The Morality of Leaks

[Mylenium]

11 hours ago, Aanchir said:

If anything, leaks tend to pull the rug out from under the much more painstakingly planned and executed product reveals that are often intended for closer to release.

Not to put too fine a point to it, but this year's Bugatti and DB5 reveals didn't go tits up due to leaks, they were simply poorly planned and executed and the fan backlash IMO was inevitable. The rest can be seen either way. Nobody is denying the need for secrecy/ confidentiality, but your anecdote on Star Wars for instance actually caused me an eveil grin - as if anyone actually would care and fans be unable to connect the dots. It goes to show how ridiculous this can become to the point of totally getting in the way of getting the work done. So for what it's worth, perhaps some people need to come to their senses one way or the other...

Mylenium

11 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

And, in some cases, leaks can cause future products to cannibalize existing product lines (e.g."I'm not going to buy set X today because I saw set Y and I want to have money to get it when it eventually comes out"

But the mechanics work both ways?! How many people complain about older sets going out of production? How many people have no interest in newer sets because they think they're rubbish? I'm afraid your argument isn't that conclusive. In the end, it will probably perfectly level out.

11 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

How many sets X go unsold while we wait for Y?  How much revenue does TLG lose to stagnant shelf stock because people are saving up to buy something that hasn't even been put into production yet?)

But you can't exactly blame the customer for this, can you? That's the whole point: A company needs to plan for this scenario and adapt their production, logistics and distribution. And on some level it's not really the point. As far as LEGO is concerned, people don't buy stuff because the sets are simply bad. I have written about this in many other threads already how certain product lines are rotting on the shelves here in Germany. I personally know some stores where I can stop by month after month and see the same boxes with all the same damage marks. That's how bad it is at times and it completely has nothing to do with whether those sets are old or fresh.

Mylenium

Edited November 20, 2018 by Mylenium
Typos

[ShaydDeGrai]

4 hours ago, Mylenium said:

(snip) But you can't exactly blame the customer for this, can you? That's the whole point: A company needs to plan for this scenario and adapt their production, logistics and distribution. (...)

No, you can't blame the customer, they're just following human nature. And I agree with you that bad sets are their own problem, if you release a piece of rubbish of course it's going to rot on the shelves until it's discounted enough that someone is going to pick up to scrap it for parts.

Future products cannibalizing current lines is a well documented phenomenon across industries (though some of the most spectacular failures on this front have happened in high tech and video game companies where the promise of something new hurt sales so badly that the companies in question didn't have the cash to actually produce the new product in the end), but from your mention of low quality sets,  I suspect you misinterpreted the term.  Product cannibalism only pertains to a situation where sales of a well performing product decline prematurely because a different product with equal or greater appeal to the same demographic appears.  For example, people ask things here all the time like: "Should I buy the Detective's Office or Assembly Square?"  or "I can't decide between the Technic Porche or the Bugatti?" all fine sets but the asker only has money for one and has to make a choice.  

These good quality sets are competing with each other for the same market dollar/euro/yen/whatever and, you're right, it is up to the company to have a plan to maximize their sales in the face of human nature and economic factors, sometimes beyond their control.  Part of that plan and staggering the release of new kits that appeal to the same demographic to minimize the number of things vying for attention/shelf space at the same time; part of it is an announced end-of-life/end of availability timeframe to get a final bump out of an aging set that has reached a natural market saturation ( that point in the product's life cycle where sales have fallen flat because _most_ everyone who wants a particular item has either already purchased it or realized that actually getting it isn't realistic for other reasons); and the final part of that plan is to time product announcements, releases and retirements such that the company has a steady and (reasonably) predictable cash flow across fiscal quarters and tax years.  

It is in this last category where leak-based cannibalism can throw a spanner in the works.  Now TLG is privately held, so they are buffered somewhat from the consistent earnings pressure publicly traded companies are often victim to, but few companies have enough cash-on-hand that they can ignore issues of debt management and variable revenue streams.   Many states and countries also have graduated tax rates where if you earn $3 today and $3 tomorrow, you pay fewer taxes than earning $1 today and $5 tomorrow - both cases you brought in $6 but in the former case you got to keep more of it because it was seen as steady income not a windfall profit.  Leaks can both suppress current sales and spike interest in future ones, as such, they can play havoc with a companies' "planned" revenue streams. (Again, sales bumps from retiring sets and staggered, overlapping releases of "similar appeal" kits were already part of "the plan" so they are orthogonal to the question of "unexpected" cannibalism due to leaks.)

You want a customer to chose between current sets X and Y and give you their money today, not have them sit on their money for four months and buy Z when it becomes available.  Sure, maybe all three sets cost the same, but in the four months the user is waiting for Z, you, as the manufacturer still have expenses, unsold inventory and possible debts that need servicing.  On the flip side, if you sell set X or Y today and Z comes out next spring, the customer who only had money for one kit (and spent it) may have already started saving up for another, whereas if they'd decided to skip both X and Y and set today's money aside for set Z, they may have decided they'd saved enough for your product and have spent more of their disposable income elsewhere.  Again, this is not unique to Lego, they teach entire courses on this stuff in Psych departments and business schools and the companies that usually fail most spectacularly when face with this reality are the start-ups and niche markets that said "_my_ product/audience/industry is different, those models don't apply".  

And, as I said before, personally, I like knowing what's coming and I don't think leaks impact my personal buying habits because (now, wasn't always the case) I have the luxury of buying what I want when I want (at least as far as Lego is concerned), but I get the big picture and understand where the anti-leak sentiment stems from and why leaks matter.

 

[Mylenium]

15 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

Leaks can both suppress current sales and spike interest in future ones, as such, they can play havoc with a companies' "planned" revenue streams. (Again, sales bumps from retiring sets and staggered, overlapping releases of "similar appeal" kits were already part of "the plan" so they are orthogonal to the question of "unexpected" cannibalism due to leaks.)

Nah, not really. I completely disagree. As far as LEGO goes, they are makers of their own misery because frankly I simply think they don't have much of a plan in some areas or are just acting stupid. In fact your point about staggered releases in particular doesn't make much sense, since currently there aren't even sets in many product series that would replace others immediately, hence the cannibalization effect is barely of any relevance. Just the opposite may be true - people are desperately craving sets and LEGO doesn't deliver (literally). Conversely, I don't think that there is actually an issue with too much choice in many lines or across different lines. At the end of the day it is often a "take it or leave it" kind of decision in the sense that people who have enough money don't care and people who are just barely scraping by and need to save up the money will have made a very educated decision long beforehand.

One way or the other LEGO are either going to make a buck or they don't, but I don't see deferred/ postponed purchases as any problem for them for whatever reason. It's in the end irrelevant, as any cannibalization is on the retailers' heads, anyway and they need to get rid of overflow stockpiles, not LEGO themselves. They already made their cut. And that once again is kinda a point in itself, just in reverse: Currently you can't even buy some EOL sets anymore already despite dealers having lots of demand. You know, it's five weeks before Christmas and those people can't make business because LEGO already have phased out stuff. Therefore cannibalization isn't an issue at all. Just the same, stuff that doesn't sell simply won't sell even next year. You can be academic about it all you want, but at least in the LEGO world and speaking from my perspective as someone living in Germany the picture presents itself in a very straightforward, rather unambiguous way.

So to sum it up: As far as I'm concerned, leaks very likely don't have much of an impact on the business side of things. LEGO's own bad practices towards retailers and the lack of adaptation to specific markets are in my view probably are hurting sales more than any leak ever could - strictly speaking from my own experiences in a regional context. It may be different elsewhere, but even that is doubtful to me. As someone in this thread already said, even many AFOLs are ignorant of specific leaks, so if there is any damage at all, it's tiny fractions of a much bigger whole and thus a moot point.

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

On 11/20/2018 at 5:44 AM, Mylenium said:

But the mechanics work both ways?! How many people complain about older sets going out of production? How many people have no interest in newer sets because they think they're rubbish? I'm afraid your argument isn't that conclusive. In the end, it will probably perfectly level out.

But you can't exactly blame the customer for this, can you? That's the whole point: A company needs to plan for this scenario and adapt their production, logistics and distribution. And on some level it's not really the point. As far as LEGO is concerned, people don't buy stuff because the sets are simply bad. I have written about this in many other threads already how certain product lines are rotting on the shelves here in Germany. I personally know some stores where I can stop by month after month and see the same boxes with all the same damage marks. That's how bad it is at times and it completely has nothing to do with whether those sets are old or fresh.

Mylenium

Ah, so your argument for leaks being harmless is based on the same unsubstantiated assumptions that because of a few anecdotal observations, the popularity of LEGO is sharply declining in your country and/or around the globe. Suddenly everything makes sense.

I’ve already shared in those other topics extensive evidence of the strength of LEGO sales in Germany and around the world, which you dismissed offhand as PR talk/spin (as though LEGO or independent industry analysts presenting data that frames LEGO in a positive light somehow makes it less factual). I’ve also brought up how toy sales at brick-and-mortar stores have been challenged all over the world by online mega-retailers like Amazon encroaching further and further into that market and undercutting their competitors’ prices in a way that toy stores, especially independent ones, can rarely afford to match. I can’t even remember why you dismissed that being a possible factor in your observations, probably just because it weakened your already weak argument.

ShaydDeGray even just wrote an extensive explanation of how this issue is well understood to affect commercial products in general, not even just LEGO or even just toys, but again you just sort of disregarded the possibility that these universal factors pertain to LEGO because it doesn’t fit with your self-centered idea that LEGO is doing everything wrong and putting their own future in jeopardy because they’re not doing things the way you want them to personally. Even when LEGO’s supposed mistakes or oversights that you bring up could just as easily describe the long-established business practices of most major toy companies, and in most cases are no different now than they were in the most successful years of LEGO’s history.

In the end it doesn’t really matter if AFOLs make up dumb excuses for why “leaks are good, actually”, because those kinds of self-serving, willfully ignorant mental gymnastics are inevitable in basically all major toy and entertainment fan communities, and no more affect the realities of why LEGO fights and discourages leaks than they do for other companies. So it’s really just AFOLs who hurt their own credibility and understanding of toy industry standards by creating crackpot theories largely divorced from reality.

[Mylenium]

You can put this however you want, but these aren't just my own observations. If you care to look up posts from other German members of this forum, you will find similar viewss pertaining to the mishandling and almost complete irrelevance of e.g. Super Heroes sets and so on. Similar observations can be made on many native German places, but apparently there would be no point in showing them to you if you can't follow what's being said there. Beyond that I never said that LEGO is breaking down or going broke right away, but the fact remains: They're in trouble around these parts and probably not doing as well as they could. Need I cite that Playmobil vs. LEGO thing again? Otherwise we can throw around arguments for hours and never arrive at anything we both agree on. Let's just leave it at that. All we're doing here is discuss individual views and opinions. No point in making it about anything else and kill the fun or get personal.

Mylenium

Edited November 21, 2018 by Mylenium

[Aanchir]

I don’t remember you citing anything about Playmobil actually doing better than LEGO in Germany, just subjective and anecdotal accounts of people preferring Playmobil or buying more Playmobil and less LEGO than they used to. I don’t have any ill will towards Playmobil and if people are enjoying it that’s their prerogative, but that’s hardly an indication that LEGO’s outright domination of the German toy market is in any short-term or long-term jeopardy.

 

Frankly, I think LEGO faces tougher competition here in the States, particularly since more of the world’s major toy companies are headquartered here and market heavily to domestic buyers. Also, the Danish values that inform LEGO design and quality standards are also fairly highly valued in Germany, whereas American parents aren’t as invested in whether toys are sturdy, high quality, hold their value, hold kids’ interest in the long term, promote creative thinking and practical modeling skills, or give kids alternative forms of entertainment to TV and video games.

[BrickJagger]

I think that both TLG and EB have reasonable positions in regards to leaked products, and I can understand not wanting your future products out there for everyone to see. However, @Space Police XVIII makes a good point that clone companies get, at most, a few extra weeks to create bootlegs. I'm not even sure that leaking is "bad for business" because I would imagine that whatever sales you lost by the sets leaking early would be made up by the attention that the leaks get from Lego's actual customers.

I tend to only care about leaks for sets that I'm interested in, and when sets leak early I have more time to plan how many sets I want to buy the following year. Also, as a fan, it gives us more to talk about. @Echo is right in that there's pretty much no hype for next year's sets anymore, that much is apparent just by visiting EB. At this time of year, EB used to have a ton of people online (mostly for leaks, let's be honest) and there seem to be fewer and fewer people here each passing year.

[Mylenium]

12 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

and there seem to be fewer and fewer people here each passing year.

Snarky comment: With this messy appearance and serious structural issues, to put it mildly, is it any wonder? My 2 Cents.

Mylenium

[x105Black]

On 11/19/2018 at 12:28 PM, CopperTablet said:

Leaks are bad for business and only mildly useful for fans.   What do you really do with the leaked info?   How does it change your purchasing habits?

I discuss leaks with friends both online and in the world.  I use leaks to plan my budget for future purchases.  Leaks allow me to make more informed decisions.  Through leaks I can determine if a particular set or theme will be of interest to me, which can be valuable in dispelling hype.

LEGO has a long shelf life and I have limited funds for such things.  Knowing in advance what to expect allows me to decide if I prefer something from a current wave or an upcoming wave.  Rather than buying two or three small sets now and spending only $50, I can save that money and put it towards a larger $100 set that I would not be able to afford had I spent earlier.  Also, some leaked images will show a print under the armor of a minifigure, a specific new piece or recolor, or any number of other things that are shown in leaked photos in detail that I may not have noticed on my own when officially revealed.  I value this attention to detail in leaks because I am actually very particular about my LEGO and such small things could make or break a set for me.

So I think leaks are a good thing.  They are helpful to me as a consumer because they allow me to plan for the future, they provide valuable information, and they can temper my expectations for sets I may be too hyped about.  I end up spending more money and enjoying my LEGO more when I am allowed the opportunity to get this kind of information as early as possible.

[MAB]

17 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

 

I tend to only care about leaks for sets that I'm interested in, and when sets leak early I have more time to plan how many sets I want to buy the following year. Also, as a fan, it gives us more to talk about.

 

I agree that they are useful when it comes to planning, but I'm not sure leaks give more to talk about. The same discussions would be had if the set wasn't leaked, just at a different time - later on when released.

[BrickJagger]

10 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Snarky comment: With this messy appearance and serious structural issues, to put it mildly, is it any wonder? My 2 Cents.

Mylenium

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Edited November 23, 2018 by BrickJagger

[Aanchir]

On 11/22/2018 at 2:54 PM, BrickJagger said:

I think that both TLG and EB have reasonable positions in regards to leaked products, and I can understand not wanting your future products out there for everyone to see. However, @Space Police XVIII makes a good point that clone companies get, at most, a few extra weeks to create bootlegs. I'm not even sure that leaking is "bad for business" because I would imagine that whatever sales you lost by the sets leaking early would be made up by the attention that the leaks get from Lego's actual customers.

It's true that leaks generate early attention that usually wouldn't otherwise occur before an official announcement, but that tends to come at the cost of the later, nearer-to-release official announcements not getting nearly as much attention from either LEGO fansites, the press, or social media because a lot of what there is to say about them has already been said about the earlier leaks. And if there IS more info to report on with the official announcement, sites often don't pay attention to it.

I mean, obviously, whether or not they report on preliminary pics of a set, most sites tend to report on the first finalized, non-watermarked pictures that emerge, as well as when those sites actually become available in stores and online. But other stuff, like when LEGO.com launches a microsite for a theme with product and character descriptions? Or promotional/designer videos for anything other than Ideas or D2C sets, even when they accompany an official announcement of a new product line? Those sorts of things barely even tend to register with the sites that communicate this stuff to a wider audience, because the fansites and press have already reported on the finalized pictures (whether or not they were comprehensive or part of an official announcement accompanied by further info), and usually the only thing that compels them to report again on the same products is when they actually become available for purchase.

Besides pulling the major news reporting about new sets away from more comprehensive and coordinated releases of information, lighting the fire of new set hype that early means that the wick burns down more by the time the sets are actually available for purchase. If that weren't the case and LEGO could count on early hype remaining stable up until release (without changing people's purchasing plans for already released products), they'd be able in at least some cases to just reschedule their planned new product announcements for closer to when leaks normally happen. But they and their IP partners have witnessed firsthand the drawbacks of letting new product/media excitement reach peak hype too far ahead of the actual release of said product/media.

After all, the marketing world is intensely competitive, and LEGO can't count on their products always being at the forefront of every buyer's attention. If the most exciting news about future LEGO releases comes too early? That just means that much more time between then and the product launch for other non-LEGO-related news and announcements to completely distract people from the fact that there was a LEGO thing coming out that they were excited for. Same as how news about new LEGO sets (which often ARE at the forefront of my attention) can sometimes distract me to the point that I completely forget about books, movies, and Netflix series I was looking forward to until days or weeks after they've been released. In fact, look at a lot of posts or news stories about a new LEGO Ideas product reveal or release, and you often find many comments even from other AFOLs who had almost entirely forgotten it was going to be a thing since the review results about that project were posted.

On 11/22/2018 at 2:54 PM, BrickJagger said:

I tend to only care about leaks for sets that I'm interested in, and when sets leak early I have more time to plan how many sets I want to buy the following year. Also, as a fan, it gives us more to talk about. @Echo is right in that there's pretty much no hype for next year's sets anymore, that much is apparent just by visiting EB. At this time of year, EB used to have a ton of people online (mostly for leaks, let's be honest) and there seem to be fewer and fewer people here each passing year.

I think that has way more to do with LEGO fans' attention shifting away from forums in general and towards social media less specifically structured around LEGO than us not having enough stuff to discuss. It's not a Eurobricks-specific problem by any stretch of the imagination, and even if it were I don't think you could chalk it up to LEGO's leak policy stifling discussion, considering LEGO fighting back against leaks isn't remotely a recent thing. If you think there's no hype for next year's sets you are not paying attention to the right places.

Also, leak discussion, in some cases, can also really reduce the quality of discussion, since it is much easier to fake a leak than an official announcement, and communities that are entirely laissez-faire about leaks tend to see an explosion of supposed "leaks" in the form of either images or info that generate weeks of worthless discussion of products that later turn out to be entirely fake, and then continue to be brought up by people who hadn't heard yet about those leaks being discredited. More discussion, it turns out, does not always mean better discussion.

When Bionicle was on the verge of being re-released, the forum for The Three Virtues (TTV), a Bionicle-themed podcast was able to generate lots and lots of user activity by allowing and reporting news on leaks at a time when other major Bionicle fan community hubs like BZPower were enforcing strict policies against sharing or discussing leaked pictures and info. Over the next 15 months or so, they were inundated with leaked pics and info (real and fake alike). But the activity generated by a reputation as a place to share, find, or discuss leaked info was not good for the health of the community and the discussions within it.

It was for this reason (not due to any sort of pressure from LEGO or desire to benefit from being in their good favor) that they made the controversial decision to stop reporting on leaks and adopt a more Eurobricks-esque leak policy where discussion of leaked pics/info was allowed but posting or linking to leaked pics was not. Even if treating leaks like any other kind of Bionicle-related news made the site's userbase and audience happy and dramatically increased their numbers, it degraded the wellness of the community.

And if openly embracing leaks is bad even for communities of fans that like them and seek them out, I'm not sure how it can be credibly argued that it is good for LEGO. After all, it's not as though an atmosphere where people can't distinguish truths from falsehoods about future products does them any favors — they already waste enough time fighting misconceptions that emerge more organically, like controversial competing products being mistaken by inattentive consumers for official LEGO ones. And even if they didn't actively work to get leaked info removed and those who leaked it penalized for breaking an NDA, it's not as though they would be able to open themselves up to answering any fan questions about any and every future product no matter how far it is from release to contest the countless misconceptions that would emerge from a free-for-all of low-quality images and incomplete, poorly translated, or placeholder info.

If it weren't for leaks and their notoriously unreliable ability to clearly and correctly inform people about the nature of a product, we wouldn't have to deal with garbage like Atlantis, Pharaoh's Quest, Ninjago, Monster Fighters, Legends of Chima, Elves, Nexo Knights, and more being assumed by fans on Eurobricks to be MUCH different types of products than they actually turned out to be. Because it's not as though LEGO's attempts to prevent this info from getting out are the sole reason that when info does make it to fans, it so often arrives in the form of easily misunderstood, next to useless bits and pieces.

[Mylenium]

15 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Then let me spell it out for you: This forum is ugly as hell and hugely disorganized. It doesn't adhere to any modern standards of UX design, the endless tapeworm threads are more confusing than helpful and the graphical design looks like an inexperienced intern slapped it together with PowerPoint. Random users just won't come here to look for info, hence it's probably not much of a surprise if user numbers are dwindling. In fairness, though, this forum is still huge and other LEGO-centric communities are just as deficient, so somehow it still kinda works. It just could be a lot better, probably.

Mylenium

Edited November 24, 2018 by Mylenium
Typos

[Peppermint_M]

If you dislike the forum so much, you are quite welcome to leave. Or, act constructively and pass on some friendly and helpful suggestions for improvement.

As for the topic at hand, Leaks are all well and good and the arguments for and against them can sway back and fourth for eternity. 

The real risk with leaks is becoming the platform for these leaks. Now that TLG have a lot of products tied up in external IP the owners of those IP have confidentiality demands. House Mouse and the Brothers W will never be happy if their new release film is leaked out through a LEGO product photo escaping into the wild. 

They will make demands of TLG, and TLG will start to look for the culprit. Enormous targets for the source, like Instagram and Reddit, can absorb legal threats. But fan projects like The Brick Show and here at EB, we can't risk legal action.

So, I'm not a fan of leaks. I quite like to see the official images ahead of set release but blurry and incomplete confidential images are undesirable. 

[anothergol]

On 11/22/2018 at 8:54 PM, BrickJagger said:

However, @Space Police XVIII makes a good point that clone companies get, at most, a few extra weeks to create bootlegs.

That is not a good point, that's about another kind of leak than debated here.

Lepin steals the manual, the original manual. That can ONLY be from one of the printing companies leaking (maybe for money) to China. Unless you've ever found leaked manuals for unreleased sets online, but I haven't.
If Lego gets their manuals printed by third parties, that's a risk they chose to take, they did it because it saves money. Now it's purely an internal problem for them. It's not "the internet" that allowed Lepin to steal sets, it only made it faster/easier (than sending the copy by mail).

Edited November 25, 2018 by anothergol

[Mylenium]

22 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

helpful suggestions for improvement.

Well, you could start by getting rid of that cluster of group-affiliation icons? Some people like you have more of those than actual profile info and it simply makes the user info area look ugly. Outside of the groups, who actually cares, anyway? It's all about the little things...

Mylenium

[Bob De Quatre]

People, let's focus on the discussion about leaks please.

[BrickJagger]

On 11/25/2018 at 11:20 AM, anothergol said:

That is not a good point, that's about another kind of leak than debated here.

Lepin steals the manual, the original manual. That can ONLY be from one of the printing companies leaking (maybe for money) to China. Unless you've ever found leaked manuals for unreleased sets online, but I haven't.
If Lego gets their manuals printed by third parties, that's a risk they chose to take, they did it because it saves money. Now it's purely an internal problem for them. It's not "the internet" that allowed Lepin to steal sets, it only made it faster/easier (than sending the copy by mail).

If Lepin is relying on leaked instruction manuals to create their bootlegs, doesn't it support what I said even more? Only employees of Lego and factory workers have access to those manuals before they're released, and that's a problem Lego has to deal with internally. My point is that some people think that leaks hurt Lego a lot more than they actually do. Sure, they could be seen as an annoyance, but does it warrant a no-holds-barred war against the leakers, who are almost always ardent fans of their company?

[Artanis I]

On 11/23/2018 at 6:54 AM, BrickJagger said:

EB used to have a ton of people online (mostly for leaks, let's be honest) and there seem to be fewer and fewer people here each passing year.

My post frequency is down a lot, but most of that is due to certain themes being (mostly) dormant and that SW sucks at the moment. But the current (yet understandable) EB policy on 'leaks' was the beginning of the end for me. I'm too busy to do the community build stuff so my only reason for still being here is for some of these conversations.

[anothergol]

4 hours ago, BrickJagger said:

Only employees of Lego and factory workers have access to those manuals before they're released, and that's a problem Lego has to deal with internally.

I don't know if Lego prints some manuals in-house, but they don't print them all, for the US they rely on a printing company (Google says). It makes sense that, manuals being a big part of the weight, they don't wanna ship them.
So it's not technically a leak from Lego employees, and it's not something they can easily control. And perhaps they really get some manuals printed in China, if that's the case, well they got what they asked for.

Still, I don't think that the leaked pictures we see are from the same sources as leaked manuals. Generally our leaked pictures seem to be from distributors, or remember, sometimes it's just thumnail "unintentionally" left somewhere on Lego's own servers.

Edited November 27, 2018 by anothergol

[ShaydDeGrai]

8 hours ago, Artanis I said:

My post frequency is down a lot, but most of that is due to certain themes being (mostly) dormant and that SW sucks at the moment. But the current (yet understandable) EB policy on 'leaks' was the beginning of the end for me. I'm too busy to do the community build stuff so my only reason for still being here is for some of these conversations.

I visit (and post) far less frequently than I used to as well, but it has nothing to do with leaks or the lack thereof.  Between losing my parents and gaining a daughter I just haven't had the time to do much with Lego in general for a few years.  I enjoy a reliable sneak peek of upcoming sets as much as the next AFOL, but it's not why I came to EB in the first place and the lack of such postings isn't what's limiting my participation now.

[Artanis I]

Just thought I'd clarify that I don't post less due to some conscious decision (I'm not on strike), I just have a lot less to say nowadays. (I still scroll throught the board most days.) It started slightly when early details were no longer forth-coming, then escalated when themes of interest were no longer forth-coming, then exploded exponentially when I lost interest in SW.

Thank Ideas for Voltron, the only Lego I bought myself in 18 months