CopMike

LEGO® CUUSOO 空想 - Turn your model wishes into reality

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Dusts off magic crystal ball... ahem. My predictions

Western Town - Yes, but scaled down a bit. This is probably the only slam dunk in this grouping. It's gorgeous. It's hugely popular. and would probably work as a complimentary feeder to the Lone Ranger line. (No one buying LR stuff would buy this instead. Anyone buying this will buy ALL of the LR stuff to go with it.)

Eve, Rifter - Yes, but may be a more exclusive set or a smaller run. It has a very specific niche target audience. Probably good enough for a good faith CuuSoo run.

BttF deLorean - Probably. It will all depend on the costs and terms of any license. But Universal is normally not bad to work with regarding older properties. So long as their isn't a licensing conflict this will probably go. I think TLG really likes this set, it seems to be exactly the size and sort of thing they are gunning for with CuuSoo.

Zelda - I'm gonna guess no on this one. Nintendo is just way too weird to work with in most cases. Nintendo can barely get third party game developers to work with them because of the weirdness. (Remember in the case of Lego City Undercover, it is actually going the other way. Nintendo is making use of the Lego licenses. The only Nintendo licensing involved is Tt paying the developer license, dev kit and game certification costs. And there are no negotiations there. That's simply write Nintendo the check.)

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Is it me or the fact there's a video may mean we'll see a prototype (or final) of what's to be released on the next slot?

Cheers

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Well apparantly, Back to the Future it is... Looks like a neat little set that fits with the LEGO Cuusoo idea.

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I was surprised just one set got it, but I guess between licensing, market attraction, and theme conflicts it makes sense.

Edited by soccernamlak

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Great, i'm looking forward to modular western town set !

Wait, what, it didnt pass the review? in that case Cuusoo is pretty much dead to me ..

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The results are out! I'm so disapointed with TLG and I had a bad feeling about this whole CUUSOO stuff back in time it began. It's a fine brain storming place for LEGO to "steal" the ideas and the rules are so non obligatory for the company, they can do whatever they want. Of course this way we get the feeling they want to reject as many projects as possible to save that stupid 1% of income. They might put something similar out in a while anyway ...

The modular western town conflicts with Lone Ranger?! I agree but just a bit. If you take in consideration how nice the MOC is, how much effort was put into advertising it and how long it took this (in my opinion best CUUSOO project so far) to reach the 10000, it is clear that TLG acts very scorning in this case! I really feel sorry for mb_bricks. They could simply create an exclusive modular western building. Something along the lines of this years Hounted house. It could be released in very late 2013 and would have not much to do with the Lone Ranger. Or at least keep the idea and postpone it into 2014 or "until the LR is over". But nothing ... note: rejecting ideas does not mean they won't consider similar projects in the future - this clearly indicates they are trying not to discourage people in posting in this example Western thematics. But does it really have to go through this whole f***ing long process to maybe get rejected once more???

I am sorry LEGO, but this was a huge dissapointment for me, and one of the biggest blunders in a long time! I'll try to avoid having any business with CUUSOO again, ever! As CDC said, CUUSOO is pretty much dead and it's their own fault.

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Well, that's incredibly lame. I expected Zelda and maybe Rifter to fail, but Modular Western Town? "Conflicts with an ongoing project" - what does that mean? Lone Ranger isn't much of an ongoing project (yet), and I would have thought that it fits in rather nicely with it. Likewise with the City modular town buildings. They're willing to go negotiate a license for BTTF from Universal, but can't figure out how to make this part of the modular line or part of Lone Ranger or just delay it until Lone Ranger is over? Only thing I can think of is that their contract with Disney on LR is limited to certain very specific sets and also prohibits TLG from making any other western-style sets for a certain time period (several years). If so, they could at least tell us. I hope they communicated in more detail with the project owner, because the posting on the blog is incredibly short and vague.

in that case Cuusoo is pretty much dead to me ..

Exactly. I think Cuusoo just lost what little credibility it had left. First the really long review period, and now this. I know I won't bother checking it out regularly anymore.

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Wow, those results were unexpected. :look:

Still, I'm happy about the results of the BTTF project. The first Back to the Future is definitely in my top 5 favorite films list. Two very important thing is on my mind: did they get DeLorean licensing, and will they make new molds for the figures? I really hope they make new hair piece molds for them.

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So does this mean that every other Zelda project should be scrapped? The 4th most supported project is another Zelda one. If this current project gets to change it's molds and what not, that isn't quite fair to the guys that already achieved the 10,000 supports.

If Lego really wanted to use the project, they could have changed it themselves. Afterall, they are going to change and alter every project anyways, so what is the difference?

The only thing that will regain my faith in cuusoo is space marines passing review. If that fails I am quitting there for good.

There is no way that it is going to pass. If they denied the Western town because of the Lone Ranger theme, then the Space Marines(or troopers) has zero chance because of the Galaxy Squad theme.

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Well, that's incredibly lame. I expected Zelda and maybe Rifter to fail, but Modular Western Town? "Conflicts with an ongoing project" - what does that mean? Lone Ranger isn't much of an ongoing project (yet), and I would have thought that it fits in rather nicely with it. Likewise with the City modular town buildings. They're willing to go negotiate a license for BTTF from Universal, but can't figure out how to make this part of the modular line or part of Lone Ranger or just delay it until Lone Ranger is over? Only thing I can think of is that their contract with Disney on LR is limited to certain very specific sets and also prohibits TLG from making any other western-style sets for a certain time period (several years). If so, they could at least tell us. I hope they communicated in more detail with the project owner, because the posting on the blog is incredibly short and vague.

I think people are overestimating the certainty of Modular Western Town's appeal... there hasn't been a Western theme in over a decade, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a good reason for that. I haven't known kids to be extremely excited about cowboys and other hallmarks of the western genre in years, and I'm sure that's even more the case in countries other than America where those gritty American values that westerns typically promote might not be seen through the same rose-colored glasses. When was the last film in the western genre that was heavily marketed toward kids? Not in a long time, right? Toy Story 2 even made the declining appeal of the western genre a plot point.

The Lone Ranger seems like it might be aiming to revitalize that genre, just as Pirates of the Caribbean did for the long-suffering swashbuckling pirate genre. But until it proves successful at that, any western-themed LEGO product is a gamble. And without knowledge of how well the Lone Ranger will perform, TLG rightly won't want to divide its sales any further than the number of sets they've decided the license can support.

"If so, they could at least tell us..." No, they couldn't. They already got in trouble with Disney for accidentally revealing the teaser site ahead of time. The fact is, Disney presumably hasn't given TLG permission to disclose the very existence of a Lone Ranger theme yet. When they have, we'll see a press release.

The results are out! I'm so disapointed with TLG and I had a bad feeling about this whole CUUSOO stuff back in time it began. It's a fine brain storming place for LEGO to "steal" the ideas and the rules are so non obligatory for the company, they can do whatever they want. Of course this way we get the feeling they want to reject as many projects as possible to save that stupid 1% of income. They might put something similar out in a while anyway ...

The modular western town conflicts with Lone Ranger?! I agree but just a bit. If you take in consideration how nice the MOC is, how much effort was put into advertising it and how long it took this (in my opinion best CUUSOO project so far) to reach the 10000, it is clear that TLG acts very scorning in this case! I really feel sorry for mb_bricks. They could simply create an exclusive modular western building. Something along the lines of this years Hounted house. It could be released in very late 2013 and would have not much to do with the Lone Ranger. Or at least keep the idea and postpone it into 2014 or "until the LR is over". But nothing ... note: rejecting ideas does not mean they won't consider similar projects in the future - this clearly indicates they are trying not to discourage people in posting in this example Western thematics. But does it really have to go through this whole f***ing long process to maybe get rejected once more???

I am sorry LEGO, but this was a huge dissapointment for me, and one of the biggest blunders in a long time! I'll try to avoid having any business with CUUSOO again, ever! As CDC said, CUUSOO is pretty much dead and it's their own fault.

People keep assuming the Lone Ranger theme is planned for the short term. While its chances of a long lifespan are completely up in the air, there's no reason to think that TLG won't have any incentive to keep re-stocking sets if it turns out that the film and product line are successful.

In the meantime, the Modular Western Town project was never quite in line with the Cuusoo platform in the first place, since it was proposing a product line rather than focusing on one central product. There's nothing stopping the project creator from creating a proposal for an individual building in the future, especially if The Lone Ranger sets prove successful and show that yes, there's a market for western sets worldwide.

There's also no reason to think the LEGO Cuusoo team is delaying the process deliberately. If they could make it go faster, I'm sure they would. But frankly, there's a lot of coordination that probably has to go into this. Hopefully they are working on a means of streamlining the review process at this very moment, but in the meantime there are a lot of factors the LEGO Cuusoo team has to deal with in the review process and even eliminating a few of them would still leave a convoluted process for things to get through.

Overall, I'm more or less satisfied with these review results. They may not be pretty, but TLG has been able to offer a clear and sensible justification for their decisions, and none of the rejected proposals besides the EVE Online proposal (which I haven't seen any tears shed for yet) were rejected for reasons that will require blanket rejection of future projects. The future of Cuusoo is probably going to be messy for at least a while longer, but as far as I'm concerned the promise and integrity of the platform are still intact.

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I am certain that the People at Cuusoo have a good idea which projects are going to never happen when they are entering the final stretch. There are a few of the top supported models which they have basically told the designer that it is unlikely that their project is going to happen. This is another reason why they really need to alternate the main models on their website instead of featuring the top 6 all of the time. There are many models that have a better chance of actually becoming real sets than than the current top 6 or even top 10. Every week the 10 most supported models have the same top 6 in them.

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There is no way that it is going to pass. If they denied the Western town because of the Lone Ranger theme, then the Space Marines(or troopers) has zero chance because of the Galaxy Squad theme.

Wrong. LR is a 3rd party theme, while GS is LEGO own theme. I am not saying Space Marines will definetly pass, but comparisons can't be done in this case.

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I think people are over reacting on the Western Town. They say there is a license conflict, so there quite likely is. There is most likely a certain degree of exclusivity in the Disney license contracts. Ie Lego cannot release stand alone Pirate theme sets concurrently or while PotC is active. Lego would probably be precluded from releasing an "Arabian Nights" theme when PoP is active, and they cannot release straight up Western stuff while LR is active. The decision in this case was probably more Disneys then Lego's. I am very sad about it, but I can understand it.

The Zelda set really never had a chance. As presented the project was more of a collectables figure pack, not a construction set, so not in their core business, and then add on a tough complicated license from a notoriously flaky licensor and yeah. No go.

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That's really a shame about Modular Western Town, but I can see the reasoning behind its rejection. I'm glad to see I'll be able to have a LEGO DeLorean sitting on my desk at some point, though. :blush:

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If you take in consideration how nice the MOC is, how much effort was put into advertising it and how long it took this (in my opinion best CUUSOO project so far) to reach the 10000, it is clear that TLG acts very scorning in this case!

CUUSOO is not about how nice mocs are, how much effort was put in advertising them and how long it takes to reach 10000.

Cuusoo is about IDEAS.

They could simply create an exclusive modular western building.
That would change the IDEA of the project. 10000 people voted for a modular western town, not for a modular western building.
But does it really have to go through this whole f***ing long process to maybe get rejected once more???

That's what I am wondering as well. If you're gonna say no, why not say no a bit sooner?

Anyhow. Its disappointing to see models not pass, but let's not forget that Cuusoo is a marketing tool. It's not a we-make-what-you-wish platform (even if it tries to present itself as one). I think it's too bad we're not seeing cool EVE spaceships as well, but from a company perspective I think the Back to the Future idea had the most potential.

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I find this yet another disappointing outcome from the CuuSoo venture.

The ideas I really like don't pass review and the kits that pass review, I don't really like. BTTF is fine, but I don't see myself getting it. Everything else they've released so far I could build with spare parts from my existing collection so why bother with a kit?

Perhaps I was unrealistically optimistic when I first heard of CuuSoo. I thought it was going to be an honest crowd-sourcing forum where serious ideas would be given serious consideration for the benefit of both TLG and the LEGO community; to expand product lines, part selection, and give Lego fans whose tastes have been neglected by recent official offerings a chance to be heard. I didn't expect TLG to bend over backwards to act on every suggestion, but frankly I did expect more than this. What's the point of crowd sourcing if you don't actually listen to the crowd? I realize contractual obligations can convolute things, but if TLG were serious about CuuSoo projects, they'd find a way to make things work and not demoralize nearly ever project creator and tens of thousands of project supporters every time a project comes up for review.

As far as I can tell, the only thing to REALLY come out of CuuSoo is greater brand recognition for LEGO when things like "Purdue Pete" get hyped to students and alumni of a college that graduates 12,000 people a year. Increasingly, TLG doesn't seem serious about producing CuuSoo offerings so much as it using the LEGO Community to "volunteer content" to one of their websites to keep the word "LEGO" common and active term in the Blog-o-sphere with people hyping their projects, news feeds reporting on projects, etc. I really wanted CuuSoo to be more than just cheap advertising for LEGO, especially since we're the ones providing 100% of the content.

If "CuuSoo" means "wish" then I wish for a better CuuSoo system:

1) I'd eliminate CuuSoo as it own theme and use it as an organizer and sounding board for existing LEGO working groups. When someone proposes a "kit based" idea, the first question to ask is which theme does it belong under (Star Wars, Exclusives, City, Technic, etc) or would it be a new license? Part proposals would be automatically attached to part development. Non-kit ideas would go to marketing. No idea coming out of CuuSoo would ever be marketed under the CuuSoo label, it would just be a regular kit as part of a standard product line. The advantage of this is that when issues like Western Town vs. Lone Ranger and Space Marines vs. Galaxy Squad arise it's not a question of CuuSoo vs. TLG, the successful CuuSoo ideas BECOME PART OF the product designs for those other lines so that the kits ultimately produced reflect the design aspects that got the CuuSoo ideas to 10K support in the first place.

2) I would ditch the entire 1% of retail sales gimmick. Based on offerings to date, the production runs are small, the retail price is modest and that 1% that people are lusting over/vowing to donate to charity probably wouldn't even cover the amount of money half the people on CuuSoo spent on parts to build, and the value of their time to design, their models (at least not the really good ones). Does anyone seriously think they're going to retire and live off of the residuals generated by 10,000 copies of a kit that retails for $35 for the rest of their lives? They'd be better off with "rewarding" successful CuuSoo proposers as contractors; treat them as consultants on the development of a product inspired by their design (within whatever line it fits best, both contractually and marketing-wise), given them a plaque and a check for some (reasonable but token) amount and from that point on, the resulting kit (or part ) is no different from any other LEGO offering. The IP is either Lego in-house or licensed and the CuuSoo proposer has bragging rights and some spending money but that's it.

3) Since I'd get rid of CuuSoo as a product line and attach all products to existing themes or development efforts, I'd also pre-filter new proposals to weed out the obvious or unrealistic before it even goes public. IF TLG knows it can't market a bucket of storm troopers for legal reasons, don't publish such a project and get people's hopes up. If the people doing Modular Buildings know that their next building is going to be a Cinema and that that kit will be out before any similar proposal could reach 10,000 votes, don't allow anyone to post a competing product that you know you're only going to reject later.

Of course the problem with these ideas is that goes against the essential rules of bureaucracy. CuuSoo would cease to be it's own little fiefdom; every working group in TLG would need a CuuSoo rep to help screen incoming proposals and address the "fit" of new ideas with ongoing efforts; and, most damning of all, TLG would have to acknowledge the possibility that builder's outside of LEGO _might_ have better ideas for their products than in-house talent.

Of course this idea would never work, even if it got 10,000 supporters, it would languish in the review stage for months on end before getting summarily rejected for being in conflict with current business practices.

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There is no way that it is going to pass. If they denied the Western town because of the Lone Ranger theme, then the Space Marines(or troopers) has zero chance because of the Galaxy Squad theme.

The problem isn't that the Western town conflicted with another theme. The problem is that it caused a conflict with an existing and active license. Most licenses have some degree of exclusivity to them. They don't want the licensee putting them and their competitor head to head, or the licensee to act as a direct competitor to the licensed product. It's subtle and there are a lot of nuances, and it will varry wildly by individual contract. But assume Lego Space does not really compete directly with Star Wars. There are enough differences there to distinguish them. But Lego probably could not seek a Battlestar Galactica license without having some Star Wars issues. In this case there was just no debate. The Western Town was just too close to the LR license.

Space Troopers may not have any conflicts with Galaxy Squad. Lego owns GS and its IP. Galaxy Troopers may be viewed as a good complimentary product. Just as they once released the Star Justice set near or alongside Space Police III. They may still balk at how close the themes are, but it is nowhere near the issue that it was with the Western Town and LR.

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So let me get this straight.....we must be able to guess what licenses Lego are getting years in advance so we don't design something that clashes with a licensed product ? :angry:

Cuusoo has being p___ing me off for the last three months.......I've had two projects cancelled by them plus one rejected due to photographic problems.....yet others can stick up crappy LDD thrown together creations which some do not make any sense at all. :angry:

It's interesting to see that this one which I supported as well - in fact all four I supported - is not a huge set like the others are not monster sets but small to medium sized......could size and part count govern if a project is a go'er or not ? :look:

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I think people are overestimating the certainty of Modular Western Town's appeal... there hasn't been a Western theme in over a decade, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a good reason for that. I haven't known kids to be extremely excited about cowboys and other hallmarks of the western genre in years, and I'm sure that's even more the case in countries other than America where those gritty American values that westerns typically promote might not be seen through the same rose-colored glasses.

I don't think the point of Cuusoo is to create blockbuster sets. Rather, it's to generate new ideas for sets that will have solid and profitable sales, but are not obviously popular enough for TLG designers and marketers to develop on their own. I can't imagine that a well-done Modular Western set would sell less than Shinkai or Hayabusa. I've never seen anyone buy one of those, nor have I ever talked with or chatted with anyone who bought one. Talk about niche products. OK, that's anecdotal evidence at best, but I think MWT would be popular enough to be profitable. I suppose we'll see how well western-themed sets do once LR comes out next year!

And, by the way, I'm not sure that Western themes only appeal to Americans, or even appeal to Americans the most. My Korean and German friends are much more into the old West than Americans are, and they tell me that Western movies and toys were incredibly popular in those countries when they were growing up (70s and 80s).

The Lone Ranger seems like it might be aiming to revitalize that genre, just as Pirates of the Caribbean did for the long-suffering swashbuckling pirate genre. But until it proves successful at that, any western-themed LEGO product is a gamble. And without knowledge of how well the Lone Ranger will perform, TLG rightly won't want to divide its sales any further than the number of sets they've decided the license can support.

Agreed. They don't want to cannibalize or detract from LR, or even draw attention away from it. They probably are contractually prohibited from doing so.

"If so, they could at least tell us..." No, they couldn't. They already got in trouble with Disney for accidentally revealing the teaser site ahead of time. The fact is, Disney presumably hasn't given TLG permission to disclose the very existence of a Lone Ranger theme yet. When they have, we'll see a press release.

They certainly could tell us. All they have to say is that they are contractually prohibited from releasing any sets in this theme for the next few years. They don't have to mention LR, or even 'Western' if they don't want to. Maybe that's what they were trying to do, but their message was unnecessarily brief and vague.

Overall, I'm more or less satisfied with these review results. They may not be pretty, but TLG has been able to offer a clear and sensible justification for their decisions, and none of the rejected proposals besides the EVE Online proposal (which I haven't seen any tears shed for yet) were rejected for reasons that will require blanket rejection of future projects.

I think you're probably in the minority on that opinion, at least on this thread! Given all the discussion we're having trying to figure out the rejections, I certainly wouldn't characterize the justifications as 'clear'. I'm not sure the Rifter explanation was any more clear than MWT's; they seem to be saying that they don't feel it would make money for them, or maybe not as much money as BTTF, or that they can only approve one project per review slot, but it's definitely not clear.

The Zelda rejection is certainly clear, but not totally believable. The project only presents 3 minifigures, and I find it very hard to believe that three new minifigures is going to break the bank, especially since they could probably produce all three with existing molds and new printing. All the new swords and shields would require new molds, but how many of them are really central to the project? My suspicion here is that they couldn't come to terms with Nintendo (as most of us expected). Perhaps there's some truth to the justification -- maybe Nintendo wanted to require them to produce lots of custom headgear, swords, shields, etc to make the set look authentic and TLG balked at the cost of doing so.

The future of Cuusoo is probably going to be messy for at least a while longer, but as far as I'm concerned the promise and integrity of the platform are still intact.

Maybe, but Cuusoo has some big problems: unclear decision criteria, long review times, and thousands of projects to sort through as a supporter. IMHO, it's becoming just a big mess of crappy projects and fanboys. I think at this point it's only effective for isolated, unusual projects that have a highly mobilized fanbase and don't remotely relate to anything else TLG is doing. So Hayabusa, Shinkai, and Minecraft are more the norm; I don't expect to see a lot of projects like BTTF approved. I've pretty much given up checking it, and will probably only look at it if I see an interesting post on EB about a project.

So let me get this straight.....we must be able to guess what licenses Lego are getting years in advance so we don't design something that clashes with a licensed product ? :angry:

Agreed, four months after the review process starts (and ~six months after 10,000 supporters achieved) is not the time for TLG to let us know the project conflicts with an ongoing license. They don't have to reveal what the license/theme is, or even what its general theme is. But they've got to let people know earlier (like before we get 10K supporters?) that there's a problem with the project. Otherwise Cuusoo will more and more appear to be a place a where good projects go to die and AFOLs go to be disappointed again and again.

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...And, by the way, I'm not sure that Western themes only appeal to Americans, or even appeal to Americans the most. My Korean and German friends are much more into the old West than Americans are, and they tell me that Western movies and toys were incredibly popular in those countries when they were growing up (70s and 80s)...

Western themed toy were definitely more popular 40 years ago when I was growing up than they are today in America. While there are certainly _parts_ of America where "the old west" has a certain romantic charm to it, most Americans _I_ know (East Coast Urban Bias) groan every time they dress up Team USA in cowboy hats and boots for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. It's a stereotype right up there with saying that all Frenchmen wear Berets and all Germans wear Lederhosen; certainly some do, but _most_ don't.

I would not be at all surprised if western themed LEGO kits sold better outside the states than here (LR tie-ins not withstanding). My relatives in Scotland are fascinated with that stuff and were disappointed to learn that New England had more in common with Britain than it did with the America they were expecting based on books and movies about cowboys, indians, and the great frontier.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled CuuSoo rant...

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