Lack of original themes

[MAB]

15 hours ago, MR Swordfish said:

Enter the current City theme. This is where Lego is putting sets that they couldn't, for practicality's sake, dedicate a whole theme to. They do some adventure sets. Some realistic space sets. Some city cars. Some construction vehicles. Miners. Whatever. They can make one, two, three or even four sets covering a certain concept without dedicating too much of their resources (aka money) to making it happen. It also avoids the issue of having to make a theme large enough to be presentable on shelves. This is clearly a practical model that is working best for them as a way to sell unlicensed sets -- otherwise they would not be doing it.

2

The problem with loads of small disjointed themes is that they lose the combined internal brand.The shelves look like they couldn't come up with a good idea, so they do a bit of this and a bit of that. It works for City because a fire engine can be played with next to a cop car next to a house, a hospital and a mine. They are all modern / same era. They are all City which is continually a good seller.

Whereas a fairly random mix of disjointed sets that don't appear to go together don't look good on a shelf or catalogue, and don't get the crossover appeal (I've got a fire engine, so I'll get police). Even if they are branded as Fables or Castle or History, if they are not immediately recognizable as what the kid likes playing with and go with what s/he already has, it won't sell as well. If there are, for example, fantasy elves in one set and Greeks in another and dragons in the third, how do they go together? There is no cross-over or story line to sell sets together if they are disjoint.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

Whereas a fairly random mix of disjointed sets that don't appear to go together don't look good on a shelf or catalogue, and don't get the crossover appeal (I've got a fire engine, so I'll get police). Even if they are branded as Fables or Castle or History, if they are not immediately recognizable as what the kid likes playing with and go with what s/he already has, it won't sell as well. If there are, for example, fantasy elves in one set and Greeks in another and dragons in the third, how do they go together? There is no cross-over or story line to sell sets together if they are disjoint.

But it works for the Creator theme, doesn't it?

[icm]

Well, the "disjointed" Creator sets are usually larger brick-built models; they go together in that sense.  The Creator sets with minifigs are essentially a subtheme of City.  A disjointed anthology-style Fables theme (as others on this forum have called the idea) wouldn't have the economies of figure production that Creator minifig sets do unless there were, separately, Castle and Space themes in production or its minifigs crossed over frequently with simultaneous CMF lines.  The line could probably be made to work both in production and in sales, but it's probably not as simple as "Creator but with Castle and Space sets too."

Edited February 7, 2018 by icm
Corrected typos.

[Digger of Bricks]

3 minutes ago, icm said:

Well, the "disjointed" Creator sets are usually larger brick-built models; they go together in that sense. 

Well there's certainly nothing wrong with brick heavy sets, and if anything, I'd say they're definitely superior to minifigure based playsets that rely on specialized parts.

You see, perhaps this sort of "disjointed anthology-style Fables" theme should be a subtheme of Creator subslotted between "three-in-one" Creator and Creator Expert in age range. It would be very brick heavy, much like three-in-one Creator sets, but with more advanced construction techniques and a more mature color palette, nearing the quality of AFOL creations. This subtheme would be marketed towards older audiences that would otherwise be interested in hobbyist aimed products such as plastic assembly kits.

[Aanchir]

Just now, MAB said:

The problem with loads of small disjointed themes is that they lose the combined internal brand.The shelves look like they couldn't come up with a good idea, so they do a bit of this and a bit of that. It works for City because a fire engine can be played with next to a cop car next to a house, a hospital and a mine. They are all modern / same era. They are all City which is continually a good seller.

Whereas a fairly random mix of disjointed sets that don't appear to go together don't look good on a shelf or catalogue, and don't get the crossover appeal (I've got a fire engine, so I'll get police). Even if they are branded as Fables or Castle or History, if they are not immediately recognizable as what the kid likes playing with and go with what s/he already has, it won't sell as well. If there are, for example, fantasy elves in one set and Greeks in another and dragons in the third, how do they go together? There is no cross-over or story line to sell sets together if they are disjoint.

Agreed, I was about to bring this up. With City there's also a certain degree of unity that goes beyond its setting. After all, the Friends theme is also modern day but typically covers much different categories of interests and play patterns from City. Most City sets have an emphasis on action play, vehicle play, and grown-up career role play. Friends, on the other hand, has a lot more lifestyle play, animal play, and school-age child/teenager role play.

17 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

But it works for the Creator theme, doesn't it?

Creator may be a lot less unified than City or Castle in its subject matter, but that's because unlike City, Castle, Star Wars, or Ninjago, it is a creative construction theme, not a play theme. Like other creative construction themes like Classic, Technic, and Mindstorms, Creator's identity is defined not by its role-play and storytelling cues, but by its building style. And this distinction is not a newfangled phenomenon — back in the 80s, the category of themes we now call play themes were identified by their LEGOLAND branding, which Technic, Basic, and Advanced Basic sets lacked.

[Digger of Bricks]

15 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Creator may be a lot less unified than City or Castle in its subject matter, but that's because unlike City, Castle, Star Wars, or Ninjago, it is a creative construction theme, not a play theme.

Well, who said that we can't see both in a theme? Lego could incorporate many of those genres which fans desire into the Creator theme, and they therefore don't need to be released alongside a supporting lineup of sets. Simple. A three-in-one Galaxy Explorer-like shuttlecraft, a three-in-one modular castle, a three-in-one castaway treasure island, a three-in-one steam locomotive, a three-in-one Steampunk airship, a three-in-one Jaeger-like mecha, and so on.

These sort of sets could supply fans with the parts and minifigures they desire, minus the storyline.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Digger of Bricks

[Robin_IV]

Do you know this times where you could buy this amazing Western Ford LEGOREDO stuff, the sheriffs office or the beautiful indian camp?

Themes like Pirates, Medieval, 19th Century, Train, Farm, Wild West, Space, Sailing ships and more should ALWAYS be in stock by LEGO.

But in reality LEGO is bringing them only for a complete half year. And the sets then are actually useless. Much money for nothing really. I would wish me sets which make every child happy and are eternal.

[Aanchir]

59 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, who said that we can't see both in a theme? Lego could incorporate many of those genres which fans desire into the Creator theme, and they therefore don't need to be released alongside a supporting lineup of sets. Simple. A three-in-one Galaxy Explorer-like shuttlecraft, a three-in-one modular castle, a three-in-one castaway treasure island, a three-in-one steam locomotive, a three-in-one Steampunk airship, a three-in-one Jaeger-like mecha, and so on.

These sort of sets could supply fans with the parts and minifigures they desire, minus the storyline.

Oh yeah, absolutely nothing wrong with that idea. I was more talking about why we don't see the same kind of crazy variety in play themes as we see in Creator. Even with Creator sets that have similar subjects like cars and trucks, they can depict it at wildly different scales. That's a much trickier proposition for play themes, where the sets are generally expected to inhabit the same "world".I actually wouldn't be surprised to see Creator continue to expand its subject matter. Last year's space shuttle set was a real departure from the 3-in-1 sets the theme had done before, this year's roller coaster even more so! And it's had medieval fantasy flavored sets before like the various 3-in-1 dragons, so a castle wouldn't be too much of a stretch. That said, I think such sets would probably have mixed reception among AFOLs, since they probably wouldn't be a great source of new pieces or minifigures.

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by Aanchir

[danth]

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already:

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=S&catString=171.611.9

Not sure if LEGO officially considers these "Creator" sets; maybe they were before the Creator name became official. But they each have multiple builds. And they aren't part of any official Caslte/Kingdom theme either.

[Aanchir]

26 minutes ago, Robin_IV said:

Do you know this times where you could buy this amazing Western Ford LEGOREDO stuff, the sheriffs office or the beautiful indian camp?

Themes like Pirates, Medieval, 19th Century, Train, Farm, Wild West, Space, Sailing ships and more should ALWAYS be in stock by LEGO.

But in reality LEGO is bringing them only for a complete half year. And the sets then are actually useless. Much money for nothing really. I would wish me sets which make every child happy and are eternal.

The Wild West sets certainly stand out among my childhood memories… I particularly remember trying to make a Western film using my LEGO Studios and Wild West sets. I wasn't as drawn to the sets with the Indians, though.

All in all, I don't think Western sets have ever been popular enough to become a year-after-year staple like Space, Castle, and Bionicle were at various points in the past. Even in my childhood in the 90s, kids simply didn't play cowboys and indians to the degree they once did, and even in the world of film the Western genre has largely been supplanted by the superhero genre. 19th century, too, would almost certainly be too niche to become an evergreen product, because not a lot of kids have a strong foundational knowledge of this time period and even fewer have a genuine passion for it the way they might for knights or ninjas or superheroes or astronauts.

There's no such thing as sets that would make every child happy, any more than sets that would make every adult happy, but when it comes to making as many kids happy as possible, current themes like City, Friends, and Ninjago certainly aren't doing a bad job. Friends in particular deserves special credit for appealing to a demographic of kids that no other theme has succeeded in reaching to that same degree.

11 minutes ago, danth said:

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already:

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=S&catString=171.611.9

Not sure if LEGO officially considers these "Creator" sets; maybe they were before the Creator name became official. But they each have multiple builds. And they aren't part of any official Caslte/Kingdom theme either.

Those three were part of the Bricks & More theme, which nowadays is branded as LEGO Classic (before it was Bricks & More, though, it did go by a number of other names including Creator).

Edited February 7, 2018 by Aanchir

[Digger of Bricks]

15 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Even with Creator sets that have similar subjects like cars and trucks, they can depict it at wildly different scales. That's a much trickier proposition for play themes, where the sets are generally expected to inhabit the same "world".

But even with a theme like City, those scales can be slightly inconsistent at times. Sure, it's not the same sort of scale inconstancy you'll see with Creator, but take for instance something like automobile stud width, where the theme can have cars varying anywhere from four studs to eight studs in width. Then compare some of those wider automobiles alongside locomotives in City train sets, where engines usually are always six studs in width to line up with their track.

15 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see Creator continue to expand its subject matter. Last year's space shuttle set was a real departure from the 3-in-1 sets the theme had done before, this year's roller coaster even more so! And it's had medieval fantasy flavored sets before like the various 3-in-1 dragons, so a castle wouldn't be too much of a stretch. That said, I think such sets would probably have mixed reception among AFOLs, since they probably wouldn't be a great source of new pieces or minifigures.

I do honestly think that will change over time, where figures won't just be limited to whatever stock prints are on hand, and colors will eventually become richer and deeper in their variety.

15 minutes ago, danth said:

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already:

I'm familiar with that last one, but I wasn't aware of the older two. Interesting.

[fred67]

4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Hmm, an ingenious concept. You mention Alien Conquest's modern setting, and come to think of it, that theme can be thought of as a subtheme to City of sorts.

But still, we do need a City-like outlet for period set genres, and you bring up trains for instance. Where is there a home for steam locomotives within the City theme? The only idea for a set I can think of is perhaps for a railway show. 

There are some steam train rides (11 Places in the United States where you can rides a steam train).  That's a bit of a stretch, I know, but so is any of this, really.  Besides, we had Emerald Night as a creator, they could do another one (although it seems they're not).  Honestly,my favorite steam train from LEGO was the Lone Ranger one.  So... whatever.

1 hour ago, danth said:

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already:

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=S&catString=171.611.9

Not sure if LEGO officially considers these "Creator" sets; maybe they were before the Creator name became official. But they each have multiple builds. And they aren't part of any official Caslte/Kingdom theme either.

And that was 7 years ago.  There's been some castle sets, though.... it looks like this was the last one, two years ago.  Not much.  A 3-in-1 creator style castle building (something like a tower, a moat crossing, and something else) would be neat.  As I mentioned earlier, a castle modular would be phenomenal.

Edited February 7, 2018 by fred67

[Digger of Bricks]

2 minutes ago, fred67 said:

As I mentioned earlier, a castle modular would be phenomenal.

Even better, an annual series of medieval village modulars. 

3 minutes ago, fred67 said:

Honestly,my favorite steam train from LEGO was the Lone Ranger one.  So... whatever.

But I want an American streamlined steam locomotive! Waaaa! 

[x105Black]

10 hours ago, danth said:

According to Bricklink, there have been 3 Castle Creator sets already:

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?catType=S&catString=171.611.9

Not sure if LEGO officially considers these "Creator" sets; maybe they were before the Creator name became official. But they each have multiple builds. And they aren't part of any official Caslte/Kingdom theme either.

Yeah, the dragon and horse in the first 2 leave much to be desired.  The third one is of course intended for girls and came before minidoll themes like Elves and DC Superhero Girls got big.  Aside from that, they're great.  They could benefit from a different faction, but they're still passable.

8 hours ago, fred67 said:

And that was 7 years ago.  There's been some castle sets, though.... it looks like this was the last one, two years ago.  Not much.  A 3-in-1 creator style castle building (something like a tower, a moat crossing, and something else) would be neat.  As I mentioned earlier, a castle modular would be phenomenal.

This one was a promotional item.  In that sense, I wouldn't count it.  But that was the last time LEGO really threw Castle fans a bone, and they did the same for Pirates and Space.

[MAB]

6 hours ago, x105Black said:

Yeah, the dragon and horse in the first 2 leave much to be desired. 

 

Funny enough that castle set was my son's first ever lego set (aged 3) when he was mainly into duplo but starting to take some notice of the "little bricks". I thought the dragon in it was excellent. It provides a quite difficult challenge for a 4 year old to build but not too many parts that they get completely frustrated with it. It is small enough for kids' hands and easy for them to swoosh about, it has articulated wings that can flap and they can let it breathe fire or not.

[MAB]

15 hours ago, fred67 said:

A 3-in-1 creator style castle building (something like a tower, a moat crossing, and something else) would be neat.  As I mentioned earlier, a castle modular would be phenomenal.

1

With the Creator 3-in-1s, they all make something that can be played with or displayed individually and looks complete. Some of them similar themed, others wildly different (a car, a helicopter or a dinosaur!) These are really attractive as the single toy can be multiple things. The problem with any modular type set is that often it is not complete in itself and is essentially the opposite. Instead of being three toys in one like the tradition 3-in-1 sets, a modular set appears instead to be you need three of these to make one toy, so apparently much less play value.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

With the Creator 3-in-1s, they all make something that can be played with or displayed individually and looks complete. Some of them similar themed, others wildly different (a car, a helicopter or a dinosaur!) These are really attractive as the single toy can be multiple things. The problem with any modular type set is that often it is not complete in itself and is essentially the opposite. Instead of being three toys in one like the tradition 3-in-1 sets, a modular set appears instead to be you need three of these to make one toy, so apparently much less play value.

I think you can do both, complete but optionally modular three-in-one playsets.

For instance, how about a castle themed Creator set, priced at US $40-$60, with its star build being a corner turret with two hinged walls shooting off either of the tower's sides. The set's two alternate builds would be of a tower taller than the star build's turret, and then lastly, a small guard house. Each individual build would be a complete playset in its own right, but buying multiple copies would construct a much larger, more complete castle, with whatever combination and layout you desire.

[MAB]

I'm sure it would sell to some but not to others (like everything else!) I guess the problem is that it comes back to sales, LEGO gave us a complete castle in 2013 and it was panned by AFOLs and appeared not to do well at retail. And internally if there is the view that the castle didn't sell well, why would the punters want bits of a castle instead?

Also there have been a few modular type castle sets on ideas that haven't done so well. I don't know if that has any influence on their decisions.

[Capparezza]

@MAB Don't forget these 2 things:

1) We AFOLs are a minor group and don't contribute to revenue that much.

2) LEGO Ideas caters to a specific group of LEGO fans. Results on Ideas are not representative for the entirety of LEGO buyers.

 

To me, that "Modular" or "Creator" Castle or whatever you may name it sounds pretty nice. And I think this could work out for youngsters as well.

[Digger of Bricks]

3 hours ago, Capparezza said:

To me, that "Modular" or "Creator" Castle or whatever you may name it sounds pretty nice. And I think this could work out for youngsters as well.

Exactly, as Creator is definitely a theme aimed towards kids who aren't interested in licensed and/or media driven "big bang" themes. Most of its sets closely resemble what's offered in the City theme, with others veering off into fantasy/sci-fi realms (robots, dinosaurs, dragons); so Castle and Space themed sets wouldn't be that uncharacteristic for the theme, and I don't think its customer base would be indifferent to those genres either.

[AFOLguy1970]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I'm sure it would sell to some but not to others (like everything else!) I guess the problem is that it comes back to sales, LEGO gave us a complete castle in 2013 and it was panned by AFOLs and appeared not to do well at retail. And internally if there is the view that the castle didn't sell well, why would the punters want bits of a castle instead?

Also there have been a few modular type castle sets on ideas that haven't done so well. I don't know if that has any influence on their decisions.

I remember that castle.  The minifigures were great as were the accessories and horses.  The problem was that the castle itself looked like an oversized junior set.  There was quite a bit of blue mixed in with the grey that made it unrealistic.  I really wanted to like it, but just could not bring myself to buy it.  Ended up getting Dragon Mountain instead along with one of the battle packs.  

The nice thing about castles is that they are relatively easy to MOC if you have a lot of grey parts.  

[x105Black]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

Funny enough that castle set was my son's first ever lego set (aged 3) when he was mainly into duplo but starting to take some notice of the "little bricks". I thought the dragon in it was excellent. It provides a quite difficult challenge for a 4 year old to build but not too many parts that they get completely frustrated with it. It is small enough for kids' hands and easy for them to swoosh about, it has articulated wings that can flap and they can let it breathe fire or not.

In that context, it's a fine dragon.

[danth]

6 hours ago, Capparezza said:

@MAB Don't forget these 2 things:

1) We AFOLs are a minor group and don't contribute to revenue that much.

2) LEGO Ideas caters to a specific group of LEGO fans. Results on Ideas are not representative for the entirety of LEGO buyers.

I don't buy this, like at all. AFOLs are the people buying IDEAS, Creator, Modulars, UCS, and a bunch of the Marvel & Star Wars stuff. 

Who is buying the new Sandcrawler set for instance? You think kids want a boring brown rover from a 40 year old movie? I doubt it, personally.

[Aanchir]

28 minutes ago, danth said:

I don't buy this, like at all. AFOLs are the people buying IDEAS, Creator, Modulars, UCS, and a bunch of the Marvel & Star Wars stuff. 

Who is buying the new Sandcrawler set for instance? You think kids want a boring brown rover from a 40 year old movie? I doubt it, personally.

When I was twelve I wanted the original Sandcrawler set, and the original Star Wars was already around 25 years old at that point. It helped that at that point it wasn't JUST from a 25-year-old movie… it had also been in other, newer Star Wars media like the video game Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, which was at that time still fairly recent. As a Star Wars fan I'd bought things like Star Wars cross section books that showed me the schematics of vehicles like the Sandcrawler. Plus, my parents had shown me the original Star Wars on videocassette when I was fairly young, so it didn't feel any newer or older than any other movie I watched on videocassette as a kid. Why should I have cared whether it came out in the 70s or 80s or even the early 90s? These days with things like Netflix, old stuff like that is even more accessible to kids than it was back then.

And while it's true that AFOLs and TFOLs are the primary audience for things like the Ultimate Collector's Series sets or Creator Expert sets, those aren't produced or sold in anywhere NEAR the same numbers as kid-oriented themes like City or Friends or Ninjago.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Aanchir

[Digger of Bricks]

23 minutes ago, danth said:

Who is buying the new Sandcrawler set for instance? You think kids want a boring brown rover from a 40 year old movie? I doubt it, personally.

Well, regarding UCS Star Wars sets, I'm pretty sure it is indeed mostly adults buying them. But, those adults are more likely fans of Star Wars, not of the brick. 

If anything, the majority of adults that are buying sets for themselves simply aren't AFOLs. This can be presumed for majority of supporters for most LEGO Ideas projects too perhaps.