VIDIYO - Universal Music 2021

[danth]

Good thing "Lego understands the market better" than us stupid AFOLs who just want a nice unlicensed Space or Castle set every once in a while.

[Dazz]

Amazon is selling Vidiyo sets with massive price cuts here in Germany: Robo HipHop Car for 10.99€, Punk Pirate Ship for 29.99€ or Candy Castle Stage for 14.99€. Couldn't resist at those prices. Already had gotten the Boombox set for around 48€ a few weeks ago. Looks like they deperately want to get rid of Vidiyo!

[Robert8]

A month ago: 50% sale

A week ago: a gift with purchase

New week: they'll throw them at anyone who walks by the store entrance

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

On 8/26/2021 at 9:18 PM, danth said:

Good thing "Lego understands the market better" than us stupid AFOLs who just want a nice unlicensed Space or Castle set every once in a while.

No I'm sorry, but because one fails doesn't mean the other group is right. There is for sure some demands and insights from many AFOL's that make complete sense, but there's many dogmas that could work or fail. We don't know either but many here just want to think they are right. Like obsession with random side characters that appeared twice in some episode of some TV show. Or the obsession with classic themes, despite Lego letting them phase out years ago after they failed (pirates, castle) next to much more creative themes. I think the fact Nexo knights or hidden side didn't work isn't an argument for more one-sided themes. Who know's - maybe the classic themes would fail even worse?

Lego does their research and I would argue it's always their more weird and "artsy" departements/themes - like for their movie's - which leads to sets that fail so badly (like all the movie set lines, except for maybe the frst Lego movie. For years they are carefully testing the market anyway - Creator + Ideas sets or the integration of classic themes within ninjago. So there is hope for classic theme fans and for Lego. I just don't think a bland broad release of classic themes will happen anytime soon.

_________________________________________________________________________________

At least though AFOL's have the excuse of just being some hobby-group. Lego though should really have thought about the consequenses of super expensive products that have no attatchement to some licence or brand. Like as cool as the designs are - they are literally just weird figures in weird builds. We live in a world dominated by "big brand movie/TV show universes" and in many parts of the world the economic situation has become gradually worse over the last 20 years. There is no space for unknown products unfortunately.

I saw people who weren't even interested in the blind boxes for 1€. Price increase, no way of feeling the bags, unknown product, lesser quality and diversity compared to CMF's - not to mention the incredibly overpriced beatboxes. You could literally buy a remote controlled car for the price of one weird figure and some pieces. If Lego keeps going like this they will no longer be the only relevant producer of "brick-toys" on the market. 2-3 other pretty decent quality brands have just taken licences and could take a large junk of Lego, once they expand their business around the world. In eastern Europe they are pretty strong already.

- and that's no promotion of these brands: I think they are stealing designs of bricks and sets and I would not buy any of them. "Kre-o" was bad in quality and designs but at least they did original parts and sets instead of stealing.

 

[Lion King]

Ok um, Bandmate Serie2 are really cancelled or what?  It’s only one moth before the “release day” in October. 

[TeriXeri]

I actually still like the Stage sets very much, recently built the Boom Box and K-Pawp stages, and the figures are , and the parts/builds feel a mix of DOTS and LEGO Movie 2 (pop-up party Bus etc.)

(then again, some of those LEGO Movie 2 sets were hitting massive discounts as well so probably weren't very popular either)

I just think LEGO missed the mark on this theme in terms of how it released.

If the Stage sets were the main thing, with a few more themed stages, I think the theme might've been liked a lot more , and then they could've done the CMF packs, or themed minfig packs as additions.

Starting with those Beatboxes and also Blind Boxes at the same time was a bad idea.

Also the marketing being so focused around an app seems to have been the biggest misser, Nexo Knights had app support but the app was far from the main focus of set design.

 

The idea of the fold-out Boom Box is fun but I think having more themed stages for the Vampire/Dragons (Castle?) , Faeries (Elves Forest?), or even a Spaceship style for the Robot/Aliens etc could've been nice.

Edited September 4, 2021 by TeriXeri

[sunhuntin]

Honestly, I am tempted to pic up second copies of all the sets, just for the minifigures. They look awesome, and I don't agree about the quality or designs being less than that of a standard CMF. There are some very creative designs and unique parts and colors. I do agree the big sets should have been brought out sooner. they may have helped the app, too. I never used it, but going by the instructions, the sets had abilities to change things as well. The boombox should have come out with the first wave, and then the smaller sets afterwards.

[telaruhn]

On 9/4/2021 at 4:08 PM, TeriXeri said:

-snip-

I share a lot of the same sentiments here. Having the larger stage sets introduced in the first wave would have made for more impact on store shelves. With the second wave on shelves, the theme as a whole feels more complete to me.

I second the premise of more stage sets! I could see a "Samurap Dojo Stage" being successful if it remotely looked anything like Ninjago. Other sets to round out the other genres could be "Discowboy Rodeo Stage," and "Tropicon Beach Stage." Sadly, it seems likely that this will not happen.

[RichardGoring]

Lack of sets in the first wave and a terrible app experience are, for me, what led to it's downfall. I really love the sets, and wish that the app was so much better.

[Lion King]

On 9/4/2021 at 11:28 AM, DBlegonerd7 said:

Ok um, Bandmate Serie2 are really cancelled or what?  It’s only one moth before the “release day” in October. 

I guess it’s a “canceled” then…

[Robert8]

It is odd

We are 3 weeks away from the official release date and still nothing

 

But TLG did say the series wasn't cancelled, so... maybe pushed back or something? Releasing them during the holiday season might help to boost the sales a bit

 

[Lion King]

12 hours ago, Robert8 said:

It is odd

We are 3 weeks away from the official release date and still nothing

 

But TLG did say the series wasn't cancelled, so... maybe pushed back or something? Releasing them during the holiday season might help to boost the sales a bit

 

Holiday shopping? Well…good luck to marketing managers. 

They are desperate to sell these current sets.

[MAB]

18 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Releasing them during the holiday season might help to boost the sales a bit

 

They'd still have to compete with toys that children actually want!

[danth]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

They'd still have to compete with toys that children actually want!

[Faefrost]

On 9/4/2021 at 9:15 AM, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

No I'm sorry, but because one fails doesn't mean the other group is right. There is for sure some demands and insights from many AFOL's that make complete sense, but there's many dogmas that could work or fail. We don't know either but many here just want to think they are right. Like obsession with random side characters that appeared twice in some episode of some TV show. Or the obsession with classic themes, despite Lego letting them phase out years ago after they failed (pirates, castle) next to much more creative themes. I think the fact Nexo knights or hidden side didn't work isn't an argument for more one-sided themes. Who know's - maybe the classic themes would fail even worse?

Lego does their research and I would argue it's always their more weird and "artsy" departements/themes - like for their movie's - which leads to sets that fail so badly (like all the movie set lines, except for maybe the frst Lego movie. For years they are carefully testing the market anyway - Creator + Ideas sets or the integration of classic themes within ninjago. So there is hope for classic theme fans and for Lego. I just don't think a bland broad release of classic themes will happen anytime soon.

_________________________________________________________________________________

At least though AFOL's have the excuse of just being some hobby-group. Lego though should really have thought about the consequenses of super expensive products that have no attatchement to some licence or brand. Like as cool as the designs are - they are literally just weird figures in weird builds. We live in a world dominated by "big brand movie/TV show universes" and in many parts of the world the economic situation has become gradually worse over the last 20 years. There is no space for unknown products unfortunately.

I saw people who weren't even interested in the blind boxes for 1€. Price increase, no way of feeling the bags, unknown product, lesser quality and diversity compared to CMF's - not to mention the incredibly overpriced beatboxes. You could literally buy a remote controlled car for the price of one weird figure and some pieces. If Lego keeps going like this they will no longer be the only relevant producer of "brick-toys" on the market. 2-3 other pretty decent quality brands have just taken licences and could take a large junk of Lego, once they expand their business around the world. In eastern Europe they are pretty strong already.

- and that's no promotion of these brands: I think they are stealing designs of bricks and sets and I would not buy any of them. "Kre-o" was bad in quality and designs but at least they did original parts and sets instead of stealing.

 

Eh? Yes and No. We don't carry much special knowledge or insights as AFOL's, or at least less than we often think. But most of us are in fact adults. Many with careers in businesses and retail and we have a pretty good idea of how things work. And from a Retail and Marketing standpoint the Vidya sets were an abomination. The sets themselves were fine as sets. But aside from the blind boxes (which I actually kind of liked over the constantly fondled CMF bags) the sets were set at the wrong Price Point and Packaged Horribly for the Price Point they were set at. There is no way those little Boom Box or whatever they were called sets, looked like a $20 purchase to any parent or even most kids. With $20 in hand the kid will turn right around in the aisle and get a much more impressive looking City Set. Not some stupid little 3 inch cube. This is probably the worst or most obvious marketing failure we have seen from Lego since 2003. Yeah they have had some misses. And some failed experiments. But this one just felt like somebody in marketing and product management screwed up big time. If the Boom Box's had hit the $9.99 price point the line would have been a great success. At $19.99 it's a colossal, predictable and inexcusable failure of one of their internal departments. Somewhere something got past Lego's usual fairly good feedback loops and made it to market when it should not have. I'm sure someone high up fell in love with the idea and everyone was so happy to please that nobody gave the clearly needed feedback regarding escalating development costs and the less than ideal MSRP. 

You don't just have to design a great product. You have to get it to market at the correct price and package and present it in such a way that the potential consumer is able to determine it's value from that presentation. Vidya failed at the last 2. It didn't help that it had more than a bit of the "Hello Fellow Children" vibe to it. "Do you know the TikTokKpops?" 

[jonwil]

Its entirely possible that the financial accountants took a look at the cost of licensing all that music and the cost of building, updating, running, maintaining and moderating/monitoring the app and decided that they needed to charge x amount in order to cover all those costs on top of the actual cost for the sets and that's why the sets are as expensive as they are.

 

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

4 hours ago, jonwil said:

Its entirely possible that the financial accountants took a look at the cost of licensing all that music and the cost of building, updating, running, maintaining and moderating/monitoring the app and decided that they needed to charge x amount in order to cover all those costs on top of the actual cost for the sets and that's why the sets are as expensive as they are.

 

Can be. I think probably Lego has developed an internal structure which is inefficient and "blown up". There are alternative brands which produce with a similar quality in terms of bricks and much better quality in terms of designs for less than half the price.

Can also be that the original team didn't plan to price the sets so high but the costs got out of hand or something. In the end it doesn't matter: they fu*** up and should have calculated before that no one will buy this.

 

5 hours ago, Faefrost said:

Eh? Yes and No. We don't carry much special knowledge or insights as AFOL's, or at least less than we often think. But most of us are in fact adults. Many with careers in businesses and retail and we have a pretty good idea of how things work. And from a Retail and Marketing standpoint the Vidya sets were an abomination. The sets themselves were fine as sets. But aside from the blind boxes (which I actually kind of liked over the constantly fondled CMF bags) the sets were set at the wrong Price Point and Packaged Horribly for the Price Point they were set at. There is no way those little Boom Box or whatever they were called sets, looked like a $20 purchase to any parent or even most kids. With $20 in hand the kid will turn right around in the aisle and get a much more impressive looking City Set. Not some stupid little 3 inch cube. This is probably the worst or most obvious marketing failure we have seen from Lego since 2003. Yeah they have had some misses. And some failed experiments. But this one just felt like somebody in marketing and product management screwed up big time. If the Boom Box's had hit the $9.99 price point the line would have been a great success. At $19.99 it's a colossal, predictable and inexcusable failure of one of their internal departments. Somewhere something got past Lego's usual fairly good feedback loops and made it to market when it should not have. I'm sure someone high up fell in love with the idea and everyone was so happy to please that nobody gave the clearly needed feedback regarding escalating development costs and the less than ideal MSRP. 

You don't just have to design a great product. You have to get it to market at the correct price and package and present it in such a way that the potential consumer is able to determine it's value from that presentation. Vidya failed at the last 2. It didn't help that it had more than a bit of the "Hello Fellow Children" vibe to it. "Do you know the TikTokKpops?" 

I don't know about your description of AFOL's. There are nuanced comments like yours. Then there is a lot of comments like "Lego hates the prequels and doesn't respect the fans because they didn't give us super commander Baxley from this or that show.

[TeriXeri]

Seeing how the stage sets are pretty much being "dumped"  at 50% off or more now  I think this theme is considered over for now.

 

So in the last couple years there have been multiple themes that suddenly ended or were dumped , not exactly in the same way but still is noticeable.

 

• 2018 Nexo Knights : I think this ending was most likely somewhat planned ahead , since the show officially stopped at Season 4 (2017) , the app still got updated to the last wave of sets, and the magazine still had 9 issues in 2018.
• 2019 LEGO Movie 2 : sets either disappeared in the last wave of sets  (the sparkle baby set for example), many other sets are still available at fairly big discount , seems it was a major overproduction and maybe hoped for more success/hype on the movie.
• 2020 Hidden Side : last wave of sets were only available very briefly, and then vanished. (especially the Castle of Mystery set seemed to have a low production run) , smaller sets, mostly wave 2 and 3 still available for discounts.
• 2021 Vidiyo : currently stage sets being "dumped" at massive discounts over 50%.

I don't consider Nexo Knights a failure due to the way it ended, and had 2 years of sets/books/tv show/app and other merchandise during it's main 2 years, also never seems to have had as much "overproduction" leftovers like TLM2 and Hidden Side still have.

(note I base this on the current webshop situation in Netherlands/Western Europe, things could be different in other regions)

Edited September 11, 2021 by TeriXeri

[SoupOrFishOil]

16 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

Seeing how the stage sets are pretty much being "dumped"  at 50% off or more now  I think this theme is considered over for now.

 

So in the last couple years there have been multiple themes that suddenly ended or were dumped , not exactly in the same way but still is noticeable.

 

• 2018 Nexo Knights : I think this ending was most likely somewhat planned ahead , since the show officially stopped at Season 4 (2017) , the app still got updated to the last wave of sets, and the magazine still had 9 issues in 2018.
• 2019 LEGO Movie 2 : sets either disappeared in the last wave of sets  (the sparkle baby set for example), many other sets are still available at places, seems it was a major overproduction and maybe hoped for more success/hype on the movie.
• 2020 Hidden Side : last wave of sets were only available very briefly, and then vanished. (especially the Castle of Mystery set seemed to have a low production run)
• 2021 Vidiyo : currently stage sets being "dumped" at massive discounts over 50%.

 

You can add Bionicle (2016) and Overwatch (2019) to that list. We know that each had at least another wave planned and scrapped.

I think that LEGO is great at introducing new themes (Vidiyo being an obvious exception) but not necessarily at maintaining interest over several years, especially if it isn't a big license like Marvel or Harry Potter.

[Robert8]

I think Nexo Knights was definitely cancelled.... there were cleary setting up a 4th year 

I imagine year 1 did pretty good, so they decided to make an extra year after the originally planned 3 years, but then year 2 must have been a disaster sales wise

[Mylenium]

12 hours ago, Faefrost said:

Somewhere something got past Lego's usual fairly good feedback loops and made it to market when it should not have.

I tend to disagree. The bigger a company becomes, the more it creates its own reality and this may just be a case of bubbles inside bubbles. Seen it happen elsewhere more than once and actually LEGO is terrible in that regard due to that weird self-pollination process of RLUGs, RLFMs and the company being utter control freaks who want to inject their view of things into everything. I would assume their focus group testing and other processes are equally biased. Combined with their greed and seemingly not having mangers with balls, I find that a dangerous combination and such failures are inevitable. It's basically similar to what happens when a blockbuster movie bombs: In trying to replicate their previous successes they limit the potential for other things and in my view LEGO are also simply trying a bit too hard to bend it over their knees. And they also seem to be drunk on their own success elsewhere and have lost touch with some realities, thinking they can get away with anything. And that's probably the sad reality of VIDIYO: Someone very high up in the decision-making chain was too keen on making it big and cashing in his annual bonus without really knowing what he was doing. I doubt the designers and a lot of other people could be blamed for this disaster.

Mylenium

[Kim-Kwang-Seok]

5 hours ago, Mylenium said:

I tend to disagree. The bigger a company becomes, the more it creates its own reality and this may just be a case of bubbles inside bubbles. Seen it happen elsewhere more than once and actually LEGO is terrible in that regard due to that weird self-pollination process of RLUGs, RLFMs and the company being utter control freaks who want to inject their view of things into everything. I would assume their focus group testing and other processes are equally biased. Combined with their greed and seemingly not having mangers with balls, I find that a dangerous combination and such failures are inevitable. It's basically similar to what happens when a blockbuster movie bombs: In trying to replicate their previous successes they limit the potential for other things and in my view LEGO are also simply trying a bit too hard to bend it over their knees. And they also seem to be drunk on their own success elsewhere and have lost touch with some realities, thinking they can get away with anything. And that's probably the sad reality of VIDIYO: Someone very high up in the decision-making chain was too keen on making it big and cashing in his annual bonus without really knowing what he was doing. I doubt the designers and a lot of other people could be blamed for this disaster.

Mylenium

 

I think your first statement makes a lot of sense for Lego, the WWE or the movie industrie.

But the rest you write is a huge junk of speculation - a lot of it could be true and maybe not. Let's go back to the first statement: many things are just a dilemma. Even as a CEO you can not necessarily change this overblown structure that has developed. These things are complicated, even if the CEO would be quite reflected (not saying it cann't be done though). We simply don't know many things from within the company.

One example:
are marvel sets so bad because they make enough profit anyway and keep - not just budget, but also the technical ressources for their own themes? If so; bad for marvel fans (which I'm not at all) but makes sense that they don't want to outcompete themselves and becoming even more dependent on all powerful licences.

I think this makes much more sense than this weird conspiracy by like the majority of this forum, that Lego hates classic themes, marvel or whatever. Can also just be that the first don't sell anymore (as not just the mentioned themes above failed but also the last re-runs of classic themes) while ninjago does work. Who knows maybe there just isn't a market anymore next to ninjago (has a big base and is flexible) the big 3 (creator, city, technic) and the licences. But of course, also this is pure speculation. Could also be that the licence of marvel is so expensive, so there is almost no budget left. Maybe back with the first marvel movies it was cheaper but now disney  increased the price, so Lego has to cut some corners to not lose the licence. Again, also just speculation.

About being drunk on their sucess: it doesn't matter if they literally are forced to raise those prices regularly but at the end of the day there are already equally good alternatives with better designs for less then half the price. You can get much better builds there and if Lego would lose a lot of money from stunts like vidyo, then they could actually die pretty fast.

..which I doubt it will happen in the next 5 years but let's see. After all we don't know how much money they put in this theme (probably a lot) and how this will affect the overall production. Maybe they have one "do what you want" departement with a bunch of money and failure isn't a big deal. Maybe they were really ignorant and get just more into trouble. A lot of maybes - I'd prefer Lego would put out some honest and transparent videos regularly, like some of these alternative companies do. Would help us to understand better.

[Robert8]

On 9/8/2021 at 7:08 PM, DBlegonerd7 said:

I guess it’s a “canceled” then…

I don't think so

They are still on Shop @ Home

https://www.lego.com/en-ae/product/bandmates-43108

[MAB]

I imagine they got good feedback during play testing on early prototype versions of vidiyo. It is quite fun to use, especially for kids.  And then released it without play testing the final product.

They messed up the app. The app is clunky, annoying to use and missing important features. Plus it only runs on very modern tablets / phones that are not likely to be in the hands of 7 year olds. I guess play testing used a preliminary one.

They messed up marketing. No stages released at the start, just weird expensive boxes in unusual packaging and small boxes with a single minifigure in that cost more than CMF. Nobody really knew what the theme was meant to be.

They messed up the pricing. Even a decent set / theme can be killed by way overpricing it.

They could probably have got away with one error, but not all three.

If we had play tested it, I think we (as a family) would have been generally positive, but would we have been asked to comment on pricing and marketing? Probably not. Would we have been given the final app? Probably not. The updated app with stages wasn't even ready until just before the stages were released, after review sets were sent out. So I reckon play testers were positive to it, just that lego really screwed up what happened next.

[sunhuntin]

9 hours ago, Robert8 said:

I don't think so

They are still on Shop @ Home

https://www.lego.com/en-ae/product/bandmates-43108

When I clicked "buy", it took me to another website called Yellow Blocks, which apparently is the official LEGO website for Dubai and Abu Dhabi. No sign of VIdiyo anywhere on that site.