The shift from creativity to consumer fan base?

[mikaelsol]

Hi peeps of the world,

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that it's bad to just be happy with building the sets as they are)

A thing I've been contemplating over is the shift that I would say has happened in recent years where the AFOL hobby was a creative hobby with large focus on MOC:s, and now more has shifted over to buying, building and placing expensive sets.

I still think that all those creative AFOLs are around, but that they're/we are being overshadowed by those who are happy with just building sets.

I notice this on different social media platforms. On YouTube the buying and placing channels gets more views than the MOC channels, and the same with likes on instagram. In Facebook groups there's a lot of focus on "look at what I bought" and "look what you can buy".

A friend of mine has noticed this pattern in other areas. She knitted a sweater for her child, and her friends where very impressed by this.
Her sentiment was that today we confuse consumerism with creativity. 

If I speak for myself, I started collecting Star Wars LEGO back in 1999. For many years we didn't really have a large range of sets from Star Wars, so we had to build or own MOC's to compensate for that, and I would say that it's from that era that communities like Eurobricks, from bricks to bothans etc grew from.

These days LEGO is catering to so many different franchises and pushing out more sets than ever, and maybe the price for this is a lower interest for personal expression and MOCs.

Or am I just hanging out on the wrong platforms? What are your thoughts about this?


 

[MAB]

I used to build MOCs. I still build MOCs. I also collect and display sets from some themes. It doesn't really bother me that LEGO now makes sets specifically targeted at adults. If people want to talk about those sets or watch videos about those  sets, whether it is buying, building, or displaying them, then I don't really see the issue. There are many more adults building LEGO sets or MOCs these days and I think that is a good thing, both for them and longer term AFOLs. It is not seen as weird for playing with a kids' toy these days. I don't think there is any less creativity now compared to before, just that more people are into LEGO and many new people focus on sets. There might be people watching more youtube videos on sets than MOCs, but does it matter? The number of views of the MOC videos has probably also gone up. It is what happens when more people join a hobby and like one aspect of it, but it doesn't mean the original 'hardcore' has to change if they don't want to. No doubt some new fans will eventually come round to MOC building, just as some MOC builders will enjoy the new 18+ sets.

 

 

[koalayummies]

Yep. Set discussions get tens to hundreds of thousands of replies, hundreds of pages deep, about what new instructions consumers will get to follow like robots obeying programming, while fellow builder's MOCs get maybe a couple of replies at best with many completely ignored by the overwhelming majority. Along with the ever increasing irrational capitalistic activity of purchasing these products for speculation rather than consumption.

It is a shame how the practically limitless creative potential of this thing is so often disregarded in favor of what the company shows they have built.

6 hours ago, mikaelsol said:

Or am I just hanging out on the wrong platforms? What are your thoughts about this?

Yes; support your fellow builders here on EB and they'll support you back. There's decent chunk of EB members that embody the creator spirit. And then also get on flickr and start following exclusively MOCers, they're very easy to spot with a cursory glance through their stream. There's a sizable number of builders that only post MOCs and nothing else and you'll recognize a lot of those names as members on here as well. It's all MOC all day long with them; the pinnacle of Leg Godt. And don't follow anyone posting pictures of piles of unopened boxes from their bi-weekly trip to the Lego store.

[TeriXeri]

There are certainly a lot of different interests and sub-communities here, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Overall activity across the board seems to have gone up compared to a couple years ago, but LEGO also got a lot more media attention, especially adult related like LEGO Masters, and the adults/18+ approach drawing in more then just teens or younger ones.

 

3-in-1 represents the core of LEGO to me, as it provides a base, and maybe with the recent shift to Pirates, Castle, semi-Sci-fi space, etc, more AFOL will discover it, the Town aspect of the theme has slowed down a bit though.

3-in-1 is also a theme I'm completely baffled what people come up with as alternate builds in entirely different contexts,

Edited January 13, 2022 by TeriXeri

[Geihlen]

On a personal level this transition definitely happened, at least in part, to me and I'm not exactly sure the root cause. I never really had a dark age, I've been building with Lego since I was old enough to not eat them (and it was Duplo before that) and there hasn't been a single year of my life without at least one new set being purchased by myself or being given to me as a gift. With that said, until very recently, I hadn't tapped into the creative aspect of Lego in probably 15 years. As I'm typing this I realize that all my creative outlets basically got nuked around that same time. Over the last few years, drawing and writing have come back and now Lego as a creative outlet has too.

I think that my setup was also somewhat detrimental to this process too. I don't have a room dedicated to my hobbies, my thousands upon thousands of bricks are in huge storage bins. In fact, the bins I had as a child are still in use for the same purpose today. So doing a MOC requires more searching than building, or a humungous, floor consuming mess that still requires tons of rummaging.

I can't speak to the community as a whole, truthfully my interaction with it was extremely minimal until I decided to be creative with Lego again. I will say that it has been very rewarding to build this way again and to see what other people create. I visit these forums every day now and am floored by what people come up with. Whether it's something that's totally sprung from their head, or a passion project to recreate their favorite car, or spaceship, or whatever in brick, it's truly amazing stuff. So, even if the focus of the community at large leans heavily on sets and related discussion, the MOCs are far away the most interesting and rewarding part for me.

[Johnny1360]

I think it is cool more people are finally realizing it is okay for an adult to buy LEGO, something I have had no problem with for many years though. Since I much enjoy the creative aspect, I tend to ignore those platforms altogether, no Facebook or Instagram for me, no time for their shenanigans, occasionally I will check out YouTube though. I am guilty of being a set builder but I often throw together small mocs and proof of concepts, in the process of building those sets, especially if new parts are involved. Very few of my sets stay together for more than a few months and quickly end up in the parts bin. May be hard to believe but this forum is about the extent of my social media presence and I really enjoy the way people help each other out, unlike many other places. To each their own, I just do what I like and could really care less what the masses think.

[karmajay]

I think there is plenty of room for both types of Lego fans. I'm not artistically creative so I enjoy building from instructions even if it is a set of MOC instructions I've purchased.

Maybe one reason a shift may have been felt from the OPs time is that back in the 90s early 2000s a majority of MOCs could easily look like a purchasable set or even better then it. Today, Lego has done a good job of making top tier models of SW stuff that few creators can beat without adding a ton more bricks.

[Vindicare]

For me, I tend to linger longer on official sets. That’s mostly to see how people place their Modulars together to see what combo they did. I don’t do a whole lot of MOCing, so my interest there isn’t very high. I follow folks who do both big & small MOCs. Those who MOD sets & those who just build officially & display. 

There’s definitely still a lot of creative MOCers out there, it just may take a bit more digging to find them. 

[smazmats]

I have been pondering this as well!  Even though I've only been activity participating in online Lego Communities for the past couple years, I've been lurking for almost a decade and the AFOL world defiantly feels more commercialized and centered around consuming rather then creating. Full disclaimer, I do sell MOCs on rebrickable so I'm somewhat guilty of feeding the system (though I always make smaller builds under 500 pcs free and use it more as a way to offset the cost of future MOCs rather then making a profit). I think the reason the set builders seem to overshadow MOC-ers everywhere nowadays is because the barrier of entry is lower so more people can do it. It can take a considerable amount of skill and knowledge to build a MOC from scratch, though the only real difficulty to building a sets is paying for them. 

I also think part of the reason the AFOL community feels more commercial now  is the rise of accessible tools like Stud.io and Rebrickable, which make it easier then ever to make and sell MOC instructions to a point where its expected by people that you have instructions available for your model. I've also noticed more and more people making MOCs just to sell them for profit or to post on Lego IDEAS, which in itself isn't really a bad thing, though it can get quite problematic if they continuously spammed everywhere which can sour online Lego communities like those on Reddit and especially Facebook.

 

[Mylenium]

There's certainly a ton of MOCs, but even within this sub-set there seems to be a divide between those doing it just for fun and those trying to get rich & famous off it. Other than that there's certainly a trend of commercializing hobbies or your skill set everywhere. I definitely notice it in the graphics industry with everyone selling stock art and many neophyte's primary motivation to even learn programs being to make a buck or two. As for LEGO specifically i think it simply has become very mainstream-y with the company actively pushing in a certain direction and the mere flood of commercial sets also simply taking a lot of attention away from MOCs. Point in case: If you just want to build stuff, you'll always find something without even digging into MOCs and outside specific interests and communities this simply has been gnawing away at the merits and popularity of custom building. That and let's not forget that competing products have also become more widely available, further dividing the user base. There could be a nice MOC out there that you're never going to be interested in because the creator licensed it to some Chinese company that you have no interest in...

Mylenium

[CP5670]

I agree with others that there is room for both types of people. I have done both collecting and building at different times in the past, and many moc builders got into the hobby by first building sets. Lego for adults is way more mainstream now than it was 10 years ago, and there are probably 100s of times more people in the hobby now. I'm more interested in mocs than sets these days, partly because I have too many sets and not enough time to build them all or space to put them. I do occasionally sell sets, but more for managing my own collection than to make money. I can make more money doing other things and would rather not turn a hobby into something that feels like work.

[kibosh]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:45 AM, mikaelsol said:

I notice this on different social media platforms. On YouTube the buying and placing channels gets more views than the MOC channels, and the same with likes on instagram. In Facebook groups there's a lot of focus on "look at what I bought" and "look what you can buy".

You're right about YouTube.  People talking about official sets are wildly popular.  So are videos of people playing video games.  I just don't understand YouTube.  Maybe I'm just old, but I don't have the attention span for long form videos.  I much prefer TikTok, Instagram, etc.  Shorter content, and I feel more of an emphasis on MOC creation and helping fellow builders.

On 1/13/2022 at 3:12 PM, koalayummies said:

Yep. Set discussions get tens to hundreds of thousands of replies, hundreds of pages deep, about what new instructions consumers will get to follow like robots obeying programming, while fellow builder's MOCs get maybe a couple of replies at best with many completely ignored by the overwhelming majority. Along with the ever increasing irrational capitalistic activity of purchasing these products for speculation rather than consumption.

While I have shifted from building sets to MOCs only in the last few years, I still do buy a lot of sets.  I get construction ideas from them that I incorporate into my own builds.  As for the differences in comments, is it intimidation?  Anyone has the ability to buy sets, build them, and discuss them.  Not everyone has access to the parts your typical AFOL does.  Not everyone can build in the scale we do.  Maybe that's what turns them off.

[Feuer Zug]

I prefer a mix. The modular buildings are great options for creating a well designed town, but I tend to branch out into MOCs for other things. It does appear to be far more commercialized now in regards to adult offerings. The flip side is LEGO finally recognizes there is a market for adults and has given us more offerings. As to the social media side, Eurobricks is about as social as I get. I don't follow any Youtube or Flickr or whatever people. Sorry, but not my cup of tea.

[Lego David]

Honestly, from my point of view purchasing sets just to get the building experience and then do nothing else with the set but leaving it on display to gather dust feels a bit too much like mindless consumerism to me. That's why I believe MOC making is far more productive and beneficial than just purchasing everything LEGO throws at the market. 

I have noticed how in the past few years, there has come this weird sentiment that "only some people are good at MOCing". For instance, if someone makes a MOC and it doesn't get appreciated, they would just revert back to building official sets because "they're not good at it".

For the record, I think this mindset has been a huge block to creativity around the community. Because of this, a lot of people tend to just admire more experienced builders and think about how they'll never be as good, when in reality how "good" some of those MOCs are is merely a perception... Everyone can develop their own unique building style, and shouldn't look up to others as their reference point. 

I also think people around here should give MOCs more appreciation. Most of the MOC topics barely get any replies, which can be very discouraging for the creators of those MOCs, and in turn would result in them not making anymore MOCs. So please people, let's go ahead and encourage any type of creativity whenever possible. 

[Yperio_Bricks]

8 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Honestly, from my point of view purchasing sets just to get the building experience and then do nothing else with the set but leaving it on display to gather dust feels a bit too much like mindless consumerism to me. That's why I believe MOC making is far more productive and beneficial than just purchasing everything LEGO throws at the market. 

I have noticed how in the past few years, there has come this weird sentiment that "only some people are good at MOCing". For instance, if someone makes a MOC and it doesn't get appreciated, they would just revert back to building official sets because "they're not good at it".

For the record, I think this mindset has been a huge block to creativity around the community. Because of this, a lot of people tend to just admire more experienced builders and think about how they'll never be as good, when in reality how "good" some of those MOCs are is merely a perception... Everyone can develop their own unique building style, and shouldn't look up to others as their reference point. 

I also think people around here should give MOCs more appreciation. Most of the MOC topics barely get any replies, which can be very discouraging for the creators of those MOCs, and in turn would result in them not making anymore MOCs. So please people, let's go ahead and encourage any type of creativity whenever possible. 

Well spoken! I agree with everything you said.

[Mylenium]

1 hour ago, Lego David said:

I have noticed how in the past few years, there has come this weird sentiment that "only some people are good at MOCing". For instance, if someone makes a MOC and it doesn't get appreciated, they would just revert back to building official sets because "they're not good at it".

Dunno... Not meaning to be a party pooper, but to me that sounds a bit like the claim that anyone who can hold a brush is painter. Bob Ross may have said so, but it is far from the truth. Some MOCs just aren't good or at least interesting, so them not getting much attention strikes me as perfectly normal. Call me a snob, but I expect a certain level of sophistication and excellence in any medium, be that just on the technical merits or the artistic expression and I just can't help but sit here and feel "Yeah, a bunch of stacked bricks. So what?" on some MOCs. I don't mean to discourage anyone, but to me this is a matter of "If you're not committed and lean into it, why even bother?". I can totally get behind a MOC if I just "feel" that someone had fun doing it, even a random thing bashed together by a kid, but I just don't like many lazy jobs that simply feel uninspired or all too obviously play on that "Look what I have here!" kind of attention grabbing. It's what keeps me from supporting many LEGO Ideas projects, BTW...

Mylenium

Edited January 18, 2022 by Mylenium

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

Honestly, from my point of view purchasing sets just to get the building experience and then do nothing else with the set but leaving it on display to gather dust feels a bit too much like mindless consumerism to me. That's why I believe MOC making is far more productive and beneficial than just purchasing everything LEGO throws at the market. 

Whether it is mindless or not really depends on what the purchaser wants from it. If someone likes building official sets and then displaying them, or photographing them, or reviewing them, or whatever, so long as they get what they want from it then it is mindful rather than mindless. It would be mindless if they felt the need to buy even if it gave them no pleasure. Just like if someone buys LEGO only for the minifigs as they enjoy collecting minifigs but not actually building (MOCs or following instructions). 

Some people don't have the time to MOC well or even at all or find it very frustrating if they try. If building a set by following the instructions gives them some relaxing time, then that is what they should do.

3 hours ago, Lego David said:

I also think people around here should give MOCs more appreciation. Most of the MOC topics barely get any replies, which can be very discouraging for the creators of those MOCs, and in turn would result in them not making anymore MOCs. So please people, let's go ahead and encourage any type of creativity whenever possible. 

I sometimes comment on MOCs but what turns me off are the requests for IDEAS votes. I tend to stop reading at the first IDEAS link. If that comes in the first line or paragraph, I won't even bother to look further. There are some people that advertise / spam multiple forums without really wanting to discuss their MOCs. They come, they post the links and they go. I think people wanting to profit from IDEAS has changed many discussion forums.

[Lego David]

12 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Dunno... Not meaning to be a party pooper, but to me that sounds a bit like the claim that anyone who can hold a brush is painter. Bob Ross may have said so, but it is far from the truth. Some MOCs just aren't good or at least interesting, so them not getting much attention strikes me as perfectly normal. Call me a snob, but I expect a certain level of sophistication and excellence in any medium, be that just on the technical merits or the artistic expression and I just can't help but sit here and feel "Yeah, a bunch of stacked bricks. So what?" on some MOCs. I don't mean to discourage anyone, but to me this is a matter of "If you're not committed and lean into it, why even bother?". I can totally get behind a MOC if I just "feel" that someone had fun doing it, even a random thing bashed together by a kid, but I just don't like many lazy jobs that simply feel uninspired or all too obviously play on that "Look what I have here!" kind of attention grabbing. It's what keeps me from supporting many LEGO Ideas projects, BTW...

Mylenium

I mean, you would hardly see anyone here on Eurobricks just stack a bunch of bricks on top of each other and call it a "MOC". Some MOCs may be more complex, visually appealing, bigger, etc, but I think anyone above the age of 12 has the capability to build something respectable, even if it it doesn't meet the standards of more experienced builders. 

Not everyone who holds a brush is a "painter" but I can certainly say that everyone who holds a brush can become a painter. I agree that some people just have natural talents towards certain things, but most of the time, it is just 20% talent and 80% practice. 

Not even Leonardo Da Vinci himself was born with the talent to paint Mona Lisa. He might have been good at painting from a young age, but it took him a while to get to the point where he made all the masterpieces we remember him for. 

That's why I personally believe any aspiring painter, MOCer, sculptor, artist whatever should be encouraged in what he is doing right from the start, even if his first few creations are perceived by others as "not good". 

Believe me, as someone who has been involved in the Bionicle MOCing community for quite a while, most of the people in there held the exact same mentality on you, and that has had a devastating effect on less experienced builders (myself included, in many cases, that's why I haven't been as active in there for a while). 

10 hours ago, MAB said:

Some people don't have the time to MOC well or even at all or find it very frustrating if they try. If building a set by following the instructions gives them some relaxing time, then that is what they should do

I mean, fair enough, I am not saying buying a large set and enjoying the building experience once in a while is bad per say, though if you keep spending insane amounts of money just to get that brief few hours of relaxation, it kind of has a similar effect to drugs, in my opinion. I know this probably isn't a good comparison, but if your lifestyle involves taking a weekly trip to the LEGO store and buying 500$ worth of LEGO every time just to get that relaxation, you might have to stop for a minute and consider whether this really is helpful for you and your finances or not. 

[Mylenium]

1 hour ago, Lego David said:

Not even Leonardo Da Vinci himself was born with the talent to paint Mona Lisa.

Was he, though? Funny that you mention him, as I pretty much feel like him on some days - I rarely get things finished because I distract myself with too much other stuff and am constantly unsatisfied with my own work. I would probably take 25 years to finish the M.L. just as well and then technically it wasn't even finished. He just died. :-)

1 hour ago, Lego David said:

That's why I personally believe any aspiring painter, MOCer, sculptor, artist whatever should be encouraged in what he is doing right from the start, even if his first few creations are perceived by others as "not good".

Yeah, sure, I fully agree on that with you, but that doesn't mean that everyone will reach a certain level of skill no matter how hard they practice. And that is kind of the point. You have to recognize your limitations just as well or else you just end up being a hack. That's like those many "aspiring VFX artists" I regularly encounter in my other life. They may be able to create a certain effect on the technical merits, but many of them never evolve to a point where they could be truly great simply because they just don't put in the work to learn stuff like image composition, camera techniques, lighting or how to generally produce stuff plus the quirks of their favorite graphics programs. That's basically what I mean: You can't forever oparate at a certain level without making progress and I feel the same about MOCs.

Mylenium

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Lego David said:

I mean, fair enough, I am not saying buying a large set and enjoying the building experience once in a while is bad per say, though if you keep spending insane amounts of money just to get that brief few hours of relaxation, it kind of has a similar effect to drugs, in my opinion. I know this probably isn't a good comparison, but if your lifestyle involves taking a weekly trip to the LEGO store and buying 500$ worth of LEGO every time just to get that relaxation, you might have to stop for a minute and consider whether this really is helpful for you and your finances or not. 

Also for some people it causes anxiety to break up sets worth $100s and mix them up. If they don't buy parts for MOCing but only sets, I can understand wanting to keep the sets complete because it is a huge amount of work to sort them out again if they want to rebuild the set or sell it on.

Different people enjoy different things, and I don't think other people should be blamed or shamed because they enjoy a different aspect of the hobby to you. So what if someone builds a set once then enjoys looking at it for the rest of the year. If they enjoy it, that is great. They shouldn't feel shamed into breaking it up and mixing it in with other LEGO and then have to create MOCs just because other people enjoy doing that. Not everyone wants to MOC, which is fine.

Edited January 19, 2022 by MAB

[danth]

Lego would immediately cancel all non-licensed sets/themes today if they could. Everything is going licensed. Even their Speed Champions sets (James Bond). Even IDEAS. What's left? Creator, City, Friends, and themes like Ninjago?

Hell, even Ninjago would go away if Lego ever scores a license like TMNT again. Do you remember when Lego released TMNT sets, and the number of Ninjago sets suddenly dropped from 48 sets in 2012 down to 9 in 2013? And then in 2015, when Lego lost the TMNT license, suddenly the number of Ninjago sets jumped to 48 again? 🤣

Lego HATES having non-licensed sets.

[Lyichir]

6 minutes ago, danth said:

Lego would immediately cancel all non-licensed sets/themes today if they could. Everything is going licensed. Even their Speed Champions sets (James Bond). Even IDEAS. What's left? Creator, City, Friends, and themes like Ninjago?

Hell, even Ninjago would go away if Lego ever scores a license like TMNT again. Do you remember when Lego released TMNT sets, and the number of Ninjago sets suddenly dropped from 48 sets in 2012 down to 9 in 2013? And then in 2015, when Lego lost the TMNT license, suddenly the number of Ninjago sets jumped to 48 again? 🤣

Lego HATES having non-licensed sets.

That's... absurdly untrue. I'm not honestly sure whether you're repeating rumors you've heard elsewhere or just making it up on the spot but there's barely a single word of truth in what you're saying.

Non-licensed sets are very valuable to Lego for a couple major reasons. The first and foremost reason is that the profit margin is bigger when Lego doesn't have to pay a licensing fee to another company. An in-house IP also allows Lego to control things like media output and ensure they don't have to suffer through a "dry spell" where there are no new movies in theaters to help drive sales or come up with new content to put in sets. There's a reason why during Lego's near-bankruptcy, it was Bionicle (not Star Wars, Spider-Man, or Harry Potter) that kept them afloat during their leanest year.

Blaming the decrease in Ninjago sets between 2013 and 2015 on TMNT is also totally inaccurate because the far bigger factor (which is well-documented) was that Legends of Chima launched in 2013, originally intended to outright REPLACE Ninjago. Ninjago's 2013 wave was meant to be a lower-budget send-off for a declining theme, like Lego had done for many earlier themes like Knights' Kingdom and Exo-Force, as they were readying Ninjago's "successor". But to Lego's surprise, Ninjago's sales and fanbase didn't actually taper off in the way its predecessors tended to, and there was a massive fan outcry on top of that when the news that the 2013 wave would be its last broke. So they hurriedly threw together a series of sets for the following year (even though, at that point, most of Ninjago's planned budget had been reassigned to Chima). The return to a larger number of sets in 2015 was not due to the end of the Ninja Turtles theme so much as because that was its first post-"cancellation" year of sets that got the theme's more typical budget and development time. Ninja Turtles ending that year (after generally NOT being anywhere near as successful as Ninjago had been, I might add) was mostly tangential to that. There's absolutely zero reason to think that even if the Ninja Turtles license became available to Lego again, Lego would sacrifice one of their biggest, most consistently successful themes for one that would be less reliable and farther outside Lego's own control.

[Lego David]

2 hours ago, danth said:

Lego HATES having non-licensed sets.

I don't think they "hate" having non-licensed per say, though I do agree that they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice any part of their brand as long as something else proves to be more easily  profitable. That's the problem when you are a giant megacorporation that almost rivals Disney... you no longer care about pursing your own unique concepts and ideas as much as you do about just pandering to the latest trends (even though they have all the power and resources to be trend setters instead of just trend followers, ironically enough). 

Meanwhile, other toy companies like Hasbro and Mattel, which took their original IPs seriously, have managed to create icons of the toy industry that everybody knows about even if they haven't owned a single toy from them, while all the general public associates with LEGO is just "Bricks" and not much else. 

[Toastie]

3 hours ago, danth said:

Lego HATES having non-licensed sets.

As I can follow your reasoning about license issues, why do you believe that a feeling (hate) is really of relevance to a world-wide operating corporation? I do not believe that TLG operates on feelings - at all. They operate on profit - as they have to. They have so many employees who expect to get their paycheck at the end of the month. I believe feelings need to be set aside (which is tough, count me in, getting older helps, when you ask me).

So yes, the licensing route may really be a dead end for the original, creativity driven path of the (very old) past. It is not profit wise. 

Best,
Thorsten

 

[danth]

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Non-licensed sets are very valuable to Lego for a couple major reasons. The first and foremost reason is that the profit margin is bigger when Lego doesn't have to pay a licensing fee to another company.

A bigger profit margin per set doesn't matter when you can more than make up for it with volume. Basic economics. Also we don't know what the profit margins are. Production costs per set goes down as volume goes up. So even after licensing fees, licensed sets could have the same or higher profit margins.

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

An in-house IP also allows Lego to control things like media output and ensure they don't have to suffer through a "dry spell" where there are no new movies in theaters to help drive sales or come up with new content to put in sets.

Exactly -- non-licensed sets are only a fallback plan for when they can't slap a license on something.

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Blaming the decrease in Ninjago sets between 2013 and 2015 on TMNT is also totally inaccurate because the far bigger factor (which is well-documented) was that Legends of Chima launched in 2013, originally intended to outright REPLACE Ninjago.

Good point but you can't say Ninjago went away because of Chima but TMNT had nothing to do with it. If Lego gets rid of one theme to make way for another theme, that applies for TMNT just as much as it applies for Chima. Both are fantasy/sci-fi themes with anthropomorphic fighting animals. You seriously think they weren't both in competition with Ninjago? Of course they were.

5 hours ago, Lego David said:

I don't think they "hate" having non-licensed per say, though I do agree that they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice any part of their brand as long as something else proves to be more easily  profitable.

Tomato tomahto. 😁 I totally agree though.

4 hours ago, Toastie said:

As I can follow your reasoning about license issues, why do you believe that a feeling (hate) is really of relevance to a world-wide operating corporation? I do not believe that TLG operates on feelings - at all.

It's a figure of speech. 🙂