Why do you think classic era LEGO (70s-90s) are often looked upon more higly than modern sets?

[Kit Figsto]

This is a question that I've thought a bit about and am curious to hear answers from the EB community on.  In my opinion, a lot of people, be it EB users, YouTube creators, or other areas where people discuss LEGO on social media, tend to look upon the 1970s-90s era sets (essentially, the first 20 or so years of the minifigure) more highly than a lot of sets, even ones that come out today.  The reason I find it a bit odd is that modern sets are more or less inarguably superior from a standpoint of play features and level of detail.  Look at a fire truck from the 80s compared with one from 2024, a modern one is clearly more detailed and contains more features to it.  It's the same with a lot of sets that are almost direct remakes of previous sets, too.  The modern El Dorado Fortress, for example, is much more detailed than the original.

I think the obvious answer is nostalgia, but what's strange is that a lot of people looking fondly upon this era of sets weren't even alive for it.

I myself am an example of this.  My childhood sets were City, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Power Miners, and stuff from that era, yet I've been mostly enthralled lately with a lot of late 80s/90s sets, even though I have basically no nostalgic ties to them at all.  

With some sets, I can understand why they hold a certain level of prestige.  The original classic space line, the yellow castle, some of the early town and pirates sets, I can see why they're held in such high regard, probably in part because they were trailblazers for what was to come later.  But with some of these sets getting the hype that they do, is it just AFOL hype feeding off into others (I honestly think that's where the obsession with the trans-neon orange chainsaw comes from.  It's a unique piece and the Ice Planet designs and color scheme is really cool, but I don't get why people are obsessed with that one piece)?  Is there beauty in the simplicity of some of these sets?  Is it the fact that these sets can leave a lot up to the user to imagine? 

I'm curious what you all think.

[Horation]

2 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

I think the obvious answer is nostalgia, but what's strange is that a lot of people looking fondly upon this era of sets weren't even alive for it.

The short answer is indeed nostalgia, but to me it is also the simplicity of old-timey stuff, nowadays everything is fancy and detailed and shiny, but old stuff (cars, toys, etc...) had a cool aesthetic to it. But to be honest, I spent a lot of time as a kid looking at blogs and other posts on old sets, so I'm partly nostalgic, too. Even though I never owned those sets...

[JesseNight]

I agree with the nostalgia being a big factor for most people who experienced that period of time while being a kid themselves.
I admire the 80s the most of all for that exact reason.

Another thing I can think of is that colors and bricks were far more limited at the time, and it was up to us to make the best of it with what we had. Nowadays I see so many new brick releases over the years to solve issues with new models. But it's not a bad thing if I see how much more detailed models have gone. I just admire the builders who had to deal with more limited resources a lot.
I'm also not a big fan of the excessive amounts of IP series we got nowadays, but I won't blame TLG bc that seems to be the big thing for business nowadays. Back in those days we had unique themes from LEGO itself. Sure town and knights and pirates wasn't unique on its own, but the way it was done surely was. Not to mention all the various space factions from Classic up to Ice Planet (after that I stopped following and found it getting less interesting).

That's just my personal opinion of course.

[SpacePolice89]

I grew up with late 80s and 90s Lego. But I also greatly admire older subthemes like Classic Space and Classic Castle. There is something special about sets from 1978 to 1998 that new sets doesn't have. They have that special Lego look and feel to them that the company lost in the late 90s. They simply feel magic and unique. They have that perfect mix of detail and playability and I believe that then the designers had more freedom to design without having to care too much about focus groups or Hollywood culture. Many new sets feel too commercial and are either too depressing with only dark colors like gray and black or have too bright colors and look childish like Monkey Kid or Dreamz.

This is cool!

This is not cool!

[JesseNight]

43 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I grew up with late 80s and 90s Lego. But I also greatly admire older subthemes like Classic Space and Classic Castle. There is something special about sets from 1978 to 1998 that new sets doesn't have. They have that special Lego look and feel to them that the company lost in the late 90s.

The look of visible studs that made you never forget it's LEGO 

[Autumn]

3 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Many new sets feel too commercial and are either too depressing with only dark colors like gray and black or have too bright colors and look childish like Monkey Kid or Dreamz.

This is cool!

This is not cool!

Childish? It's Lego! I think the difference in colour palettes is just Lego designers going with the latest trends as much as anything else does as well as it being more affordable now than in the past to have a bazillion molds and colours.

[SpacePolice89]

1 hour ago, Autumn said:

Childish? It's Lego! I think the difference in colour palettes is just Lego designers going with the latest trends as much as anything else does as well as it being more affordable now than in the past to have a bazillion molds and colours.

Maybe I used the wrong word but when I was an eight year old kid I would have considered Dreamz or Monkey Kid too "childish" because they look like toys made for five year olds and the colors doesn't help either.

[Yperio_Bricks]

I was born 1983 and grew up with the classic castle, pirates, city and space themes of that era. But i do think that everything we have today is much more superior to the Lego stuff we had back then. The minifigures have much more accessoires nowadays, more detailed torsos and legs, more heads with different facial expressions and more headgear. And personaly i am so happy that i don't have to use yellow heads nowadays. We have much more bricks and pieces that allow for more detailed and enhanced building techniques and we have much more colors to choose from.

The only thing that was better back then was the light and sound system that came with the city sets. (But maybe it is better that it is gone because nowadays Lego would charge us 2€ for every 1c china cable )

[The Reader]

Well, on my side, it's of course nostalgia. I was born in the early 70s, so my Lego sets ranged from mid 70s to mid 80s. I had old Legoland sets with the old minifigs (i.e. set 368) and then classic town, classic space and classic castle (i.e. set 375), but no pirates. So these are pure childhood memories.

But on the other hand und furthermost it's playabilitiy:

• Creativity: I had some (a lot of ?) sets, mainly the small ones, not the big ones. But these sets contained bricks, plates, some tiles, slopes, doors, windows and doors and only very few special parts. I was able to build so many other houses, cars, planes and space ships ("MOCs" in modern terms) with these basic parts. I had Idea Book 6000 and could built many of its building suggestions. Old Lego sets were meant to be taken apart to construct something new. I believe this creativity had gone lost in modern Lego sets. There are so many special parts that you can't reuse in MOCs. So in modern sets there are just not enough basic parts to build other stuff. Modern Lego makes the impression of modell building with bricks. Once you've built it, you never take it apart.
• Landscape: I had many street plates, classic space crater plates and green base plates. So I was able to built a scenery (town, space, castle or all together) of at least 4x4 baseplates (32x32 studs). This was huge for a kid (even with small sets) and gave space for so much phantasy. (It was almost like the landscape of modell railroads.)

[JesseNight]

4 hours ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

The only thing that was better back then was the light and sound system that came with the city sets. (But maybe it is better that it is gone because nowadays Lego would charge us 2€ for every 1c china cable )

Not just the city, space had it too. From the last few Classic Space sets, to the Monorail Transport System, the Space Police Striker, and I think there may have been 1 or 2 more.
Loved the light, hated the sound (even as a kid) 

Edited February 8 by JesseNight

[Slegengr]

I think what makes those sets appealing to so many, particularly the sets from the 90's (which era seems to be considered by many to be LEGO's "Golden Era"), is not just nostalgia, but what could be considered "Classic", or what defines what LEGO sets are in most peoples' minds.

The 90's sets were a great mix of defining LEGO details, a higher level of development of the basic building blocks and components, enough variety of parts an colors to give good detail but also a limited enough variety of colors and parts to still be different from other toys and real objects (distinctly a LEGO product), all original themes covering a reasonably broad area of interests that relate to history, modern day, and future, no licensed IP's (although the popularity drives sales and increases profit margin, the popularity is not due only to the LEGO brand like original themes).

The same thoughts apply to the sets of the 70's and 80's, but I think the LEGO style was still more under development during this stage and the LEGO products were not as wide-spread worldwide as in the 90's (due both to still-growing popularity and to communication limitations across nations or the globe when compared to today).

In more recent days, I think many LEGO sets today (at least unlicensed sets) often approach a similar ideal to the 90's sets (but with a more varied color palette and part-shape selection).  The limitation today is that there is so much focus on media connections (which seem obviously considered the modern way of society) and on pop-culture connections (licensed IP's; this follows fads/trends that come and go, so not as stable over time as the classic components).  I think there is a significant difference between the sets from the 90's (which were loved because they were imagination realized in LEGO form, so love for the product/brand itself) versus the sets of today (which I think are loved for pop-culture/media references that overshadow the basic love for the brand/product).  I think there has been a realized interest closer to the core values of the LEGO company that has brought set designs closer to the ideal than it was between 2000-2015, though there have always been some sets that I really liked throughout the entire history of the LEGO System and beyond.

This type of question is one that I could go into any aspect in great detail, as I find it quite interesting.  I was born in 1991, so I certainly know nostalgia plays a role (considering that I spent hours every week reading from the LEGO Shop-at-Home and dreaming of having all sorts of playset dioramas, especially sparked by the wonderful dioramas made for the marketing images).  I would not want to be born in any other era with regard to LEGO, since my childhood was in the "Golden Era" and I started collecting LEGO sets and pieces second-hand as an adult before the collector aspect really took off and prices for old sets jumped.

Maybe it is mostly nostalgia, but, whatever the reason, I don't think my love for 90's era (and 70's-80's, though not as much for me personally) will be lost.  I am glad to have most of the sets today that I dreamed of getting as a child (along with so many sets from pretty much every birthday/Christmas throughout my childhood).  "BrickLinking" sets or acquiring old mixed lots to salvage classic sets is one of my favorite aspects of the hobby. 

[Peppermint_M]

9 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

This is not cool!

 

Jeff Bridges on the assist.

4 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Maybe I used the wrong word but when I was an eight year old kid I would have considered Dreamz or Monkey Kid too "childish" because they look like toys made for five year olds and the colors doesn't help either.

Not picking on you, that is an interesting thing to consider. I think that today's kids like things with bombastic design and a lot of colour. Just look at how popular Fortnite is and consider a lot of the crazy designs of the characters and their skins. It is the number one game for the sort of demographic Ninjago, Monkey Kid and Dreamzzz aims for, so they have similar design schemes. 

The same can be said of Overwatch, Robolox, Minecraft... Heck, Pal World uses colours and wacky designs (regardless of how close to Pokemon or not...)  There is appeal in the colours and the variety of characters you can choose from/customise. So TLG would be foolish to ignore the current trends.

And for the topic at hand:

I think in most cases it is nostalgia talking. Either the nostalgia that is "true" for the generation that grew up playing with or desiring the sets. Those were the toys of their simpler times when life was uncomplicated by responsibilities and the demands of adult life. Some will admit shortcomings but still they like it because they think it is neat, others are poisoned by the nostalgia and reject current day things and get annoying over it. There were some excellent looking sets back then, but not all of them were Yellow Castle...

Or, it is False Nostalgia which can be toxic or inert; admiration of something you did not experience or grow up with is fine and dandy. In the case of LEGO, there were some Design Classics put out. The Yellow Castle, the printed parts of Classic Space the simplicity of an era that was not and did not need to have media tie-ins and licenced franchise IP. 

The Toxic element is when those who have come upon something before their time and are unpleasant and aggressive in their comparisons to the current day. They want to be admired and accepted by others from the era (so brown nosing...) and get to seem disingenuous. This is the problematic nostalgia. 

I did not grow up with "Classic" themes as I was a 90s kid but I admire the designs of Classic Castle, the prints from the earlier Space Themes and I love the simplicity of the Town Plan sets in red and white, but I can also say some designs from the past (Even some Sacred Cow sets) are not that great (in my opinion and when subjected to the kinds of hurdles AFOLs would use on later/modern/current sets) and there is consistent quality in a lot of areas that was not achieved in the past, even is a lot of AFOLs are not as impressed as they are not personally catered to.

Eh, love what you love and dislike what you dislike, but it is all subjective! 

 

[Kit Figsto]

30 minutes ago, Slegengr said:

I think there is a significant difference between the sets from the 90's (which were loved because they were imagination realized in LEGO form, so love for the product/brand itself) versus the sets of today (which I think are loved for pop-culture/media references that overshadow the basic love for the brand/product). 

This is a really interesting point that you bring up, and I think it's pretty true, the more I think about it. 

It seems to me like LEGO is perhaps more popular than ever, especially among ages that previously were "too old" for LEGO (teenagers and 20-somethings - I feel like that was a weird age where you were too old to have toys, but not old enough to where LEGO is just accepted as your hobby the same way other adults collect things or whatever else) but I feel like a lot of that demographic of fans tend to be a bit more casual and are much more into the licensed products.  This makes sense, as the company has been putting out way more "black box" 18+ targeted licensed sets than ever before.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I think that type of fan isn't someone going onto Bricklink and buying old sets or picking up on the classic set references being put into 18+ sets nowadays.  That type of LEGO consumer probably isn't the same one feeling nostalgia for 90s sets.

[John Carter]

Nostalgia does play a role, however a person born in the year 2000 is23-24 years old today. Some of them are AFOLs and I watch some of them on youtube. Most of them show appreciation for older Lego sets, so it's not just nostalgia.

I think that the main appeal of the pre-2000s Lego is that they are more "Lego"-ish. Yeah, that sounds like "Well, in my day Lego was REAL Lego", and maybe it is, but hear me out:

The main Idea of Lego is that you can take a set apart and rebuild it. Building from instructions is fun, and displaying a cool professional looking set and playing with it is also fun, but what pulled me into Lego as a kid was the ability to pull the set apart and build my own stuff. The invited children to create MOCs. I have a feeling that's the case for most AFOLs. Yeah, my builds weren't exactly as nice as the official builds, but they were in the right neighborhood. Nowadays, sets look objectively better and have better play features, but they don't inspire children to play with Lego as building blocks. I think AFOLs, even those who didn't grow up with these sets and/or those who can build MOCs that look as good as modern sets, recognize this quality and are drawn to it.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, John Carter said:

Nowadays, sets look objectively better and have better play features, but they don't inspire children to play with Lego as building blocks. 

I don't really believe this, based on my own kids, many of their friends and I dread to think how many large mixed up boxes and bags of (modern) LEGO I've bought over the years. Adults might tend to keep sets together, but kids still mix up their lego and build what they like.

[Slegengr]

3 hours ago, Kit Figsto said:

This is a really interesting point that you bring up, and I think it's pretty true, the more I think about it. 

It seems to me like LEGO is perhaps more popular than ever, especially among ages that previously were "too old" for LEGO (teenagers and 20-somethings - I feel like that was a weird age where you were too old to have toys, but not old enough to where LEGO is just accepted as your hobby the same way other adults collect things or whatever else) but I feel like a lot of that demographic of fans tend to be a bit more casual and are much more into the licensed products.  This makes sense, as the company has been putting out way more "black box" 18+ targeted licensed sets than ever before.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I think that type of fan isn't someone going onto Bricklink and buying old sets or picking up on the classic set references being put into 18+ sets nowadays.  That type of LEGO consumer probably isn't the same one feeling nostalgia for 90s sets.

Agreed, another strong point for me is that the old sets were made as playsets that could be broken apart and recombined infinitely according to my own imagination.  The 90's sets directly encouraged this through alternate build pictures on the back of the box and instructions.  The large 18+ sets, though occasionally interesting to me, are mostly just display pieces to build once according to instructions.  The core purposes at the hearts of these LEGO enthusiasts is different in these cases, one for LEGO as an extension of the imagination, the other as an IP enthusiast that finds it interesting to have a model of said IP.

 

3 hours ago, John Carter said:

Nostalgia does play a role, however a person born in the year 2000 is23-24 years old today. Some of them are AFOLs and I watch some of them on youtube. Most of them show appreciation for older Lego sets, so it's not just nostalgia.

I think that the main appeal of the pre-2000s Lego is that they are more "Lego"-ish. Yeah, that sounds like "Well, in my day Lego was REAL Lego", and maybe it is, but hear me out:

The main Idea of Lego is that you can take a set apart and rebuild it. Building from instructions is fun, and displaying a cool professional looking set and playing with it is also fun, but what pulled me into Lego as a kid was the ability to pull the set apart and build my own stuff. The invited children to create MOCs. I have a feeling that's the case for most AFOLs. Yeah, my builds weren't exactly as nice as the official builds, but they were in the right neighborhood. Nowadays, sets look objectively better and have better play features, but they don't inspire children to play with Lego as building blocks. I think AFOLs, even those who didn't grow up with these sets and/or those who can build MOCs that look as good as modern sets, recognize this quality and are drawn to it.

This is a more direct statement of my thought earlier, and I agree wholeheartedly.  Obviously, I could argue that the 90's were LEGO's Golden Age due to my nostalgia, but I think there is something more real in this than just my nostalgia.  Just as you said, I think the 90's sets show the ideals of the LEGO company at its founding (fundamentally, imaginative play) more directly than sets of more recent days, especially since there are so many licensed sets after the early 2000's.  What are the percentages today of original vs licensed sets today?  I suspect it is less than 50/50 (more licensed sets, probably due to more sales of these sets).

 

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I don't really believe this, based on my own kids, many of their friends and I dread to think how many large mixed up boxes and bags of (modern) LEGO I've bought over the years. Adults might tend to keep sets together, but kids still mix up their lego and build what they like.

Agreed, I do think many children today still mix up their LEGO pieces and build what they like.  I think the difference is that The LEGO Company does not seem to encourage this as much as in the 90's.

In the end, people (especially adults) will find different reasons to be LEGO enthusiasts.  Though I would like to believe that more ideals of imaginative play, more original themes, and more link to nostalgia and the history of The LEGO Company would lead to more overall benefit to the fans and The LEGO Company, it seems obviously clear that licensed IP is more profitable, and that profit seems to be the primary goal of The LEGO Company (and ultimately any company, for that matter).

 

At least The LEGO Company is testing the waters with nostalgic ties with the classic set remakes and Easter eggs with nostalgic references (such as original factions from the 70's/80's/90's).

[Slegengr]

Ooh, almost missed this response!

4 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Not picking on you, that is an interesting thing to consider. I think that today's kids like things with bombastic design and a lot of colour. Just look at how popular Fortnite is and consider a lot of the crazy designs of the characters and their skins. It is the number one game for the sort of demographic Ninjago, Monkey Kid and Dreamzzz aims for, so they have similar design schemes. 

The same can be said of Overwatch, Robolox, Minecraft... Heck, Pal World uses colours and wacky designs (regardless of how close to Pokemon or not...)  There is appeal in the colours and the variety of characters you can choose from/customise. So TLG would be foolish to ignore the current trends.

It is pretty obvious that flashy colors appeal to children, whether inherently or by design of toys, and I agree that TLG would be foolish to ignore the trend.  Is it even such a new trend?  There were some crazy colors used in the 90's in different marketing for many products.  Likely, the only reason we did not get so many colors in the 90's LEGO sets was due to higher cost of increasing the color palette versus a more limited color palette.

 

4 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

And for the topic at hand:

I think in most cases it is nostalgia talking. Either the nostalgia that is "true" for the generation that grew up playing with or desiring the sets. Those were the toys of their simpler times when life was uncomplicated by responsibilities and the demands of adult life. Some will admit shortcomings but still they like it because they think it is neat, others are poisoned by the nostalgia and reject current day things and get annoying over it. There were some excellent looking sets back then, but not all of them were Yellow Castle...

Though I do think there is (at least a little) something more to this than just nostalgia, it clearly plays a strong role.  Will the set designs and trends shift over the next decades as the children of today become parents with a new nostalgia set than those around our age that grew up in the 90's and are more likely currently to have children in LEGO's target age demographic?  I think so, which is why I think LEGO should capitalize more on the nostalgia (classic remakes, factions, original themes, etc.) while they have the chance, not just for nostalgia, but also to increase interest in TLG's own history/brand.  Licensed sets seem certainly here to stay, but I still wish there could be more room for more original themes alongside.

Not all sets from the 70's/80's/90's were perfect, for sure (were even any perfect aside from nostalgia?).

 

4 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Or, it is False Nostalgia which can be toxic or inert; admiration of something you did not experience or grow up with is fine and dandy. In the case of LEGO, there were some Design Classics put out. The Yellow Castle, the printed parts of Classic Space the simplicity of an era that was not and did not need to have media tie-ins and licenced franchise IP. 

The Toxic element is when those who have come upon something before their time and are unpleasant and aggressive in their comparisons to the current day. They want to be admired and accepted by others from the era (so brown nosing...) and get to seem disingenuous. This is the problematic nostalgia.

Yes, indeed, there can be negative, inert, or positive False Nostalgia depending on how it is applied.  I also like your point that the sets of the earlier eras sold well enough without media tie-ins or licensed IP franchises.  The question that is probably unanswerable is: is this a difference in The LEGO Company, or a difference in people/society/technology more broadly speaking?

 

4 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

I did not grow up with "Classic" themes as I was a 90s kid but I admire the designs of Classic Castle, the prints from the earlier Space Themes and I love the simplicity of the Town Plan sets in red and white, but I can also say some designs from the past (Even some Sacred Cow sets) are not that great (in my opinion and when subjected to the kinds of hurdles AFOLs would use on later/modern/current sets) and there is consistent quality in a lot of areas that was not achieved in the past, even is a lot of AFOLs are not as impressed as they are not personally catered to.

Eh, love what you love and dislike what you dislike, but it is all subjective! 

Agreed, agreed.  I have found it strange over the last decade how many complaints (that seem to be based on false nostalgic impressions or the over-idealized view of adults) are given to TLG's sets produced today.  TLG produces playsets to appeal to children (also now more than ever along with 18+ display sets for adults, which more rightly can be criticized from an adult perspective).

The questions here seem to be less about the actual products and more about our perceptions and applications of ideals, which indeed is all subjective and will almost certainly never converge into one singular opinion.

[Artanis I]

Nostalgia, maybe, but clearly the difference is charm. Sets & minifigs.

Compare a young child's drawings with a young adult's. The older person's drawings are way more detailed and representative of the subject matter, but the child's drawings are more charming. Also, the plain smiley face is cute and sweet, and reminds us of a time when everyone in Legoland was cheerful and happy. If experiencing that coincided with your childhood, then it doubles-down on the nostalgia factor.

[MAB]

9 hours ago, Slegengr said:

Agreed, I do think many children today still mix up their LEGO pieces and build what they like.  I think the difference is that The LEGO Company does not seem to encourage this as much as in the 90's.

I think they do. They did the Rebuild The World campaign just before covid. They still have pages of young fan creations in the lego magazine. They have play tables in stores.

What they don't do is have pictures of alternate models built from individual sets like they used to. I imagine that is partly down to complaints about lack of instructions and partly because now there is a much larger range of bricks and designs are far more detailed than in the 90s, making alternate models much harder to design and decipher from a picture only.

[John Carter]

13 hours ago, MAB said:

I don't really believe this, based on my own kids, many of their friends and I dread to think how many large mixed up boxes and bags of (modern) LEGO I've bought over the years. Adults might tend to keep sets together, but kids still mix up their lego and build what they like.

Cool.

My friends kids don't usually take apart sets. Some parents just bought Lego in bulk in addition to sets, so their kids have both "official" sets that they don't want to take apart and just a bunch of bricks to build whatever they want.

[MAB]

6 minutes ago, John Carter said:

Cool.

My friends kids don't usually take apart sets. Some parents just bought Lego in bulk in addition to sets, so their kids have both "official" sets that they don't want to take apart and just a bunch of bricks to build whatever they want.

Yes, I did something similar with my kids when they were young. Partly as it is much cheaper to get a large quantity of bricks.

Remember also that different kids play in different ways, and in different ways at different ages. My son always liked building from a young age, so preferred mixed up bricks. With sets, he would build them then take apart and build into something else. It was rare for anything to stay built for more than a month, unless it was something special like a train set. Whereas my daughter didn't like building when young. She was much more into role play once the set was built so tended to keep sets (and other builds) together for much longer. For her, play was more about storytelling than building. Now she is older, she likes building but still story plays as well. 

[Peppermint_M]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Now she is older, she likes building but still story plays as well. 

My sister is exactly the same. As children I loved construction play and she loved story play. It stands the same now: She buys the Friends and Disney Princesses (Also Elves, she adores fantasy) sets. Then if the set needs improving or she is unimpressed with her own custom builds? I get called over to her place to hang out and build her something (commission being a nice home baked treat).

Apparently, I have to create a pink and green castle at some point...

 

[MAB]

35 minutes ago, Peppermint_M said:

My sister is exactly the same. As children I loved construction play and she loved story play. It stands the same now: She buys the Friends and Disney Princesses (Also Elves, she adores fantasy) sets. Then if the set needs improving or she is unimpressed with her own custom builds? I get called over to her place to hang out and build her something (commission being a nice home baked treat).

Apparently, I have to create a pink and green castle at some point...

 

It was also the same back in the 80s. Some kids would like building and some story-telling (and everywhere in-between). I think that is probably why minifigure based sets of the 80s and onwards seem to be remembered more fondly than sets of the 70s (and before). These were the first of the real LEGO as a complete all-in-one toy. Some may argue it was before this, but I recall LEGO in the 70s was just another toy that got played with other toys. The Legoland cars and so on got played with next to Matchbox cars. LEGO was use to build train sheds, shops and houses to side beside  Hornby railways.  LEGO was used to build furniture for small dolls or ships for Kenner Star Wars figures or Little Big Man toys. But the presence of the minifigure shifted it towards you only need LEGO to get the all-in-one play experience.

My son likes Castle building (he had some in 2012/13) but he also still occasionally plays Nexo Knights and Chima. I imagine they will be remembered in the same way as Ice Planet. Knights Kingdom (version number whatever) or Adventurers. Nostalgic for kids of the time but not really important if you weren't.

[JesseNight]

19 hours ago, MAB said:

I think they do. They did the Rebuild The World campaign just before covid. They still have pages of young fan creations in the lego magazine. They have play tables in stores.

What they don't do is have pictures of alternate models built from individual sets like they used to. I imagine that is partly down to complaints about lack of instructions and partly because now there is a much larger range of bricks and designs are far more detailed than in the 90s, making alternate models much harder to design and decipher from a picture only.

Not to forget that a lot of people probably wouldn't bother, with great MOC instructions widely being available online nowadays. That wasn't a thing back in the 80s-90s yet.

18 hours ago, John Carter said:

Cool.

My friends kids don't usually take apart sets. Some parents just bought Lego in bulk in addition to sets, so their kids have both "official" sets that they don't want to take apart and just a bunch of bricks to build whatever they want.

Thinking back to being a 80s kid with LEGO, I loved making my own design... yet always had mixed feelings about taking apart a great original model. Not to mention I hated mixing brand new bricks with years old ones, of which some already started mildly discoloring or evolved through stages of improvement to the mold.

As for storytelling... While I loved that with many toys I owned, I didn't like it so much with LEGO. I was always put off by details that I felt weren't right, like a car fitting only a single person while it should be able to fit 4, and so much more issues that were mostly scale and proportions related.

Edited February 10 by JesseNight

[MAB]

6 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Not to forget that a lot of people probably wouldn't bother, with great MOC instructions widely being available online nowadays. That wasn't a thing back in the 80s-90s yet.

 

That is an adult thing though, isn't it? I don't think I've ever seen a younger kid buying or using other people's MOC instructions. Parts acquisition (and time) is a major hurdle for other people's MOCs, whereas kids typically want to build with what they have now.