Is crowdfunding the future?

[astral brick]

Thinking of recent initiatives such as Lego Forma or Bricklink's celebration of the 60 years anniversary of Lego, I wonder if crowdfunding represents a true opportunity for afols. In fact, whilst Forma is a means to test a new product, minimizing the risk and using a different marketing strategy, Bricklink’s case is much more interesting. First of all which is the limit between an afol and an entrepreneur or, better said, between a passion and a business? And when a passion, taken to the extremes, becomes a way to earn money is it still a hobby?

But let us not kid ourselves, the amount of hours that a high level afol invests to conceive a model and then to build it will never be repaid, neither by Bricklink nor by the tip that Lego may allocate to him if his Idea becomes a catalogue’s product. Therefore Bricklink’s attempt constitutes a fascinating mix of the (narcissistic?) will to show off and share with peers a hobby mastery, and a business in its purest form, spontaneously born to fill a gap.

Whereas Lego, in spite of its formal approvals, cannot or simply don’t want to listen, then afols will step forward, kickstarting their own models, thus creating a parallel market. It is a win-win situation, at least for both Bricklink and afols (creators and supporters/buyers). How many times people gave up on building complex afols’ designs shown on Rebrickable, despite having the instructions for free, due to the impossibility or the high difficulty to find the proper parts? Maybe in the future Bricklink and Brickowl will take charge of this tedious procedure and, being paid for the trouble, they will sell their own sets regularly. Perhaps this hypothetical new market will also become the second chance for many rejected Ideas.

[Mbrick]

I agree with you.

The amount of effort put into a creation would never be repaid, even if there are actually a lot of people that would buy that creation.

I personally tried LEGO Ideas but after weeks/months I found that it's a sick system, based only on promotion of your product and not about the real quality of the MOC. There are creations built with a very high quality and hard work that have few hundreds of supporters. On the other side there are normal creations that esaily reach 10k supporters only because the creators were able to promote them in every possible way. (The last example is Museu Nacional - Rio de Janeiro that get 10k supporters in few days, and in the worst of the cases he would get a 500$ prize to spend on Lego store, or maybe - I don't think - he could get the 1% of total sales of the product if Lego produce it).

About crowfounding I discovered that before this new opportunity given by BrickLink, someone tried to use another platform: Kickstarter, to finance the entire project. I mean not only the bricks, but also instructions, packaging and delivery. I remember for example two guys that tried to launch on Kickstarter a very well done project about Apollo 11. They obtained some money, but not enough to start the project.

I hope that in the future there will be more opportunities for the creators :)

[TeriXeri]

If something like the Bricklink AFOL program was handled more internationally (like sets also shipping from within EU), it'd probably get more interest.

Edited April 26, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Mylenium]

3 hours ago, astral brick said:

I wonder if crowdfunding represents a true opportunity for afols.

There's a million arguments pro and contra, of course, but suffice it to say that from my POV the main hinderance always will be how LEGO are actually involved. This makes or breaks everything, regardless of distribution model. Point in case: Even a crowdfunding model needs to be economically feasible in the long run and that simply cannot be achieved if you have to use expensive rare parts off Bricklink or put up with weird pre-order procedures and other shenanigans just because it's not officially tied to LEGO. You can see some of this in the MOC market already. Many times it's really complicated to get from digital instructions to actual models. Yes, someone packing up nice boxes would eliminate some of the worry, but I just can't see it working on a mass level.

Also, if you check Kickstarter's statistics, you can see that the majority of projects never make it beyond a certain point and don't come to fruition. Similarly, the games industry is already moving away from early access/ crowdfunding because in the end when everyone does it, the pressures of having to compete for funds kills any advantages and benefits this approach may have had. Same for many more specialized crowd-funded projects like the Raspberry Pi community, where people seem to design new boards every week and ask to fund production. It all only works under certain conditions up to a specific points, but not as a generalized standard business model.

For those reasons I think crowdfunding LEGO sets will and should remain an occasional thing that people consider a fun diversion from the norm. If someone did it in a reliable, financially sane fashion, I could totally get behind buying a nice model once a year in this manner, perhaps one that I supported on LEGO Ideas, but that didn't make the cut. I wouldn't want it to be another race where you chase sets for collectibility value, however, or are flooded with too many choices one can't keep up with.

Mylenium

[astral brick]

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Yes, someone packing up nice boxes would eliminate some of the worry, but I just can't see it working on a mass level.

I never thought or wrote that this new business could be addressed to mass market. We would always talk about small numbers, but certainly higher than few fans who try to or manage to build advanced mocs.

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

If someone did it in a reliable, financially sane fashion, I could totally get behind buying a nice model once a year in this manner, perhaps one that I supported on LEGO Ideas, but that didn't make the cut.

Exactly, and the designers who failed to receive the votes or the approval should be the first one to benefit from this new opportunities.

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

I wouldn't want it to be another race where you chase sets for collectibility value, however, or are flooded with too many choices one can't keep up with.

Variety implies freedom of choice and this is never a downside.

[MAB]

If too many MOCs are made available in the same way (for example, if there were always 10 MOCs available on BL) then I doubt it would be very popular. As a one off, it may be exciting to some (plus investors) but there is a point when it becomes unexciting. BL tried MOC shop for a long time, where sellers could sell kits for other people's MOCs and that failed miserably. Without the packaging and the (semi) official nature of the MOCs, people didn't want them.

On 4/27/2019 at 12:24 AM, astral brick said:

Exactly, and the designers who failed to receive the votes or the approval should be the first one to benefit from this new opportunities.

1

If a MOC didn't get the votes, or LEGO thought that there is no case to make a particular set, then in my view those designers should not benefit from something like this.

[Mylenium]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

If a MOC didn't get the votes, or LEGO thought that there is no case to make a particular set, then in my view those designers should not benefit from something like this.

Allow me to disagree, as I genuinely think many decisions on LEGO Ideas are naturally colored by the overarcing corporate strategy. Let's be honest - a lot of sets simply get kicked out during reviews because LEGO have plans of their own. I for instance find it completely pointless when people submit Modular Building style entires because you can tell how it will end and they get dumped every time. Clearly LEGO would not want anyone to meddle with their own plans for this series. Yet this obvious relation doesn't stop people from filing such new projects on Ideas and say what you will, some of them are gorgeous. Therefore it seems to me they would be totally deserving of a second chance and if an affordable, crowdfunded set would be an opportunity to do just that and give people another nice building, why not? Similar points could be made for many other themes and subjects, even if you concede to the constraints, limitations and practicalities that come with LEGO Ideas...

Mylenium

[MAB]

17 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Allow me to disagree, as I genuinely think many decisions on LEGO Ideas are naturally colored by the overarcing corporate strategy. Let's be honest - a lot of sets simply get kicked out during reviews because LEGO have plans of their own. I for instance find it completely pointless when people submit Modular Building style entires because you can tell how it will end and they get dumped every time. Clearly LEGO would not want anyone to meddle with their own plans for this series. Yet this obvious relation doesn't stop people from filing such new projects on Ideas and say what you will, some of them are gorgeous. Therefore it seems to me they would be totally deserving of a second chance and if an affordable, crowdfunded set would be an opportunity to do just that and give people another nice building, why not? Similar points could be made for many other themes and subjects, even if you concede to the constraints, limitations and practicalities that come with LEGO Ideas...

Mylenium

I'd prefer the designer just sold the instructions. If one failed IDEAS Modular gets through a crowdfunding scheme, then loads will follow and that is all it will be. It is the same with the BL scheme. I imagine if they do it again, there will be lots of Castle style projects submitted.

[astral brick]

21 hours ago, MAB said:

If too many MOCs are made available in the same way (for example, if there were always 10 MOCs available on BL)

But this is not what we are discussing because Brickling is selling limited edition of the sets. Moreover in the crowdfunding model it is essential to have backers who preorder a project in order to start its production.

21 hours ago, MAB said:

If a MOC didn't get the votes, or LEGO thought that there is no case to make a particular set, then in my view those designers should not benefit from something like this.

And why not? Lego is not infallible and many decisions may be dictated by incomprehensible reasons. It is interesting to highlight that, amongst Bricklink's models, the classic castle is already sold out.

[MAB]

6 minutes ago, astral brick said:

But this is not what we are discussing because Brickling is selling limited edition of the sets. Moreover in the crowdfunding model it is essential to have backers who preorder a project in order to start its production.

 

3

Limited in what sense though. Currently, they are limited to the number of sets of each model and the scheme is also limited to being run once. However, if they extended the scheme so that it runs multiple times or even just once a year, still with limited runs per set, I think it would become stale and sets would not sell as well as first time around. If there are many similar sets released year after year, they will become less interesting - both as collectables and investments.

8 minutes ago, astral brick said:

And why not? Lego is not infallible and many decisions may be dictated by incomprehensible reasons. It is interesting to highlight that, amongst Bricklink's models, the classic castle is already sold out.

 

Yes, they are not infallible, but the majority of their decisions seem to make (financial) sense. How else are they the number one toy company in the world?

[astral brick]

22 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Allow me to disagree, as I genuinely think many decisions on LEGO Ideas are naturally colored by the overarcing corporate strategy. Let's be honest - a lot of sets simply get kicked out during reviews because LEGO have plans of their own.

And I really would like to know what is the logics behind the choices regarding licenses' purchases. Macross was just an example among many others.

22 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Similar points could be made for many other themes and subjects

Starting with the classic ones, such as space, castles and pirates. About the latter case, I am curious to see what is going to happen to the pirates' idea which reached the ten thousand votes.

[Mylenium]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I'd prefer the designer just sold the instructions. If one failed IDEAS Modular gets through a crowdfunding scheme, then loads will follow and that is all it will be. It is the same with the BL scheme. I imagine if they do it again, there will be lots of Castle style projects submitted.

Again: I don't think so. You're seeing a tidal wave where there could never be one. The economics wouldn't add up either way. Sticking with the Modular Buildings example, aside from LEGO's strategic considerations it's simple economics. Modulars are large, relatively pricey sets that sell in relatively small numbers over long periods of time and while there might be room to squeeze in one or two per year in addition to LEGO's official releases, this can never exceed a specific overall number.

Simple math: Currently there are still three Modular Buildings officially on sale via LEGO or third-party retailers and their combined MSRPs are something like 570 Euro. People who haven't already bought them all and are backlogged already have their financial burden cut out for them. Now imagine how much of a race this would become if you were to release more sets via crowdfunding that by there nature likely already would be more expensive and have a smaller window of opportunity to get them. Even for people with lots of money it might not be possible to keep up. Therefore crowdfunding projects in this line would quickly run dry and only the most attractive ever come to fruition, if at all.

So for all intents of purposes, I can't see that it will ever be "loads" of similar sets competing for buyers. This will regulate itself in the end. It even scales down to smaller, more affordable sets as people buying those likely have less money to begin with and also couldn't manage yet another ton of extra releases.  Also consider that there's always some sort of saturation point for pretty much any theme and practical limitations. Assuming there even were tons of Castle sets and money wasn't an issue, after a while buyers might stil lstay away because everything has been said and done already or they may not have the space to make things even bigger. You know, not everyone has a dedicated LEGO room for giant builds...

As for selling instructions - I think that's kinda missing the mark. Creating good instructions is its own art and not everyone who is able to do great MOCs might be inclined to do spend his time creating instructions and putting up with the quirks and shorcomings of digital brick creation. More importantly, though, it resolves nothing for the buyer. You still have to hunt for parts and potentially spend a small fortune in doing so and if nothing else, a sensible crowdfunded effort should at least take those worries off one's shoulders to appeal to a broader audience.

Mylenium

[astral brick]

20 hours ago, Mylenium said:

This will regulate itself in the end.

Which is, in fact, what is already happening. We are witnessing the birth of a self-regulating market.

20 hours ago, Mylenium said:

As for selling instructions - I think that's kinda missing the mark.

I am in agreement with you.

20 hours ago, Mylenium said:

More importantly, though, it resolves nothing for the buyer. You still have to hunt for parts and potentially spend a small fortune in doing so and if nothing else, a sensible crowdfunded effort should at least take those worries off one's shoulders to appeal to a broader audience.

Precisely. Your ending summarizes the whole point of my original post.

 

[TeriXeri]

Selling of instructions doesn't appeal to me at all, you gotta hunt down the parts, usually from multiple sellers and then have no guarantee on missing/broken/old parts unlike a regular set.

That's even less appealing then "importing" a non-official set from like the recent AFOL Designer Program from the US (with import taxes adding at least 21%)

As for Modulars, as long as LEGO makes them, I don't see the point of any IDEAS modular making the cut to directly compete with it, (kind of like Saturn V being still sold right now, I don't expect a Space X idea to compete with it)

Old Fishing Store and the upcoming Tree House are their own big builds outside of that category, they are different enough from the Modulars.

Edited May 1, 2019 by TeriXeri

[MAB]

15 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

As for Modulars, as long as LEGO makes them, I don't see the point of any IDEAS modular making the cut to directly compete with it, (kind of like Saturn V being still sold right now, I don't expect a Space X idea to compete with it)

 

That's my thinking too. There are enough (new) modulars as it is, and more of them via an unofficial channel is probably not viable. If the designers want their designs to be out there,  it is probably better to sell the instructions (or give them away) so that people can piece them together themselves or mod them depending on what bricks they have, rather than try to sell a reasonably large run of kits - even though numbers are limited, selling a thousand unofficial modulars at official modular prices is going to be a hard task.