Lego David

Themes LEGO should discontinue

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On 8/22/2019 at 5:10 PM, pooda said:

Ok! I guess in two years, Lego City will be renamed Lego Police. Since that's the "only thing that "sells" in the City theme. 

It's not the only thing that sells. But it is the thing that sells best, and most consistently, and that's not a new phenomenon by a long shot. The stable presence of police and fire sets is probably a big part of what allows Lego to more safely experiment with and cycle through other subthemes (including newer ones like the various exploration-based subthemes).

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6 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

 (including newer ones like the various exploration-based subthemes).

Those too! I want those separated from the City theme. Not discontinued though. 

The explorers subthemes and the overwhelming amount of police subthemes defeat the purpose of City - which is to build a bustling town. I can't build my town properly with all the police sets and explorers themes in the way. 

Edited by pooda

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1 hour ago, pooda said:

Those too! I want those separated from the City theme. Not discontinued though. 

I think the reason TLG puts too many sub-themes in City instead of make them their own themes is because is cheaper and safe sales, but I don't know. Personally, I don't care. Sub-themes or not, most of the sets look good 

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I’m sick of the whole ‘city had to much police’ idea! Like seriously, it’s annoying! 

World City and Town had tons of police but everyone seems to moan just because City has some 

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2 hours ago, Ronan54 said:

I think the reason TLG puts too many sub-themes in City instead of make them their own themes is because is cheaper and safe sales, but I don't know. Personally, I don't care. Sub-themes or not, most of the sets look good 

Absolutely because they're easier and safer to sell like that. A random explorers theme without a story like Adventurers seems odd as a normal theme. Throwing it into City, like how they did for Arctic from the last year or whenever it was. It makes sense as city as an extension of say a school or lab or something based out of the city. If it was something like Arctic from the 90s or early 200s, then yeah, that should be its own theme.

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1 hour ago, pooda said:

@OwenMistika @Ronan54 Eat my rear bricks. The Eurobricks forum is the only place that doesn't get it. Maybe when I start working for Lego in the near future, people will get it. 

 

I don't think complaining about Lego's current designs and strategies without bothering to consider why they are the way they are puts you on a good footing to get a position working there.

Like, you're dissatisfied with how things are right now. That's not bad or wrong on its own. But refusing to acknowledge the mindset of the current design and marketing teams, or consider the business case for current strategies versus a return to how things were many years ago (when Lego as a company was not nearly as successful), doesn't really show respect for the people already working there, nor does it demonstrate an ability to effectively learn from trends and market feedback and apply those to new ideas and strategies.

If you really want to make yourself stand out as a good candidate for a job with Lego, it might be better to focus less on what they shouldn't do (especially when that consists of things that are currently working out pretty well for them) and more on new ideas that they should. Concepts for how City could integrate more residences and businesses at a range of different price points, for instance, or how to make an older category like, say, the Farm subtheme feel fresh and new (and ideally, succeed in a way the original didn't). That's harder than just pointing out something you don't like and saying it shouldn't exist (sales numbers be damned), but it also is probably a better and more productive exercise for somebody who wants to get a job with Lego, or for that matter, any sort of creative career.

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5 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

I don't think complaining about Lego's current designs and strategies without bothering to consider why they are the way they are puts you on a good footing to get a position working there.

Like, you're dissatisfied with how things are right now. That's not bad or wrong on its own. But refusing to acknowledge the mindset of the current design and marketing teams, or consider the business case for current strategies versus a return to how things were many years ago (when Lego as a company was not nearly as successful), doesn't really show respect for the people already working there, nor does it demonstrate an ability to effectively learn from trends and market feedback and apply those to new ideas and strategies.

If you really want to make yourself stand out as a good candidate for a job with Lego, it might be better to focus less on what they shouldn't do (especially when that consists of things that are currently working out pretty well for them) and more on new ideas that they should. Concepts for how City could integrate more residences and businesses at a range of different price points, for instance, or how to make an older category like, say, the Farm subtheme feel fresh and new (and ideally, succeed in a way the original didn't). That's harder than just pointing out something you don't like and saying it shouldn't exist (sales numbers be damned), but it also is probably a better and more productive exercise for somebody who wants to get a job with Lego, or for that matter, any sort of creative career.

For your information, smarty pants - I have considered it and its nothing more than a damn money making scheme....and the higher ups at Lego won't even know who I am. It's not like they are going to figure me out. 

Now listen twat, if you can't respect my opinions, then get the hell outta here because I ain't going anywhere. The current team is crooked. Instead of being willing to meet our needs, they just use Ole Kirk Christensen's prize Lego theme as an outlet to create more damn emergency and explorers sets. No other legit city situations. I tried to make suggestions on new subthemes, but you folks only said that they don't have a chance. So I lost hope and resorted to ranting. 

Working out well? Yeah! That's why the last two police themes hardly sold. Wake up and see the big picture. Lego City is nothing more than a damn police state. If it were up to me, every business in the city would get loads of attention. Other themes are good. City is the only one that sucks now. 2007 to 2009 were what I consider City's best years. You had everything. Now all you see is police, great vehicles and explorers. You may see fire sets and some occasional side sets. But most are now just police and explorers. 

GET EDUCATED 

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Come on, no need for the language. And yes, this is a money making scheme because lego is a business and their goal is to make money. Everything goes in cycles with their themes as well.

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@KotZ Well until I see certain aspects of City life get more attention (I mean attention as in their own subthemes), I will rant as I see fit. 

The terms of use says that if you can't handle certain things, leave! This is a forum for grown adults. 

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2 minutes ago, pooda said:

@KotZ Well until I see certain aspects of City life get more attention (I mean attention as in their own subthemes), I will rant as I see fit. 

The terms of use says that if you can't handle certain things, leave! This is a forum for grown adults. 

And ranting and criticizing is totally acceptable. I think insulting fellow users isn’t. 

Yes this is an adult site, but insulting people isn’t very grown up for this site.

Now while I agree there do seem to be a ton of police sets, they’re fairly well made. The various sub themes are fun and cool as well. I do wish there were more storefronts, but that’s why we have modulars as well.

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1 hour ago, pooda said:

I have considered it and its nothing more than a damn money making scheme 

Now listen twat, if you can't respect my opinions, then get the hell outta here because I ain't going anywhere. The current team is crooked. Instead of being willing to meet our needs, they just use Ole Kirk Christensen's prize Lego theme as an outlet to create more damn emergency and explorers sets. No other legit city situations. I tried to make suggestions on new subthemes, but you folks only said that they don't have a chance. So I lost hope and resorted to ranting. 

Working out well? Yeah! That's why the last two police themes hardly sold. Wake up and see the big picture. Lego City is nothing more than a damn police state. If it were up to me, every business in the city would get loads of attention. Other themes are good. City is the only one that sucks now. 2007 to 2009 were what I consider City's best years. You had everything. Now all you see is police, great vehicles and explorers. You may see fire sets and some occasional side sets. But most are now just police and explorers. 

Everything in a company is to make money. What do you want them to do? To spend their money trying to please the tastes of an adult? This is a toy company wich main target are the children, not adults

In a side note, a person can't respect the opinion of others when it comes to discuss. The point of discussing is that you criticize the opinion of others and that the others criticize your opinion for an agreement to be reached between all of us. If you don't want anyone to criticize your opinion, don't say anything then. 

Edited by Ronan54

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51 minutes ago, pooda said:

@Ronan54 Lego targets adults too. 

I said "Main Target". The adults aren't their main target, obviously

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I honestly agree with you, @pooda. I am tired of so many police and fire sets that take no effort to bring something new to the table. Just the same fire and police station we have gotten 20 times already. 

Plus all those weird Police subthemes have gotten kinda stupid at this point... (I am looking at you, Sky Police).

 

9 hours ago, Ronan54 said:

The adults aren't their main target, obviously

No, but they are a pretty big target. Do you think kids can really afford all those insanely expensive Direct to Consumer sets?

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@Lego David ..or put them together for that matter. Saw the space sets and though the summer sets say 7+, I see more targeting towards adults. Fire sets, I can really let slide as we usually only see those every three years. I mean for Pete's sake. The police story just isn't interesting anymore. Its the same thing every year; cops car chases, crooks breaking in, stealing all the gold. We see that all the time. It doesn't really matter the environment the police are in, you practically see the same thing you see in the city police sets that come out every three years (which are the ONLY police sets I like). Police no longer forwards the plot, instead causing it to stop. Fan service is what its become.

 

Edited by pooda

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2 hours ago, Lego David said:

No, but they are a pretty big target. Do you think kids can really afford all those insanely expensive Direct to Consumer sets?

Of course the kids will ask to their parents to buy them those toys. The adults are a big target outside of lego, not for nothing the AFOLs represent only 5% of their earnings. Obviously that doesn't mean they can't target adults sometime, but they won't do that in a theme like City. Most of the sets that are target 16+ audience come from Creator, The LEGO Movies and Licensed themes, And I'm sure there are AFOLs who buy those sets but, unfortunately, that doesn't change they're a minority group that buys lego. And obviously, they're not gonna set aside a 95% for just a 5%.

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3 hours ago, Ronan54 said:

And obviously, they're not gonna set aside a 95% for just a 5%.

Where do you have those statistics from?

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1 hour ago, Lego David said:

Where do you have those statistics from?

https://brickset.com/article/567/what-percentage-of-lego-sales-are-to-afols

Now, thanks to the 2010 issue of The Brick, the annual LEGO magazine aimed at stakeholders and customers, we have an answer. On page 60, it states "...a little under 5% of the LEGO sales come from adults who buy bricks for themselves"

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@Ronan54 One problem! That's literally from almost a decade ago!  Things have likely changed drastically since. Lego is getting a bigger and bigger adult audience day by day. 

Edited by pooda

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37 minutes ago, pooda said:

@Ronan54 One problem! That's literally from almost a decade ago!  Things have likely changed drastically since. Lego is getting a bigger and bigger adult audience day by day. 

The book is from 9 years ago, yes. But as no other version has come out, it's still valid. And now I ask you, do you have proof that the percentage of adults who buy lego for themselves have grown drastically in the last 9 years? 

and please. Don't answer with an anecdote or under a supposition

Edited by Ronan54

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2 hours ago, Ronan54 said:

And now I ask you, do you have proof that the percentage of adults who buy lego for themselves have grown drastically in the last 9 years? 

Well, one way of telling that is by looking at the number of users on this site in 2010, and the number of users now. If you compare it this way, you will defiantly see a drastic difference.

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16 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Well, one way of telling that is by looking at the number of users on this site in 2010, and the number of users now. If you compare it this way, you will defiantly see a drastic difference.

Using membership for a website like EB is a terrible metric. Users can't delete accounts, so when a user leaves, their account is still there. Many people just drop off the site and don't return. There's no true way to measure how old a user is, and there are certainly TFOL and KFOLs on the site. If ages were used when signing up here, and then compared to user usage and site traffic, then that would be a better way to use that metric. I would suggest checking into a survey by TLG to see who identifies as what when purchasing product and specifically for who. I would say that the number of adults buying product just for themselves has gone up from 5%, but I would guess it's nowhere near close to 50%, or even 20% which I think would be a really good portion to change marketing tactics to.

And while there are core groups of AFOLs like the ones here on EuroBricks and other dedicated sites, there's a chance that a lot of these adult buyers are not repeat buyers. They'll buy the Stranger Things set, the Friends set, etc. Those "one-off"items because it intersects with a previous interest. Of course, LEGO's goal is to bring in more buyers of any age, but I would figure that these AFOL-light as I'll term them are not actively buying the various subtheme sets like CITY, Friends, etc. Maybe they'll buy the Licensed sets because it intersects with an interest, like the Stranger Things I mentioned earlier. They go for nostalgia. Maybe model trains that people paint and build has a similar metric in casual fans and hardcore fans.

Also, some fans don't buy LEGO and choose to go digital only for various reasons, from budget, to space, to any other reason.

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