Lego David

Why does Playmobil still have Historic themes, but not LEGO?

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6 hours ago, ArneNielsen said:

Though I must say, that most kids I know have both LEGO and Playmobil, and they happily mix them together when playing.

 

Yeah, I used to do the same decades ago. Lego was mainly for the bricks and wheels, playmobil and old plastic soldiers for figures, cheap farm buckets for animals, ... everything got mixed up. My kids do the same now although they have way more minifigs than I had (and they were fixed arms/legs ones).

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On 9/27/2021 at 3:36 AM, Cwetqo said:

You checked wrong.

 

image.thumb.png.253ec3c0fcc921b3346e14b3b7117f96.png

Nice is the way we communicate here.  So. I'll excuse you this time. But I'm on a different continent than you with a totally different marketplace. Take that into consideration next time. Thank you.

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On 9/30/2021 at 9:27 PM, Cwetqo said:

Sorry, did not know that selection is so limited there.

It's not: https://www.playmobil.us/shop-online/shop/history


history.thumb.PNG.c0d732f5d51ee28b253de20219351d3d.PNG

And there are more.

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Wait wait wait... Achilles and Patroclus? Ulysses and Circe?

Dang. If I'd been a Playmobil collector rather than a Lego collector I could've started a Madeline Miller collection!

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On 9/26/2021 at 12:32 PM, Lyichir said:

I think one aspect of Playmobil that can be a bit confusing in this respect is that from my experience, Playmobil sometimes tends to be available for much longer than Lego, which usually sells through older product in a year or two. Growing up in the U.S., Playmobil tended to be stocked more in independent toy stores which were under comparatively less pressure to cycle through new products (and thus often had a wide selection of playsets dating back years), whereas in big chain toy stores like Toys R Us (when they were around), only a small aisle of some of the newer Playmobil playsets and figures tended to be available (and it was rare to see it at all in big box stores like Wal-Mart or Target). Then again, that may just be a factor of how comparatively niche Playmobil is here compared to Europe.

Play mobile has to keep products available for much longer than Lego. This is due to the differing nature of their tooling costs. As a building set maker Lego’s tooling costs are mostly in fairly universal elements. Which can be amortized across multiple products and product lines. You will almost never see unique tooling from or for a single set. Whereas with Playmobile almost every set has some unique tooling. So they have to stretch out the shelf life of a given product to fully amortize the tooling costs. 

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On 10/3/2021 at 8:52 AM, Samus Aran said:

Is Athena there ?

No, but they have Aphrodite!

They have many others too. Just click the link and scroll down.

If you have a friend in the UK or Europe however....

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https://www.playmobil.co.uk/athena/9150.html

Edited by leafan

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I loved both Playmobil and LEGO as a kid so when it came time to get post-DUPLO toys for my kids (three kids 7 and under) I tried out some cheap Playmobil sets and broke out some of my classic LEGOs. They were so much more creative with the LEGO bricks! Playmobil was great for roleplaying, but didn't give them the freedom to totally design the world.

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23 hours ago, TheLegoDr said:

Now I want to buy Playmobil...*oh2* c'mon LEGO give us some Historic sets!

Seriously, they could crush it. They’ve given us glimpses with CMF’s and the underwater setting of 7985 City of Atlantis set. Historical or mythological. 

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Only playmobil and lego know why - maybe they just split the market. Lego took the mech-ninja theme and playmobil historic stuff :)

While I don't have much hope for more historic sets in the near future, I hope lego will cater to us and produce more mini-figs from time to time.

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Even before the complete take over of licences/blockbusters and cinematic universes, Lego's "classic" themes failed or at least weren't that profitable. Among them being Galaxy squad, pirates and castle. The latter two were pretty conservative and could have used more creativity/detail and personality like we get with Ninjago. "Lone Ranger" portrayed - though being a licence - a pretty classic western scenario and according to the word failed pretty badly.

I think Lego is on the right track by using existing themes for new interpretations of classic themes. And if a medevil wave of Ninjago and some Creator sets works have success - then they'd get motivated into doing an independent theme.

I think it might be also a factor that Lego is simply too expensive to successfully start a new project. Playmobil also ain't cheap but from them or other brands you get quite a lot for your money anyway. If   buy a decent castle from Lego, you gotta grab deep in your pockets.

The solution I think would be an inclusion of more bricks per set, especially location based sets. From alternative "Lego" brands you get an awesome huge dinosaur for 50€ while you'd pay 200€ from Lego.

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On 10/6/2021 at 10:36 AM, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

Even before the complete take over of licences/blockbusters and cinematic universes, Lego's "classic" themes failed or at least weren't that profitable. Among them being Galaxy squad, pirates and castle.

What sales records are you taking that information from? I hear that said a lot but nobody seems to have any hard proof of it.

On 10/6/2021 at 10:36 AM, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

"Lone Ranger" portrayed - though being a licence - a pretty classic western scenario and according to the word failed pretty badly.

That wouldn't surprise me, but it was based on a film is was factually, a massive flop. Also, Western, outside of America, isn't that popular (even though I personally like it).

Those days of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne being household names are long gone.

Back to the OP; Lego could approach this in so many ways, from licensing a magazine series on world history (with a free minifig included on every issue), to releasing a full theme of educational historical sets; but they choose not to.

For a long time I held off buying Playmobil, but the options are just too good, and it's pretty cheap by Lego standards. My boy doesn't care if it's Lego or Playmobil, so why not.

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46 minutes ago, leafan said:

Back to the OP; Lego could approach this in so many ways, from licensing a magazine series on world history (with a free minifig included on every issue), to releasing a full theme of educational historical sets; but they choose not to.

They already do an educational magazine - at least in some countries - LEGO EXPLORER. The third issue was on medieval history.

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My kids have had a few of them, and it is quite nice that they change the subject matter so they can inspire different things and do not get stale. They have had robots, castle, deep sea, space, birds, insects... This is probably far more interesting and educational than only history along the lines of this is what a castle looks like, this is what another castle looks like, this is what yet another castle looks like, ... Of course they could change eras, but that would mean disparate figures that don't necessarily go together like random ones in the CMFs (if they did figures instead of polybag builds with the magazine).

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5 hours ago, leafan said:

What sales records are you taking that information from? I hear that said a lot but nobody seems to have any hard proof of it.

That wouldn't surprise me, but it was based on a film is was factually, a massive flop. Also, Western, outside of America, isn't that popular (even though I personally like it).

Those days of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne being household names are long gone.

Back to the OP; Lego could approach this in so many ways, from licensing a magazine series on world history (with a free minifig included on every issue), to releasing a full theme of educational historical sets; but they choose not to.

For a long time I held off buying Playmobil, but the options are just too good, and it's pretty cheap by Lego standards. My boy doesn't care if it's Lego or Playmobil, so why not.

if those days are gone though: why does it work with Playmobil but not with Lego? And you could also say the same with any other "classic" theme, once Lord of the rings, GoT or whatever is "out" for some time. Anyway: LR was still a "classic" line up of sets. Could not have been more classic. Could have brought out every set without big changes and noone would have noticed :pir-grin:

....I dont have numbers! Maybe I'm wrong. Just the fact that those relaunches were shortlived and Lego didn't continue something similar afterwards. Like with NK they didn't seem to have had enough trust for a purely medevil theme.

Other than this my own experience was that many sets of those themes were heavily on sale - comparable to the last HS or NK waves, where you could see them sets like 50-80% off. As I travel due to my work throuout Europe and visist many shops when  I can; that's not nothing but of course it's no objective number.

What I find sad is, that Lego and the community seem unable to establish communication, where we could get proper answers to this kinds of questions. Maybe I'm wrong and they would say "we want to do something different". As it's a huge pile of money though - I assume if they don't produce it, they don't see money in it.

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6 hours ago, MAB said:

They already do an educational magazine - at least in some countries - LEGO EXPLORER. The third issue was on medieval history.

Yeah I already know about that as I'm in the UK, and it's not exactly what I had in mind. A magazine tied into true history with an associated minifigure.

1 hour ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

if those days are gone though: why does it work with Playmobil but not with Lego? And you could also say the same with any other "classic" theme, once Lord of the rings, GoT or whatever is "out" for some time. Anyway: LR was still a "classic" line up of sets. Could not have been more classic. Could have brought out every set without big changes and noone would have noticed

It doesn't - whilst Playmobil does a bit of Western, it's not common like the other Historical eras are. LOTR and GoT are franchises, and can go out of date too; but comparing that to how Western is now irrelevant to most is a bit disingenuous. One hasn't been popular for 35-40 years, the other is very recent in comparison.

At the end of the day, if anyone is mainly into Lego for the historical themes; it wouldn't hurt to expand your horizons a little and buy a Playmobil set. Waiting for TLG to release more is not going to be fruitful.

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7 hours ago, leafan said:

Yeah I already know about that as I'm in the UK, and it's not exactly what I had in mind. A magazine tied into true history with an associated minifigure.

Aimed at kids? The market is already pretty full with LEGO magazines/comics. And the figures given with them tend to be ones from retail sets anyway, so I doubt they would actually provide anything new. 

 

10 hours ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

if those days are gone though: why does it work with Playmobil but not with Lego? And you could also say the same with any other "classic" theme, once Lord of the rings, GoT or whatever is "out" for some time. Anyway: LR was still a "classic" line up of sets. Could not have been more classic. Could have brought out every set without big changes and noone would have noticed :pir-grin:
 

Lone Ranger wasn't Classic. It was tied to a movie, and so had scenes from the movie. I thought they sold reasonably well at the time, and especially when put on 20 or 33 percent discount. They were cleared once the movie disappeared from cinemas, like most one off themes tied to a contemporary movie release.

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3 hours ago, MAB said:

Aimed at kids? The market is already pretty full with LEGO magazines/comics. And the figures given with them tend to be ones from retail sets anyway, so I doubt they would actually provide anything new.  

 

Either kids or kids/adults. Right off the top of my head - a tie in with Horrible Histories.

Some of the magazines have exclusive minifigures. I'm pretty sure that the old Nexo Knights one had some. Doesn't cost much to make a new print.

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7 hours ago, leafan said:

Either kids or kids/adults. Right off the top of my head - a tie in with Horrible Histories.

Some of the magazines have exclusive minifigures. I'm pretty sure that the old Nexo Knights one had some. Doesn't cost much to make a new print.

None of the magazines have had any exclusive prints to my knowledge. The few that have had "exclusive" minifigures are generally variants of ones from sets (for example, a Ninjago ninja with a different mask or armor than the one they appeared in sets with) using a mix of already available parts. Some of the repurposing for figures, weapons, etc. can be quite interesting, but it's not really a source for brand-new minifigures. Nor would that be likely to be the case in the future—given that magazine gifts are essentially free with the purchase of a magazine, there's likely not a lot of profit margin for Lego there (with the benefit to Lego being more about encouraging kids to pick up other sets that Lego already makes a higher profit on).

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1 hour ago, Lyichir said:

None of the magazines have had any exclusive prints to my knowledge. The few that have had "exclusive" minifigures are generally variants of ones from sets (for example, a Ninjago ninja with a different mask or armor than the one they appeared in sets with) using a mix of already available parts. Some of the repurposing for figures, weapons, etc. can be quite interesting, but it's not really a source for brand-new minifigures. Nor would that be likely to be the case in the future—given that magazine gifts are essentially free with the purchase of a magazine, there's likely not a lot of profit margin for Lego there (with the benefit to Lego being more about encouraging kids to pick up other sets that Lego already makes a higher profit on).

Yeah, they’re only exclusive in the way the figures are configured - none of the parts or prints are ever unique.

On 10/2/2021 at 5:57 PM, Alexandrina said:

Wait wait wait... Achilles and Patroclus? Ulysses and Circe?

Dang. If I'd been a Playmobil collector rather than a Lego collector I could've started a Madeline Miller collection!

You and your agenda 😂

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Nexo Knight magazine had a few rarer parts only seen in 1 set, but I don't think it had entirely unique parts (unlike some of the Nexo Knight books that were released, one had Semi-Stone Clay exclusive to that book)

Edited by TeriXeri

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8 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Nexo Knight magazine had a few rarer parts only seen in 1 set, but I don't think it had entirely unique parts (unlike some of the Nexo Knight books that were released, one had Semi-Stone Clay exclusive to that book)

Many of the cyclopedia had unique minifigs with unique prints. Green Ninja ZX, electrosuit Batman, Luke and Han with medals, two Harry Potters, toy soldier. 

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On 10/7/2021 at 6:42 PM, leafan said:

That wouldn't surprise me, but it was based on a film is was factually, a massive flop. Also, Western, outside of America, isn't that popular (even though I personally like it).

Those days of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne being household names are long gone.

The idea that the Western Genre was only popular in America is a myth. You might think that way since the setting is in America, but the truth is, Westerns used to be one of the most popular movie genres in both America and Europe. 

If that weren't the case, we probably would never have gotten to see the legendary Spaghetti Westerns. 

I do believe Western as a genre is still widely recognized and appreciated by the masses, its just the stream of recent mediocre Hollywood titles that have failed that gives the impression that the Western genre is dead. But meanwhile, Western Videogames such as Red Dead Redemption 2 still manage to defy all expectations by making more money in its first weekend of release than Avengers: Endgame did. 

Sure, the days of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne may be long gone, but despite that, the Westerns Genre has still never quite fully disappeared from the public mind. 

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2 hours ago, Lego David said:

The idea that the Western Genre was only popular in America is a myth. You might think that way since the setting is in America, but the truth is, Westerns used to be one of the most popular movie genres in both America and Europe. 

If that weren't the case, we probably would never have gotten to see the legendary Spaghetti Westerns. 

I do believe Western as a genre is still widely recognized and appreciated by the masses, its just the stream of recent mediocre Hollywood titles that have failed that gives the impression that the Western genre is dead. But meanwhile, Western Videogames such as Red Dead Redemption 2 still manage to defy all expectations by making more money in its first weekend of release than Avengers: Endgame did. 

Sure, the days of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne may be long gone, but despite that, the Westerns Genre has still never quite fully disappeared from the public mind. 

I love a good Western as much as anyone, but Red Dead seems to be an exception, with mitigating circumstances. Namely: it was an eagerly awaited follow-up to a hugely acclaimed game from a decade ago, released by a studio that had a track record of producing great games, and it was itself getting very consistent excellent press. ANY game that hyped would do just as well. (It's also a bit disingenuous to say "Western Videogames such as Red Dead" - it's just Red Dead, really, there aren't any other Western games that are making mad money.)

The problem with the genre (problematic tropes aside) is that recent acclaimed Western movies have tended to skew towards a much more mature audience than the children who are Lego's main audience. Films like Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and Bone Tomahawk were widely acclaimed and very popular (disclaimer: I have no idea how Bone Tomahawk did in cinemas) but their contents are widely inappropriate for a Lego set, and they're doing nothing to build an appetite for Westerns among Lego's target audience. Combine this with the other side of the issue: there's no single large-scale set indicative of the entire genre that could be released to target the adult fans of the genre.

As an anecdote for the decline of the genre's popularity, at least in the UK: the famous PSA film "Apaches" was released in 1977 and depicts children playing 'Cowboys and Indians' on a farm. This, evidently, was partly down to it being a popular game to play. I grew up a quarter of a century later and literally never encountered anybody playing 'Cowboys and Indians'. We played similar games, but usually with Star Wars characters. I imagine the current generation play Avengers too.

In any case, Western is undeniably not a popular genre in the UK right now. We have no TV shows and it's very rare that a film in the genre gets widely promoted here, and it's without fail the smallest genre section in HMV too.

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