General Magma

Lack of original themes

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, danth said:

 

These are both false equivalencies.

Are you really going to pretend that a boonie hat or a ninja minifig is just as reusable within one's own made up world as a Boba Fett helmet or a Storm Trooper minifig? Let's be real here. And let's use an example.

This is a Classic Space man:

He is generic and archetypal enough to be used for any made-up space man character a kid wants. He can be this guy:

 

 

He can be this guy:

 

Now let's look at another minifig. The Star Wars Storm Trooper:

 

Instantly recognizable as the Star Wars Storm Trooper. You cannot unsee it. Yes, maybe you can find some creative use of the helmet as the thumb piece of a giant robot or something, or reuse most of the body pieces, but the helmet is going to be really hard to see as anything else than what it is designed as. 

There are some other Sci Fi worlds you can use this figure in of course. He can be a HALO EOD trooper:

Of course the EOD trooper was specifically designed as a Storm Trooper homage so that's close to cheating. So you have HALO, maybe Fallout power armor (although that's also based on the Storm Trooper), and possibly something from Destiny.

So the Storm Trooper is kind of reusable in cases where you have something based on the Storm Trooper design already.

Now let's take this guy:

 

It's Boba Fett. Almost every part of him is instantly recognizable. It's pretty hard to unsee Boba Fett and pretend he's someone else. Maybe another Mandalorian trooper? Other than the gun and antenna most parts aren't generic enough to reuse and not just see Boba Fett. 

So, am I saying generic is good and specific is bad? No.

Am I saying someone from another planet who has never seen Star Wars cannot make up whatever identities they want for the Storm Trooper or Boba Fett minifigure? No.

But I am saying, if you are familiar with Star Wars, there is a difference between playing with a figure like the generic Space Man and a figure like Boba Fett. One is easy to make whoever you want. One encourages you to make your own characters and stories. The other encourages you to play in a world from a movie.

If you cannot understand this very basic concept, it's intentional on your part.

You seem to misunderstand what the comments you replied to were in turn replying to, which was criticizing NON-licensed parts from story themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights as creatively limiting, not licensed ones. Licensed parts like Star Wars helmets are of course much more specific to those sorts of characters, since part and parcel of a licensed theme is to recreate props and costume design to a high level of accuracy (this has been the case since the Star Wars theme first started out, though it has become accentuated as more detailed printing and molds have been introduced). But most Ninjago masks are hardly any more specific to the characters they represent than the masks used by the generic ninja in the 90s Ninja theme—at the most, they might include a symbol signifying which Ninjago character wears them, but absent the context of the Ninjago theme that iconography is generic enough to mean whatever you want. The same applies to the helmets in Nexo Knights, which if anything are more versatile due to using separate visors—a Nexo Knights helmet can be paired with a traditional space visor to represent a spaceman, or the visors can be used with whichever helmet you want to represent different sorts of knights or sci-fi heroes.

Edited by Lyichir

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Being a smaller company means that Playmobil doesn't have to think as globally. Believe it or not, Playmobil's popularity in the United States seems to be a lot less than it is in Europe. You can find Playmobil at specialty toy stores (whether independent ones or chains like Toys 'R' Us), but usually not at stores like Target or Walmart, at least not to anywhere near the same extent as LEGO. And as you and others have said, this narrower geographic focus doesn't seem to imperil them, so they can afford to keep doing things the "safe" way they have traditionally done, with just a few forays into IP development and licensing.

Would you think that may be due to perhaps European consumers' preference for toys that portray more archetypical storylines, or would it be some other factor?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, danth said:

These are both false equivalencies.

Are you really going to pretend that a boonie hat or a ninja minifig is just as reusable within one's own made up world as a Boba Fett helmet or a Storm Trooper minifig? Let's be real here. And let's use an example.

So, am I saying generic is good and specific is bad? No.

Am I saying someone from another planet who has never seen Star Wars cannot make up whatever identities they want for the Storm Trooper or Boba Fett minifigure? No.

But I am saying, if you are familiar with Star Wars, there is a difference between playing with a figure like the generic Space Man and a figure like Boba Fett. One is easy to make whoever you want. One encourages you to make your own characters and stories. The other encourages you to play in a world from a movie.

If you cannot understand this very basic concept, it's intentional on your part.

I understand your concept. However, the post of yours I responded to claimed the parts of characters like Clay Moorington from in-house themes could not be seen as anybody else. I explained why I felt that was wrong. And then you started listing characters and parts from licensed themes, which were never a part of the point that I was making.

I agree that licensed parts tend to be way more character-specific than in-house parts. It's part of why I greatly prefer the helmet-less Star Wars buildable figures over the helmeted ones. It's much easier to reuse a head that happens to resemble Ewan McGregor or John Boyega (each of whom has played plenty of characters outside of Star Wars) for an entirely original character than an iconic helmet tied to a highly specific IP and not designed with use in any other IPs in mind.

That last bit is where your argument and mine seem to differ. You seem to be arguing that there is absolutely nothing separating character-based parts from an in-house IP like Nexo Knights and character parts from a licensed one like Star Wars. But I feel like there is a great difference in design philosophy between parts for in-house and licensed IPs.

When LEGO designers are creating parts from scratch, they are usually trying to maximize their versatility, because they never know when or where they might want to use them again. They might one day wish to use a ninja mask or knight sword or space blaster in a Super Heroes set or a Collectible Minifigure, for example, so they'd be doing themselves a disservice by not leaving that option open for themselves.

By contrast, a lot of new parts like you describe that are designed specifically for a theme like Star Wars or Super Heroes are IP-locked, meaning LEGO is not permitted to use them for other IPs in the first place. And even if they were, they may not be able to modify the designs for additional versatility without deviating from the source material. So you wind up with parts like the Stormtrooper helmet which is, as you say, going to take extra effort to use in ways that suggest it's something other than a stormtrooper helmet.

I have always greatly preferred in-house LEGO themes to licensed themes, and this is one of the reasons. That said, at the same time, I don't think licensed themes are fundamentally bad, because I don't think every LEGO theme has to have all the same types of creative potential to be valid. Nor do I agree with the assessment that licensed themes are somehow taking over everything. As recently as last year, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp was asked about this in an interview and pointed out that in 2016 licensed themes made up no more than a third of the LEGO Group's business, and that such had been the case for over a decade.

That ratio may have be shaken up a bit later that year depending on whether you consider The LEGO Ninjago Movie a licensed theme (LEGO, for the most part, does not seem to, as I don't believe any of the molds or prints were IP-locked and Warner Bros was already licensing the Ninjago FROM the LEGO Group rather than the other way around). But my feeling is that the ratio is likely to stabilize again fairly quickly — it would be irresponsible to interpret a one or two year deviation from the norm as the beginning of a lasting trend.

2 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

I, for one, think that Ninjago is starting to wind down. The movie, regardless of what people say to defend it, was both a critical and commercial disappointment, and while it does have a large core of fans who have been with it since the start, those kids are somewhere between 16-19 and will most likely be moving away from Lego soon. Ninjago seems to be having a harder time attracting new, younger fans, because those kids are being lured away by the resurgence of Star Wars and the never-ending MCU. 

Another issue with Ninjago would be the complex storyline, which is not quite nearing Bionicle levels but is confusing enough to make it hard for a new fan to get a full grasp of the storyline. I don't remember exactly who Bionicle ended, but Ninjago is starting to follow the same parallels. Finally, the theme has been running for eight years straight, and it would make sense to end it after ten years. :shrug_confused: If this were to happen, it could open up some room for Castle (which I think is coming next year no matter what) and maybe a couple of smaller themes.

We may have a better sense of how Ninjago's doing after the annual report for last year is released, but I don't get the sense that it's winding down. Even an underwhelming performance for a theatrical movie can command a lot more global attention than a strong performance for a TV show. Also, as recently as 2016 it was one of the five best-selling themes (higher than DC, Marvel, Disney, Elves, Creator, or Technic), which gives it a long way to fall before it's unsuccessful. We'll see when the 2017 annual report comes out how well it did in 2017 but my feeling based on occasional cursory glances at what was out of stock on the LEGO Shop website is that the movie sets tended to be very strong sellers and may have brought a lot more kids into the fandom regardless of how critics felt about the movie.

We'll also see how the theme handles the complexity of the story going forward, but in general there are some elements of the newest season that feel akin to a refresh or soft reboot, and I also feel like it's had some strong advantages over Bionicle by continuing to focus on the same central characters and telling its main story in one highly accessible media format, instead of forcing fans to hunt down new story developments across disparate media.

Ninjago got off to a better start in 2011 than Bionicle did in 2001 (though some of that momentum may have been undermined by its brush with cancellation in 2013), and I get the sense that it was still performing much better in 2016 than Bionicle had been in 2006. Certainly Google search traffic for Ninjago has managed to stay higher than for Bionicle at any point post-2004, though some of that may be attributed to the online habits of its target audience.

2 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

This makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't be surprised it that's how Lego sees things. Furthermore, they also might be trying to draw in kids with wacky themes full of multi-colored knights, and then slowly move them towards more realistic sets as they get older. KKII --> Fantasy Era --> Kingdoms/Castle 2013 --> Fantasy Era II?

I don't know what to expect of the next Castle theme, to be honest, but I do not expect it to be aimed at an older audience than Nexo Knights, primarily because Nexo Knights was already aimed at an older audience than most past Castle themes, and few major LEGO themes are aimed higher overall than the 7–14 age range that most Nexo Knights fell into. The only ones I can think of are Ideas, Architecture, Technic, Mindstorms, and Creator Expert.

The next Castle theme is certainly unlikely to be a futuristic mashup like Nexo Knights, though, because the primary incentive of giving a theme a wacky twist like that is novelty, and there's no novelty in using the same wacky twist twice in a row. A lot of Castle fans talk about Nexo Knights' futuristic aspects as if they're an indication LEGO no longer believed a Castle theme could survive without them (like Hive's last post suggests). I don't subscribe to that notion. LEGO's been developing the Nexo Knights concept for years, and in the intervening time they've had a number of more traditional themes — if developing Nexo Knights meant they'd given up hope in historic themes then surely they wouldn't keep releasing "hopeless" historic themes in the interim, let alone make their first big girl-targeted IP after Friends a Castle theme in all but name.

The fact that LEGO decided to make Nexo Knights their Castle theme this go-round simply means that they thought the time was right for it. It's easy to see why — not only was there no other Castle theme at the time, but both Legends of Chima and Ultra Agents had just ended, freeing up room for a new "big bang" theme both within LEGO's audience and among their media development partners. Elves and Disney had both recently been launched as an outlet for more conventional fantasy castle builds, and a Castle-Space mashup offered a way to keep making sets with LEGO Space design language without it stepping on the toes of (or having its own toes stepped on by) the sets for the new Star Wars movies. Whether you like Nexo Knights or not, you have to admit its timing was pretty on-point in this regard.

51 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Would you think that may be due to perhaps European consumers' preference for toys that portray more archetypical storylines, or would it be some other factor?

Possibly! Or possibly just that European audiences have a different idea of what is archetypical. In the United States, for instance, we're quite used to superhero stories that mash up historical, fantasy, and sci-fi elements. One day Thor might be fighting aliens from another planet, the next day he might be fighting robots, and the next he might be fighting ancient gods like himself. In Japan, there are many different shows just as wacky as Ninjago, which in some cases can even be traced to inspiration by American superhero stories (The Japanese Spider-Man TV show paved the way for other action shows featuring monsters, masked heroes, and giant robots).

Meanwhile in Europe, I can certainly believe a lot of the types of history explored by Playmobil are more relevant to kids than they are here. I'm a big fan of the Asterix comics which tell stories of Gaul during the Roman conquest, and I could see when visiting bookstores in London during my study abroad trip earlier this month that they're fairly popular with kids there, but I doubt they could ever become as popular in the United States as they are in Europe, because whether by fault of our schooling (which I have to admit, isn't great) or our preoccupation with United States history, pre-1600s European history is nowhere near as familiar to us.

Edited by Aanchir

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Ninjago got off to a better start in 2011 than Bionicle did in 2001 (though some of that momentum may have been undermined by its brush with cancellation in 2013), and I get the sense that it was still performing much better in 2016 than Bionicle had been in 2006. Certainly Google search traffic for Ninjago has managed to stay higher than for Bionicle at any point post-2004, though some of that may be attributed to the online habits of its target audience.

Just to preface, I think this chart is dead-on. Ninjago started out reasonably popular, exploded in popularity in 2012 and probably peaked just before 2013 with the "Save Ninjago" fiasco. It went down for a bit because there were so few 2014 sets, but hit its stride again in 2015. However, there's a significant decline starting in early 2016 that isn't stopped until Lego pushed all of their chips in with TLNM.

While the decline in 2014 had an explanation- there were only eight or nine total sets released that year - the 2016-17 decline should be a concern. That time period encompassed three separate themes: Sky Pirates, Day of the Departed, and the Vermillion. During that time, search traffic seems to have steadily dropped from 85 to 44. The release of TLNM and the massive marketing campaign from both TLG and Warner took it back up to 87, but in the months following the film's release it has tanked back down to 52 and will most likely continue to drop.

I didn't think of using Google Trends before I made my last post, but I feel that this reinforces what I said. Don't get me wrong, Ninjago is still plenty popular, but it appears to be running out of gas. That's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you are.

 

Edited by BrickJagger

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Welp, suppose I should wade in my thoughts on this then:

I... don't really mind too much the current evergreen(ish?) theme selection TLG has at the moment - it's a decently varied range of sets, and whilst some of 'em aren't completely up my street (Star Wars and Superheroes especially come to mind), they at least introduce a ton o' new useful parts and prints that I can utilise in my own MOCs. As long as it keeps TLG in business and they don't go back to that weird period in the 2000s where everything was a single mold for some reason (which I kinda doubt since they've very much learnt their lesson from it), I'm cool with whatever they're doing set-wise. S'good.

Having said that though, I really wouldn't mind seeing some more one-and-done action themes in the future if only for personal preference - as much as the whole "everything needs a tv show and 20 books" approach apparently works quite well, it'd be nice just to have some lil' one-off deals as a bit of variation in between those ones, y'know? I'm not too concerned if they don't, but it'd be rather nice if they did innit.

2 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

I, for one, think that Ninjago is starting to wind down. The movie, regardless of what people say to defend it, was both a critical and commercial disappointment, and while it does have a large core of fans who have been with it since the start, those kids are somewhere between 16-19 and will most likely be moving away from Lego soon. Ninjago seems to be having a harder time attracting new, younger fans, because those kids are being lured away by the resurgence of Star Wars and the never-ending MCU. 

Another issue with Ninjago would be the complex storyline, which is not quite nearing Bionicle levels but is confusing enough to make it hard for a new fan to get a full grasp of the storyline. I don't remember exactly who Bionicle ended, but Ninjago is starting to follow the same parallels. Finally, the theme has been running for eight years straight, and it would make sense to end it after ten years. :shrug_confused: If this were to happen, it could open up some room for Castle (which I think is coming next year no matter what) and maybe a couple of smaller themes.

Eh, I doubt they're gonna pull the plug on it any time soon - movie aside it's clearly still making money for 'em, so until it stops pulling in the big dollarydoos I doubt it's going away for at least another, oooh, 4-5 years?

As for the complex storyline though, I'd agree that it's definitely getting a tad confusing innit - I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to soft-reboot it a-la the glatorians stuff at some point in the future - make it still technically in the same universe to satisfy the longterm fans, but shift the focus onto some brand new characters so they can start afresh enough as a jumping-in point for new peeps. Or at least, I'm expecting them to try doing this, get yelled at by 90% of the fanbase when they do and revert back to how it originally was two seasons later... :V

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

That last bit is where your argument and mine seem to differ. You seem to be arguing that there is absolutely nothing separating character-based parts from an in-house IP like Nexo Knights and character parts from a licensed one like Star Wars. But I feel like there is a great difference in design philosophy between parts for in-house and licensed IPs.

When LEGO designers are creating parts from scratch, they are usually trying to maximize their versatility, because they never know when or where they might want to use them again. They might one day wish to use a ninja mask or knight sword or space blaster in a Super Heroes set or a Collectible Minifigure, for example, so they'd be doing themselves a disservice by not leaving that option open for themselves.

Except in the case of an in-house theme like Legends of Chima. Besides many the recolors/reprints of those individual tribal "masks" of theirs, did Lego ever consider how those molds would be used beyond that theme? The weaponry and armor parts are one thing, as those still have a lot of potential for reusage in other Sci-Fi/Fantasy themes. But with the headgear molds... :def_shrug:

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

Meanwhile in Europe, I can certainly believe a lot of the types of history explored by Playmobil are more relevant to kids than they are here. I'm a big fan of the Asterix comics which tell stories of Gaul during the Roman conquest, and I could see when visiting bookstores in London during my study abroad trip earlier this month that they're fairly popular with kids there, but I doubt they could ever become as popular in the United States as they are in Europe, because whether by fault of our schooling (which I have to admit, isn't great) or our preoccupation with United States history, pre-1600s European history is nowhere near as familiar to us.

Well, then that raises another question:

Would Lego devote any resources to developing an entire theme that would be sold on a mainstream retail basis only over in Europe, with a limited online/brand store release for the United States? I mean, they did release two CMSs exclusively for both England and Germany back in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, BrickJagger said:

Just to preface, I think this chart is dead-on. Ninjago started out reasonably popular, exploded in popularity in 2012 and probably peaked just before 2013 with the "Save Ninjago" fiasco. It went down for a bit because there were so few 2014 sets, but hit its stride again in 2015. However, there's a significant decline starting in early 2016 that isn't stopped until Lego pushed all of their chips in with TLNM.

While the decline in 2014 had an explanation- there were only eight or nine total sets released that year - the 2016-17 decline should be a concern. That time period encompassed three separate themes: Sky Pirates, Day of the Departed, and the Vermillion. During that time, search traffic seems to have steadily dropped from 85 to 44. The release of TLNM and the massive marketing campaign from both TLG and Warner took it back up to 87, but in the months following the film's release it has tanked back down to 52 and will most likely continue to drop.

I didn't think of using Google Trends before I made my last post, but I feel that this reinforces what I said. Don't get me wrong, Ninjago is still plenty popular, but it appears to be running out of gas. That's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you are.

 

I wouldn't read too much into that, as search interest for almost all themes declines in the months after December or after the launch of a new movie. Also, the numbers on Google Trends correspond to a percentage of the peak value on the chart. When we look at this chart showing a selection of popular themes/brands, LEGO Ninjago appears to rate second highest after LEGO Star Wars for both December and the current month (though we can also see that The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn't have anywhere near as big an impact on its search interest as the LEGO Batman Movie did on the "LEGO Batman"query). As long as it's remains up there with those other heavy hitters I would say its future is fairly secure.

Compare it with searches for the classic evergreen themes and City is the only one that reliably comes close. LEGO Pirates had an interesting and pronounced spike in May 2011 when the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game came out, though.

Note that in this post I'm looking at specific search terms and not "topics" as defined by Google Trends, mainly because for some reason Google Trends seems to depress the values for "LEGO Star Wars (topic)" and exaggerate the values for "LEGO Ninjago (product line)", possibly due to conflating their values with less and more popular related queries, respectively.

58 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, then that raises another question:

Would Lego devote any resources to developing an entire theme that would be sold on a mainstream retail basis only over in Europe, with a limited online/brand store release for the United States? I mean, they did release two CMSs exclusively for both England and Germany back in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

I suppose all things considered, the possibility of a region-specific LEGO theme couldn't be ruled out, but I think LEGO would have to see a really pressing incentive to take that plunge. After all, it means a lower reward for what's not necessarily any less risk than they'd encounter designing products for a global market. With global products, at least, the risk is distributed — if the theme doesn't take off in one region, or economic or political factors happen to depress sales that year in that region, other regions can potentially pick up the slack. If you design a product for just one region, sure it may wind up with different design characteristics than if it had been developed for a more global market, but that's not necessarily going to translate to more reliable performance.

As I've often had to remind Bionicle fans who come up with theory after theory for how LEGO could make Bionicle a success again, LEGO's motivation isn't loyalty to or some kind of debt to particular product lines or categories. It's to develop products that will generate the greatest possible demand from the greatest number of kids. Whether those product ideas come from stuff they've had great success with before or from new directions doesn't particularly affect their importance or urgency. If you were a person at LEGO trying to sell them on a reboot of a particular product line, your pitch wouldn't begin with HOW you would make it work, but WHY it's a good idea to begin with.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I wouldn't read too much into that, as search interest for almost all themes declines in the months after December or after the launch of a new movie. Also, the numbers on Google Trends correspond to a percentage of the peak value on the chart. When we look at this chart showing a selection of popular themes/brands, LEGO Ninjago appears to rate second highest after LEGO Star Wars for both December and the current month (though we can also see that The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn't have anywhere near as big an impact on its search interest as the LEGO Batman Movie did on the "LEGO Batman"query). As long as it's remains up there with those other heavy hitters I would say its future is fairly secure.

Compare it with searches for the classic evergreen themes and City is the only one that reliably comes close. LEGO Pirates had an interesting and pronounced spike in May 2011 when the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean video game came out, though.

Note that in this post I'm looking at specific search terms and not "topics" as defined by Google Trends, mainly because for some reason Google Trends seems to depress the values for "LEGO Star Wars (topic)" and exaggerate the values for "LEGO Ninjago (product line)", possibly due to conflating their values with less and more popular related queries, respectively.

It's still doing well compared to other themes, but the decline in this graph is the most telling. The "most popular themes" chart you linked has some issues, as there's no way that Star Wars was barely getting more search interest than Ninjago in December, when a Star Wars film that is one of the highest grossing of all time came out. I can't pinpoint the problem but there's clearly a flaw in there somewhere.

Regardless, what I said originally is still true. It's popular, but is declining at a steady rate. I don't know what the top five most popular themes were in 2004, and there doesn't seem to be too much reliable data for them, but here is Bionicle vs. Star Wars. As you can see, they were almost even for several years. Bionicle fell behind a bit and then just sorta...ended. IIRC the reason given was that Bionicle was getting old and too complex, but it just goes to show that no matter how strong a theme looks, it can end suddenly for a variety of reasons, especially if it is in-house.

Another example, although on a smaller scale, is Fantasy Era. That theme seemed to be immensely popular and had a strong three-year run. There are dozens of speculation threads in Historic Themes from 2009 just over a single image of an elf in the Lego Magazine. Instead, we never got those elves, and the theme was suddenly replaced by Kingdoms, seemingly in its prime. Lego has reasons for why they do things, and it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to pull the plug on Ninjago while it was still on top instead of letting it peter out over the course of several years.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, danth said:

Are you really going to pretend that a boonie hat or a ninja minifig is just as reusable within one's own made up world as a Boba Fett helmet or a Storm Trooper minifig? Let's be real here.

[snip]

If you cannot understand this very basic concept, it's intentional on your part.

Anyone who doesn't agree with your statements is 'pretending' and willfully misunderstanding? That's unfair. 

For what it's worth, no, I have zero trouble reimagining any figure, Star Wars or otherwise, as something else. I think many other useful comments on the matter have already been made by other posters.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

@Aanchir While that Google graph might be fully OK datawise, it is neglecting that "LEGO City" is "LEGO City" all over the world, there is no country where LEGO uses another name for this theme (at least not that I would know of). On the other hand, "LEGO Castle" is "LEGO Ritter" in German and something completely else in different languages, as well as "Train(s)" is "Zug" or "Züge". So, as language variances are not taken into account, this graph only gives us half the story.

However, I also do believe that Ninjago & City are more relevant to the target audience as Castle or Train, even if you take other languages into account. :thumbup:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Would Lego devote any resources to developing an entire theme that would be sold on a mainstream retail basis only over in Europe, with a limited online/brand store release for the United States? I mean, they did release two CMSs exclusively for both England and Germany back in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

 

Those CMF series were not that limited. The Team GB was sold throughout the UK (I think including Northern Ireland, but may be wrong), not just restricted to England. Similar the DFB series was also available in Austria and possibly Switzerland.

But this is nothing new. LEGO has done region specific sets in the past - the Chinese New Year type sets (Year of the Snake, etc) were region specific. I guess they have no financial reason to make them available in the US or Europe. I have no doubt they would sell to collectors, but it is another competing product against the rest of the line-up and probably not of interest to the more general buyer. Similarly there have been even more specific limited sets (Marina Bay Sands, etc). Again, I doubt they have the widespread appeal from general LEGO buyers to make it worthwhile to sell them, even online, elsewhere in Europe and the US even if AFOLs would want them.

 

On 28/01/2018 at 4:06 AM, Echo said:

I wonder if there is perhaps a compromise to be made? Not every non-licensed action theme needs to be a big bang theme like Nexo, Chima, or Ninjago that is expected to be a flagship brand for the company, but the concept of the archetypal themes doesn't seem like it works super well these days either as evidenced by the lackluster 2015 pirates and 2013 castle themes. Maybe some sort of middle ground; a "medium bang" strategy, if you will; could work for the archetypal concepts. Say a castle theme with defined characters and an ongoing storyline, but without a TV show or some of the other really extensive marketing done for big bang themes. A more minimal, streamlined approach to presenting the story through online/mobile content might suffice for a more short term theme that only lasts, say, two years and awareness of the brand could be increased by promoting it in ads on the big bang brand TV shows. 

2

As noted already, that is what happened with the older style one year themes such as MF, PQ, AC, GS, etc. Maybe the financials don't work for series like that any more. A three year theme is going to need less advertising year-on-year than a one year theme once there is customer buy in. I don't know about the design aspect, but I also imagine it is easier to continue a theme than it is to come up with a completely new one each year. I think also consumers like to have a period of time to buy products from a theme, rather than have to buy everything for a theme in one year, then never see it again.

As for advertising / promotion, I don't think that will work in all countries. For example, in the UK we have strict rules about toy advertising and shows that are primarily designed to sell toys (essentially the show is a long advert) are not allowed on regular TV. They are allowed on streaming services like amazon and netflix and on DVD though, but here they will not get the adverts for the other series in.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I found this chart interesting:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01 2018-01-29&q=Lego Ninjago,lego star wars,lego chima

Ninjago was as popular a term as Chima throughout Chima's run. Maybe not so surprising. But the interesting thing is most themes have very seasonal peaks in December. Yet Ninjago seems to remain popular throughout the year, with little evidence of a Christmas spike.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

It's still doing well compared to other themes, but the decline in this graph is the most telling. The "most popular themes" chart you linked has some issues, as there's no way that Star Wars was barely getting more search interest than Ninjago in December, when a Star Wars film that is one of the highest grossing of all time came out. I can't pinpoint the problem but there's clearly a flaw in there somewhere.

Regardless, what I said originally is still true. It's popular, but is declining at a steady rate. I don't know what the top five most popular themes were in 2004, and there doesn't seem to be too much reliable data for them, but here is Bionicle vs. Star Wars. As you can see, they were almost even for several years. Bionicle fell behind a bit and then just sorta...ended. IIRC the reason given was that Bionicle was getting old and too complex, but it just goes to show that no matter how strong a theme looks, it can end suddenly for a variety of reasons, especially if it is in-house.

Another example, although on a smaller scale, is Fantasy Era. That theme seemed to be immensely popular and had a strong three-year run. There are dozens of speculation threads in Historic Themes from 2009 just over a single image of an elf in the Lego Magazine. Instead, we never got those elves, and the theme was suddenly replaced by Kingdoms, seemingly in its prime. Lego has reasons for why they do things, and it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to pull the plug on Ninjago while it was still on top instead of letting it peter out over the course of several years.

I believe I read somewhere about the elf in the Fantasy Era magazine feature that it was just added by the artist and not based on any products currently in development. I can't remember the source for that, though. It was definitely confusing since as far as I can remember it was the only part of that map image not based on current or recent products. While Fantasy Era Castle did well, a three-year lifespan is not unusual for a successful LEGO product line, particularly one like Castle that gets refreshed/re-imagined every three years or so almost like clockwork. Ninjago itself was only planned to run for two to two and a half years, hence its momentum being interrupted in 2013 as the set designers and writers hastily developed new sets and a new story arc for 2014.

I certainly think Ninjago could end at some point, but I don't feel as though we're imminently approaching that point, since LEGO acknowledged it as an evergreen product line less than three years ago. One of the strong indicators for me that LEGO has long-term plans for Ninjago is outlined in this post (which was actually the first place we saw it described as an evergreen theme):

Naturally, plans can change with new developments. But I don't feel like we're at a point where Ninjago's future is in peril. It's still commanding more interest than it had been at any point in 2014.

5 hours ago, Capparezza said:

@Aanchir While that Google graph might be fully OK datawise, it is neglecting that "LEGO City" is "LEGO City" all over the world, there is no country where LEGO uses another name for this theme (at least not that I would know of). On the other hand, "LEGO Castle" is "LEGO Ritter" in German and something completely else in different languages, as well as "Train(s)" is "Zug" or "Züge". So, as language variances are not taken into account, this graph only gives us half the story.

However, I also do believe that Ninjago & City are more relevant to the target audience as Castle or Train, even if you take other languages into account. :thumbup:

Interesting point. I knew LEGO used to translate theme names but judging from what I've seen in catalogs, I don't think they do anymore. Even so, since this is looking at search queries, it's totally possible that the people searching for these themes on the Internet are not consistently using the English names in their search terms.

3 hours ago, MAB said:

I found this chart interesting:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-01-01 2018-01-29&q=Lego Ninjago,lego star wars,lego chima

Ninjago was as popular a term as Chima throughout Chima's run. Maybe not so surprising. But the interesting thing is most themes have very seasonal peaks in December. Yet Ninjago seems to remain popular throughout the year, with little evidence of a Christmas spike.

Yeah, that is definitely something that sets Ninjago apart from other themes. I imagine the TV show is a factor that helps spread out interest throughout the year — Ninjago definitely seems to command more search interest in years with more TV episodes (like 2012 and 2015, which each had two full seasons of episodes) than years with fewer episodes (like 2014, 2016, and 2017). Chima had a TV show as well, of course, and during the two years the show was running, although there were still December peaks, they were not as sharp a spike as we see for themes like City and Star Wars which are mainly searched for in the run-up to the holiday gift-giving season.

Getting back to the discussion of story-driven vs. non-story-driven themes, I think this kind of steadier engagement with story-driven themes helps bear evidence to the fact that fans of these themes are not solely interacting with them as toys/products/gifts. The stories for these themes give fans more ways to engage not only with the brand but also with their fellow fans. People can share theories and headcanons, create fan art and fan fiction, create original characters to exist in these richly developed worlds, dress up as their favorite characters, etc. There's no reason that fans can't do this for the more traditional themes, but they don't seem to inspire those forms of creative engagement to nearly the same extent.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I believe I read somewhere about the elf in the Fantasy Era magazine feature that it was just added by the artist and not based on any products currently in development. I can't remember the source for that, though. It was definitely confusing since as far as I can remember it was the only part of that map image not based on current or recent products. While Fantasy Era Castle did well, a three-year lifespan is not unusual for a successful LEGO product line, particularly one like Castle that gets refreshed/re-imagined every three years or so almost like clockwork. Ninjago itself was only planned to run for two to two and a half years, hence its momentum being interrupted in 2013 as the set designers and writers hastily developed new sets and a new story arc for 2014.

I certainly think Ninjago could end at some point, but I don't feel as though we're imminently approaching that point, since LEGO acknowledged it as an evergreen product line less than three years ago. One of the strong indicators for me that LEGO has long-term plans for Ninjago is outlined in this post (which was actually the first place we saw it described as an evergreen theme):

You're right, the official explanation was that the elf was put in to fill out the upper-left hand corner of the map, because there was nothing there. There was another theory floating around that there were going to be elves until TLG heard about the incoming Hobbit movie, so they put out Kingdoms in the interim to transition from Fantasy Era to TH. Fantasy Era easily had the best shot of any post-2000 theme of making it past three years, and I think that's a pretty reasonable theory. 

Going back to Ninjago, Lego made the "evergreen" comment before the Ninjago Movie came out. I don't think they were expecting it to be a flop, rather they and Warner both seemed to expect it to do as well as the original Lego Movie. We don't know how badly that failure impacted Ninjago's "evergreen" status, but paired with diminishing returns the last three years, it's something to consider. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/28/2018 at 12:54 PM, Lyichir said:

You seem to misunderstand what the comments you replied to were in turn replying to, which was criticizing NON-licensed parts from story themes like Ninjago and Nexo Knights as creatively limiting, not licensed ones. Licensed parts like Star Wars helmets are of course much more specific to those sorts of characters, since part and parcel of a licensed theme is to recreate props and costume design to a high level of accuracy (this has been the case since the Star Wars theme first started out, though it has become accentuated as more detailed printing and molds have been introduced). But most Ninjago masks are hardly any more specific to the characters they represent than the masks used by the generic ninja in the 90s Ninja theme—at the most, they might include a symbol signifying which Ninjago character wears them, but absent the context of the Ninjago theme that iconography is generic enough to mean whatever you want. The same applies to the helmets in Nexo Knights, which if anything are more versatile due to using separate visors—a Nexo Knights helmet can be paired with a traditional space visor to represent a spaceman, or the visors can be used with whichever helmet you want to represent different sorts of knights or sci-fi heroes.

 

On 1/28/2018 at 2:03 PM, Aanchir said:

I understand your concept. However, the post of yours I responded to claimed the parts of characters like Clay Moorington from in-house themes could not be seen as anybody else. I explained why I felt that was wrong. And then you started listing characters and parts from licensed themes, which were never a part of the point that I was making.

I agree that licensed parts tend to be way more character-specific than in-house parts. It's part of why I greatly prefer the helmet-less Star Wars buildable figures over the helmeted ones. It's much easier to reuse a head that happens to resemble Ewan McGregor or John Boyega (each of whom has played plenty of characters outside of Star Wars) for an entirely original character than an iconic helmet tied to a highly specific IP and not designed with use in any other IPs in mind.

Well I guess there was confusion because I brought up Nexo Knights, and then you guys brought up Johnny Thunder and Ninjago. Those are both much worse examples of what I'm getting at. So I figured I'd counter with an even stronger example -- Star Wars minifigs -- to make it obvious.

Johnny Thunder is almost as generic as a classic theme. However it has named characters with back stories and some mini-comics (with no dialog). So as a theme it has a bit of a defined world, but not much. And of course the minifigs look like anyone out of Indian Jones or The Mummy or other movies.

Ninjago, to me, is a licensed theme. Just one where Lego owns the license. The characters and setting, and even the stories, are defined in cartoons and movies. However I do agree that the parts from Ninjago, even main hero/villain minifigs, are generic looking enough to be used in probably any setting with martial arts/ninjas.

Now Nexo Knights, yes it's an in-house license like Ninjago, but a bit further on the character-specific/world-specific parts spectrum. Each character really does have his/her own helmet visor. And those visors don't work in medieval times because they have antennas and headlamps and other sci-fi stuff on them. Same with the weapons and shields to some degree. They could totally work in He-man or Thundercats style settings though where magic and technology mix. 

You guys have made some good points I hadn't considered though:

  • In-house license themes don't have minifig faces that have to look like specific people
  • In-house license themes can intentionally design characters so that minifig parts are more generic/reusable
Edited by danth

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You are mangling the English Language for your own ends!

A license is required by a manufacturer to produce items in the likeness of another company's or group's IP. Like right now, Mattel has the license to produce Star Wars action figure toys, or Pop! Vinyl has the license to produce collectable figures based on Stranger Things.

An original IP belonging to a manufacturer, even with media extras on TV and in film is a Franchise and they give production companies the license to create the partner media. Hasbro owns My Little Pony, they license it to the companies that make the movie, the cartoons, the magazines (the socks, the blankets the chocolate bars...). TLG owns and developed Nexo Knights, Elves and Ninjago. There was probably a contract bidding process required for the animation companies who produce the TV series, magazines and books related to the media. If not for each specific theme, then likely some sort of blanket partnership with LEGO to develop cartoons based on their properties. That, or LEGO approached a media partner to produce these animations etc as they learned the hard way that keeping everything in house costs a lot and is very risky (See, late 90s early 00s for TLG) 

Honestly, if you have some free time and some Netflix, The Toys That Made Us is very interesting and sheds light on toy production and development (with associate media) from both the toy makers (See He-Man) and the film creators (See Star Wars). 

But really, refusing and refuting the actual definitions of words only makes your argument fall apart right at the start. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, danth said:

Ninjago, to me, is a licensed theme. Just one where Lego owns the license. The characters and setting, and even the stories, are defined in cartoons and movies. However I do agree that the parts from Ninjago, even main hero/villain minifigs, are generic looking enough to be used in probably any setting with martial arts/ninjas.

 

 

The characters, setting and story are only defined if you want them to be defined.

But this is true of non-licensed themes too. Take a LEGO fireman. Is he a cowboy? No. Is he a doctor? No. Is he a spaceman? No. He is a fireman, and he will need to be found around a fire and fire engine. He will put out fires. Take a forest man. Is he a spaceman, a doctor, a fireman, a cowboy? No. He is a forest man. He will live in the forest and probably shoot a bow and arrow. The narrative is implied by the costume he is wearing.

In some cases, licensed characters are less well defined. For example, Han Solo fits perfectly well into a (fleshie) City. Maybe remove the guns on his legs, depending on the local gun laws in your Lego town. But just because the SW stories exist, doesn't mean a kid cannot make up their own stories about what Han Solo (or a storm trooper or anyone else) gets up to, just like they can make up stories about their fireman or doctor or forest man.

If people want truly generic non-licensed characters in sets where nothing is defined, then it will be back to plain torsos to remove all hints of narrative.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Indeed.

There is a Beach set currently available with lots of beach going figures in beach appropriate clothing with seaside activities provided in the form of accessories and mini-builds. Right away we have a narrative restricted to the beach. 

However, the creator and the Building Bigger Thinking sets do not have a narrative context. So this makes for something more acceptable?

All I can really get from all the arguments people are making in agreement with the topic is: "TLG are not producing sets I, an adult far from their target market, want". Toys have "required" a narrative for a long long time. Probably about the moment advertising was invented. 

This topic rears its head very often. In fact it honestly looks like originality is not wanted by AFOLs, rather some rehash of what they enjoyed as children/when they were younger. Agents should have been Alpha Team, Pharaoh's Quest needed to be Johnny Thunder again, Power Miners was supposedly better if it was Rock Raiders. Castle has never ever been any good since the 70s. The list goes on, but TLG are going to listen to market forces, not embittered nostalgic adults.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

You are mangling the English Language for your own ends!

A license is required by a manufacturer to produce items in the likeness of another company's or group's IP. Like right now, Mattel has the license to produce Star Wars action figure toys, or Pop! Vinyl has the license to produce collectable figures based on Stranger Things.

An original IP belonging to a manufacturer, even with media extras on TV and in film is a Franchise and they give production companies the license to create the partner media. Hasbro owns My Little Pony, they license it to the companies that make the movie, the cartoons, the magazines (the socks, the blankets the chocolate bars...). TLG owns and developed Nexo Knights, Elves and Ninjago. There was probably a contract bidding process required for the animation companies who produce the TV series, magazines and books related to the media. If not for each specific theme, then likely some sort of blanket partnership with LEGO to develop cartoons based on their properties. That, or LEGO approached a media partner to produce these animations etc as they learned the hard way that keeping everything in house costs a lot and is very risky (See, late 90s early 00s for TLG) 

Honestly, if you have some free time and some Netflix, The Toys That Made Us is very interesting and sheds light on toy production and development (with associate media) from both the toy makers (See He-Man) and the film creators (See Star Wars). 

But really, refusing and refuting the actual definitions of words only makes your argument fall apart right at the start. 

Doesn't Lego license out the rights to make video games, cartoons, and movies for Ninjago, Nexo Knights, etc? Is that what your bold text is describing?

I've watched the toys that made us. 

8 hours ago, MAB said:

The characters, setting and story are only defined if you want them to be defined.

But this is true of non-licensed themes too. Take a LEGO fireman. Is he a cowboy? No. Is he a doctor? No. Is he a spaceman? No. He is a fireman, and he will need to be found around a fire and fire engine. He will put out fires. Take a forest man. Is he a spaceman, a doctor, a fireman, a cowboy? No. He is a forest man. He will live in the forest and probably shoot a bow and arrow. The narrative is implied by the costume he is wearing.

In some cases, licensed characters are less well defined. For example, Han Solo fits perfectly well into a (fleshie) City. Maybe remove the guns on his legs, depending on the local gun laws in your Lego town. But just because the SW stories exist, doesn't mean a kid cannot make up their own stories about what Han Solo (or a storm trooper or anyone else) gets up to, just like they can make up stories about their fireman or doctor or forest man.

If people want truly generic non-licensed characters in sets where nothing is defined, then it will be back to plain torsos to remove all hints of narrative.

So would you say there is no difference with how a kid who has seen Star Wars would play with a classic Spaceman vs how that same kid would play with a Boba Fett minifig?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
18 minutes ago, danth said:

(snip...) So would you say there is no difference with how a kid who has seen Star Wars would play with a classic Spaceman vs how that same kid would play with a Boba Fett minifig?

The activity and building experience aside (which already drop 90% of AFOLs out of the picture, as that's really what _they_ are there for), imaginative play is about engaging in a _story_.   Professional writers (and wanna-be pro-writers) have all sorts of ideas about what goes into "building" a good story but most can generally agree on a few key elements: Setting - where does the story take place, what universal rules and expectations apply to everyone in the story; premise - without getting into specific actions and complications, what is the story about; conflict - if the resolution were easy or obvious the story wouldn't be worth telling, so what complications make this story interesting?;  characters - design of a good character can be a story building exercise in itself, what makes each of them unique? what motivates them? why do the act the way they do? what do they value?; and plot - what actually happens as the story unfolds?  Some writes say that if you get all the other things right, the plot writes itself because it should be obvious once you _really know_ the characters, conflict, premise and setting.

If I tap into an established IP (licensed or in-house) I'm also (potentially) bringing in constraints on my narrative.  Star Wars is an established setting; Jabba the Hut seeking to punish Han Solo failure to pay his debts is an established premise; we know who all the key players are and we have to work harder to get outside the story we're given to create our own path.  It can certainly be done (hey The Lego Movie itself was an exercise in taking known character out of their established contexts) but it's a lot easier to run with the story you're given and just accept it.  

Now take a classic space man.  We still have a setting (or do we?  Is that a space suit or a haz-mat suit?  Maybe it's just needs flippers and an air tank to be some sort of diving gear...) Our story has no predetermined premise (First person on Titan?  Mutant bunny rabbit discovered while cleaning up a toxic waste site? Alien landing base discovered while mining on the ocean floor?)  Likewise questions of conflict and character are wide open.  A kid with a vivid imagination could spend years world-building his or her on narrative (I know _I_ did back in the day)

I'm not saying that sets based on an established IP are bad (lord knows I own enough of them), but, particularly for young minds, I think the more open-ended we leave the narrative the better.  Kids will always embrace some sort of narrative when they play, its just the way they are wired, the only question is do we want them to learn to write their own story or learn to live within the one they're given.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

If I tap into an established IP (licensed or in-house) I'm also (potentially) bringing in constraints on my narrative.  Star Wars is an established setting; Jabba the Hut seeking to punish Han Solo failure to pay his debts is an established premise; we know who all the key players are and we have to work harder to get outside the story we're given to create our own path.  It can certainly be done (hey The Lego Movie itself was an exercise in taking known character out of their established contexts) but it's a lot easier to run with the story you're given and just accept it.  

Now take a classic space man.  We still have a setting (or do we?  Is that a space suit or a haz-mat suit?  Maybe it's just needs flippers and an air tank to be some sort of diving gear...) Our story has no predetermined premise (First person on Titan?  Mutant bunny rabbit discovered while cleaning up a toxic waste site? Alien landing base discovered while mining on the ocean floor?)  Likewise questions of conflict and character are wide open.  A kid with a vivid imagination could spend years world-building his or her on narrative (I know _I_ did back in the day)

This is exactly what I'm saying. But I'm having a hard time getting people here to acknowledge this pretty basic concept. I'm not even saying an open story is better than an established story, just different...and I can't even get people to concede that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Speculation about how children use established narratives in their play doesn’t tell us much without actually checking how children play in practice. You can’t just deduce the facts from your intuitions.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 minutes ago, GregoryBrick said:

Speculation about how children use established narratives in their play doesn’t tell us much without actually checking how children play in practice. You can’t just deduce the facts from your intuitions.

So we're going with nihilism now? "We can't know anything, there are no facts, nothing is true or false!" Sounds like a last resort argument of someone who knows the aren't going to win.

Look...I've been a kid. A kid who played with Legos and all sorts of toys. I know I played differently when it was generic toys like army men or Lego Space/Castle, vs toys like GI Joe or He Man. And all my friends played the same way. It's obvious, and it's something we've all experienced, and denying it is pretty silly. 

And if it wasn't true, Lego wouldn't be printing money cranking out the licensed sets. It's easier to play with toys when you have a story. Lego knows that, everyone knows that. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Licensed sets require less creative personnel to bring to market, so they make more money.

Modem Lego set design is more influenced by accounting staff chasing bonuses than creatives and educators trying to bring the best experience to kids - obviously there's always been a compromise between the two but in the past few years it's noticeably tilted towards the money.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
15 minutes ago, danth said:

So we're going with nihilism now? "We can't know anything, there are no facts, nothing is true or false!" Sounds like a last resort argument of someone who knows the aren't going to win.

Look...I've been a kid. A kid who played with Legos and all sorts of toys. I know I played differently when it was generic toys like army men or Lego Space/Castle, vs toys like GI Joe or He Man. And all my friends played the same way. It's obvious, and it's something we've all experienced, and denying it is pretty silly. 

And if it wasn't true, Lego wouldn't be printing money cranking out the licensed sets. It's easier to play with toys when you have a story. Lego knows that, everyone knows that. 

I asked for facts about how kids play, instead of restating the conclusion as though that were proof ('established narratives impede imaginative play'). And I get accused of denying the existence of facts! Oh well.

I still think it's entirely possible that an established story enables further imaginative play as much as it limits it, and that it would be worth checking. Maybe I should say "this is true because everybody knows it and if you deny it you are silly, and people should just concede my point".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.