The shift from creativity to consumer fan base?

[Peppermint_M]

16 hours ago, danth said:

Even their Speed Champions sets

Speed Champions has always been Licenced? They replicate existing car manufacturer's products, complete with badges and livery, all of that is licenced from the varied car companies else they would be infringing on the IP (as the car design and the branding are all IP of the company.) Licenced does not just mean a media franchise that TLG buy into so they can create tie-in toys.

The Fender Guitar is Licenced from Fender (And Fender are super litigious about their guitar designs being copied) The likenesses of The Beatles for the art set is Licenced from the respective members/members estates (or whatever entities they ceded the ownership/management of to). 

I think the main issue all toy producers face now is the market saturation of media properties and the expectation that their in-house products must have tie-in media. This isn't a new thing either, it has been forty years in development. From He-Man designers lying and saying a cartoon was in production to sell the toys, to GI Joe relaunching with a cartoon for the new nine-inch figures. The proliferation was inevitable due to the success of the model. Even increased regulations couldn't throttle it. Kids want to recreate what they see on the screen and then re-enact the stories and play new adventures.

Now, Fandom also drives a lot of sales. Where once it was a strange geek/nerd thing for an adult to have objects and apparel related to a film or TV series they loved (it was only for children to do that!) now it is an enormous industry and accepted. People can have their Mr T Pop Vinyl figure, their Ravenclaw crest keyring, the sticker that marks their laptop as Stark Industries. It becomes a kitsch and cool note (or the very foundation of the personality...) and as accepted as people who show support for a sports team with their hats/shirts/scarves. 

This means there is more money in creating these objects so companies will follow that money. With people having a desire to display their fandom, purchasing a LEGO set to display is one way to do it.

Creativity is manifested in many ways; I can build a MOC, but I can't code to save my life (I also struggled with the simple game building tools in Disney Infinity) while there are children on Roblox creating wild and varied games, who may not even consider LEGO as more than the Star Wars ship on their shelf. Someone could purchase and build a Friend's café set because of their love of baking/cooking (another creative pursuit) and display it proudly as another facet of their main love. 

Of course, it frustrates me that sharing a creation online does not gain attention. I like to think I have some technical skill that sets me apart from beginners, but I have a style that is not as extensively detailed (to put it politely) so it is often times there are a few Flickr "likes" and a comment or two on the forum but that is it. It is what it is, and I've not been able to MOC much in the past year and instead have had writing as a creative outlet. 

One thing everyone can do is comment on MOCs, if you think "Huh, that's nice" Tell the builder you think it is nice, whatever you like about it (colour choice, shaping, the figure!) It is not much effort and does not need to be an essay, but it encourages people and tells them they are noticed. If you can think of an improvement, share a tip or ask about the choice that led to the feature you're thinking of. It prompts discussion on a creative act. 

Anyway, this has been my TED Talk. Thank you. 

[Feuer Zug]

2 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

One thing everyone can do is comment on MOCs, if you think "Huh, that's nice" Tell the builder you think it is nice, whatever you like about it (colour choice, shaping, the figure!) It is not much effort and does not need to be an essay, but it encourages people and tells them they are noticed. If you can think of an improvement, share a tip or ask about the choice that led to the feature you're thinking of. It prompts discussion on a creative act. 

Anyway, this has been my TED Talk. Thank you. 

That about sums up my feelings for MOCs. Be nice and provide positive or creative feedback to people. Keep them interested.

[danth]

5 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Speed Champions has always been Licenced? They replicate existing car manufacturer's products, complete with badges and livery, all of that is licenced from the varied car companies else they would be infringing on the IP (as the car design and the branding are all IP of the company.) Licenced does not just mean a media franchise that TLG buy into so they can create tie-in toys.

Yep, in the Speed Champions case the movie licensing is new and that's what I was talking about.

The rest of your post might just be preaching to the choir. Yes, fandom drives sales. The problem is when licensed products replaces non-licensed options, especially for Lego where the whole point is building creatively.

[koalayummies]

The shift from posting discussions to disappearing OPs

[MAB]

On 1/19/2022 at 5:59 PM, danth said:

Lego would immediately cancel all non-licensed sets/themes today if they could.

They can, if they wanted to. Nobody is stopping them. The fact that they haven't stopped doing non-licensed sets suggests to me that they want to have a mixture of licensed and non-licensed sets in their portfolio.

Remember also, their sales do not just depend on what products they have on the shelves, they also depend on what other companies do not have on the shelves. If LEGO turns its back on Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC and Marvel, etc there would still be construction sets for all those themes. But they would be made by other companies. A decade ago, you could buy blind bag Marvel characters from Mega.bloks, you could buy Doctor Who sets from Character Building, Star Trek sets from KREO, MarioKart sets fro mk'nex, and so on. What were fans of those franchises buying - non-licensed LEGO sets or licensed sets based on the thing they are a fan of made by another company? LEGO could easily dump licenses but with it they will give a large proportion of their sales to other companies that pick up the licenses.

[TeriXeri]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

Remember also, their sales do not just depend on what products they have on the shelves, they also depend on what other companies do not have on the shelves. 

It also can depend on what other companies do have on shelves, I think at least in this case : 

Playmobil started doing "playmobil figure scale" james bond DB5 and goldfinger sets recently and now a LEGO speed Champion 007 DB5 is rumoured which would be the first bond figure.

If the rumour of the Speed Champion is true that is, if Speed Champion does make movie-based cars, an updated 8-wide DeLorean seems logical to follow, even while Playmobil currently also has BTTF sets.

Edited January 20, 2022 by TeriXeri
Edited.

[astral brick]

23 hours ago, danth said:

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.

In fact I begin to think that licensed sets have better profit margins. In the equation let's not forget the costs of designing from scratch new models, not to mention a new theme. Then there are the marketing costs. Copying Star Wars ships and selling them to the fanbase, with the help of constant releases of new movies, tv series or cartoons, it's easier, faster and cheaper than refreshing the Space theme, hoping that there will be enough customers willing to open their wallets. Same reasoning in relation to Harry Potter, Marvel/Dc superheroes, Technic cars and bikes.  

23 hours ago, danth said:

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

Sad but true.

[howitzer]

I haven't been reading all of the previous discussion, but as for the original question about creativity and MOC making, versus official sets and building them for display among AFOLs... I think the perceived shift has to do with the expansion of the AFOL market for TLG, much more adults are today buying sets for themselves than were in 10-20 years ago. This is also reflected in the selection of sets, with much more display sets available. This means that many more adults are buying one or few sets casually and building them, but with no intention at any point of taking them apart for MOC making - as opposed to other AFOLs, who are first and foremost builders themselves. It's not that the number of builder-AFOLs have decreased (quite the opposite probably) but it's that there are now also a huge number of adults who don't make MOCs and probably won't buy many sets at all. This is especially evident from the introduction of various sets which are made to look really good while having little to none play-features and come with a very targeted audience, like the Old Trafford or the Lamborghini Sian. Some MOC-maker AFOLs will of course buy those also, but I suspect vast majority will end up as dust collectors in the shelves of adults who like the subject matter and want something to reminisce of their childhood, but otherwise have no interest in Lego.

[danth]

22 hours ago, MAB said:

They can, if they wanted to. Nobody is stopping them. The fact that they haven't stopped doing non-licensed sets suggests to me that they want to have a mixture of licensed and non-licensed sets in their portfolio.

I think what's "stopping" them from replacing, say, City with a licensed theme, is there is no blockbuster movie/TV series about cops and firemen. Or if there was, it wouldn't be a kids show and would have lots of death/violence.

22 hours ago, MAB said:

Remember also, their sales do not just depend on what products they have on the shelves, they also depend on what other companies do not have on the shelves. If LEGO turns its back on Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC and Marvel, etc there would still be construction sets for all those themes. But they would be made by other companies. A decade ago, you could buy blind bag Marvel characters from Mega.bloks, you could buy Doctor Who sets from Character Building, Star Trek sets from KREO, MarioKart sets fro mk'nex, and so on. What were fans of those franchises buying - non-licensed LEGO sets or licensed sets based on the thing they are a fan of made by another company? LEGO could easily dump licenses but with it they will give a large proportion of their sales to other companies that pick up the licenses.

That's all great but it doesn't mean LEGO should replace beloved classic themes with licensed themes. At least they're starting to slightly rectify that with Creator but they seem terrified* of creating a Space-themed Creator set.

*No, I do not mean literally terrified. Yes, I know LEGO is a corporation, not a person. Please stop being pedantic. https://literaryterms.net/personification/

[Alexandrina]

5 minutes ago, danth said:

That's all great but it doesn't mean LEGO should replace beloved classic themes with licensed themes

I don't know that that has ever actually happened.

Looking at the main classic themes from Lego history:

Town/City is still going, and has never been licensed

Pirates was not replaced by a licensed theme in 1998 or 2015, nor was it immediately replaced by Pirates of the Caribbean in 2009

Castle was not replaced by Lord of the Rings, the two themes were concurrent; it was also concurrent with Harry Potter through the first two runs of that theme

Space was not replaced by Star Wars, since the two themes were concurrent for several years and Space themes have returned since too

Adventurers was not replaced by Indiana Jones; Adventurers was five years dead when Indy came about, and has not resurfaced in the decade since Indy disappeared either

Western was not replaced by the Lone Ranger, there were more than a decade between sets

Trains has not been replaced by a licensed theme (yes, individual licensed Train sets have been produced, but not a full theme)

[danth]

17 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Space was not replaced by Star Wars, since the two themes were concurrent for several years and Space themes have returned since too

*Shuffles notes* I have a response to this somewhere...aha!

On 9/18/2020 at 6:55 PM, danth said:

The first year ever, after 20+ steady years, that there were no Lego Space sets was 2000. This was immediately after the first ever Star Wars sets in 1999. Then, in 2001 when Space sets returned, they were on Mars. A real world in our very own solar system. Not deep space, not out in the galaxy. Not anything that could be confused with Star Wars. Then nothing for six years while Star Wars movies were in theaters.

Finally, in 2007 we got Lego Space sets again. On Mars...again. And just in time not to compete with the Revenge of the Sith sets.

Then we get pretty steady Lego Space on the shelves until 2014. Guess what happens the year after? The Force Awakens. 

All evidence points to some non-competition strategy to keep in-house Space sets off the shelves when there are Star Wars movies being made. 

As for these:

17 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

Pirates was not replaced by a licensed theme in 1998 or 2015, nor was it immediately replaced by Pirates of the Caribbean in 2009

Castle was not replaced by Lord of the Rings, the two themes were concurrent; it was also concurrent with Harry Potter through the first two runs of that theme

Adventurers was not replaced by Indiana Jones; Adventurers was five years dead when Indy came about, and has not resurfaced in the decade since Indy disappeared either

Western was not replaced by the Lone Ranger, there were more than a decade between sets

Trains has not been replaced by a licensed theme (yes, individual licensed Train sets have been produced, but not a full theme)

But they were. Look into it. Look at the years of sets at Brickset. You'll find out that you are wrong. Sure, the first time Pirates went away, it wasn't replaced. But the second and third times?

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by danth

[MAB]

43 minutes ago, danth said:

That's all great but it doesn't mean LEGO should replace beloved classic themes with licensed themes. At least they're starting to slightly rectify that with Creator but they seem terrified* of creating a Space-themed Creator set.

There are two Creator Space sets on the shelves now, and two others not long gone.

31115: Space Mining Mech

31117: Space Shuttle Adventure

31107: Space Rover Explorer

31091: Shuttle Transporter

Maybe not the Space you want but there are clearly Space themed Creator sets.

[danth]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

There are two Creator Space sets on the shelves now, and two others not long gone.

31115: Space Mining Mech

31117: Space Shuttle Adventure

31107: Space Rover Explorer

31091: Shuttle Transporter

Maybe not the Space you want but there are clearly Space themed Creator sets.

Space themed big "S". See https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Space. It doesn't include NASA sets.

31115 is the only one that would count, but it's in NASA colors and doesn't even have a minifig...even though it's a mech. Very odd. They're obviously skirting some contractual line there.

When we have minifigs, non-NASA colors, AND an actual Sci-fi design, AND it's actually in Space, then we can talk.

And no the Cyber Drone doesn't count. It's shown flying through a city.

[MAB]

22 minutes ago, danth said:

Space themed big "S". See https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Space. It doesn't include NASA sets.

31115 is the only one that would count, but it's in NASA colors and doesn't even have a minifig...even though it's a mech. Very odd. They're obviously skirting some contractual line there.

When we have minifigs, non-NASA colors, AND an actual Sci-fi design, AND it's actually in Space, then we can talk.

And no the Cyber Drone doesn't count. It's shown flying through a city.

They are doing Space in Creator, just not 40 year old Sci Fi designs. I think kids want more modern designs for both realistic and Sci Fi sets. 31107 is Space Sci Fi. It has a Space Rover (so not terrestrial) and an alien. 

[Peppermint_M]

Soo, this is supposed to be a thread on the shift from creative to consumer fanbases, not another place for people to rant about Space sets existing or not. Or like, a lot of what was going on here.

Can we keep on topic yah? There are a lot of places for the other discussion.

Honestly, there has been a noticeable shift from Building with LEGO to Talking About LEGO. With most of that just post after post of gripes or fake leaks...

[metalgeekzy]

Personally, just my opinion. 

I never saw the point of displaying something that others also have when it comes to Lego. To me the point has always been building MOCS. 

Sometimes I will buy sets based on the pieces it has and I usually already have an idea on how I can incorporate those pieces into my build. 

[danth]

2 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Soo, this is supposed to be a thread on the shift from creative to consumer fanbases, not another place for people to rant about Space sets existing or not. Or like, a lot of what was going on here.

Can we keep on topic yah? There are a lot of places for the other discussion.

Honestly, there has been a noticeable shift from Building with LEGO to Talking About LEGO. With most of that just post after post of gripes or fake leaks...

Sorry, my fault obviously. I made a few jumps there without explaining it.

My thinking is that the "consumer fanbase" shift is greatly caused by the transition to mostly licensed movie/TV show/game sets. These sets may draw in a lot of people who don't really like LEGO per se but like the licensed franchise. And the sets are modeled to look like a specific vehicle/location etc in the show, and can sometimes be expensive. So these kinds of sets are likely to stay built forever, and less likely to be used for parts. Collectors aren't really MOCers. If you pay a lot for something, you don't want to tear it down. And licensed sets aren't really as conducive to MOCs as pre-license sets, that have more generic parts and alt builds on the back, or Creator sets.

So that's where my whole licensed vs classic thing came from. And I totally didn't explain it at all. Because I've been through that discussion so many times that I take it for granted.

But I think it also totally explains the shift to "Talking about LEGO sets" instead of "Building with LEGO" that you mentioned.

Maybe a "fix" we could have around here is more MOC or Alt Build contests.

[Lego David]

7 hours ago, danth said:

Sorry, my fault obviously. I made a few jumps there without explaining it.

My thinking is that the "consumer fanbase" shift is greatly caused by the transition to mostly licensed movie/TV show/game sets. These sets may draw in a lot of people who don't really like LEGO per se but like the licensed franchise. And the sets are modeled to look like a specific vehicle/location etc in the show, and can sometimes be expensive. So these kinds of sets are likely to stay built forever, and less likely to be used for parts. Collectors aren't really MOCers. If you pay a lot for something, you don't want to tear it down. And licensed sets aren't really as conducive to MOCs as pre-license sets, that have more generic parts and alt builds on the back, or Creator sets.

So that's where my whole licensed vs classic thing came from. And I totally didn't explain it at all. Because I've been through that discussion so many times that I take it for granted.

But I think it also totally explains the shift to "Talking about LEGO sets" instead of "Building with LEGO" that you mentioned.

Maybe a "fix" we could have around here is more MOC or Alt Build contests.

I think the epitemy of this newish trend are all the Sitcom sets. I remember seeing on Twitter several posts sounding something like "I am 27 and I just bought my first LEGO set, the Friends Center Perk!" 

This to me kind of goes against the entire point of LEGO, which is creativity. Those people would probably just buy one or two LEGO sets at most because it represents the IP they love, and not care whatsoever about LEGO otherwise. I don't know what LEGO thinks, but this to me does not seem like a viable long-term strategy.  

In the past, the strategy used to be completely about making as big an impact on kids as possible, kids that will end up growing up into dedicated LEGO fans, and therefore, buyers. 

Just look at Ninjago: most of the fan base is almost entirely made up of nostalgic 2011 kids that still enjoy the show and characters to this day despite having grown up, more so because of nostalgia rather than because Ninjago is a genuinely good show. 

Are you really going to get that from continually bombarding the market with one-off sets aimed at collectors, hoping that would draw them in to become long-term customers? I don't really think so. 

I know appealing to kids can be a lot harder those days with continually changing trends and electronics, but if you manage to define someone's childhood, you basically got yourself a loyal customer for life. 

[Lego David]

On 1/20/2022 at 12:38 PM, Peppermint_M said:

Creativity is manifested in many ways; I can build a MOC, but I can't code to save my life (I also struggled with the simple game building tools in Disney Infinity) while there are children on Roblox creating wild and varied games, who may not even consider LEGO as more than the Star Wars ship on their shelf

I can definitely relate to this... My younger brother used to be obsessed with LEGO just like me, and he just recently grew out of it. Now, he is incredibly passionate about creating Roblox maps, and LEGO doesn't mean anything to him anymore other than the sets on his shelf. He even thought about selling all of them, which came as a shock to me when I first heard it. 

 

[Flak Maniak]

I know I say this every time anything vaguely related comes up, but: If I were in charge, I would make sure that the 18+ black-box sets have goofy alternate builds depicted on the back of the box (remember those?), and a giant "What will you build?" in between them. Would this be popular? Very possibly not! But I would do it. I have my convictions.

[Erik Leppen]

Selling display models makes more profit than teaching them creativity.

Really, I think that's the whole bottom line. I think many of the creative people here would hope that Lego - being in a quite unique position to do so - would foster creativity. However, we live in a hyper-capitalistic world where the sole reason for a company to exist is to make profit. Make less profit, and you'll get overshadowed by another company that plays the profit-game better. Result: only the companies that play the profit-game the best, stay alive. So here we are, where Lego has upped their profit-game, with a whole new audience of wealthy adults that have been influenced by the 18+ line to think it has become cool to buy a building toy. Lego couldn't care less what we do with the sets, as long as we buy as much of them as possible. That's why B models have been phased out of Technic - they probably cost more to design than the profit they generate, so from a company standpoint, they are a bad idea. That from a society standpoint, they are a good idea, is not Lego's business, because Lego isn't a charity and - in the end - won't be judged as one.

The bigger problem is that creativity isn't valued at all, anymore, or so it seems. Creativity is a skill, that can be learned. Education doesn't foster it (the answer is in the back of the book, see the three TED talks by Sir Ken Robinson), so people aren't taught it anymore.

Personally I'm totally the other way around (or at least I try to be). I hate anything that's "popular" because "popular" means it gets way more attention than I consider "fair". I don't care whether something is popular, I care whether someone has been creative. I have friends who fiddle with music programs to create their own little tunes. They may not have the same musical quality, but they are self-made, original works, and the result of a creative process that is unique to them and that is therefore by itself interesting. I think you can only really talk about music with someone who has actually made some: how did you decide on X, why this chord or that rhyme, what do you look for, what did you try to achieve, etc. With non-musical people, talk about music is almost always only about the metadata of music - artists, albums, releases, concerts, etc. That's not music. Music is melodies, chords, rhythm, sounds, lyrics, etc.

I think the same about Lego. Lego, to me, is not about sets, prices, availability, company decisions - it's a system of bricks. It's a creative medium, like music or clay or paint. So it's about building techniques, the build process, the design criteria for a model, the creative decisions, how to build things, digital building tools, etc. In my view, there are no "bad MOCs". If someone built something by themselves, the interesting questions are, how they think it turned out, what they learned from it, and how they handle feedback, and for me for posting: how I can help them with that. MOCs from the "experts" are beautiful - from a result standpoint, but personally I have less interest in those because the process is usually hidden. I can't see the creative process that went behind it, I only see what came out of it. And often, I care relatively little what comes out of a creative process.

That's why the Eurobricks Technic competitions are so great - you get to see all kinds of people engaging in a creative process.

And that's why I will be joining FAWM (February Album Writing Month) again next month: it fosters the creative process, no matter its outcome (yes, this is a tip for anyone doing anything with music).

[Alexandrina]

21 hours ago, danth said:

Sure, the first time Pirates went away, it wasn't replaced. But the second and third times?

The second time does broadly coincide with Pirates of the Caribbean (broadly; the 2010 wave of Pirates was far smaller than the main 2009 wave) but the third time doesn't. In 2016 there was only one Pirates of the Caribbean set, which IIRC was a D2C, so there weren't licensed Pirate sets on the shelves.

In the interest of keeping on topic, I do feel that there's an element of gatekeeping going on in some places. Yes, Lego is a creative hobby - certainly it fuelled my creativity when I was younger, though I've never been a traditional MOC builder - but there's no reason it has to be just that. We can't all be creative in the same ways. When I watch a film, I'm often looking at the techniques used and thinking about how I might apply those techniques in my own work, but a lot of people just want to watch a film to entertain themselves for a few hours. Equally, it's perfectly valid to just want Lego as a way of occupying yourself for a few hours without having to think too hard, and at the end having a cool keepsake to put on your shelf for a bit. So what if some people build their sets once and leave them built? The bricks are still being produced. It doesn't prevent anybody else from buying bricks and building whatever they want with them

[Erik Leppen]

16 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

[...] it's perfectly valid to just want Lego as a way of occupying yourself for a few hours without having to think too hard, and at the end having a cool keepsake to put on your shelf for a bit. So what if some people build their sets once and leave them built?

It's possible to have no problem at all with individual people wanting to collect, rather than build MOCs, and simultaneously have concerns about a societal trend away from creativity and towards collecting.

[TeriXeri]

6 hours ago, Flak Maniak said:

I know I say this every time anything vaguely related comes up, but: If I were in charge, I would make sure that the 18+ black-box sets have goofy alternate builds depicted on the back of the box (remember those?), and a giant "What will you build?" in between them. Would this be popular? Very possibly not! But I would do it. I have my convictions.

Alternate build suggestions certainly help spark creativity, and while the lack of instructions wasn't popular, I think especially kids back then were inspired by it .

Especially in the 80s and 90s before internet, where most of my LEGO related images either came from catalogs (some included in sets), and box art.

4559: Cargo Railway was my only train set, but the alternates of a steam locomotive, or cargo train that had a crane to carry/drop rails were great even without instructions it inspired me to make my own trains from that set.

[danth]

13 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

and while the lack of instructions wasn't popular

I think that's a made up excuse, personally.

In my 2.5 decades of being on the internet, I've never read this complaint, and have only read people fondly remembering the back-of-the-box alt builds.