Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Alexandrina]

21 minutes ago, ks6349 said:

Try breaking a lego box in store today, see how fast you can get caught.

Not all shops are created evenly. Go to the Lego shop in Leicester Square and you'll be caught very easily if you break open a box. On the other hand, if you're in a smaller shop (like the garden centre near me) which sells Lego, you'd get away with it unless you were greedy or unlucky. The particular shop I'm thinking of keeps their Lego in a spot with a bit of a camera blindspot (because there are other aisles/shelves in the way) and around the corner from the tills, so cashiers won't be able to see you. It's also very rare to see staff wandering around in that part of the shop - I've only ever seen staff at their specific workstations or wandering about the food/garden sections, from which you can't see the Lego stuff.

Someone so inclined could easily pop open a box, take the bits they want, pocket them, and be out the door.

[Toastie]

27 minutes ago, ks6349 said:

the extreme environmentalists who just hate plastic no matter what, no compromise, but they keep driving and burning oil every day,

Hey, that's me! - maybe without the "extreme", the "hate", the "no matter what", the "no compromise" and "keep driving" bits. Don't burn oil but natural gas - it tends to get cold here in mid-Germany from time to time.

So with what's left over - "environmentalist who burns natural gas for heating" I still appreciate that TLG is going towards paper only. Simple reason: I believe there are way more folks caring zill about the plastic packaging and simply dump the stuff - as there are true believers in the bricks and their boxes. And looking at the data on what type of material finds its way into what type of waste bin ... homo sapiens seems to be strongly challenged by sorting that out.

I happen to be one of the believers in the bricks: It truly is very nice to be able to look "into" the boxes - everything neatly arranged - but when you play with LEGOs  ss rather than looking into the boxes, then after a few rounds of playing, it is all messed up as usually mocking means throwing things together. I have two Dacta boxes, which are actually pieces of artwork, and even with those it simply does not work: The bricks are all over the place ... and I really tried to keep than sorted - as they do in school.

That is my reasoning on the matter - others may see things differently.

Best,
Thorsten       

[Peppermint_M]

So, plastic windows in boxes are not going to improve sanctity of the box. People can and will steal from clear display.

See this Mini Brands egg/blind package display box? See that little window that has a few samples of the toys?

Nearly every single one of these boxes I see in stores have had those ripped out. I will see a fresh box put out on shelves, I can go around the shop (supermarket or Toystore etc) and come back within 30 minutes to find at least one stolen from the display. 

Sure the "nicer" supermarket has a lot more security going on (The guard on shift when I most often visit Sainsbury's knows that I am looking for specific minifigs, so doesn't bother me now!) though even the classiest place has a few of the display toys missing from the box. Not the clearance section, not the box in the trash pile; the box on the shelf. 

Heck, Zuru used to have a brick glued to their boxes of compatible brick toys (to show you how close to the main brand they were) even those got stolen! 

 

 

[Kit Figsto]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:23 AM, danth said:

In minifig themes? Hmm. I'm going to say no, until proven wrong.

I was curious about this and did some digging.  I'm taking what Brickset considers themes and counting ones that include minifigures (not going to include gear/books, because then that gets really questionable about what constitutes a theme or not):

Unlicensed:

City, Collectible Minifigures (I feel like these count here), Creator, Icons, Monkie Kid, Ninjago, Seasonal

You've also got Friends, which isn't minifigures but is an unlicensed playtheme (as opposed to stuff like Dots or Art), so I feel like that is reasonable to count.

Licensed:

Avatar, DC, Disney, Harry Potter, Jurassic World, Marvel, Minecraft, Speed Champions, Star Wars

Mario is sort of a gray area, I think if we're counting Friends, we probably have to count Mario.

I didn't know where to put Ideas, because it includes both licensed and unlicensed sets at a fairly even ratio, so it's kind of both.

By this count, I see 8 unlicensed play themes and 10 licensed play themes.

So in terms of themes, licensed wins.  If you're looking at the actual quantity of sets, though, I'd imagine it's relatively even.  Some of the licensed themes don't really put out that many sets per year (DC has gotten, like, four sets a year, for the past five years, though supposedly there's more stuff coming there this year, Avatar has only 5 sets, Speed Champions is usually just two small waves per year, etc), whereas City seems to have 25+ sets on shelves at any given time.  I'm not going to take the time to go through and count individual sets, but I would suspect that it's reasonably equal between all of these.

It's also worth noting that Speed Champions includes licensed vehicles, but generally includes generic, unlicensed minifigures (though recently they've done some movie cars, which use flesh tone minifigures).  However, for the most part, the figures are yellow tone.  I'm still counting it as a licensed theme, but the original discussion was about flesh vs. yellow figures, so that's sort of a middle area?

[TeriXeri]

1 hour ago, Kit Figsto said:

By this count, I see 8 unlicensed play themes and 10 licensed play themes.

Yeah it's a big contrast compared to like the 2010-2019 period.

Not including Current themes, 2010s had Atlantis, Ultra Agents, Alien Conquest, Galaxy Squad, Chima, Pirates, Nexo Knights, Hidden Side for the non licensed, and then LEGO Movie 1 and 2 partially licensed , and then Elves for Minidolls.

I know it's only 2023, and too early to compare decades, 2020 was a mixed year, with Hidden Side ending and Monkie Kid appearing, 2021 is mostly known for Vidiyo emerging and rapidly disappearing again, so I'd say the main succes in terms of new themes starting from 2020 has been Monkie Kid so far with it's 4th year.

Of course a shift toward 18+ sets, and 3-in-1 integrating "Classic" themes cannot be forgotten, as the 2020 Pirate Ship, 2021 Castle and 2022 Viking Ship are still sold, as well as Castle and Space not really "themes" but still has big sets like Blacksmith Shop, Lion's Castle and Galaxy Explorer remake + GWPs.

And Ninjago and Friends still feel quite innovative even after 10+ years each, both coming out of their anniversary years and now heading into a new direction both of them.

DreamZZZ is next in the lineup.

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by TeriXeri

[timemail]

10 hours ago, ks6349 said:

What's the problem of making multiple posts of the similar comments over the years? Do you just give one comment and never say something similar again in a life time? Yes, I have made multiple posts over the years whenever I wanted to raise the awareness of the issue again.

That plastic boxes ripped open in store and stolen is already a history. Plastic box has gone for many years and it was the time when in-store surveillance wasn't common. It's what I have said before, but you just ignored the key point that you can't argue. Try breaking a lego box in store today, see how fast you can get caught.

Those who speak in favor of today's Lego paper box without visible plastic cover are only the extreme environmentalists who just hate plastic no matter what, no compromise, but they keep driving and burning oil every day, or who just supports everything Lego has done or changed, regardless of the correctness.

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with similar comments. This forum would die without people rehashing the same points again and again, popular or not, and I am not implying you do that - I just remember the previous discussions as I found it to be quite an odd way of stealing which I had seen little evidence of. Yes it did happen but I only saw it a couple of times over years of retail management. What I was referring to was the fact that the problem you are raising around opening and returning Lego does not seem to be backed up in responses here, nor previous responses to the comment, so it may be localised i.e. specific to your country or at least, not to the countries most Eurobricks commenters are from.

Lego boxes here also don't get broken into much at all that I see, but the boxes with cheap plastic like Hot Wheels often do. Similar to Lyichir's post, our stores tend to have alarm cords around the larger boxes when displayed, and also larger boxes not kept on display at all in some stores so staff have to get them from the storeroom. Monitored in-store surveillance is pretty reduced where I live as the wages associated with it are too high to counteract what they prevent - it does depend on the store but the big retailers who sell Lego along with a lot of other items tend to have teams that move from store to store rather than being in one location all the time - it depends on the store crime but we were lucky (or not lucky depending on your viewpoint) if we saw loss prevention officers more than a couple of times a year. Yes there are cameras, but they do little to stop people who can just pick up a box and carry it out of camera view giving them plausible deniability. Unless people are caught in the act or there is high amounts of theft from the same person with decent evidence the police will rarely follow up on basic theft. Even when people were caught in the act you needed to have decent evidence for police to move forward with a prosecution, so the result was a lot of money spent by a retailer, and the boxes were destroyed or damaged anyway so there was little benefit.

All up you have posted the comments in the right thread as this is about unpopular opinions.

[Killian]

On 2/12/2023 at 7:59 AM, A_Forest_of_Lego said:

I prefer the yellow minifigs too

Me too. the yellow characters often get around 4+ facial expressions each (Hidden Side/Ninjago) so they're great for stop motion animation/photography etc.

The fleshies tend to have 2 facial expressions at the most, so are less useful.

*

Unpopular opinion time;

Putting the upcoming 2023 & 2024 CMF in boxes means people will be opening boxes in store to get the ones they want and leaving opened boxes on the shelf that people won't buy because they've been tampered with. Lego will decide CMFs don't sell anymore and it'll be the end of CMFs.

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, Killian said:

Unpopular opinion time;

Putting the upcoming 2023 & 2024 CMF in boxes means people will be opening boxes in store to get the ones they want and leaving opened boxes on the shelf that people won't buy because they've been tampered with. Lego will decide CMFs don't sell anymore and it'll be the end of CMFs.

I feel like if this kind of theft were enough to really devastate a product line's sales, NO companies would bother producing any sort of "blind box" products. The fact that blind boxes remain a thing seems like evidence enough that this sort of tampering is a cost that manufacturers and retailers alike are able to bear.

I realize there are a lot of AFOLs/collectors who aren't interested in buying a product unless we can tell ahead of time exactly what its contents will be. And that's a totally legitimate preference! But for kids, the "surprise" of not knowing what you're getting can often be part of the appeal for these sorts of products (almost like unwrapping a present), and the risk of getting duplicate or unwanted items can be mitigated by trading with friends. So there's less incentive among that core demographic to resort to tampering.

[Killian]

37 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

I realize there are a lot of AFOLs/collectors who aren't interested in buying a product unless we can tell ahead of time exactly what its contents will be. And that's a totally legitimate preference! But for kids, the "surprise" of not knowing what you're getting can often be part of the appeal for these sorts of products (almost like unwrapping a present), and the risk of getting duplicate or unwanted items can be mitigated by trading with friends. So there's less incentive among that core demographic to resort to tampering.

1/4 of current toy sales are adults buying for themselves. No idea how that impacts the overall market.

[MAB]

I also wonder how many adults still buy CMF one by one by feeling. I see so many people now buying a complete set online, or buying a box and selling the spare sets. Part of the fun for me used to be the thrill of the chase but since resellers started widely selling complete sets and certain popular figures became cherry picked as soon as a box is opened, this was killed off. 

[LegendaryArticuno]

Why Lego competitors and offbrands are a good thing and ultimately benefit us as Lego fans. They should be encouraged, supported and protected.

 

[LegendaryArticuno]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I also wonder how many adults still buy CMF one by one by feeling. I see so many people now buying a complete set online, or buying a box and selling the spare sets. Part of the fun for me used to be the thrill of the chase but since resellers started widely selling complete sets and certain popular figures became cherry picked as soon as a box is opened, this was killed off. 

I pick out specific CMFs, why pay for figures you don't even want?

I'll try to put this as nicely as possible... people who enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" are overly simplistic, naive, and in tune with their base level instincts rather than being rational/logical people thinking of what's in their own best interest..

[Karalora]

1 hour ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

I pick out specific CMFs, why pay for figures you don't even want?

I'll try to put this as nicely as possible... people who enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" are overly simplistic, naive, and in tune with their base level instincts rather than being rational/logical people thinking of what's in their own best interest..

If that's "as nicely as possible," then what the heck would you say if you weren't being nice? You all but called people stupid if they don't feel the need to squish bags in order to get specific CMFs.

[MAB]

8 hours ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

I pick out specific CMFs, why pay for figures you don't even want?

I'll try to put this as nicely as possible... people who enjoy the "thrill of the hunt" are overly simplistic, naive, and in tune with their base level instincts rather than being rational/logical people thinking of what's in their own best interest..

I used to do the same, but I also regularly traded with others to get a complete set while also building armies. I was a bit late for Spartans and only managed 16 of those but bought / traded over 50 S3 elfs and over 100 S6 Romans. I've not been that impressed about the army builders in more recent sets, and they all disappear so quickly anyway now so many collect / sell them. Also up to S10, I rarely paid more than £1.25 a figure through various discounts.  At that price, it didn't matter if you got unwanted ones as plenty of others were into trading them. But that side of it seems to have died out.

The thrill of the chase also worked with trading. Finding someone that wanted a fitness instructor and would swap it for an elf, and so on.

Back in the early days, they felt more collectable in that you would slowly build the collection.  Whereas now they feel more that you buy the series in one go and you are done.

Edited February 18, 2023 by MAB

[Peppermint_M]

I think there is a risk of boxes being opened. Again, depending on the shop (per my earlier post) there is a high chance of someone opening blind packs to steal the contents. Some places certainly are concerned for it, they keep the packs in secure locked boxes the sales staff have to open. Or the item is kept right by the sales desk (or even behind it). 

I don't think it will cause a collapse in the market, but they might find it does not promote the sales they wish, as people fall off purchasing as there is no chance of checking you can get what you want.

As for "Thrill of the hunt" I do not enjoy blind packages for this. I prefer the search for rare things (Say, books or a vintage/uncommon toy like a Zoid) There is nothing like the dopamine hit of finding a 1970s printing of Heinlein short stories with one of those superb psychedelic covers, or stepping into a toy shop and discovering a Zoids 2 boxed/unopened Sabre. I know exactly what I am getting but I have still had to hunt it down. Blind Boxes are a roulette chance, a bit of a gamble so you are not getting the "hunt success" good feelings, but the gambler's high.

10 hours ago, Karalora said:

If that's "as nicely as possible," then what the heck would you say if you weren't being nice? You all but called people stupid if they don't feel the need to squish bags in order to get specific CMFs.

If you see something you think is unwelcome on the boards, please report it for staff to deal with; not try and pick a fight or start an argument in thread. Not only does it keep a thread on track, but it lets Staff keep aware of member behaviour and potential issues. 

[MAB]

7 minutes ago, Peppermint_M said:

As for "Thrill of the hunt" I do not enjoy blind packages for this. I prefer the search for rare things (Say, books or a vintage/uncommon toy like a Zoid)...

When I use "thrill of the hunt" I was using it not so much for the gambling side of will it be / won't it be what I want, but for the searching and feeling for what you want (the joy of feeliing a spear in S2 and S6!) and also the subsequent trading of unwanted figures, as opposed to the no-thrill of purchasing a complete set from a reseller. I think part of the fun was like being back in the school playground trading stickers. There used to be loads of trading threads on brickset (and some but far fewer here) as well as sites like swap figures. I think the "buy a complete set" sales have pretty much killed that off.

For the recent sets (and here I mean probably S15 onwards), there have been too many people knowing the values and pulling all the popular figures as soon as a box is out. So I can understand why they now are shifting to boxes to stop this (if that is the reason).

[Peppermint_M]

Ah right. I must have missed that in my read through.

Yeah, it is still pretty spiffy to find out that Baby-fig or Walkie-talkie and know you have the Spaceman!

[timemail]

42 minutes ago, Peppermint_M said:

I think there is a risk of boxes being opened. Again, depending on the shop (per my earlier post) there is a high chance of someone opening blind packs to steal the contents. Some places certainly are concerned for it, they keep the packs in secure locked boxes the sales staff have to open. Or the item is kept right by the sales desk (or even behind it).

Not only opening and stealing, but also opening to check the contents and moving on if it is not what is wanted. I have seen other blind boxes that have been opened but the contents is still there. I guess we will see some more of this as well where people don't actually want to steal, but also want to get the item they want. In theory the product can still sell so the shop doesn't necessarily lose out as much, but they will likely not sell to the unlearned consumer as they will assume if it is open then there are pieces missing. Given Lego are trying to reduce plastic I assume the contents will not be in a plastic bag in the box so any opened ones will be more likely to lose pieces. Other blind boxes don't have that problem when it is just a single toy that is being bought and easy to confirm that it is intact.

Likely I will be moving to Bricklink as I normally get less than half of the series. I have not had any luck finding people who want to trade figures.

Edited February 18, 2023 by timemail
Realised after posting this had already been mentioned above. Not sure how I missed those posts.

[Feuer Zug]

45 minutes ago, timemail said:

I have not had any luck finding people who want to trade figures.

This is an issue for me as well. People seem to get what they want presently, then horde it.

As for the boxes, they will be a disgrace on the shelves. People where I reside took to tearing the Vidiyo minifigure boxes open to see the figure inside. They didn't break the seal, but left them in quite a disheveled state. The hypocrisy was evident on LEGO's part too. Cardboard on the outside, a plastic bag inside. Extra packaging to make you believe we're being better.

[MAB]

If they are like Vidiyo then they will still have thin inner plastic bags, just not the thick foil outer bags like now.

As for trading, I think that is gone. It used to be that before now popular figures became valuable, people would trade freely. I used to swap fairly random figures for Roman soldiers, and used to buy them on ebay for £3-4. But look what happened with the recent viking. People knew he would be in demand and his price was instantly £10 or so while they were on the shelves. Nobody would trade him for a more random figure now.

[Killian]

7 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

I don't think it will cause a collapse in the market, but they might find it does not promote the sales they wish, as people fall off purchasing as there is no chance of checking you can get what you want.

If Lego are determined to do CMF as boxes going forward, they should go back to having a unique barcode number for each character, then people who don't want to risk duplicates or unwanted figures are happy, but kids/casual buyers still get the surprise experience.

[zoth33]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

When I use "thrill of the hunt" I was using it not so much for the gambling side of will it be / won't it be what I want, but for the searching and feeling for what you want (the joy of feeliing a spear in S2 and S6!) and also the subsequent trading of unwanted figures, as opposed to the no-thrill of purchasing a complete set from a reseller. I think part of the fun was like being back in the school playground trading stickers. There used to be loads of trading threads on brickset (and some but far fewer here) as well as sites like swap figures. I think the "buy a complete set" sales have pretty much killed that off.

For the recent sets (and here I mean probably S15 onwards), there have been too many people knowing the values and pulling all the popular figures as soon as a box is out. So I can understand why they now are shifting to boxes to stop this (if that is the reason).

I'm sorry but not all of us can trade figs and I would rather just go pick up the ones I want.  I'm not sure about trading figs and whats the point if you can just get the ones you want without having to spend on shipping to someone you don't know and rely on the mail to get it right.  The boxes are going to hurt their sales in my opinion.  I'm not spending $5 on a fig I don't want.  The only trading option I have here is a bricks and minifg store and they rarely have the figs I'm looking for.  I'm just not buying this on hope alone.  

[smazmats]

23 hours ago, LegendaryArticuno said:

Why Lego competitors and offbrands are a good thing and ultimately benefit us as Lego fans. They should be encouraged, supported and protected.

Oh yeah totally...All the poor, poor, companies that shamelessly steal and profit off the MOCs from the AFOL community absolutely need our encouragement, support, and protection....

[MAB]

10 hours ago, zoth33 said:

I'm sorry but not all of us can trade figs and I would rather just go pick up the ones I want.  I'm not sure about trading figs and whats the point if you can just get the ones you want without having to spend on shipping to someone you don't know and rely on the mail to get it right.  The boxes are going to hurt their sales in my opinion.  I'm not spending $5 on a fig I don't want.  The only trading option I have here is a bricks and minifg store and they rarely have the figs I'm looking for.  I'm just not buying this on hope alone.  

So why don't you buy a complete set in one go? So many resellers do that now, often at or very little more than RRP.

The downside of identifying and picking the individual ones you want is that other people may also want those in multiples, and take the lot. Especially ones identified as going to be popular and good for resale. It seems to happen much more these days than it used to, from day 1. And this leaves a very unequal distribution and hence complaints.

[neithan]

11 hours ago, MuscoviteSandwich said:

Oh yeah totally...All the poor, poor, companies that shamelessly steal and profit off the MOCs from the AFOL community absolutely need our encouragement, support, and protection....

Obviously there are some "black sheeps" but clearly you don`t have that much knowledge about other companies, seeing you generalizing every other company.

Here in germany we have bluebrixx for example, which has the star trek license and has already dropped some waves of sets, which are beloved by fans.

Or castle Blaustein with some extensions, truly a marvellous castle:

 

https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/neuheiten/102818/Burg-Blaustein-BlueBrixx-Special

 

And then there are a myriad of other manufacteurs with original Ideas. But yeah, everyone is just stealing. But not Lego, with their Ideas-Project - oh wait.

Edited February 19, 2023 by neithan