Getting girls and boys to play with Lego City

[vahkimetru]

There have been some recent discussions about including girl minifigs in the city sets, but that would take away boys, who are the main audience. I have several solutions to this:

1. Include an equal amount of girl and boy minfigs. However, this would make boys think "Oh, how girly!" and they might turn away. I think it's silly how boys can;t stand having girl minifigs.

2. Lego could start with one or two per set. Then, if the change seems to work, include more and more. This might work, because kids would be getting used to it.

3. Then you have the issue of girls and their point of view. If we went with idea 2, it would be unfair to girls at first, and they might turn away. That's why we need something like Paridisia to make girls play with Lego city. they could have Sally and Susy Q in paridise at Lego City, when suddenly, Sally falls off of the boat and they erush her to Lego City hospital.

This way, kids could interlock the two lines in a way. Having situations like a paridisia resort getting robbed, and calling in the police to help out, and the above hospital scenaria might make kids play together more.

Girls would say: Wow, I need someone to rescue my Paidisia people, I'll buy a Rescue Helicoptor. Boys would think: Oh my, that hotel needs saving! I'll buy it!

Lego would gain big bucks off of this, so lidsten here TLC! :biggrin:

[SuvieD]

I have heard more girls say they would want girl castles more than city stuff. I showed a few friends the new girl castle duplo and they all said I would have loved to get something like that when I was little. The general talk that followed then went on to include a desire for more readily available girl LEGO sets and in particular girl castle stuff.

Email an ambassador with your ideas. Maybe it will work out but I wouldn't get my hopes up. LEGO has done enough testing to know that girl LEGO simply does not sell as well as the stuff for boys.

[jof]

Why not just supply 'girl hair' and 'boy hair' with simple old style minifig faces, that way you get the choice of which gender to pick.

This would make a dig difference at very little cost, especially in bigger sets like Hospital & the Buckets with more than one person in them.

[xenologer]

This would make a dig difference at very little cost, especially in bigger sets like Hospital & the Buckets with more than one person in them.

I think the reason is more that Lego doesn't consider gender discrepancies to be a Problem, than an issue of cost.

[natelite]

The building bonanza set (4886) is perfect for girls. The advanced model, which is a house, has a roof that can open. All you need is a few minifigs and customized bricks for furniture and girls can play house with it all day long.

Unfortunately I don

[vahkimetru]

Unfortunately I don

[The Hordesman]

And by doing that, she became interested enough in this stuff to play with lines that have mostly boys or no girls. (Dino attack, SW, HP etc.)

HP is perhaps a rather bad example, as it really doesnt matter how many girl figs there are in HP, since the characters can be related to and its not an all-boy movie series (Hermoine is a strong character), etc. But I do see your point.

I think one thing would be to reintroduce Paradisa, but it didnt sell as well as Belville does. Paradisa was the final year put together with the city theme in a catalog, so I guess Lego had some intention to let girls and boys play, but I guess it didnt show the best results.

One thing was to boys and girls the same toys and no real "girl" or "boy" Lego set, or is it just my paradisial (oh my, unintended pun!) that are crying out? :-D

[Skinny Boy]

I like the New Paradisa sets idea. A point: I don't remember seeing any Waitresses in those sets. Some girls may have wanted them, some probably don't, they may have thought: "So women/girls don't have jobs in Lego" (except for those horse-riding Paradisa sets). Just a thought ;-)

[phoinix]

i beilive that lego city can sell equally to girls and boys if they make more interesting sets that appeal to them boath..the hospital line should be for boys and girls but there isnt a girl doctor patient or nurse...and how did lego deside that boys dont want any girl figures?we are mostly boys here and we want them..and when i was a boy at the age of 10 i still wanted them...who was going to be the mother or the sister in the house i build?

this days the city line is all about policemen firemen and workers...in the old days we had houses restaurants an hospitals with women doctors...if they bring back sets like that then they would appeal to boath girls and boys.

i dont think girls want to chase theives with the police car but they may want to build a normal town..and not a pink town like paradisa...pink is for baby girls and not for girls at the age of 10 or 12...

(when will TLC hear us?)

:-) phoinix