. I might go as far as saying that Bricklink was an important part of my youth. Around the same time I also joined LUGNET and Brickshelf. Before it was very difficult to acquire the pieces that I needed for my MOCs and older sets that I wanted. Before Bricklink my only source of older sets and pieces were yard sales and thrift stores and sometimes I bought my friends old Lego sets and pieces that they no longer wanted. Joining all these sites and communities made me realize that I wasn't the only teenager interested in Lego in a huge way. Now, over 20 years later it feels strange that LUGNET is dead, Brickshelf is a museum and that Bricklink is changing.

[MAB]

I'm a BL seller and I'm not at all worried by the account integration. It simplifies the management of accounts and since kids use other LEGO sites and they are based in Europe, it means that they have to protect the data more than BL does. I hope it also cuts down on the spam that has plagued the BL forums in the past few years from the 100s of new accounts set up every day, and also stop all the new spam accounts claiming to be from LEGO or BL admin tricking new users into making bank transfer payments to confirm their accounts. 

I cannot see them trying to kill off the secondary market on BL as often they do not compete on price with BL sellers vs PAB for new and frequently cannot sell the parts people want to buy (retired sets, minifigs and licensed parts). If they want to compete on price for basic parts then they can go for it and reduce PAB prices. And if they do want to compete by making anti-competitive features for sellers, then they will just drive those sellers and eventually the buyers elsewhere. 

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Strange on that "wedge" concept: just today I looked up set 6716 to get digital instructions for the set and found that it apparently cannot still be called "Weapons Wagon" as it was in all of my central USA magazines... but it is still fine to leave the original "Indian" names.  I also found it strange that most sites list this from the "Western" theme, so I had to go back and check if it was some sort of Mandela effect that I thought it was called "Wild West" in the catalogs.  The catalogs did indeed label the theme "Wild West" as I had remembered, and set 6716 was indeed called "Weapons Wagon".

 

I don't think this is due to being over sensitive about the name but rather their database for old sets is poor. Those sets had different names in different locations. The bigger shock for me is that they actually have instructions available when many sets of the 80s and 99s are missing on the LEGO site. 

They still use the word Weapon in sets like 9591 Weapon Pack or 70617 Temple of The Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, so it is clearly not banned.

[Calanon]

From the email the merger seems to be more subsuming any BL accounts within Lego accounts since if you don't have a Lego account it'll be deleted. Wonder how many that will happen to. I'm often not a fan of account merges or transfers as things go wrong.

[Slegengr]

5 hours ago, MAB said:

I'm a BL seller and I'm not at all worried by the account integration. It simplifies the management of accounts and since kids use other LEGO sites and they are based in Europe, it means that they have to protect the data more than BL does. I hope it also cuts down on the spam that has plagued the BL forums in the past few years from the 100s of new accounts set up every day, and also stop all the new spam accounts claiming to be from LEGO or BL admin tricking new users into making bank transfer payments to confirm their accounts. 

I cannot see them trying to kill off the secondary market on BL as often they do not compete on price with BL sellers vs PAB for new and frequently cannot sell the parts people want to buy (retired sets, minifigs and licensed parts). If they want to compete on price for basic parts then they can go for it and reduce PAB prices. And if they do want to compete by making anti-competitive features for sellers, then they will just drive those sellers and eventually the buyers elsewhere. 

I'm still hopeful that the merger is for these reasons and will not affect the use of BrickLink in a significant way.  The spam prevention is an interesting point.

As with their acquisition of BrickLink, I hope that TLG continues to recognize the marketing value of BL and the fact that the market will move elsewhere if they overreach.

 

5 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't think this is due to being over sensitive about the name but rather their database for old sets is poor. Those sets had different names in different locations. The bigger shock for me is that they actually have instructions available when many sets of the 80s and 99s are missing on the LEGO site. 

They still use the word Weapon in sets like 9591 Weapon Pack or 70617 Temple of The Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, so it is clearly not banned.

I'm not certain the name change is due to sensitivity, but I could not find the name "Weapons Wagon" in the set data on websites like Brickset, BrickEconomy, or the LEGO official site even though some list alternate set names.  I do find the original USA name in the original catalogs (or scans thereof) and on BrickLink.  The value of BrickLink as a more-thorough history of LEGO sets and parts is indispensable to me, and I hope this aspect is not lost.

TLG does not seem overly censorial to me, especially since they are primarily a toy company for children and should have some appropriate censorship, but there do seem to be strange nuances to their regulations at times.

I wish there was a way that we could help TLG keep and manage their historical database.  Instead of relying on other sites, I do wish that LEGO.com was the best resource for old original instruction files, catalog scans, etc.
Maybe it is too much of a management nightmare to review, and it seems evident that TLG does not consider this worthwhile to this point.

This relates to my concern with TLG owning BrickLink and merging the accounts: originally, BrickLink data was reviewed and submitted by volunteering fans with vested interest in the historical database; I hope this is not lost due to TLG not counting it profitable enough.  A similar example is with LEGO Digital Designer and Stud.io: the former was abandoned by TLG, likely because it did not seem profitable enough, while the latter is evidence that there is value to the fans (and TLG has now found ways to profit from it in ways like BrickLink Designer Program).  Again, I am hopeful that TLG does recognize this, but not all past evidence points to shared values between the fans and the company.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Calanon said:

From the email the merger seems to be more subsuming any BL accounts within Lego accounts since if you don't have a Lego account it'll be deleted. Wonder how many that will happen to. I'm often not a fan of account merges or transfers as things go wrong.

I guess anyone that doesn't use bricklink very much and doesn't read emails from them. They have put up many warnings about it. It also isn't enough to have a LEGO account, users will need to actively link the two and presumably this will require users to log in and do it. Personally, I don't think it is a bad thing to delete old inactive accounts where the user hasn't logged in or responded to emails for years. In fact BL had a big clearout of inactive accounts about 10 days ago. We know this as lots of stores saw the number of 'fans' of their store drop dramatically before and after the maintenance period.

7 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

I'm not certain the name change is due to sensitivity, but I could not find the name "Weapons Wagon" in the set data on websites like Brickset, BrickEconomy, or the LEGO official site even though some list alternate set names.  I do find the original USA name in the original catalogs (or scans thereof) and on BrickLink.  The value of BrickLink as a more-thorough history of LEGO sets and parts is indispensable to me, and I hope this aspect is not lost.

I am a bit surprised it is not on Brickset, as they tend to be quite good for retaining multiple names for these sets where different locations had different names. Obviously much of the early work on Bricklink was done by Americans and as the site is (and was then also) American they tend to favour North American set names.

11 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

I wish there was a way that we could help TLG keep and manage their historical database.  Instead of relying on other sites, I do wish that LEGO.com was the best resource for old original instruction files, catalog scans, etc.
Maybe it is too much of a management nightmare to review, and it seems evident that TLG does not consider this worthwhile to this point.

I think at the time, they did not consider it valuable enough to keep such data and it is only through fan sites that some of this has been brought back into being available. For older sets, there are far better places to find instructions than LEGO itself!

13 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

This relates to my concern with TLG owning BrickLink and merging the accounts: originally, BrickLink data was reviewed and submitted by volunteering fans with vested interest in the historical database; I hope this is not lost due to TLG not counting it profitable enough.  A similar example is with LEGO Digital Designer and Stud.io: the former was abandoned by TLG, likely because it did not seem profitable enough, while the latter is evidence that there is value to the fans (and TLG has now found ways to profit from it in ways like BrickLink Designer Program).  Again, I am hopeful that TLG does recognize this, but not all past evidence points to shared values between the fans and the company.

I don't think the data itself is at risk as many people keep copies of the full catalogue. But one thing for sure, the usernames of the people that submitted specific information will eventually be lost, as if they are no longer active and the accounts are de-registered, then the submitting names get changed to the bbXXXXXX format and the original submitting username is lost.

[Stereo]

The only obvious confusion I see is that since a lot of accounts aren't going to have their original username, it'll be hard to tell which stores I've bought from that I trust to have nice used parts.  Other than that, have to wait and see what they change.

[Slegengr]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I am a bit surprised it is not on Brickset, as they tend to be quite good for retaining multiple names for these sets where different locations had different names. Obviously much of the early work on Bricklink was done by Americans and as the site is (and was then also) American they tend to favour North American set names.

I also was surprised for the same reasons that Brickset did not include the name.  There are a few alternate names listed, but not including the North American catalog name.  Strangely enough, most all sites I find call the theme "Western" instead of the "Wild West" North American catalog name.

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I think at the time, they did not consider it valuable enough to keep such data and it is only through fan sites that some of this has been brought back into being available. For older sets, there are far better places to find instructions than LEGO itself!

Indeed, other sites are better.  This is why I want less direct control by TLG on one of my favorite LEGO databases and buying sites (BL).  There will always be more direct profit motive for the company, which brings about different priorities.

 

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I don't think the data itself is at risk as many people keep copies of the full catalogue. But one thing for sure, the usernames of the people that submitted specific information will eventually be lost, as if they are no longer active and the accounts are de-registered, then the submitting names get changed to the bbXXXXXX format and the original submitting username is lost.

Agreed, the data is likely not directly at risk on BrickLink and will surely be kept by someone somewhere.  My concern is related to different motives for the consumer and the producer.  Consumers have interest in information databases, while producers are more profit-motivated.  These tend to at least somewhat oppose each other, though ideally they could work together.

It just seems to me that the perfect case would be that LEGO.com would be the best historical site for TLG rather than needing alternate websites and volunteers doing better to keep the historical data.  Of course, other sites will still exist, as is the current state.  This also seems to come down to a difference in primary motive (profit for producer, data/history/enjoyment for the consumer).

 

1 hour ago, Stereo said:

The only obvious confusion I see is that since a lot of accounts aren't going to have their original username, it'll be hard to tell which stores I've bought from that I trust to have nice used parts.  Other than that, have to wait and see what they change.

This is also a bother for me, though I will get through it like most any update, given enough time.

When I tried to make the account update on LEGO.com, for some reason my preferred username was rejected.  I really don't know why the name "Slegengr" was rejected, but I did not want my BrickLink account to change to the random LEGO.com nickname, "Darth Maula": blah!

It does look like my username update was finally accepted so it can remain the same.  I preferred choosing whatever avatar I created, but don't have this option on LEGO.com, at least not at this point.  (I assume this is to simplify censorship on a website frequented by children.)

Edited 2 hours ago by Slegengr

[danth]

I've never been keen on Lego buying Bricklink. But if the account merge means I can actually stay logged in to Bricklink for more than a half hour, that might be a small win.