An Opinion Piece on Alternative Brands

[Peppermint_M]

Hello. I am Peppermint_M and I was known for quite a while as Queen of the Clone brands. I sort of spearheaded the adjustment in forum language and the initial rule changes to address Lepin and other controversial bootleg bricks and the difference between those and the Compatible Brands.

There is a thread and poll collecting opinions on the future of Eurobricks, of the forum perhaps moving forward and allowing more non-LEGO content. I was making this as a reply as a whole in the thread, but it ha exceeded three pages on my word processor so a topic on its own seems pertinent.

First a little background for you: I have had a long time interest in compatible brands, from the truly horrendous efforts of TATCO to the interesting builds from Zuru and COBI. This is rooted in growing up with Mega Bloks supplying the bulk of my bricks; One expensive LEGO set for a single ramp and Skateboard, or a set for the same price with four skateboards and a full skate park from Mega? That is where I put my saved pocket money! Later, when I was just entering the AFOL stage of my brick building career, it was me being a bit of an anarchist and a bit of a Brat, reviewing sets and posting comparisons of products for giggles and "one in the eye" for the snobs and stick-in-the-muds (You may grumble now, but the Fabuland Renaissance started in a similar way).

I have also spent some time building MOCs with only compatible bricks. Mostly when I have been displaying at local comic cons. I brought my “monkey box” of not-LEGO bricks as something for kids to play with to protect my display MOCs from grabby little fingers. Of course, an eight hour day supervising my precious builds has quiet times and I would build with the parts for playing with, or demonstrate techniques to people with the most LEGO like parts.

This has given me a lot of insight and experience with the parts and the brands. So for my part, here is a "white list" of true competitor or companion brands. Healthy competition, legitimate alternatives. Think Marvel vs DC or Mattel vs Hasbro, you could collect Majorette die-cast vehicles or maybe you like Corgi.

These brands are:

Best-Lock - Started with different dimensions to LEGO bricks, now they are a match, they also always had their own figure design.

Mega Bloks/Mega Brands - Compatible bricks and unique figures from the start, now owned by Mattel and seem to be distinct from the new Brick Shop offering. There have even been a few Hot Wheels combining the brick and stud system with a diecast car base and wheels.

Mattel Brick Shop - Looks to be prestige sets for the collector. Their Hot Wheels sets are pretty cool and inclusion on the forum might bring in further users. Especially if we can get some quality reviews.

COBI - A Polish brand making LEGO scale parts actually won in the court of law against TLG. Their historic and military offerings are excellent and popular. Also have an official set of Sabaton figures. Which is really cool.

Zuru – A big toy company with many toys under their brand umbrella. These also won against TLG for their brick offerings. Zuru MAX has unique figures and excellent quality bricks. They are available as a cheaper alternative to LEGO and in plenty of retailers, in fact you are more likely to see Zuru than MEGA these days in the UK.

Block Tech/Catch all Brand "X" Bricks - You have probably seen them, they are sets branded for the retailer you're in. There are a number of brands and names to be found "Bricks in Bloom" have been in ALDI with an ALDI logo, in Morrisons with a Morrisons logo. I saw them in Walmart last time I was in the States. Block Tech seems to turn up in both Home Bargains and B&M bargains in the UK, possibly in more locations. They are decent enough quality but are at a good price point for accessibility.

Oxford - Lovely Korean brick brand, compatible with LEGO with some interesting designs and less Western Centric styles. Can be found in the UK in Smyths Toys.

Airfix Quick Build - Very special moulded parts with some LEGO compatibility, it feels more like a bridge from brick building to Model Kits for to introduce children to airfix than a competitor.

Miniso – Cute things from a cute shop. I have a few Peanuts/Snoopy sets, brick quality is OK and the figures are highly stylised to match their comic strip counterparts.

Brands I can't comment on. I've not had the pleasure of building a set, or it is not a system I build in (Like Technic)

BlueBrixx - German and highly compatible, plenty of fans and catches a lot of ire from TLG, you all know them.

CaDa - Technic, very popular. I have not had a great deal of experience but many of you have sung their praises.

Pantasy - Look great, lots of cool themes that TLG aren't touching. I have not taken the plunge yet

There are a few other specialised types I have not covered as I do not feel in a position to comment. I've not researched enough, or like CaDa, I do not build with it so I can't say I have anything to add to the dialogue already out there.

Grey Area bricks

Enlighten - Started as a bootleg brand but today they have unique designs and themes alongside the "traditional" rip off sets.

Sluban - Chinese copies of Oxford products seems to be. On one hand it is not ripping off LEGO but on the other, they are ripping off someone.

Tackling the issue: Why allow Alternative Brands?

Right off the bat, I have already summed up my feelings: One Sub-Forum for all alternative brands, with those already established in other sub-forums remaining in place with more open access discussion and less of it feeling a bit “Speakeasy” or secret. Technic and Train have had niches filled by other suppliers and it would be a shame to pull it all out.

Creating a space to discuss alternative brands opens up the forum for fans to share other sets that they have discovered of themes and Licenses that LEGO does not cover. It can let builders share mods they have tried or even review sets as a resource for those interested in picking up a set. It will add to the forum and not take away.

Of course, I am not endorsing a full integration. I saw a lot of users fearing that and I understand why.

Other Pros I can see are:

Accessibility will certainly increase. In some corners I have come across discussion that the fan community demand for exclusively LEGO builds means those without the money to spend cannot access the hobby. With all the associated issues regarding demographics and the spectrum of society able to participate. If there is a space for someone to share a creation from "cheap shop" (Dollar Tree, Poundland etc) bricks that they are proud of and want to discuss, that will go a long way to opening the community to all.

Potentially appealing to more brick fans and increasing site traffic: Mattel Brick Shop is currently a fancy brand of buildable model cars. If we create a space for discussion of these sets, somewhere for reviews to be shared and modifications to be shown off, we could attract more people here who might also overlap as Technic and Speed Champion/LEGO F1 fans who could find a forum a more restful and community minded place over Discord and Reddit or the constant stream of Instagram and Tik Tok.

Next, a few things I want to touch on, all purely my opinion (still) and may touch on points I spotted in the main discussion thread.

If option 1 was enforced, does that mean people want all past mention of alt-brands purged from the forum? I have shared plenty of reviews of weird compaitble brands in the past. Train fans are so starved of decent product that they embrace the useful alternatives. CaDa has a foothold in Technic. Custom accessories for minifigures and more accurate prints are a cottage industry that is not endorsed from TLG and was indeed purged from Bricklink after the takeover.

If the sub-forum idea is taken on, how much would people want moved? I mentioned previously that things could remain where they are already discussed. Do you want all the CaDa discussion excised from Technic, or would it be acceptable to simply open the sub forum up to better split accessible discussion points and MOCs using CaDa and B Model designs for their sets? Would it be fair to pull that already accepted discussion from the forum?

Would introduction of a new section exclusively for military builds or even an expansion of the Great Brick War to integrate the other brands right away be acceptable. TLG would never make something 100% modern or recent historic military, but a lot of the compatible brands make all kinds of hardware and accessories. I wouldn't want to disadvantage them by a demand for all Non-LEGO to go into one Alt Brands forum.

Baseplates: Now the dialogue is open, I haven't kept it a secret, but the demand for only official baseplates is in a word Expensive. I started using non-LEGO baseplates years ago, a baseplate is essentially the table and I don't need a LEGO brand official table to build from. I always declare the baseplate used and it is not like I plan to display at The LEGO House. Is this going to remain acceptable in the correct theme forum for the MOC?

In support of Tagging. AO3 manages to have an excellent, albeit user-driven and applied, tagging system. As a user who both reads and publishes, I make use of tags so that my work gets to the audience who will enjoy it. I also make use of tags to know right away if something is what I want to read or not. It also lets me filter out the things I really don't want and find the things I am interested in.

Finally, about the language around compatible brands. Clone Brand started off as an OK Term. Then it became a dismissive designation often used in place of rip-off and sometimes conflated with a bootleg. It started to suggest a sub or lesser product and when it got mixed up with the actual law breaking products it became a problem. It took a lot of persuading to change some of that language to be Compatible or Alternative. I suppose that it is a personal bug-bear and no great shakes, but it did create a lot of headaches and work for me and other staff when dealing with Lepin and the other absolutely shameless copies.

Yup, I had a lot to say. I can ramble and have plenty of opinions!

[icm]

Hi, thanks for this write-up. I'd just like to comment that Sluban has long since moved past copying Oxford Block or anyone else. Their military vehicles and military aircraft are of their own design, using many of their own parts designs, and sometimes carry license endorsements from military museums. Their civilian passenger aircraft use big pieces that resemble City passenger jet parts, but are actually quite different.

Another two brands to add to your list are Reobrix and 12GO.

In my own write-up in another thread, I forgot to mention the Reobrix SR-71 kit I bought. Reobrix mostly produces cheap-and-chunky 1:35 play models of military aircraft, and some castles. I think they're mostly produced with the permission of the model designers, but I'm not sure. I know at the least their SR-71 jet and CH-53 helicopter are. The Reobrix SR-71 had such bad parts quality I thought I was going to choke from the dust. I think Reobrix is mostly legit, but they still seem fairly skeevy to me.

12GO produces tanks and other military vehicles, mainly to compete with Cobi. As far as I know there's nothing shady about them, and they seem to get pretty decent reviews for their parts quality. But then again, Reobrix also gets decent reviews for its parts quality and I thought the parts quality of Reobrix was terrible.

Edited 8 hours ago by icm