8 years later...

[Saint]

I just wanted to add this :

It took me a long time to accept the new grey.. and to a certain hight I still don't like them. When it became clear to me that LEGO wasn't going to change the colour back I went into a small dark age ( well, not buying LEGO that is ) and became more and more critical of what sets I wanted to buy or not.

Buying Bricklink stuff was always " ye old grey " . In 2007 when I participated in LegoLand Germany for the SW event I got a lot of bley beams and plates, so I had to build with them.. ( muffled it away in the model )

As time progressed I only bought the SW sets, sometimes other sets I liked, but never to the extend I bought LEGO in the pré-bley era .

I do have a box or 2 with bley now, I build with bley now. But I'm still careful not to mix the two together . The other colours I really don't gave about before, are now more prominent when I buy LEGO.

I still don't like them, they feel off and as stated before , they don't snap together like the old grey. And they're more likely to wiggle about and twist in place ( the Dutch word for this is " torderen " ) and sometimes it's difficult to keep everything in place.

Grtz Saint.

[Brickmaster]

My collection is probably 50/50 old and new greys. I'm mostly ok with the color differences because they aren't horridly obvious from a distance. Coincidentally, that is also my biggest annoyance.

When inventorying sets, the colors are a total nightmare. That is easily my biggest gripe about it.

[davee123]

I technically came out of my dark age around 1995, when I started buying sets for myself-- but I didn't start collecting like mad until I got out of college and got a job in 1999. From 1999-2003, I wolfed down LEGO sets like nobody's business, especially when the sets featured gray, dark gray, brown, or tan. I'd buy just about every System set that came out, and if it had a bunch of those colors? I'd buy multiples.

So when the color change hit in 2004, it was a shock. My buying habits have since changed quite a lot-- I buy very few multiples, and these days don't buy nearly every System set. I already had a substantial collection of about 300,000 pieces, so I didn't really NEED to buy more. I begrudgingly decided that I would bide my time and keep buying (a lot of fans at the time vowed to stop all together, trying to boycott LEGO into changing the colors back), and "someday" have enough of the new colors to use them instead of my old colors.

Since then, I've started getting quite a lot of BOTH the new and old colors, surprisingly enough. I typically build a model in EITHER old OR new colors, but not in both simultaneously. I still don't really like looking at a mix of the two.

The biggest problem is sorting. Brown and Dark Gray aren't too hard to tell apart, but Gray is very difficult without the right lighting. It makes for a constant battle with the color change, so effectively EVERY time I want to build with LEGO, it's a thorn in my side, constantly reminding me of how much I hate the color change.

I now have about a million pieces, and I'd guess it's an even split between new and old colors-- or, sorta. The distribution of old colors is towards basic brick, but newer sets have contained fewer basic stuff and more specialized elements like slopes, curves, and other odd things. Gray I probably still have more old than new. Dark gray, probably 50/50. And brown, I definitely have more new brown, since old brown was only just starting to be used commonly prior to the change.

DaveE

[CP5670]

I still have far more of the old gray than the new one. I have no real preferences between the colors themselves, but 90% of my sets are from the old gray era. Many of the MOCs I build follow the official 80s/90s Space themes, in which the color schemes are important and several rare or theme-specific parts only appear in old gray. As it stands, new gray is like chrome or purple in my collection. It's a nice color but I have very little of it, so I never use it in MOCs and don't bother to get any more on Bricklink, so it becomes self-reinforcing. This is especially the case with Technic for me. I also buy sets much less frequently than I used to (and the sets I get usually remain built), so I don't get much new gray that way either. I have actually been trying to consciously cut down on getting more old gray off Bricklink and reduce my dependency on that color, but I still pick up some odd bits with many orders that I have specific uses for.

I want to get more into building City MOCs in the future, where the exact colors are less important, and plan to just buy big quantities of new gray parts at some point. I might also switch the old gray in my built Model Team sets with new gray to free up those pieces for Space models. Some of those sets have lots of old gray parts that all exist in the new color and can be replaced easily.

All this applies to light gray only. I only have 3 or 4 sets with a significant amount of old dark gray, brown, orange, etc. and almost none of it in my spare parts, so I don't use those colors enough to worry about this.

Gray is very difficult without the right lighting. It makes for a constant battle with the color change, so effectively EVERY time I want to build with LEGO, it's a thorn in my side.

The odd thing is that the difference is just enough to notice if you have them side by side, at least for regular bricks. Some pieces like Technic pins are even harder to distinguish.

[Athos]

Has it really been 8 years? Seems not that long ago. Well, I guess another 8 years or so and I'll have had equal time with the new colors as I did with the old...

It is still a sore subject to me. If they'd have stayed the same I'd have at least twice as much grey, dark grey and brown bricks as I do now, because my collections of these colors would not be divided between the old and new. I also don't like that there were a few key parts (the 1x6x2 arch) that we never got in old dark grey. And there are a lot of parts in the new colors that we don't have yet either.

Though, I mostly build with the new colors now. Mostly this is due to the timing of the color change. At the time, I was in college and law school, so most of my bricks were stored away at my parents, so I only had the new sets I bought. I recently just got back into my stored collection, which is a bit of a mess, so, until I feel like sorting, its new colors. Also, most of my MOCs are all done with new colors, so to keep them consistent with each other, I stick with the new colors.

The new colors have grown on me a bit. I still think they look more metalic than stone though. And, I'd rather not have had the dichotomy in the first place.

Steve

[horizon]

Returned this year (thanks kids), played with Lego as a kid ('80's).

All bricks are good.

Tbh in the '80's I got the brick sets just for bricks, so far new brickset has been bought. Ya know bricks, not models. ;)

[alois]

When I played with Lego in the early 80's dark grey was only used for railroad tracks. And light grey was mostly plates and Technic. So when I got back into Lego the new greys were almost like new colours altogether, like tan or orange. So the colour change never bothered me, and I am pleased with the large variety of colours. My old Lego is still with my parents, so the old grey plates won't mix with my new Lego.

[Hoboman]

One more comment: I think the newer you are to Lego the less it seems to bug you. My son, seven, does not even understand what I mean by "new" colors. He just sees more colors. A friend who is my age still calls the "new greys" and hates them.

Just an observation.

[vexorian]

In my opinion, old grays and the new blueish grays look bad in combination mostly because it highlights how horrible the old grays were. In all honesty, I think that if I were to reuse the old themes and make remakes I would use the new grays. They look much better to me. And since I didn't have a big collection until returning from my dark ages as an AFOL, I don't have so many old gray with me anyway.

The new grays have so much more 'life' when compared with the old ones, I mean really.

It also seems to me that they are less likely to get yellowed, an issue that was very bad with the white bricks in my old collection. BTW, I am pretty sure that there is a "new white" as well, it looks a little different to the old one and also seems less likely to get yellow. I actually can spot the difference between my old and new white bricks from a distance.

It would be pretty bad if dark gray and gray were very common in my old collection, but I honestly don't have so many of them. Dark grey makes a small tupperware and normal gray twice the size of that small tupperware. When compared to the amount of black, I have around 10 times more black than gray.

Edited July 4, 2011 by vexorian

[Brickdoctor]

One more comment: I think the newer you are to Lego the less it seems to bug you. My son, seven, does not even understand what I mean by "new" colors. He just sees more colors. A friend who is my age still calls the "new greys" and hates them.

That and any younger fans and completely (as in, not returning from a Dark Age) new fans probably didn't/don't know about the older colors. New fans start out by buying whatever sets interest them, and there're no old colors in those sets. It only makes sense that the newer fans don't mind. They don't have very many of the older colors anyways.

[Aanchir]

In my opinion, old grays and the new blueish grays look bad in combination mostly because it highlights how horrible the old grays were. In all honesty, I think that if I were to reuse the old themes and make remakes I would use the new grays. They look much better to me. And since I didn't have a big collection until returning from my dark ages as an AFOL, I don't have so many old gray with me anyway.

The new grays have so much more 'life' when compared with the old ones, I mean really.

It also seems to me that they are less likely to get yellowed, an issue that was very bad with the white bricks in my old collection. BTW, I am pretty sure that there is a "new white" as well, it looks a little different to the old one and also seems less likely to get yellow. I actually can spot the difference between my old and new white bricks from a distance.

It would be pretty bad if dark gray and gray were very common in my old collection, but I honestly don't have so many of them. Dark grey makes a small tupperware and normal gray twice the size of that small tupperware. When compared to the amount of black, I have around 10 times more black than gray.

Well, white never got a new Material ID like the greys did, but that's probably because the "target color" is still the same-- it's just more resistant to yellowing and possibly a bit purer in color when you first pull it out of the box for the same reason.

I agree about using old and new greys together, although I've seen MOCists pull it off effectively-- and to the advantage of their MOCs, which either gain a "mottled" look (if the greys are alternated) or just have one additional color in the "neutral" zone than they would have otherwise.

[peterab]

My pre dark age collection is mostly from the 70's. At that time most plates were light grey. Imagine how you would feel if the vast majority of plates in your collection were now relegated to museum status. I never wanted to be a collector, but now for aesthetic reasons I don't mix those 70's parts with the rest of my collection.

You can mix old and new greys for effect, but as can be seen in this thread most people don't like mixing the old and new colours. In effect the change made the old greys redundant in terms of new building, since it meant the prices of the old greys would climb, so the natural preference would be to use the newer cheaper colour with a wider range of parts.

The real failure here was the designers pushed for an aesthetic change in the name of better design, while actually breaking a far more important aspect of the LEGO system; the fact all elements should be usable together. And it had the greatest effect on TLGs oldest fans. Complete FAIL.

[Spencer_R]

In my opinion, old grays and the new blueish grays look bad in combination mostly because it highlights how horrible the old grays were. In all honesty, I think that if I were to reuse the old themes and make remakes I would use the new grays. They look much better to me. And since I didn't have a big collection until returning from my dark ages as an AFOL, I don't have so many old gray with me anyway."

That's pretty much the case for me. The old light gray almost looks dirty compared to the new. I keep my stockpiles of each separate. If I have an application for which I feel the old color works better, than I will use it. However I've almost never encountered that situation.

[Lego Otaku]

That's pretty much the case for me. The old light gray almost looks dirty compared to the new. I keep my stockpiles of each separate. If I have an application for which I feel the old color works better, than I will use it. However I've almost never encountered that situation.

I just keep mine separate and not bother with old grey for large MOC. All the LEGO I got from late 70's to 80's has remained isolated from the rest of my collection except for 4.5v train tracks and monorail parts, those don't exist in bley!! So it's hard to accidentally mix them with new parts.

[ziljin]

All of my old bricks are dirty and have dents in them so I just leave them in a bag. I don't have that many though. I just leave them there to remind me of childhood memories. The minifigures are also missing pieces and not in best shape but I keep them in my minifigure pile since I don't mind about that. Although the printing does bother me since newer torsos have incredibly elaborate printing while older minifigures have basic printing.

Edited July 6, 2011 by lego40k

[vexorian]

The real failure here was the designers pushed for an aesthetic change in the name of better design, while actually breaking a far more important aspect of the LEGO system; the fact all elements should be usable together. And it had the greatest effect on TLGs oldest fans. Complete FAIL.

I think the failure was in not doing this change earlier, actually. ABS colors that have more blue base than yellow base are less prone to yellowing, and the new colors look better.

There are some color combinations that look very bad, that does not mean the individual colors of those combinations shouldn't exist just because "all elements should be usable together".

[peterab]

I think the failure was in not doing this change earlier, actually. ABS colors that have more blue base than yellow base are less prone to yellowing, and the new colors look better.

There are some color combinations that look very bad, that does not mean the individual colors of those combinations shouldn't exist just because "all elements should be usable together".

When should they have done it? In the sixties before the yellowing problem was apparent? Any time after that would have caused the same problem, though I guess before the internet it might not have been so public, though their support phone lines would have made TLG very aware of it.

The colour change was pushed for by the designers because the new colours look better together, and I agree with that. The problem is the old colours were deleted. The new colours exist at the expense of the old colours, which looked fine together. The old individual colours shouldn't cease to exist just because the "new combinations look good together" either.

The fact that the biggest negative reaction has come from Germany, LEGOs biggest market, and that TLG have apologized, and have said they'll never do this again, suggests it really was a failure that should never have happened. Unfortunately for everyone (both fans and TLG) TLG had no idea they were going to cause a problem before they did it. Thats really where the failure lies. This was hugely damaging to their relationship with their fans in their biggest market.

[Aanchir]

When should they have done it? In the sixties before the yellowing problem was apparent? Any time after that would have caused the same problem, though I guess before the internet it might not have been so public, though their support phone lines would have made TLG very aware of it.

The colour change was pushed for by the designers because the new colours look better together, and I agree with that. The problem is the old colours were deleted. The new colours exist at the expense of the old colours, which looked fine together. The old individual colours shouldn't cease to exist just because the "new combinations look good together" either.

The fact that the biggest negative reaction has come from Germany, LEGOs biggest market, and that TLG have apologized, and have said they'll never do this again, suggests it really was a failure that should never have happened. Unfortunately for everyone (both fans and TLG) TLG had no idea they were going to cause a problem before they did it. Thats really where the failure lies. This was hugely damaging to their relationship with their fans in their biggest market.

The word "failure" gets thrown around a lot for anything TLG does that doesn't go perfectly. A negative reaction is one thing, but is there any significant evidence that TLG's sales suffered the least bit as a result of the change? If there were any huge impact to sales, I imagine they wouldn't have hesitated to change the colors back. But I've seen no evidence that TLG faced any repercussions from the change other than disgruntlement from some AFOLs. And AFOLs, no matter what market they're a part of, are a minority compared to the toys' actual target market.

It's true, there was a minor failure in that they didn't prepare for any negative repercussions at all. But since this failure did them no considerable harm in the long run, it's hard to argue that the change was a failure overall.

In my opinion, it would have been silly to introduce new greys without getting rid of the old ones. Having both versions out would just be redundant. And what benefit would there have been to introducing new greys if they weren't going to be used consistently? It would just be expanding TLG's color palette when they were trying to do just the opposite.

[Joebot]

The word "failure" gets thrown around a lot for anything TLG does that doesn't go perfectly. A negative reaction is one thing, but is there any significant evidence that TLG's sales suffered the least bit as a result of the change? If there were any huge impact to sales, I imagine they wouldn't have hesitated to change the colors back. But I've seen no evidence that TLG faced any repercussions from the change other than disgruntlement from some AFOLs.

I would argue that it was a failure in management. It's management's job at any corporation to forsee the impact of change, and to guide the company and their customers through that change as painlessly as possible. In that regard, TLC management was an utter failure. They implemented the color change with no warning, no announcements, no message out to the community at all. Then they seemed totally caught off guard by the fan backlash. It's astonishing really, how short-sighted they were. Did they really expect to slip the color change into production without any customers noticing?!?! It almost seems so.

Now, you are probably right in that there weren't any serious financial consequences to the whole fiasco. TLC is still a well-respected brand and a profitable company.

Man, I will never forget that initial Lugnet post where somebody first noticed the change and posted pictures of the new shades of grey. That thread EXPLODED. Not good times ....

[vexorian]

When should they have done it? In the sixties before the yellowing problem was apparent? Any time after that would have caused the same problem, though I guess before the internet it might not have been so public, though their support phone lines would have made TLG very aware of it.

1996 where the yellowing problem was apparent and widespread.

The colour change was pushed for by the designers because the new colours look better together,

How do we know this?

and I agree with that. The problem is the old colours were deleted. The new colours exist at the expense of the old colours, which looked fine together. The old individual colours shouldn't cease to exist just because the "new combinations look good together" either.

They just stopped using the old colors. And to be honest, I can't think of any LEGO set made after the color change that would look better with the old colors. Nor it would make sense to add them in Creator bucks.

They didn't delete dark gray from reality, you can still use your dark gray bricks and they probably still look as bad as they did when combined with the other colors, like black, red, blue and yellow which didn't have an apparent change.

The fact that the biggest negative reaction has come from Germany, LEGOs biggest market, and that TLG have apologized, and have said they'll never do this again, suggests it really was a failure that should never have happened.

I think the apology was about not talking through with the AFOLs before making the change. But I think that the specific change makes so much sense that if TLG talked it through and AFOLs opposed they would have done it anyway. Mostly because AFOL opposition is not very rational this time.

Unfortunately for everyone (both fans and TLG) TLG had no idea they were going to cause a problem before they did it. Thats really where the failure lies. This was hugely damaging to their relationship with their fans in their biggest market.

Their biggest market is Germany. But AFOLs everywhere are not in any way TLG's biggest market. So, even in Germany most of their sales are to kids and their parents. They don't think really care about this.

Perhaps if the color change had an actual impact on sales, then it would be a 'failure'. But I think that ever since 2004 sales have been better and better (most likely not because of the color change, but definitely the color change didn't stop them). I can bet you, while the AFOLs in Germany were revolting about this the kids were still buying as usual and it never translated in an actual drop in sales.

A huge fan backlash does not really matter when it does not affect the company beyond people in the internet saying they no longer trust the company but still buying the new sets. So, management failed to predict a very minor issue.

Edited July 8, 2011 by vexorian

[peterab]

The word "failure" gets thrown around a lot for anything TLG does that doesn't go perfectly.

Some TLG employee's have performance criteria in which fan happiness is measured. It would certainly qualify as a total failure in those terms. Many large corporations measure their success or failure on a much broader range of criteria than purely financial, and TLG are particularly protective of their image, since their brand is their most precious asset. US customers perhaps don't understand quite how Europeans see LEGO because TLG is not as successful yet in the US, but having some German fans swearing never to buy Lego again isn't an indicator of a successful move. It's also pretty hard to estimate what the real cost of the move was since it was lost sales, far easier to measure real sales.

I would argue that it was a failure in management. It's management's job at any corporation to forsee the impact of change, and to guide the company and their customers through that change as painlessly as possible. In that regard, TLC management was an utter failure. They implemented the color change with no warning, no announcements, no message out to the community at all. Then they seemed totally caught off guard by the fan backlash. It's astonishing really, how short-sighted they were. Did they really expect to slip the color change into production without any customers noticing?!?! It almost seems so.

Yeah this is pretty much how I see it. It was a failure to see the impact of their actions.

1996 where the yellowing problem was apparent and widespread.

The yellowing was already apparent in the early 80's, but a similar change would still have had negative effects, perhaps without feedback getting back to TLG.

How do we know this?

The explanation was part of the public apology afterwards.

I think the apology was about not talking through with the AFOLs before making the change. But I think that the specific change makes so much sense that if TLG talked it through and AFOLs opposed they would have done it anyway. Mostly because AFOL opposition is not very rational this time.

I have to disagree here. Had they talked to AFOLs before hand they would have realized there would be opposition to the move. That in itself was a turning point for TLG. Also they might have been able to formulate a middle path. There were two aspects to the colour change, a change to avoid yellowing, and a change to a more blue toned palette for aesthetic reasons. Only one of those was necessary, but by the time they realized the aesthetic change would be so unpopular, it was too late. Had they known they could perhaps have sought to mimic the old colours with yellowing resistant mix.

While the new colours arguably look better, and certainly don't mix well with the old colours, but that wasn't even a problem till after the new greys were around, there certainly was no push from Lego fans to replace the colours.

A huge fan backlash does not really matter when it does not affect the company beyond people in the internet saying they no longer trust the company but still buying the new sets. So, management failed to predict a very minor issue.

AFOLs still account for 5% of sales, and this is still millions of dollars worth. Also more importantly AFOLs are a growing market, where many of TLGs best markets are saturated. If the AFOL community were not seen as important we wouldn't see the many exclusive sets catering primarily to us. We are also seen as a marketing bonus, so TLG actively encourages exhibitions through support for conventions and programs such as LUGBULK. TLG are very serious about their relationship with the AFOL community. It may have been a minor issue to you personally, but I think it's highly unlikely that TLG would promise never to do it again if they viewed it that way.

[vexorian]

Some TLG employee's have performance criteria in which fan happiness is measured.

I don't know if this is a rumor. But anyway. Do you really think they put a big weight to this? I would seriously doubt. Also, if these LEGO employees are the ambassadors and people with relation to the community then it really has nothing to do with the change of colors.

It would certainly qualify as a total failure in those terms.

Why? A vocal minority of the fandumb is not really a big deal. You know. At the end of the day, "fan happiness" is not "adult fan happiness". AFOLs are still an incredibly minor part of the market. Of them, there is really no consensus about the change being a total failure or even bad. So, for a "failure", we are talking about 1% of the fans who think that the thing was an utter failure but don't seem to stop buying sets.

Many large corporations measure their success or failure on a much broader range of criteria than purely financial, and TLG are particularly protective of their image, since their brand is their most precious asset. US customers perhaps don't understand quite how Europeans see LEGO because TLG is not as successful yet in the US, but having some German fans swearing never to buy Lego again isn't an indicator of a successful move. It's also pretty hard to estimate what the real cost of the move was since it was lost sales, far easier to measure real sales.

How do you measure brand image again? That's with sales. The fan uproar, and some few Germans swearing not to buy the brand again can only be measured if it had an effect on sales. And it didn't.

The yellowing was already apparent in the early 80's, but a similar change would still have had negative effects, perhaps without feedback getting back to TLG.

The only true negative effect with this is people not being able to combine their old colors with the new ones. So, making the change earlier would have reduced the amount of people affected by it.

I have to disagree here. Had they talked to AFOLs before hand they would have realized there would be opposition to the move. That in itself was a turning point for TLG. Also they might have been able to formulate a middle path. There were two aspects to the colour change, a change to avoid yellowing, and a change to a more blue toned palette for aesthetic reasons. Only one of those was necessary, but by the time they realized the aesthetic change would be so unpopular, it was too late.

Again, how is the change unpopular? Uproar in obscure LUG groups? Do you think that is the only feedback TLG got? I'd bet you that they do other things like asking kids and parents in focus groups if they like how the newer SW sets with the blueish tones or prefer the old ones.

How is it too late? Hey, if TLG actually decided that the change was so negative, then they would have once again tried to mimic the old colors and start re-introducing them. What happened here is that they measured the true impact of the color change, rather than just seeing the internet posts and they figured that keeping the new colors was for the best and that a "public apology" would be enough to fix the very minor reduction in brand image.

While the new colours arguably look better, and certainly don't mix well with the old colours, but that wasn't even a problem till after the new greys were around, there certainly was no push from Lego fans to replace the colours.

Fans have a tendency toward the status quo, so this shouldn't be a surprise.

AFOLs still account for 5% of sales, and this is still millions of dollars worth. Also more importantly AFOLs are a growing market, where many of TLGs best markets are saturated. If the AFOL community were not seen as important we wouldn't see the many exclusive sets catering primarily to us. We are also seen as a marketing bonus, so TLG actively encourages exhibitions through support for conventions and programs such as LUGBULK. TLG are very serious about their relationship with the AFOL community. It may have been a minor issue to you personally, but I think it's highly unlikely that TLG would promise never to do it again if they viewed it that way.

This is not about AFOLs not being an important market. This is about AFOL roar not having an effect in sales. Because AFOLs are great at saying Ruined Forever swearing that they will not buy LEGO and etc. But then, the next wave of sets is announced and they know in their inside that they will return to buy stuff. The AFOL surveys come and they still answer that they would recommend LEGO to other people. They are also a group of people that react negatively to anything.

I think that TLG considering the reactions of the AFOL people in the internet before making any decision is going to be suicidal.

Edited July 11, 2011 by vexorian

[Aanchir]

Some TLG employee's have performance criteria in which fan happiness is measured. It would certainly qualify as a total failure in those terms. Many large corporations measure their success or failure on a much broader range of criteria than purely financial, and TLG are particularly protective of their image, since their brand is their most precious asset. US customers perhaps don't understand quite how Europeans see LEGO because TLG is not as successful yet in the US, but having some German fans swearing never to buy Lego again isn't an indicator of a successful move. It's also pretty hard to estimate what the real cost of the move was since it was lost sales, far easier to measure real sales.

Frankly, though, my problem is with the claim that it was "a failure that never should have happened", since that seems to suggest it has a lot of lasting consequences. As it is, the AFOL community has largely recovered (and grown larger than it was even then). And TLG's sales have continued to improve since the change in spite of any small losses that might have taken place because of the color change. What "some fans" decide doesn't really make a measurable difference in the long run. Some fans of Star Wars probably swore off the entire franchise when the prequels first came out, but that doesn't make the prequels a failure when there were more than enough new fans and old fans alike to offset the loss.

Also, you're speaking to a US customer who has been a die-hard LEGO fan his entire life. I wasn't very active in the online LEGO community at that time, and I certainly wasn't active in AFOL circles (I only began to discover the online BIONICLE fan community in 2005), but that doesn't mean I was an oblivious fan who didn't care either way when TLG made changes. The way I see it, TLG has made a lot of decisions that have been unpopular with AFOLs, but assuming they were all failures for that reason is ignoring the bigger picture. There may have been a failure to predict the AFOL backlash, but it wasn't an overall failure for the company.

I have to disagree here. Had they talked to AFOLs before hand they would have realized there would be opposition to the move. That in itself was a turning point for TLG. Also they might have been able to formulate a middle path. There were two aspects to the colour change, a change to avoid yellowing, and a change to a more blue toned palette for aesthetic reasons. Only one of those was necessary, but by the time they realized the aesthetic change would be so unpopular, it was too late. Had they known they could perhaps have sought to mimic the old colours with yellowing resistant mix.

This is, of course, assuming that the opposition was considerable enough to have had an impact. I and a number of other people who have posted in this topic mention preferring the new bluer colors. LEGO may be a company that strongly values quality and customer satisfaction, but that doesn't mean they're a company unwilling to make sacrifices when a marginal part of their consumer base raises a stink over a change that will potentially make the brand more popular with their target audience. The BIONICLE fan community tends to have a number of gripes that AFOLs often ignore, such as that Technic pins should all still be black and grey. Should TLG listen to these minority voices without questions, even at the expense of other LEGO fans?

While the new colours arguably look better, and certainly don't mix well with the old colours, but that wasn't even a problem till after the new greys were around, there certainly was no push from Lego fans to replace the colours.

Of course, LEGO was struggling to stay afloat on its current fanbase. Pandering to a small percentage of those fans without taking any measures to increase satisfaction for new customers would not have been a particularly sound business model.

AFOLs still account for 5% of sales, and this is still millions of dollars worth. Also more importantly AFOLs are a growing market, where many of TLGs best markets are saturated. If the AFOL community were not seen as important we wouldn't see the many exclusive sets catering primarily to us. We are also seen as a marketing bonus, so TLG actively encourages exhibitions through support for conventions and programs such as LUGBULK. TLG are very serious about their relationship with the AFOL community. It may have been a minor issue to you personally, but I think it's highly unlikely that TLG would promise never to do it again if they viewed it that way.

5% is millions of dollars worth, but at the same time it's a trifle compared to however many dollars the remaining 95% is worth. And while I'm not fool enough to claim that every decision made at AFOLs' expense prompts an equal and opposite increase in every other segment of the consumer base, it still remains clear that when it comes to a decision between satisfying a small segment of the community and satisfying a much larger segment, the larger one will win out. The influence of AFOLs may have been underestimated at the time this change was made, but as with many changes TLG has made since, it has not been significant enough to overrule changes that overall benefit the company.

If the gray colors had been as poor in quality as Mega Bloks colors were at that time, some AFOLs would still have been sour about seeing them change. Any change made by a company as big as LEGO is going to bring out a lot of opinions both good and bad. But just because the benefits of the change weren't immediately obvious to AFOLs doesn't mean they weren't there. A kid buying his first set and encountering the new greys might be happier with the color quality than they would have been if buying a set that contained the older greys. It's something that neither an AFOL nor a TLG market researcher can easily measure. But to assume that TLG didn't put any consideration into the change just because they didn't think much about the AFOL perspective is remarkably pretentious. We're important to TLG, but we are not the primary audience, and so we won't be TLG's top priority unless that changes (which it wouldn't unless the fundamental nature of the company as a children's toy company were to change).

[CP5670]

I highly doubt that the typical kid buying Lego noticed any difference in the grays when a set only contained one variety. It's hard enough for us to tell the difference, and I can only obviously see it when they are side by side. The only thing they achieved with the change was to annoy the few AFOLs who did notice. We have since seen bigger differences than this among parts of the same color due to reduced quality, and few customers have noticed that either.

A less than perfect outcome that could have been improved upon is in fact often viewed as a "failure" in the business world. As you say, in the long run the color change had essentially no effect on their profits or brand image, but the argument that it actually did anything useful for them is even more spurious.

[snefroe]

I would argue that it was a failure in management. It's management's job at any corporation to forsee the impact of change, and to guide the company and their customers through that change as painlessly as possible. In that regard, TLC management was an utter failure. They implemented the color change with no warning, no announcements, no message out to the community at all. Then they seemed totally caught off guard by the fan backlash. It's astonishing really, how short-sighted they were. Did they really expect to slip the color change into production without any customers noticing?!?! It almost seems so.

i talked to some one high up in Lego and she clearly indicated Lego completely messed up in communicating and managing the color shift, no discussion there. They were simply not aware of the impact of that decision upon the older Lego fans, who were still involved in Lego, building onto their old collection. trust me, theyll think twice about doing another color shift of that magnitude in the future.

as for me, i'm a space fan, so i'm split between both bley and old gray. at first, i didn't like the dark and light bley, but i've become used to them and i have to say, i'd rather build mocs in those colors nowadays, except for real cassic space ships. the combination of old grey, trans-yellow and blue, simply is superior, even though your number of different parts is limited. i cant explain why, really, but classic space just needs to be build in that way.

Dark grey is a different matter. Not sure where it came from or why it was created but i loved it from the start. As a space fan, the number of colors you can use are limited anyway and another dark color simply made it easier to make your models more realistic. Besides, "Life on mars" was in dark grey and i felt that was a spectacular line in terms of color combinations.

I have truckloads of the four grey colors... i try to mix them, but it's not easy. old and new dont mix very well, however, i found that you can add another color like tan, brown or dark tan that pretty much allows a mixture of greys in your moc. I also find that a moc in different greys can work very well in real life, but, for some reason , the combination of the colors becomes messy on photos...

I don't buy old and dark grey anymore. let's face it, they're out of production, so there's not much future in it anymore. especially dark grey, which had a fairly short production run to begin with, is no longer desired by me. the new greys are now dominating my parts collection. I'm fine with that. i think the blueish element in those colors can be just as realistic as the old grey color, for "Space" and for "Castle"