Have LEGO sets always been an expensive toy?

[Slegengr]

I have seen countless discussions popping up recently across different media about the price of LEGO sets today.  I don't intend to make this another repeat of those discussions, but I have been wondering about a comment I see often showing up in those discussions:
Something along the line of "LEGO sets have always been an expensive toy."

I'm curious what people think of this claim?

For a bit of clarity: I generally disagree with this claim and will get into this later; I was born, raised, and currently live in the USA where there are economic differences from many people across the world; I was born in 1991 so I was at the ideal age for LEGO sets around 1995-2003; I did have some other toys as a child and bought some new, but my childhood toy purchases were almost exclusively for LEGO sets; today I have a large collection and am pretty much completely brand-loyal to this point and am well aware of secondary market value for older sets; inflation obviously needs to be taken into account when looking back; I only have my own experiences and anecdotes, not well-documented research statistics at this point...

For some details on my own LEGO backstory, in terms of USA economics in the 1990's and early 2000's, my family was certainly not rich when I was a child.  I think we would have been at the low end of middle-class in terms of income, though I really do not know how this can be precisely defined.  Compared to my friends in my local community, we had less but were certainly not in poverty.  Having several siblings added to the family expenses while my father made only slightly more than minimum wage from what I know.  I did have a few aunts and uncles that were not married or did not have families of their own, so they contributed from their reasonably average incomes to buy presents for special events, typically 1-2 times per year.

Throughout my childhood, each year's toy acquisitions typically consisted of a few impulse buys of the cheapest sets ($1-3 at the time, so about $5-7 today accounting inflation), sometimes from my own cash and occasionally from my parents.  With the money I saved from doing odd jobs, I would buy a medium-sized set with my own cash each summer ($20-30 then, so $50-60 today) and would occasionally find some cheap sets or bulk at yard sales that I would also buy with my own cash.  Sometimes, my siblings and I would save up for a Shop-at-Home order once a year, typically for a medium-small set each or a larger set in combination with some siblings.  The biggest acquisitions were for Christmas each year with a small/medium set from my parents ($10-20 then, $25-$40 today) and around the same size set from my aunts and uncles unless they bought one larger set ($80-100 then, $170-220 today) for me and my brothers together.  These purchases led to a sizeable childhood collection by the time I was a teenager.  At that time, I had some friends that entered a Dark Age and sold me their collections for around 10% original value, so that added to my overall collection as well.  Even at what I believe was the lower end of middle class, it was not difficult for me to acquire a collection back then.

In comparison to other toys:
Based on my memories, stuffed animals costed $5-30 ($10-60 today) on average and had fairly comparable direct play value per dollar but could not be as easily combined with previous toys like LEGO sets could.  The same could be said for video games; each game would cost about $15-30 ($30-60 today) and would lose utility value after it had been completed several times.  Physical roleplay toys would typically cost about $10-30 ($20-60 today), such as toy tools or weapons, dart guns, parts of costumes, etc.  Competitive brick brands were cheaper than comparably-sized LEGO sets, but typically around 10-15% lower, not 40-60% like seems fairly common today, and the quality was lower than that of LEGO brand toys.

I'm still considering ways to collect data in order to substantiate my opinion beyond just anecdotes and bias, but it seems significantly evident that LEGO has become an expensive toy within the last decade or so due to the adult/collector market and pop-culture influence (obviously at least in part due to licensing costs).  Sets in the 1990's and 2000's showed more of the emphasis of The LEGO Group to be on a quality toy that could be bought by/for children with the priority of imaginative play.  Many sets today seem to show prioritization first for profit and collectability, especially through licensed themes to gain from pop-culture.  Do not get me wrong: I do not think there should be no licensed themes, it is just disappointing to me that most of the market emphasis seems to be on making money from pop-culture rather than on making original and innovative toys and themes to encourage imaginative play.  Though LEGO pieces are still of good quality, there seems to be enough evidence to indicate that TLG seeks profit-maximizing by reducing production costs through some compromises rather than the original "Only the best is good enough" motto.  These factors seem significant to me in LEGO sets becoming an expensive toy in more recent days.

What do you think?  Is this a worthwhile discussion?  Is my favorite childhood toy brand becoming mostly expensive premium collector's display models today or am I just nostalgic?  Are sets relatively more expensive today due to the model-like nature of collectible sets rather than the open-world storytelling and rebuildable nature of the sets of yesteryear, or was I just a lot richer than I thought as a child?
I do believe that there are still many children today that break up and combine sets in their collections to tell their own stories, as I experience this with children in my family/community and still see this aspect in secondhand bulk parts available today.  Is this still of precedent value and high priority in TLG's marketing structure?

Edited yesterday at 06:00 PM by Slegengr

[Stereo]

In my mind it's always been a premium toy, but from around 2000, they significantly expanded the selection aimed at adults.  And particularly taking more advantage of the type of collector who wants everything.  I guess the most obvious part is that $200 sets were the top end in 2000, now they have $1000 ones, which even compensating inflation, is 3x as much.

 

It's not the most premium I encountered as a kid, that'd probably be Brio, but they were definitely above the typical plastic toys.

Edited yesterday at 06:22 PM by Stereo

[JesseNight]

LEGO in general always was a premium toy for sure.
At the same time, the rising of AFOL introduced sets that are vastly more expensive than those for kids.
I suppose the many IP protected franchises being covered nowadays also have a more premium price due to license costs.
So there's more facets to this than just yes or no I suppose.

Yes, LEGO was always premium.
No, some series do have an extra premium.

[SecondHandLego]

My two cents : I remember seeing some article ( blogpost? ) from someone who did the math, history and economics, and they claimed that LEGO has kept quite steady pace with inflation: ie it has always (since the 1970s or so ) been more or less equally expensive. That was maybe ten years ago, so I would guess that the licensing had not yet reached the levels it has now, and that the price of those sets have pushed the curve up and away from following inflation.

[Jack Sassy]

I must echo all of ye. When I was a child, the biggest set my parents could afford (and that itself was rarely) was the one that cost 20 euros or so (at the time, lats). Other toys have always been cheaper, but the plastic quality differs from toy to toy. LEGO has had a consistent quality (in my country ) and variety which most of the toys lacked. It certainly has become much more expensive in the past years, but most importantly - the smaller sets are disappearing.

[DonQuixote]

It's hard to judge that because as a kid I mostly get my Lego from parents, grandma and a retired godfather with no kids .  And they were not rich either.  Only today I realize how spoiled I was by getting so much Lego. On 6 December 1989 ( Saint Nicolas day) I received the Black Seas Barracuda,  Eldorado Fortress and the Caribbean Clipper ! I don't know who bought what because I believed in Saint Nicolas ( the original real Santa Claus ) back then.

So maybe it was Saint Nicolas after all 

But today I have to pay it myself and with the rise of alternate brick companies that actually also deliver a good quality,  it seems that Lego is overpriced.  That's why  I wait for discount, double points  or a good gwp.

€350 for  the Black Pearl feels overpriced by €50 but the inclusion of the compass and the Sega controller makes it a bit better to swallow . I had put aside   €300 a long time ago for the Bluebrixx Queen Anne's Revenge but Lego managed me to spend that money to their new ship.

So yes Lego is definitely premium but is it more expensive then ever? ...I don't know....

Their sets get bigger and more detailed 

Edited 20 hours ago by DonQuixote

[MAB]

It is a combination of those statements.  LEGO has always been expensive and premium compared to other similar toys. When I was a kid in the 70s, there were other building toys such as wooden bricks or cheap quality plastic bricks or prebuilt plastic buildings and so on.

There have always been low priced LEGO sets available but that doesn't mean they were not expensive compared to other similar toys. You can buy a CMF for £3.50 or a polybag for £5 but for a similar price you can buy a pack of 10 clone minifigures or 50 plastic soldiers.

LEGO has introduced high priced sets in the last two decades but that doesn't mean they don't retain low priced points, even if the number of sets at low price points has reduced.

I did most of my LEGO buying 2005-15, especially 2010-15 when LEGO was not selling well but stores expected to shift older products out of warehouses so gave regular large discounts to clear stock. Hence, especially for those five years, LEGO seemed to be available cheap but that was just a combination of lack of popularity and stores wanting to clear their stock. Before that time, stores didn't always try to clear stock as fast. After that, popularity increased.

[MAB]

13 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Sets in the 1990's and 2000's showed more of the emphasis of The LEGO Group to be on a quality toy that could be bought by/for children with the priority of imaginative play.  Many sets today seem to show prioritization first for profit and collectability, especially through licensed themes to gain from pop-culture.  Do not get me wrong: I do not think there should be no licensed themes, it is just disappointing to me that most of the market emphasis seems to be on making money from pop-culture rather than on making original and innovative toys and themes to encourage imaginative play. 

I've said this before but I don't think was true then but not now. Kids having Castle sets then would play with them based on stories they already knew, whether it was Arthurian legend, Robin Hood, or some other other pseudo historic stories. Pirates would be played with based on stories and movies of pirates (just with generic figures instead of movie lookalikes). Children can still play like that when they buy City, Friends, Ninjago. They can still make up their own creative stories or builds when playing with Star Wars, DC or Marvel. Is acting out forestmen stealing treasure from soldiers more creative than acting out a duel between Luke and Vader?

I think it is looking at things when you were a child with rose tinted glasses, that your time was best. I grew up in the 70s, just about the time minifigures were introduced. We had a bucket of second hand LEGO but I don't think we ever got any new minifigure based sets. We didnt have any instructions at all. We just built what we wanted. For me, LEGO was a toy that you could use to enhance play with other toys. We used it to build buildings for model railways or Scalextric sets, or to build (very bad) ships for Kenner SW figures, or walls for Action Men / action figures to knock down, or smaller scale builds for battles with moulded toy soldiers, or farm buildings to use with our toy farm animals . To play with our LEGO, we didn't need those silly little minifigures that LEGO slightly later introduced to exclude all those other toys from play. We were imaginiative enough to combine LEGO with other toys and not need minifigures. But if I had been born 5-10 years later, I'm sure my childhood play would have been different. 

[dr_spock]

LEGO is also reuseable.  You can take apart and make something else.  You don't have to buy another one every time.   Spend once, use many. 

At end of the day, LEGO is a business in it to make money.  How you use or what you do with their products is up to you. 

 

[DelQuinn]

I've always known Lego to be an expensive toy.  I remember as a kid in the '80s dreaming about the sets that I couldn't afford.  I think the biggest offset to this is back then, there were a lot of smaller sets that you could focus on instead.  I think there are less of those smaller sets available these days so, aside from a few polybags here and there, the starting price point is higher than it used to be (And not going to include the 4+ sets that are usually horribly overpriced).

I appreciate their marketing strategy back at the start of Classic Space when they released the 918, 924(487) and 928(497) sets. Basically releasing similarly designed sets at different price points to make sure everyone could feel like they could afford a spaceship (I grew up with the 918 set)

[Mylenium]

I guess it depends?! In absolute terms LEGO has always been more expensive than comparable other toys. However, personally I think people were more willing to overlook it because the toy market overall was different. I've been doing LEGO only for the last nine years, but I have some memories of plastic scale modeling and railroad modeling when I was into that. Similar discussions happened there like e.g. Hasegawa or Tamiya kits being "premium" and getting more expensive by the year. This was then further escalated when new brands like Eduard cropped up and offered the same quality or better for a much lower price or long-standing brands like Revell or Airfix started producing higher quality sets from new molds also at reasonable prices. And bluntly put that's the same problem with LEGO. It isn't necessarily overly expensive in absolute terms, but these days there's a lot of competitors that show it can be done better and more cost-efficient. That's why it feels that some LEGO sets are just out of control in terms of price. And yes, we can have endless debates about actual manufacturing cost, normalized average prices, inflation and a million other factors. All that said personally I feel that the return value for my money has gotten worse with LEGO over those last nine years. Perhaps I'm just old and jaded, but it's just not as exciting as it used to be and I feel that there's a flood of mediocre stuff that devalues the brand and the user experience...

Mylenium

Edited 5 hours ago by Mylenium

[Kit Figsto]

I think it has always been expensive, but I think that there was a lull in price increases from, say, 2005-2020 or so.

If you look at some of the larger sets from the "glory days" of LEGO (80s-90s Castle/Pirates/Space), the price per piece ratios are awful.  Flagship sets were routinely 400-500 pieces and cost the equivalent of like $120+ today.  I know that some of this was because of large baseplates and things, but still, that's worse than even the most egregiously overpriced sets of this era.

I think what happened, though, is that prices remained fairly steady for a while.  Just using an example - a Star Wars battle pack was $10-13 up until 2017 (which was a 10 year run from their introduction until then).  They bumped up to $15 by 2020, then we went a year without.  Suddenly in 2022, they're $20 (with the price on the Ahsoka clone BP originally at $26.99, before they dropped it, likely due to major backlash), and now in 2025, they're $23.  So we went a decade and a half with a total of a $5 price increase, and then suddenly in the span of 5 years, we go up $8.  Inflation is a thing, but it's not over 50%.

Star Wars UCS sets are another example, they were routinely at $150-200 for a ship, and now pretty much nothing in that is less than $350.  

The main issue I have is that the amount of "stuff" doesn't feel like it's increasing - as a matter of fact, at times, I feel like you're getting the same or less but it's costing a substantial amount more.  We're also in an era where manufacturing is probably cheaper than it's ever been, and I know that LEGO outsources way more than they used to, which, in theory, should keep costs down.  I look at competitor brands, and while often the actual brick quality isn't quite the same (though I'd say it's getting closer and closer), they include more prints/specialized pieces, sometimes lights, etc, and the overall cost is often less despite getting more "stuff" with the sets.

Anyway, my point is that 2020-2025 has been on another plane as far as cost, to the point where it's kind of egregious.

[Slegengr]

Maybe I should ask a clarifying question as well: As a child, how often did you buy or get gifted some other toy than a LEGO set because LEGO was too expensive?
Maybe I am misunderstanding the implications or assumptions made in those comments elsewhere, like what does "expensive" or "premium" mean more specifically?

22 hours ago, Stereo said:

In my mind it's always been a premium toy, but from around 2000, they significantly expanded the selection aimed at adults.  And particularly taking more advantage of the type of collector who wants everything.  I guess the most obvious part is that $200 sets were the top end in 2000, now they have $1000 ones, which even compensating inflation, is 3x as much.

 

It's not the most premium I encountered as a kid, that'd probably be Brio, but they were definitely above the typical plastic toys.

Thanks for response.  I'm not so much wondering about the quality differences, but the actual affordability of LEGO products.  I did not get many of the largest sets as a child, but I was able to gather a sizeable LEGO collection with moderately low income as a child.  All of my friends also had sizeable collections, so it seems strange to me to see LEGO historically considered "expensive" in comparison to other toys of similar play value.

Of course, the most expensive sets of today are much larger than the most expensive sets before 2000, so it is always hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison.

 

19 hours ago, JesseNight said:

LEGO in general always was a premium toy for sure.
At the same time, the rising of AFOL introduced sets that are vastly more expensive than those for kids.
I suppose the many IP protected franchises being covered nowadays also have a more premium price due to license costs.
So there's more facets to this than just yes or no I suppose.

Yes, LEGO was always premium.
No, some series do have an extra premium.

I appreciate the input.  I am aware of the impact of AFOL collecting and IP licensing making some sets more expensive.  Of course, there are many nuances to this type of discussion, so what I guess I am really asking is if LEGO toys were inaccessibly expensive in your childhood or if it was more comparative to the cost of other similar-play-value toys (also somewhat hard to narrow down what this means exactly).

 

19 hours ago, SecondHandLego said:

My two cents : I remember seeing some article ( blogpost? ) from someone who did the math, history and economics, and they claimed that LEGO has kept quite steady pace with inflation: ie it has always (since the 1970s or so ) been more or less equally expensive. That was maybe ten years ago, so I would guess that the licensing had not yet reached the levels it has now, and that the price of those sets have pushed the curve up and away from following inflation.

That article sounds interesting.  Ultimately, what I am wondering is if LEGO toys were prohibitively expensive for you to buy or receive as gifts when you were a child?  They still are not necessarily prohibitively expensive today as an overall consideration, but the trend seems to be that they are becoming progressively more expensive in comparison to similar toys in more recent years.  I could be wrong or too personally constrained in my view.

 

19 hours ago, Jack Sassy said:

I must echo all of ye. When I was a child, the biggest set my parents could afford (and that itself was rarely) was the one that cost 20 euros or so (at the time, lats). Other toys have always been cheaper, but the plastic quality differs from toy to toy. LEGO has had a consistent quality (in my country ) and variety which most of the toys lacked. It certainly has become much more expensive in the past years, but most importantly - the smaller sets are disappearing.

Maybe it is the lower amount of smaller sets that I am noticing most; I do not know for sure yet.  It just seems like LEGO sets were always on my list as affordable purchases and gifts as a child, though I did rarely get the larger sets in the themes unless I pooled together with my brothers.

 

16 hours ago, DonQuixote said:

It's hard to judge that because as a kid I mostly get my Lego from parents, grandma and a retired godfather with no kids .  And they were not rich either.  Only today I realize how spoiled I was by getting so much Lego. On 6 December 1989 ( Saint Nicolas day) I received the Black Seas Barracuda,  Eldorado Fortress and the Caribbean Clipper ! I don't know who bought what because I believed in Saint Nicolas ( the original real Santa Claus ) back then.

So maybe it was Saint Nicolas after all 

But today I have to pay it myself and with the rise of alternate brick companies that actually also deliver a good quality,  it seems that Lego is overpriced.  That's why  I wait for discount, double points  or a good gwp.

€350 for  the Black Pearl feels overpriced by €50 but the inclusion of the compass and the Sega controller makes it a bit better to swallow . I had put aside   €300 a long time ago for the Bluebrixx Queen Anne's Revenge but Lego managed me to spend that money to their new ship.

So yes Lego is definitely premium but is it more expensive then ever? ...I don't know....

Their sets get bigger and more detailed 

Gifting included, it sounds like you still got sets as a child while not from a high or rich class.  I wonder if your parents felt like those sets were expensive or if they would have paid a similar amount for other toys for similar play value?  I am sure that part of my view comes from an inherent justification of higher price than other toys due to the way the pieces could continually be combined and recombined to maintain play value and compatibility, so LEGO sets never seemed more expensive to me than other toys.

 

9 hours ago, MAB said:

It is a combination of those statements.  LEGO has always been expensive and premium compared to other similar toys. When I was a kid in the 70s, there were other building toys such as wooden bricks or cheap quality plastic bricks or prebuilt plastic buildings and so on.

There have always been low priced LEGO sets available but that doesn't mean they were not expensive compared to other similar toys. You can buy a CMF for £3.50 or a polybag for £5 but for a similar price you can buy a pack of 10 clone minifigures or 50 plastic soldiers.

LEGO has introduced high priced sets in the last two decades but that doesn't mean they don't retain low priced points, even if the number of sets at low price points has reduced.

I did most of my LEGO buying 2005-15, especially 2010-15 when LEGO was not selling well but stores expected to shift older products out of warehouses so gave regular large discounts to clear stock. Hence, especially for those five years, LEGO seemed to be available cheap but that was just a combination of lack of popularity and stores wanting to clear their stock. Before that time, stores didn't always try to clear stock as fast. After that, popularity increased.

This is an interesting perspective that helps fill in my gaps: what was it like for children in earlier times of LEGO's history?  My childhood and experiential view are obviously influenced by the fact that I grew up in the 90's.  I wonder if LEGO sets were most affordable in that time period?  I know I will never have a perfect answer.
Indeed, there have always been pricing tiers LEGO toys, so I am trying to consider an unquantifiable metric of comparable play value.  In terms of hours of enjoyment from the same purchase, LEGO always seemed to be the highest value to me, though I understand how much of this is anecdotal/personal and is not certainly applicable to all.
The effect of AFOL's, licenses, and overall shift to increased collectability in recent days does seem to show in the decrease of sets in the lower price points and increase in even larger sets that are mostly build-and-display models.  It is nuanced, so I don't expect a perfect answer.

Of course, I expect increase in popularity to increase demand which in turn increases cost.  The marketing strategies of TLG seem to fit business models well enough for typical profit pursuit.  This is certainly not meant by me to be a complaint about TLG cashing in on pop-culture and demand even if this moves the modern company somewhat away from what I valued as a child (and still do today).  I just remember LEGO as a reasonably affordable toy as a child (maybe due to my own privileges of USA economy even though my family was relatively less well-to-do than my neighbors) and was thus surprised to see so many comments considering LEGO as always having been expensive.  Maybe I need to better define the terms: does expensive mean that it took time to save up and I could not get every set I wanted? ...then LEGO sets were certainly expensive, especially the bigger sets.  Does expensive mean that it costs noticeably more than what might generally be considered a comparable product? ...then LEGO seemed not-expensive to me, as the small to medium sets seemed only slightly more expensive than competitor brands and fairly comparable in value to other toys.

 

8 hours ago, MAB said:

I've said this before but I don't think was true then but not now. Kids having Castle sets then would play with them based on stories they already knew, whether it was Arthurian legend, Robin Hood, or some other other pseudo historic stories. Pirates would be played with based on stories and movies of pirates (just with generic figures instead of movie lookalikes). Children can still play like that when they buy City, Friends, Ninjago. They can still make up their own creative stories or builds when playing with Star Wars, DC or Marvel. Is acting out forestmen stealing treasure from soldiers more creative than acting out a duel between Luke and Vader?

I think it is looking at things when you were a child with rose tinted glasses, that your time was best. I grew up in the 70s, just about the time minifigures were introduced. We had a bucket of second hand LEGO but I don't think we ever got any new minifigure based sets. We didnt have any instructions at all. We just built what we wanted. For me, LEGO was a toy that you could use to enhance play with other toys. We used it to build buildings for model railways or Scalextric sets, or to build (very bad) ships for Kenner SW figures, or walls for Action Men / action figures to knock down, or smaller scale builds for battles with moulded toy soldiers, or farm buildings to use with our toy farm animals . To play with our LEGO, we didn't need those silly little minifigures that LEGO slightly later introduced to exclude all those other toys from play. We were imaginiative enough to combine LEGO with other toys and not need minifigures. But if I had been born 5-10 years later, I'm sure my childhood play would have been different. 

Oh, don't get me wrong: children certainly would have been and still are influenced in play by stories, books, movies, cartoons, etc.  The sets released today can still be used imaginatively if one chooses.
The difference I see is that LEGO original themes were introductions to worlds and stories without having all of the characters named or the story filled out.  Undeniably in my opinion, acting out Forestmen stealing treasure from the soldiers is inherently more imaginative telling a unique story than recreating a duel between named characters from a specific movie scene, unless, of course, the Forestmen are given specific names of characters from a specific relevant movie scene.  Alternate builds encouraged children to build their own creations.  The LEGO Movie is heavy with encouragement for the ideals the company was founded on, while most of the products today are showcased by influencers who have shelves of stock sets built as display pieces modeled after something from some other person's imagination or creativity.  What it comes down to in my mind is that the marketing and product releases today seem to indicate a pursuit of profit through selling premium collectibles more so than pursuing the encouragement of children's imaginations and their own progress and creativity, certainly not in absolutes but evident enough to not seem like an over-generalization to me, at least.  My friends and I gave our characters our own name selections and told our own stories, and this was openly encouraged in LEGO media of the time with alternate builds and most characters without a defining name.
From a business perspective, TLG should only drip in enough encouragement for imagination to keep people idealizing their product as an imaginative toy and tool, but refrain from actually encouraging children to build too much with what they already have since that does not require another purchase.  Yes, I do fully understand that businesses are in business to make a profit.  That does not take away from what seems like a more modern market shift and relative increase in cost.  I also know that I am in the minority that does not want licensed themes, knowing full-well that those make TLG more profit.

Also, I do not intend to come across as viewing my childhood through rose-tinted glasses or that my specific era was the best.  I think arguments can be made for the late 80's through the 90's being definitional in the LEGO aesthetic and could be considered a golden era beyond just my nostalgia, but nostalgia certainly plays a role in my overall view.  The main advantage I see that set LEGO minifigures apart from most action figures and moulded figures was the ease of customization by swapping legs, torsos, and heads.  Most action figures had some form of swap ability with accessories, just not as simple of an overarching system as LEGO minifigures.
Your play in the 70's seems to have been equally imaginative.  Does that hold true today, broadly speaking?  I think other factors play a larger role than the shift in LEGO products, such as digital media, but I do think there is less imaginative play today than before, and I think this plays into TLG's marketing and profit pursuit today.
Now, I'll stop shaking my fist at the clouds...

 

3 hours ago, dr_spock said:

LEGO is also reuseable.  You can take apart and make something else.  You don't have to buy another one every time.   Spend once, use many. 

At end of the day, LEGO is a business in it to make money.  How you use or what you do with their products is up to you. 

 

Agreed, I think this is likely why I did not think of LEGO sets as expensive while growing up, at least not as a whole even though I did not get many of the largest sets.  Being able to combine new sets with old sets increases value.  Being able to rebuild the toy over and over again for new play value just multiplies the value of investment from the original expense.

In general, I still feel the same as that about TLG today.  They do not produce as much of what I want and make more profit from a market I am not in, but I can still buy the pieces I want to build what I want, so I still firmly like the LEGO brand and system of play.

 

2 hours ago, DelQuinn said:

I've always known Lego to be an expensive toy.  I remember as a kid in the '80s dreaming about the sets that I couldn't afford.  I think the biggest offset to this is back then, there were a lot of smaller sets that you could focus on instead.  I think there are less of those smaller sets available these days so, aside from a few polybags here and there, the starting price point is higher than it used to be (And not going to include the 4+ sets that are usually horribly overpriced).

I appreciate their marketing strategy back at the start of Classic Space when they released the 918, 924(487) and 928(497) sets. Basically releasing similarly designed sets at different price points to make sure everyone could feel like they could afford a spaceship (I grew up with the 918 set)

I certainly agree.  There were always large sets that I could not afford, so maybe that means I should consider LEGO toys as expensive back then.  The reason I did not count LEGO as expensive overall is that there were many different sets across the price points, so there was always something I could afford and something for which I could save up my money to buy.  The difference that seemed evident to me but seems to not be the view of most here is the increasing disparity between costs for LEGO sets and comparable products, especially other brick brands.

 

1 hour ago, Mylenium said:

I guess it depends?! In absolute terms LEGO has always been more expensive than comparable other toys. However, personally I think people were more willing to overlook it because the toy market overall was different. I've been doing LEGO only for the last nine years, but I have some memories of plastic scale modeling and railroad modeling when I was into that. Similar discussions happened there like e.g. Hasegawa or Tamiya kits being "premium" and getting more expensive by the year. This was then further escalated when new brands like Eduard cropped up and offered the same quality or better for a much lower price or long-standing brands like Revell or Airfix started producing higher quality sets from new molds also at reasonable prices. And bluntly put that's the same problem with LEGO. It isn't necessarily overly expensive in absolute terms, but these days there's a lot of competitors that show it can be done better and more cost-efficient. That's why it feels that some LEGO sets are just out of control in terms of price. And yes, we can have endless debates about actual manufacturing cost, normalized average prices, inflation and a million other factors. All that said personally I feel that the return value for my money has gotten worse with LEGO over those last nine years. Perhaps I'm just old and jaded, but it's just not as exciting as it used to be and I feel that there's a flood of mediocre stuff that devalues the brand and the user experience...

Mylenium

Do you have any data that LEGO has been more expensive than comparable toys in absolute terms?  I'd be interested in seeing this.  What I remember in the 90's was that LEGO sets were about 10% more expensive than comparably-sized sets from alternate brands, but the alternate brands were definitely of lower quality.  When compared to completely different types of toys, it seemed to me that I got less value for the cost from other types of toys, so I guess I became a LEGO investor at an early age way before it was cool... hence why I guess I never viewed LEGO as "expensive" overall.
Agreed, there are countless nuances that can be considered, which is why I find that I generally agree with some of the views shared today but also have enough manufacturing experience to know that a better argument is needed in most cases and I do not agree with many of the views as well.
I also find it interesting how prices of remade sets for a new release track very closely to the inflated prices of old sets on BrickLink's average 6-month sales (understanding that those prices are inflated from MSRP due to direct economic inflation as well as ever-shrinking supply due to discontinuation and yet steady or growing demand).  I specifically checked the BL 6m sales average for set 6276 when set 10320 came out, and the average for the original was almost exactly the same as MSRP for the new remake, down to a few cents difference.  It seems quite similar with the recent Black Pearl.  This is a very complex and nuanced discussion, but it still seems strange to me at face value, though I can see how it fits a business model and will likely work out in favor of TLG's profits.

I buy some sets from TLG, but most of my purchases today are through secondary sources, since TLG produces much less today in the vein of their own original themes that got me into the brand to begin with.

 

2 minutes ago, Kit Figsto said:

I think it has always been expensive, but I think that there was a lull in price increases from, say, 2005-2020 or so.

If you look at some of the larger sets from the "glory days" of LEGO (80s-90s Castle/Pirates/Space), the price per piece ratios are awful.  Flagship sets were routinely 400-500 pieces and cost the equivalent of like $120+ today.  I know that some of this was because of large baseplates and things, but still, that's worse than even the most egregiously overpriced sets of this era.

I think what happened, though, is that prices remained fairly steady for a while.  Just using an example - a Star Wars battle pack was $10-13 up until 2017 (which was a 10 year run from their introduction until then).  They bumped up to $15 by 2020, then we went a year without.  Suddenly in 2022, they're $20 (with the price on the Ahsoka clone BP originally at $26.99, before they dropped it, likely due to major backlash), and now in 2025, they're $23.  So we went a decade and a half with a total of a $5 price increase, and then suddenly in the span of 5 years, we go up $8.  Inflation is a thing, but it's not over 50%.

Star Wars UCS sets are another example, they were routinely at $150-200 for a ship, and now pretty much nothing in that is less than $350.  

The main issue I have is that the amount of "stuff" doesn't feel like it's increasing - as a matter of fact, at times, I feel like you're getting the same or less but it's costing a substantial amount more.  We're also in an era where manufacturing is probably cheaper than it's ever been, and I know that LEGO outsources way more than they used to, which, in theory, should keep costs down.  I look at competitor brands, and while often the actual brick quality isn't quite the same (though I'd say it's getting closer and closer), they include more prints/specialized pieces, sometimes lights, etc, and the overall cost is often less despite getting more "stuff" with the sets.

Anyway, my point is that 2020-2025 has been on another plane as far as cost, to the point where it's kind of egregious.

I know what you are saying, but price-per-piece seems like such a bogus method of balancing considerations, though it may seem to fit somewhat generally or broadly.  Raised baseplates are an interesting example, since they would have been expensive to manufacture, especially with printing at different angles, and yet they added substantially to the size of the set, and therefore perceived value.  Which child wants to start out with the investment of pieces to brick-build a baseplate versus having elevation differences incorporated from a raised baseplate?  I know anecdotally that all of my family and friends absolutely loved raised baseplates.  Beyond just the baseplate as well, many of those large sets had about half of the parts made up with larger elements, such as wall panels, that quickly built up a sizeable structure without looking flimsy or full of too many empty spaces or holes.  Today, sets include way more tiny elements, which of course increases the piece count of comparable-volume sets and results in a higher price for the same volume if price-per-piece is still around $0.10.  The fact that the number has stayed consistent over so many years indicates that there are several factors at play here, such as inflation increasing the price while lower manufacturing costs counterbalance for a more-stable price.

I also remember some stability of price points and have some market experience to indicate possible reasons why.  Your comparison is a reflection to me why LEGO is considered expensive today where I counted it affordable as a child.

Agreed for sure, it does not feel to me like the "stuff" increases equivalently with the price today.  I still wonder if comparison to competitor brands will begin to affect TLG even more than it has in the past as the disparity in price seems to have grown in recent years while difference in quality or included features (as you mentioned) is diminishing.

[JesseNight]

1 hour ago, Slegengr said:

I appreciate the input.  I am aware of the impact of AFOL collecting and IP licensing making some sets more expensive.  Of course, there are many nuances to this type of discussion, so what I guess I am really asking is if LEGO toys were inaccessibly expensive in your childhood or if it was more comparative to the cost of other similar-play-value toys (also somewhat hard to narrow down what this means exactly).

It was definitely not inaccessible.
Nor was it the only one that was a bit premium. Good toys never were cheap, and Lego had one thing any other did not... we could make whatever we wanted, only being limited by our collection of parts.