Is LEGO entering a Dark Age - or am I?

[MAB]

On 30/09/2017 at 8:52 PM, Hive said:

I don't quite get why the Monster Fighters theme was so terrible.

It wasn't. It was great. For me, it is one of the best one year themes done in recent years.

[Vindicare]

On 9/30/2017 at 12:52 PM, Hive said:

I don't quite get why the Monster Fighters theme was so terrible.

I thought it was a really well done theme. It had a great story driven throughout that all came together in the Castle set. The characters are fun. The builds are all pretty great. And, best of all, it gave us Haunted House. 

4 hours ago, Captain Pirate Man said:

Nice post. While I DO have a BL store, so I do like selling Lego for money. I do it to help pay for my Lego addiction, not to get rich. My personal collection is all about my display/layout. I don't like having Lego in boxes in a storage room (like you). I enjoy seeing kids (and adults) faces when they see my layout, that makes it fun for me. If I had "extra" modulars for example, I would either use them for a MOC, or like you said, sell them to someone else who will enjoy them. I recently acquired a TON of early 90s space minifigs and sets. The pieces can be used for MOC'S and what not, but most of the minifigs don't serve a purpose for me (I don't have a desire to add a space section to my layout). So I've decided to go a head and sell them to someone else who might enjoy them more. Besides, those minifigs can be turned into money, which in turn will be turned into Lego sets that I CAN  use.

Oh man, nothing makes me happier than seeing people's faces, especially kids light up, when they see my town. Had the pastor's kids over awhile back, they kept pointing out minifigs they recognized. And a friends kid decided, my inner self was going berserk, to make a rather large pile up of my cars in street.

[Carefree_Dude]

I used to have a massive lego collection: Ever space set ever, every castle set, every train set, all the modulars, etc. I ended up selling almost everything in order to pay off debts. I held on to a few of my favorites. Most of the sets I let go I don't really miss. Right now i'm mainly just into modular buildings and trains. I wish I had room for a train layout, but someday!

[SirBlake]

This is an interesting thread. One that I haven't seen in a month because I'm hardly on this forum anymore because my hobby is suffering for the same reasons. There's nothing on the shelves for me.

Between the off-putting Nexo Knights and a botched CMF schedule that keeps throwing movie figs I don't care about at us, I am clearly out of TLG's crosshairs as far as target market is concerned. It's too bad. The Kingdoms/LOTR/CMF sweet spot was a good run. It's interesting to see that TLG is having growth problems these days and I would like to blame the fact that so many people with my tastes are being alienated by the current offerings. That's probably just coincidence though.

The upside is that my old hot rod has gotten more money and attention in the last 18 months than it has in years. I'll be banging through gears if you guys need me. :)

[xboxtravis7992]

On ‎10‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 12:59 AM, Criosphynx said:

When I see pics of "lego rooms" online or on youtube most of the time you can tell the person is wealthy. Its always been an expensive hobby but I think its getting worse. Most of the lego I buy locally come from wealthy areas on the coast, which tells me that those are the people who can primarily afford it. The only lot I got from a "normal" area the guy told me he got the lot from a nicer area...ha!

Well this ties into the whole price of living issues with large cities. I am from a rural area personally so the thought of every home having one or two spare rooms for a hobby isn't unusual or for the wealthy only; but in-fact common-place! Since my other hobby is model railroading, I am aware of many retired men who have been able to dedicate their ENTIRE basement in my area for wall upon wall of trains and display set ups. Still I am aware of how coastal metropolitan areas have such jacked up prices. My Seattle based uncle and his wife and their five children used to live in a home smaller than my parent's home in Utah; and his Seattle home was probably as expensive or twice as expensive as my parent's Utah one. He has been able to purchase a new home and move up, but it was after years of work and saving before he could do that. The discussion of cost of living country vs. the city is interesting though to consider in light of hobbies, especially Lego. The coastal cities in the US are expensive and their it becomes prohibitive to amass a major collection, while in a rural area the space for a collection is easier to obtain although the stores which actually sell Lego are far more limited than they would be in a major metropolis.

Lastly another thing to consider is how natural disaster affects the hobby. There have been a few people on this forum in Texas/Florida etc. who have lost their collections to the hurricanes. In Utah I often wonder what an earthquake or wild fire might do to my collections. A coastal Tsunami or a California quake could be just as devastating. A natural disaster might be the start of a long term "dark ages" for many people, as rebuilding their home takes priority over rebuilding their Lego collection.

[kelceycoe]

On 10/5/2017 at 11:09 AM, MAB said:

It wasn't. It was great. For me, it is one of the best one year themes done in recent years.

The Monster Fighters theme had many issues and many great things. The story is helter-skelter - why do we have to have monsters being hunted? Why can't they have their own Monsterland where they live in peace and have their own lives? The first Monster theme released in 2002 was the Scary Monsters/Scary Thriller subtheme of the Studios line. Why were they just essentially movie sets and monsters in costumes, why couldn't they just be their own realm? Watch the story video for the Zombies - where did the Voodoo Doctor go and why was the witch released in the graveyard "add-on" pack, I like to call it, when her history is with Anna Lee (she gave her that scar)? We really need a good voodoo doctor and I mean if PotC, a Disney property, can release cannibal sets, they can release a real voodoo witch doctor for a Monster theme.

Second, like the 2002 line, it felt like a rip-off and poor excuse of TLC not to obtain a proper Universal license. Even in the preliminary packaging listed Lord Vampire as Dracula and the Zombie Driver as Renfield but final packaging used generic names. That's called a rip-off product (you know, the same thing Lepin is getting jumped for by AFOLs). Not to mention we have a vampire bride but no monster bride and we have yet to have a female monster to date yet that was a very influential part of the monster movies of yesteryear. They would have fared better with a license from US for the 2002 line since those sets felt more like the Universal films than the MF line (which felt like a bit of an update on modern films, like the mummy's chariot being related to the first Universal remake of The Mummy moreso than the original US property).

Third, hearkening back to the "fighter" theme, we already know from various sources the original ideas for the line are based on, in part, of the original Ghost Busters cartoon (the one with an ape) which in turn became an inspiration for both Ghostbusters and Scooby Doo (and do I need to go back in history and say these are all based from the Disney cartoons Haunted House and Lonesome Ghosts... but I digress). Now, we have THREE monster-fighting properties that really weren't needed - Scooby Doo, Ghostbusters, and Monster Fighters and haven't fared well on anyone's budget, for those of us who own all the monster sets.

Fourth, the Monster Fighters line was one of the first lines where one of its products sold out quickly. This was before products selling out the same day like many do now on Lego.com. Remember the Zombie set, based on the film White Zombie? It was a Target exclusive and one day vanished. Now the set is worth three times its value when it was new and is honestly one of the more clever sets despite the lack of the voodoo doctor (add to the fact it later came out with two add-on packs, the MF accessory set and the graveyard car (not the coffin car)) that were unofficial add-on modular packs many of us AFOLs could gather from the story line.

Fifth, there were really no monster rally or even large sets (a castle set would have been nice then). By monster rally I mean not more than one monster appeared in a set (although the scientist does appear to be an early Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde and the first vampire assistant based on Igor, although I wonder if the Mel Griffith's Igor didn't help to inspire this design more).

Now for the positives...

1) It uses the steampunk/gothic cultures. We know gothic architecture is real but the whole steampunk idea is fiction - except for steam-powered locomotives and a few other things, it's all fiction. It does seem to be inspired from the WWI era which is the era before monster movies came about (but right after many monster books, such as Frankenstein, were released).

2) We got a lot of monsters, although many were repeats and, especially the wolf set, was a redesign of the old set (we could have gotten a gypsy wagon and a tree). The swamp creature and zombies were newer editions. We even had skeleton horses that, in the game, were in place for manbats (which I have no clue why those were released anyway).

3) We got a lab, castle, graveyard, and even a haunted house in one theme.

4) There was quite a lot of influence to these sets from both The Addams Family and Munsters (we technically got a Dragula and a smaller coffin car) and some of this later influenced the Series 14 CMF monster line (Rocker Monster from Herman Munster and the Franken monster from the now defunct Universal Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue show, almost being an exact replica).

[Aanchir]

@kelceycoe It's kind of unrealistic to compare LEGO using pre-existing monsters to Lepin copying LEGO IP, since basically all of those classic monsters are in the public domain, while stuff like Ninjago and Star Wars is not. Universal never owned any of those monsters, only the movie rights to them.

Also, there wasn't much point getting a Universal license since kids are more likely to know the public domain versions of the characters they see all over the place than the movie versions they'd only know from those specific movies (it's the other way around with The Wizard of Oz, in which the movie versions of the characters are far more well-known than the public domain versions).

[Legogal]

Captain, nice approach! Glad you have a BL store to unload the LEGO you don’t want to keep. BL has been a fabulous source of rare parts for my Duplo houses and other collections. I tend to sell to AFOLs I know or use our local Craigslist, and some friends put things on BL for me. This pays for new sets or whatever parts I need and clears up room to play with them.

[Artanis I]

On 07/10/2017 at 8:41 AM, xboxtravis7992 said:

The discussion of cost of living country vs. the city is interesting though to consider in light of hobbies, especially Lego. The coastal cities in the US are expensive and their it becomes prohibitive to amass a major collection, while in a rural area the space for a collection is easier to obtain although the stores which actually sell Lego are far more limited than they would be in a major metropolis.

In this day and age, if you live in mainland USA it seems that you can get anything online and state tax free with free postage at very competitive prices. Physical in-store availability doesn't really matter anymore. It pays to live away from the mega-metropolis!

Living in a remote part of Australia there's no free postage, and most US sellers (where the competitive prices are) won't send here. If they do, it's very expensive postage. But it's still easier to have lots of room and spare funds for big collections than it is in the big cities.

[zoth33]

On 10/6/2017 at 6:14 PM, kelceycoe said:

The Monster Fighters theme had many issues and many great things. The story is helter-skelter - why do we have to have monsters being hunted? Why can't they have their own Monsterland where they live in peace and have their own lives? The first Monster theme released in 2002 was the Scary Monsters/Scary Thriller subtheme of the Studios line. Why were they just essentially movie sets and monsters in costumes, why couldn't they just be their own realm? Watch the story video for the Zombies - where did the Voodoo Doctor go and why was the witch released in the graveyard "add-on" pack, I like to call it, when her history is with Anna Lee (she gave her that scar)? We really need a good voodoo doctor and I mean if PotC, a Disney property, can release cannibal sets, they can release a real voodoo witch doctor for a Monster theme.

Second, like the 2002 line, it felt like a rip-off and poor excuse of TLC not to obtain a proper Universal license. Even in the preliminary packaging listed Lord Vampire as Dracula and the Zombie Driver as Renfield but final packaging used generic names. That's called a rip-off product (you know, the same thing Lepin is getting jumped for by AFOLs). Not to mention we have a vampire bride but no monster bride and we have yet to have a female monster to date yet that was a very influential part of the monster movies of yesteryear. They would have fared better with a license from US for the 2002 line since those sets felt more like the Universal films than the MF line (which felt like a bit of an update on modern films, like the mummy's chariot being related to the first Universal remake of The Mummy moreso than the original US property).

Third, hearkening back to the "fighter" theme, we already know from various sources the original ideas for the line are based on, in part, of the original Ghost Busters cartoon (the one with an ape) which in turn became an inspiration for both Ghostbusters and Scooby Doo (and do I need to go back in history and say these are all based from the Disney cartoons Haunted House and Lonesome Ghosts... but I digress). Now, we have THREE monster-fighting properties that really weren't needed - Scooby Doo, Ghostbusters, and Monster Fighters and haven't fared well on anyone's budget, for those of us who own all the monster sets.

Fourth, the Monster Fighters line was one of the first lines where one of its products sold out quickly. This was before products selling out the same day like many do now on Lego.com. Remember the Zombie set, based on the film White Zombie? It was a Target exclusive and one day vanished. Now the set is worth three times its value when it was new and is honestly one of the more clever sets despite the lack of the voodoo doctor (add to the fact it later came out with two add-on packs, the MF accessory set and the graveyard car (not the coffin car)) that were unofficial add-on modular packs many of us AFOLs could gather from the story line.

Fifth, there were really no monster rally or even large sets (a castle set would have been nice then). By monster rally I mean not more than one monster appeared in a set (although the scientist does appear to be an early Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde and the first vampire assistant based on Igor, although I wonder if the Mel Griffith's Igor didn't help to inspire this design more).

Now for the positives...

1) It uses the steampunk/gothic cultures. We know gothic architecture is real but the whole steampunk idea is fiction - except for steam-powered locomotives and a few other things, it's all fiction. It does seem to be inspired from the WWI era which is the era before monster movies came about (but right after many monster books, such as Frankenstein, were released).

2) We got a lot of monsters, although many were repeats and, especially the wolf set, was a redesign of the old set (we could have gotten a gypsy wagon and a tree). The swamp creature and zombies were newer editions. We even had skeleton horses that, in the game, were in place for manbats (which I have no clue why those were released anyway).

3) We got a lab, castle, graveyard, and even a haunted house in one theme.

4) There was quite a lot of influence to these sets from both The Addams Family and Munsters (we technically got a Dragula and a smaller coffin car) and some of this later influenced the Series 14 CMF monster line (Rocker Monster from Herman Munster and the Franken monster from the now defunct Universal Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue show, almost being an exact replica).

The Monster Fighters vampyre castle had four monsters in the set.  So I guess I dont understand your #5 on the cons side of things.  I Thought the Monster Fighters theme was well done and sold quite well where i live.  I think everyone has to remember like in other forums here that this is a toy meant for kids and the more expert sets like the haunted house are meant for adults.  For the main part lego's target audience influences what they decide to focus on.  I think Elves is really executed well, Nexo Knights has some great villains and interesting sets.  The Superheros both DC and Marvel have great figures and some interesting sets.  Ninjago continues to surprise me with great sets and minifigs.  Star wars has got some good stuff too.  I know some people are mad because there is no real classic space theme or castle/fantasy theme but I don't think that is causing a dip in their growth like Sir Blake eluded to.  The world is in some economic instability right now and I think peoples priorities are changing along with the political climate right now.  That's just my opinion.  I think Lego will be fine as long as they can come up with new and fresh ideas that keep kids interested. 

[Hive]

Perhaps I didn't phrase myself clearly. What I meant was: I don't quite get why the Monster Fighters theme was perceived to be so terrible.

While I didn't like the vehicles (which I never do in those action themes), I did enjoy the overall premise - and the Haunted House is in my top 3 sets that I wish I had gotten before it was discontinued.

[Japanbuilder]

For me it was a different effect. But I have seen its like discussed on these forums elsewhere. 

I came back in 2015 after losing touch with LEGO in my teens. Never gave them a second thought. But coming back everything was so great. 

The prints were cooler and there was more of them, the builds were more complex, etc., etc. 

Now 2 years on, my spending on LEGO has died down a lot. I look at what I have amassed in 2 years time and it feels like it is enough for what I am in to. 

Tons if city, tons of Star Wars. Even got in on house brands like NEXO Knights. 

But I think I am noticing not only pricing becoming less attractive for these toys but a lot of "sameness,"that coupled with pricing has made it easier to just pass up on a ton of sets. When I do splurge anymore I try to get those big creator buckets. 

My fervor has died down for sure but I don't think I would enter a dark age as I still think of LEGO often and do keep a wish list for a few sets here and there plus still make purchases albeit rather infrequently now. 

[Criosphynx]

On 10/4/2017 at 6:35 PM, Legogal said:

HI! I like your approach to LEGO. It will become more common as the wealthier AFOL's age out and downsize their collections. I make it a point of selling most of my once built, rarer sets to younger folks starting their collections; these buyers cannot spend $500. or more for a new or used set, so most of mine are  priced much lower than the AZ or eBay prices and even prices on BL. One of my favorite buyers was a local pianist/piano teacher with a young son; he bought five of my built modulars to get his collection rolling. I was running out of room, and the buyer needed these sets. It was a win-win situation. 

Nice toys need to be recycled, not stored in a box somewhere for eternity. If you need to get rid of used, good condition LEGO, sell it to young collectors. It has provided value to you in the building process and looking beautiful on your shelf. Let a young collector give it the attention it needs. 

I've been getting screaming deals on 80's and 90's lego in bulk on ebay all year, I'm talking untouched, unsorted collections a la cardboard box. Basically its boomers selling their adult kids childhood collections after the kids left it behind, often for very little money. I've purchased countless sets that are 30+ years old and look brand new, which is awesome for me...BUT I can't help but think about how wasteful it was for these sets to sit in a box somewhere for DECADES when they could have been played with.

I was into classic space despite being born in the 80's, long after most of those sets had passed. I credit peoples kindness because I grew up with classic space parts that my parents bought at thrift shops.

 

 

[Aanchir]

On 10/14/2017 at 2:08 PM, Hive said:

Perhaps I didn't phrase myself clearly. What I meant was: I don't quite get why the Monster Fighters theme was perceived to be so terrible.

While I didn't like the vehicles (which I never do in those action themes), I did enjoy the overall premise - and the Haunted House is in my top 3 sets that I wish I had gotten before it was discontinued.

Do you mean perceived to be terrible by AFOLs specifically, or by buyers in general? I don't really remember a lot of disdain for Monster Fighters among AFOLs — at least, no more than for any other action-adventure theme like Agents, Power Miners, or Atlantis. The AFOL community tends to have a sort of a knee-jerk reaction to any theme that isn't either based on a pre-90s LEGO theme or a pre-90s IP, but usually begins to warm up to these themes as time goes on. And from a general buyer standpoint, even though Monster Fighters was seemingly only designed as a one-wave theme, I didn't really get the impression that it wasn't popular or that kids weren't receptive to it.

[BrickG]

Idunno about other people but for me Monster Fighters was neat... around Halloween...

I'm not sure there's enough interest in those kind of classical monsters to really high levels outside of the niche and a certain time of year. I mean just looking at more recent takes on those kind of monsters in movies... I think the general audience finds it cheesy. :P

I don't think there was much disdain for the theme. But I just don't think it captured enough interest form people. It's more niche than most other Lego themes like City or Star Wars or Ninjas or whatever.

[Artanis I]

I think there may have been just the one detractor... from in this thread...

The only real negative regarding Monster Fighters was the (non)availability of the zombies set in some instances. I don't recall previously encountering anyone that viewed the theme in a negative light.

[RetroInferno]

On 15/10/2017 at 10:54 PM, Japanbuilder said:

For me it was a different effect. But I have seen its like discussed on these forums elsewhere. 

I came back in 2015 after losing touch with LEGO in my teens. Never gave them a second thought. But coming back everything was so great. 

The prints were cooler and there was more of them, the builds were more complex, etc., etc. 

Now 2 years on, my spending on LEGO has died down a lot. I look at what I have amassed in 2 years time and it feels like it is enough for what I am in to. 

Tons if city, tons of Star Wars. Even got in on house brands like NEXO Knights. 

But I think I am noticing not only pricing becoming less attractive for these toys but a lot of "sameness,"that coupled with pricing has made it easier to just pass up on a ton of sets. When I do splurge anymore I try to get those big creator buckets. 

My fervor has died down for sure but I don't think I would enter a dark age as I still think of LEGO often and do keep a wish list for a few sets here and there plus still make purchases albeit rather infrequently now. 

I joined back around that time too, bought a lot of sets then my expenses slowed down, and now they are down to a crawl. For sake of space and money I stick to the original tirlogy Star Wars, although I make exceptions.  

It's not that I'm tired of the medium, it's just that the recent selection isn't doing anything for me; Lego went pretty insanely hard pushing their licensed movies with an unhealthy amount of sets, the new star wars source material is mostly boring and the amount of original trilogy sets really died down. 

The UCS line also took a hit with Assault on Hoth and the boring Death Star remake.

I'd buy more sets it's just that the company isn't offering much for my tastes nowadays.

But overall I'm nitpicking, the line still exists and is selling well, if you want real sadness look at the Castle fans, their last theme was horrendous and that more than 4 years ago, can't blame them if they ever out of  the hobby.

[rodiziorobs]

23 hours ago, Aanchir said:

even though Monster Fighters was seemingly only designed as a one-wave theme, I didn't really get the impression that it wasn't popular or that kids weren't receptive to it.

Here's my anecdotal two bits: I was emerging from my dark age about the time MF was dwindling, and remember seeing lots of those sets on clearance at my local Target--almost every set in fact. Even on clearance it took awhile for the store to move them all.

(This was the very early stage of leaving my DA, so I wasn't sure if I was actually into Lego enough to spend money on new sets. As a result, I didn't get any of them--I'm still beating myself up over that one!)

[Aanchir]

19 minutes ago, rodiziorobs said:

Here's my anecdotal two bits: I was emerging from my dark age about the time MF was dwindling, and remember seeing lots of those sets on clearance at my local Target--almost every set in fact. Even on clearance it took awhile for the store to move them all.

(This was the very early stage of leaving my DA, so I wasn't sure if I was actually into Lego enough to spend money on new sets. As a result, I didn't get any of them--I'm still beating myself up over that one!)

That the sets went on clearance doesn’t totally surprise me, especially for such a short-lived theme. Ongoing themes can sometimes be a bit slower to go on clearance since as long as the theme as a whole is still being marketed, it can continue to drive sales of the older stuff.

That said, I try not to read much into that kind of thing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people assume Friends or Ninjago is on its way out because they’ve been seeing it on clearance, yet those themes tend to be persistent bestsellers.

Also, as @BrickG mentioned, interest in monsters and spooky stuff (in the US, at least) tends to be somewhat seasonal on account of Halloween.

[ElectroDiva]

On 18/10/2017 at 7:56 AM, RetroInferno said:

if you want real sadness look at the Castle fans, their last theme was horrendous and that more than 4 years ago, can't blame them if they ever out of  the hobby.

Well, technically castle fans have an active castle theme at the moment with Nexo Knights...

 

The problem is that it's a weird space castle mash up with a garish colour palette that quite a lot of traditional castle fans think is an abomination. 

 

The LOTR and hobbit sets kept many of them happy whilst they were around, but the last one of those was about 2 years ago now.

 

I see a lot of great MOCs popping up on the Historic themes forum so the community is still pretty active - but you're right it's sad to see such a passionate/loyal group of fans getting such slim pickings.

 

The one glimmer of hope is that apparently classic castle isn't completely dead and will return at some point - who know how long the wait will be though.

[MAB]

On 18/10/2017 at 4:42 PM, rodiziorobs said:

Here's my anecdotal two bits: I was emerging from my dark age about the time MF was dwindling, and remember seeing lots of those sets on clearance at my local Target--almost every set in fact. Even on clearance it took awhile for the store to move them all.

2

In the UK, just about every non-exclusive set will be available for at least 30% off at some stage, and many go to clearance. Be it in-house themes like MF or licenses like SW, LOTR, and SH.

[anothergol]

5 hours ago, ElectroDiva said:

The LOTR and hobbit sets kept many of them happy whilst they were around, but the last one of those was about 2 years ago now.

It's really when those licenses were around that Lego should have tried their luck with that horrible Nexo Knights. Because yeah, LOTR was pretty much a castle theme, and a good one. And today there's nothing remotely close to a castle theme.

If you had asked me what defines Lego when I was a kid, 30 years ago, I would have said castles & spaceships. And today, both have disappeared. Star Wars is ok for spaceships (only problem with licenses is the lack of freedom in designs), I can understand the good old naive classic space is for old farts like me anyway, and I'm happy with the few hommage set(s) that the Lego Movies brought/will bring. I think Benny's spaceship can only work as a one-off anyway. I don't think I'd really wanna see a full reboot of classic space, a few sets are ok.
And perhaps it's really that idea that Lego has always been defined by castles & spaceships that gave.. whoever got that terrible idea.. the idea of merging both, actually killing the last of Lego's old icons.

Meanwhile Lego City is still more alive than ever. I didn't understand it as a kid, I still don't. I can understand that a kid wanna play with the same garbage truck as his father drives, and that there are a big lot of garbage truck drivers out there obviously. But it's still boring as hell. But ok, it's "safe" for kids I guess.

Edited October 23, 2017 by anothergol

[ElectroDiva]

1 hour ago, anothergol said:

Meanwhile Lego City is still more alive than ever. I didn't understand it as a kid, I still don't. I can understand that a kid wanna play with the same garbage truck as his father drives, and that there are a big lot of garbage truck drivers out there obviously. But it's still boring as hell. But ok, it's "safe" for kids I guess.

 

The appeal of the City theme (for kids) has always been creating semi realistic settings and then using them as backdrops for random adventures. 

 

My nephews send their Ninjago figs on "missions" with the boats/plane/trains they have. They also stage various disasters and invasions of their small town. They also like playing good old fashioned cops and robbers

 

They don't like Nexo knights though (infact I don't know any kids that do). I think it seems weird to them too.

 

They were a bit young to get into either the last castle wave or LOTR but do like messing about with my castle and LOTR sets and figs when the come and visit. I think they can relate to the more traditional castle/fantasy setting better and I think they would lap up a traditional castle theme - especially if they could get their hands on a "proper" castle

[MAB]

3 hours ago, anothergol said:

 

If you had asked me what defines Lego when I was a kid, 30 years ago, I would have said castles & spaceships. And today, both have disappeared.

 

For me (40 years ago), it was a bucket of basic bricks and wheels that could make houses, cars, buildings for my (non-lego) train set, BOLOCs Star Wars spaceships that didn't look anything like they should but I could put my Kenner figures in them.

[anothergol]

Yeah I entered the Lego world right for the first classic space sets, and the second (if the yellow one counts) castle. So 10 or even 5 years older and your view on Lego was surely pretty different & boring.
I don't think Lego would even still be there if they hadn't started with fancy themes, the minifig, and had just kept doing boring bricks, doors, windows & wheels.

Ironically, while my family was too poor for large Lego sets, it's because I was poor that I had a few small Lego sets. Because Star Wars toys were expensive, and later Transformers as well. Not that Lego was cheap per part, but it's really the availability of small sets that counts. And yeah I had a Playmobil era as well.

4 hours ago, ElectroDiva said:

 

My nephews send their Ninjago figs on "missions" with the boats/plane/trains they have.

but did they ask for those sets? (or were they gifts?)

Edited October 23, 2017 by anothergol