HRT Short Lived?

[Jetrax99]

Hero Recon Team was a great "sub-line". And only after 1 year it goes under? I thought it was doing well?

Why did lego shut it down?

My overall question, and feel free to add a poll, should Lego reboot HRT before it's too late?

[xxlrocka]

Hero Recon Team was a great "sub-line". And only after 1 year it goes under? I thought it was doing well?

Why did lego shut it down?

My overall question, and feel free to add a poll, should Lego reboot HRT before it's too late?

Eh, hero recon team didn't give you much. I mean, you couldn't even build your own skeleton! But I think the reason LEGO shut it down was because not many people were buying the heroes they had made on the creator. I didn't buy one either. So, since they weren't getting any creations bought, they shut down hero recon team.

[Aanchir]

It's definitely related to the reasons Design byME was shut down: specifically, most of the users weren't actually buying the products. I was also surprised that it ended seeing as it tended to rank higher than Design byME in sales, but in both cases it seemed the issue was just parents and kids failing to understand the process or benefits of designing and ordering custom models.

Nabii's comment here (search for "Nabii" on the page to get to it quickly) goes into a bit more detail about Design byME's closing. HRT was simpler than Design byME in a lot of ways, but apparently not enough to make a considerable impact on sales, much less make it profitable. Note that even if it could sell as well as a lot of "standard" sets, it takes stronger sales to make a custom-ordering service profitable because fewer stages of production can be done in identical mass quantities. Packing 10,000 identical Rocka 3.0 sets is a lot more efficient than packing 10,000 Hero sets that are all different, especially when each needs a custom-printed instruction booklet.

The fact that both of these services have ended makes me worry about the future of TLG's last custom-ordering process, the online Pick-A-Brick. Hopefully that proves successful enough to stay around-- certainly, unlike those other two services, it simplifies the custom-ordering process to the bare minimum of complexity. You pay for the pieces you want and you get them. No more struggling to understand why the pieces cost so much, because you only buy the ones which you consider reasonable in price. No more trying to figure out whether it would be cheaper to use your own pieces, because you only use it to supplement the pieces you already have.

The main thing that makes the Pick-a-Brick service potentially risky is that its appeal lies with AFOLs, or with KFOLs who happen to take their building very seriously and thus know what parts they want/need. But in the very least it does a better job meeting the demands of that audience than the other two custom-ordering services did.

[Takua Nui]

Most users were not buying the sets they made, probably because Hero Recon Team allowed little creativity. You could not build your own skeleton, or choose where to place all your armor plates, and there was a limit to the weight (or was it amount of parts?). I purchased one custom hero from HRT, and I was quite disappointed with it. The best part was probably the box. Does anyone else here think that those boxes were great?

[xxlrocka]

Most users were not buying the sets they made, probably because Hero Recon Team allowed little creativity. You could not build your own skeleton, or choose where to place all your armor plates, and there was a limit to the weight (or was it amount of parts?). I purchased one custom hero from HRT, and I was quite disappointed with it. The best part was probably the box. Does anyone else here think that those boxes were great?

Me! And there was a limit to the amount of parts. Not the weight. I've made a bunch of hero recon team heroes using the creator and guess how many I bought.....0 heroes!

Seriously, I didn't buy any of my creations.

[Masta' Blasta']

I don't think it's exactly "over", per se, but rather being remodeled. I believe we were promised an improved version this month, but it still has not arrived. I'm not sure at all about the whereabouts on price, if they even continue making the creations purchasable. I actually though HRT was doing well, considering it was ranked higher than Design ByMe itself.

[Aanchir]

I don't think it's exactly "over", per se, but rather being remodeled. I believe we were promised an improved version this month, but it still has not arrived. I'm not sure at all about the whereabouts on price, if they even continue making the creations purchasable. I actually though HRT was doing well, considering it was ranked higher than Design ByMe itself.

The press release about HRT's cancellation confirmed that the new Hero Creator will not be able to create purchasable heroes. The thing is, unless they could somehow get lots more people to buy things through the service, it wouldn't be profitable. And since they pretty much already simplified the process as much as possible while still allowing some freedom, I figure they've rejected that option.

In the meantime, while the days of custom instruction booklets are over, the online Pick-A-Brick service still offers loads of great Hero Factory parts on-demand, and at lower prices than Design byME or Hero Recon Team offered.

The only time I ever really considered a HRT purchase was back at the very beginning when the unique co-injected chest plate was available. After that stopped being available the service really had nothing to boast other than being a more constrained LDD with lower prices than Design byME (which I almost -never- considered actually using since Pick-A-Brick had better prices than either service).

[ZORK64]

I used HRT only once because it was the only way to get a few parts which weren't available in Pick-a-Brick anymore in early 2012 (like the 2.0 shields in white). The idea itself was fun (same goes for the nice packaging and such), but the HRT did lacked a few options to make heroes more unique.

But since I usually buy sets for the sole purpose of MOCing, I'd be more happy to see some of the older HF parts return to PaB (mostly recolours, like blue and white hands, which were absent in both the sets and PaB).

Edited May 14, 2012 by ZORK64

[DarkSurgeXL]

As because i never ordered anything from HRT, i'm sceptic about it. It's building system was so primitive, LDD is a lot better IMO.

This system was developed for children, who eventually don't mind what are they building. (at least Russian children do )

But, even if i never hliked these programme, it's sad seeing it die, What will Merrik Fortis say?

[DraikNova]

I bought one, one day before the service closed. Honestly, I loved it, but without the service closing, I would never have bought one.

[optimus99]

I only bought one hero and wanted to buy another with the HRT chest plate but they got rid of it.

this is a picture of the one I bought.

[ZORK64]

I only bought one hero and wanted to buy another with the HRT chest plate but they got rid of it.

this is a picture of the one I bought.

*Image*

Ironically, mine looks pretty similiar. However, he got a blue head and core, Stormer's 3.0 helmet, an he got only white armour (except for the hero core armour, which is silver).