LEGO® CUUSOO 空想 - Turn your model wishes into reality

[The Mugbearer]

The problem with fanbase projects like this is that people support just because of their loyalty to the idea or theme, but have no intentions of ever purchasing it.

Oh, really? So you think that fans don't care about the actual set? Then why they even bothering themselves, huh? This is illogical! A fan would care for the set, because he wants to pay theirs tribute to the favorite franchise! Go and start such a project and read comments for half a year! I am certain that you will find enough sincere and devoted fans that would buy a set about their favorite franchise if it will be here! I doubt you can understand it thought, but I know from my experience: i think like those fans 'cause I am one of them. And that's a great connection here. Yes, there are those who will for certain won't buy a set because they don't think FTL will fit, but they will not support either! Those gamers who are not interested o in LEGO said 'I won't support this', 'cause I've seen so on Steam Community thread and so on. And vice versa, those who are not interested in FTL at all and not intend to be interested do not support the project. So you can see that your assertion is not quite correct.

However, there was a guy who supported my project only to let it be achieved faster so 'more proper and creative' content will take it's place. This is disgusting.

Edited July 21, 2013 by -N13OS-

[Faefrost]

Oh, really? So you think that fans don't care about the actual set? Then why they even bothering themselves, huh? This is illogical! A fan would care for the set, because he wants to pay theirs tribute to the favorite franchise! Go and start such a project and read comments for half a year! I am certain that you will find enough sincere and devoted fans that would buy a set about their favorite franchise if it will be here! I doubt you can understand it thought, but I know from my experience: i think like those fans 'cause I am one of them. And that's a great connection here. Yes, there are those who will for certain won't buy a set because they don't think FTL will fit, but they will not support either! Those gamers who are not interested o in LEGO said 'I won't support this', 'cause I've seen so on Steam Community thread and so on. And vice versa, those who are not interested in FTL at all and not intend to be interested do not support the project. So you can see that your assertion is not quite correct.

However, there was a guy who supported my project only to let it be achieved faster so 'more proper and creative' content will take it's place. This is disgusting.

Businesses do not operate or invest money in producing product based on fan emotions. How deeply the fans care is irrelevant. Only how many. Even if a CuuSoo project were to see a 100% sell through. Every person who voted for a project buys one at the final offered price, it would just barely hit the absolute minimal production run possible for the most niche Lego product. And no sane company will ever be chasing a 100% conversion of a fan base. It's just not going to happen on a large enough scale. (Here's a hint. If you think your fan base is enthusiastic enough that 109% of the fans would buy a related product, than you have way to small of a fan base for anyone to actually consider making that product.) the voting mechanism and comment and feedback systems are a rough way to gauge fan interest in a project. But the project still must have a strong underlying base and business case in order to be made. That means that above and beyond all of those fans that are vocal or that vote, there must be a much much deeper pool of fans that may or may not buy the thing. A larger pool of fans, of which only a small portion plan on purchasing is actually better than a smaller tighter and supportive total pool of fans.

I know it doesn't seem right at first glance, but trust me on this. The overall numbers are more important than the supportive or enthusiastic fans. Especially where anything involving a license comes into play. When you are playing with somebody else's IP, the decision is mostly based on how widespread that IP is, not how intense it is. It takes less expense, less effort and affords less risk to sell into 2% of a broad fan base than it does to sell into 30% of a smaller one. Even if in the end the total sales numbers are the same.

[The Mugbearer]

I know it doesn't seem right at first glance, but trust me on this.

Fair enough, but I still trust Glen Bricker more on this case, and he's positive. I can't tell you his point of view, however because he use statistics and such things, he's been in research here for a long time. He knows CUUSOO and it's community better than me.

Edited July 21, 2013 by -N13OS-

[BlueberryWaffles]

gone on to be one of the most successful Cuusoo products to date, to the extent that it's being expanded into a larger product line.

Some AFOLs have also said that the audience for the Back to the Future project is too small, and that it's not current or mainstream enough to become a successful LEGO Cuusoo product. We'll see how that pans out.

YES I really want more BTTF sets.

[Faefrost]

Fair enough, but I still trust Glen Bricker more on this case, and he's positive. I can't tell you his point of view, however because he use statistics and such things, he's been in research here for a long time. He knows CUUSOO and it's community better than me.

Actually GlenBrickers views and those I put forth are fairly similar, and really not in conflict. However we are talking about two entirely different things.

GB's discussions and analysis is mainly talking about what it takes to get to the magic CuuSoo number of 10k. And yes that does take concentrated fan enthusiasm. Little guys with heart and enthusiasm and deep passion that they spread can get a seat at this table. And the faster they are able to run up those numbers, the better they are.

But all that 10k threshold does is give you a ticket to pitch your project for real. It gets you a meeting and the opportunity for a rather deep business analysis to be done on your idea. That's the point where the discussion about the total potential market comes into play. Fan enthusiasm will get you the platform to make your pitch, but ultimately it will be raw numbers that will determine whether it is not simply a great project idea, but also a viable one as a product. Pretty much everything GB talks about is what is needed before a project hits 10k. Most of what I am talking about involves what happens afterwards. For a product to make it to the store shelf it needs both. The fan enthusiasm, persistence and drive, and deep organization that GB documents, and the raw identifiable potential market interest in place that I am describing. Otherwise to use the old non politically correct phrase "you are trying to sell snow to Eskimos".

[Aanchir]

It's not a matter of cynicism. It is a simple matter of business math. Yes sometimes you can leverage a smaller tighter niche fan base and strike gold. But it is a far riskier investment in doing so. And Lego, being the big dog in the park, does not need to lightly or often play with such high degree of risk. Or when they do it tends to be carefully calculated. Minecraft was approved in part because it hit the marks for the business case. Remember that topic of "conversion" I posted above? It didn't hurt that the product in question was naturally very synergistic with Lego, but the key thing is the numbers were good enough that they did not serve as an impediment to the remainder of the review and decision process. Very very few video games will hit these sorts of numbers. The video game industry is only just starting to hit the degree of penetration needed to support such business case review or to drive down the risk to where the larger players will get involved.

Minecraft was an experiment into a new untried market. It's been very very succesful. But do not assume that it heralds an easy barrier for entry for other video game based or niche properties yet. TLG is a fairly conservative company. Expect them to be looking carefully at what worked with Minecraft and why.

I'm not saying that TLG shouldn't be cautious. Obviously bigger fandoms have more members in general, and TLG should hold EVERY business case to a high standard rather than arbitrarily lowering their standards for niche projects. I wasn't arguing against that at all.

I'm just saying that I think it's awfully pretentious of AFOLs to assume that just because a project is based on some niche fandom, the people supporting it are just giving a meaningless show of approval and aren't legitimately interested in buying such a product. What ground do we have to assume that "mainstream" projects' supporters are sincere about their willingness to buy the set and "niche" products' supporters are not? Sure, there are some Cuusoo "supporters" who probably aren't committed to buying the sets they support, but that applies for any project based on any fandom, including the LEGO fandom.

This is an issue I have with the community, not with TLG or with LEGO Cuusoo as a platform. It's fine to feel like a LEGO Cuusoo project is too niche to really be viable. However, it's NOT fine to assume that just because a project seems awfully niche, the supports it did receive are less legitimate than the supports given to any other project.

[The Mugbearer]

Glen told me not so long ago that in his opinion, CUUSOO is targeted those 'niche' communities. Of course there is risk that FTL will loose it's popularity.

[Faefrost]

I'm not saying that TLG shouldn't be cautious. Obviously bigger fandoms have more members in general, and TLG should hold EVERY business case to a high standard rather than arbitrarily lowering their standards for niche projects. I wasn't arguing against that at all.

I'm just saying that I think it's awfully pretentious of AFOLs to assume that just because a project is based on some niche fandom, the people supporting it are just giving a meaningless show of approval and aren't legitimately interested in buying such a product. What ground do we have to assume that "mainstream" projects' supporters are sincere about their willingness to buy the set and "niche" products' supporters are not? Sure, there are some Cuusoo "supporters" who probably aren't committed to buying the sets they support, but that applies for any project based on any fandom, including the LEGO fandom.

Exactly. And honestly we as fans really don't have any true indications as to what the purchase conversion ratio will be between CuuSoo voters and buyers. If we have some business background and experience we can probably make some reasonably educated predictions (otherwise known as wild megablocks guesses, but done with a professional pedigree... Like the stock market shows on the business channel.) CuuSoo votes are a very very crude metric. They are an arbitrary threshold basically used as a gauge of interest, not as an indicator of sales potential.

And really the only true indication anyone has is past product performance. What was the typical conversion ratios for prior similar niche products? There are some other things that come into play. Synergies and correlations. (Ie Minecraft was a uniquely positioned video game in that its gameplay and fan base had a clear and direct correlation to Lego's, which probably made the suits more comfortable with the risk. Whereas trying to make a set based on a Madden NFL game is probably less so.) but really its, how many actual fans can we reasonably guarantee exist vs what percentage do we need to sell to to turn a profit on this thing?

Glen told me not so long ago that in his opinion, CUUSOO is targeted those 'niche' communities. Of course there is risk that FTL will loose it's popularity.

That's always the risk with video game properties. (Although I think FTL like Minecraft is actually more of a long term property than a short term one.)

[The Mugbearer]

That's always the risk with video game properties. (Although I think FTL like Minecraft is actually more of a long term property than a short term one.)

I can tell you why. Though it's just my guess, but I think that this is because FTL and Minecraft are indie games. There is no much trouble as if there was a project on big gaming license. And indie-developers are always up to something. Minecraft being constantly updated with new stuff, and community is making a huge load of modifications, thus keeping fans interested. The same with FTL. Indie games are easy to mod because of many reasons, so fan's attention will be there as long as thee are enthusiasts that like to create new stuff. It's like playing Lego. =)

Edited July 21, 2013 by -N13OS-

[Paul Boratko]

I am supporting over 160 projects and I can honestly say that I more than likely would not buy 90% of them.. I offered my support for certain projects because I felt that they were a really good idea for the people out there who are into that particular theme and may never get to visit(or know about) Cuusoo, and I just really hate to see good ideas get lost in the shuffle... There are some amazing designs and ideas on Cuusoo that will probably never get to 1,000 supports due to lack of fan-base...

I can also guarantee that the majority of people that supported that Purdue Pete project would never even buy it.. People voted for that one just because it seemed like the right thing to do...

The Minecraft project came along at just the right time as the game was gaining amazing momentum in sales and cult fans... And that game also fits perfectly with LEGO's structure as it is based on actually building, so Minecraft is really a tough IP to base the future of game related Cuusoo projects on... That one was just too perfect.... I remember seeing it on Cuusoo and thinking "Isn't that what LEGO basically already is?"

Edited July 21, 2013 by Paul Boratko

[Faefrost]

I can tell you why. Though it's just my guess, but I think that this is because FTL and Minecraft are indie games. There is no much trouble as if there was a project on big gaming license. And indie-developers are always up to something. Minecraft being constantly updated with new stuff, and community is making a huge load of modifications, thus keeping fans interested. The same with FTL. Indie games are easy to mod because of many reasons, so fan's attention will be there as long as thee are enthusiasts that like to create new stuff. It's like playing Lego. =)

They are indie games that are fairly cheap, well accessible and were built with long term and repeat gameplay in mind. Which makes them wonderful games. It does not necessarily correlate to wonderful Lego projects but sometimes can.

Let's use the 2% conversion rule that some companies use for looking at licensed IP. It's crude and a gross oversimplification, but it is a good way to get a glimpse of what is involved. Essentially a good target number for licensed IP is you can get 2% of those familiar with the IP to buy into your related product, without having to go to huge marketing efforts on your own. (In other words the license fee alone should be able to return 2% of the potential customers).

So lets look at a few IP driven CuuSoo projects through that filter;

Minecraft - an installed paying used base of roughly 10 million customers at the time it was in review. 2% conversion means a potential purchaser base of 200,000 for a Lego set. Which is quite good for CuuSoo. It would be a safe bet for the typical CuuSoo production runs of 20k or so. Not an overly risky project based on the fast numbers.

Eve Online Grifter - an installed paying customer base of roughly 1 million. 2% rule says potential Lego customer base is probably around 20,000. Which is very very borderline. That is pretty much one minimal production run with no potential for growth. Depending on other elements of the project it could go either way. But would be at best a risky project.

Purdue Pete - aside from the other problems of being a geographically isolated or centralized fan base. We run into number problems here. Purdue University has 40,000 students annually. To get a reasonable fan base that care, lets go with a 5 year spread of that. 200,000. Yeah you will also pick up staff and local football fans. But those numbers are pretty static and buffered by the fact that undergrads are broke. So a fan base of 200,000 - 250,000 is probably pretty close. So with a 2% conversion we have 4,000 sets purchased. Not even half of the smallest potential production run that we know of. (And yes I know I am making a lot of assumptions here.) the only way that set can viably be made is if a third party, such as Purdue assumes the risk. They comission a special set, buy them all, then worry about selling them. In much the same way that some of the previous exclusive company sets have worked (Nestlé Qwik, Airline sets, etc). Let's be honest with ourselves, it probably ain't gonna happen.

Does anyone know how well FTL has sold? I know it has done extremely well in terms of profit, the game only cost $300,000 or so to make I believe, and has easily done a lot better than that? But has it hit 3 or 5 million copies sold? That's probably the low end of the threshold it will need to be a viable set project?

[The Mugbearer]

Does anyone know how well FTL has sold? I know it has done extremely well in terms of profit, the game only cost $300,000 or so to make I believe, and has easily done a lot better than that? But has it hit 3 or 5 million copies sold? That's probably the low end of the threshold it will need to be a viable set project?

I guess that only Justin and Matthew could say.

[Paul Boratko]

I know this isn't an actual sales report, but just going by twitter, FTL has 12,000 followers and Minecraft has 325,000

So I guess that you could get some rough numbers based off of sales... What is Minecraft sales up to total for all systems and PC..? Around 20 million..?

[Faefrost]

It also seems as if they're closing the comments on projects that have reached/that reach 10k supporters.

-Sci

I think the system does that automatically when they hit 10k to prevent the system from being overwhelmed. It seems to be that When projects hit 10k they disappear until the next business day when a human operator can manually change the status to "in review". There was some back end issue awhile back caused when a project hit 10k but voting was not locked. There were strange display issues like the vote count starting over again and outraged fans demanding to know where 9900 votes went, etc. I think auto locking a project at 10k was their workaround.

[Meatman]

I see this assumption all the time, and I'd like to remind people that we heard the very same comments about the Minecraft set at one point. Many AFOLs had never heard of Minecraft, or didn't understand its appeal. Some argued that because Minecraft was a video game, it was likely to be "just a fad" and that it'd be soon be forgotten in favor of "the next big thing". It's gone on to be one of the most successful Cuusoo products to date, to the extent that it's being expanded into a larger product line.

Some AFOLs have also said that the audience for the Back to the Future project is too small, and that it's not current or mainstream enough to become a successful LEGO Cuusoo product. We'll see how that pans out.

Obviously, FTL does not have as huge an audience as Minecraft, and I'm not trying to suggest it does. Nor does its audience necessarily have such a significant overlap with the audience for the LEGO brand. But even if it doesn't end up being a strong enough business case to pass review, I really think we should stop being so cynical about the sincerity of the people supporting these kinds of projects. Reading up on FTL, a portion of its development and release was funded through Kickstarter. Those supporters certainly weren't unwilling to make a financial commitment to the game, even before they were able to play the full game! So why do we even begin to assume that such a niche audience can't be as sincere as fans of LEGO or more "mainstream" non-LEGO franchises?

I am not being cynical, I am being realistic. I also know that previous projects that got to 10,000 supports had people supporting under dozens of accounts, because I had seen them admit to it on various forums.

You are correct in that Minecraft has gone on to be one of the most successful Cuusoo products to date, however, that isn't really saying much considering that it is only the 3rd product to make it and the first 2 were Japanese models that no one outside of Japan had even heard of. It was also the first project that passed and went into production that required 10,000 supports. If I am not mistaken the other ones only required 1,000, so it was a given that Minecraft would sell much better seeing as how it required more support.

And you cannot compare a Multi Million unit selling video game or a movie franchise that grossed over a Billion dollars worldwide at the box office to an independent game with a very small fanbase.

[Sato]

The Minecraft project came along at just the right time as the game was gaining amazing momentum in sales and cult fans...

What seams to be forgotten in the discussion that's been going on about Minecraft and FTL on this page,

Is the fact that Minecraft already had a rapidly growing merchandise market that was highly profitable around the time the Cuusoo project went into review. (Mugs, T-Shirts, Cardboard cutout game items like blocks and pickaxes and the list goes on and on.)

[glenbricker]

Hi everybody,

It is a bit weird to see all this activity about what I have said. Didn't really think anyone cared. Wow, there is a lot of content here so please forgive me if I overlook something in all the of it.

Ok, first ShaydDeGrai,

Thanks for posting the link. "Inevitable discovery" is a great corellation. I will probably use that term from now on if you don't mind. I would like to point out though that I don't think that any project that uses minifigures is inherently doomed. There is for instance Super Hero Racers: http://lego.cuusoo.c...deas/view/42554 which puts super hero minifigs into character themed tiny cars. In this case, the set concept is distinct enough from Lego's franchise standard that it equates to a new and marketable idea.

As for FTL.

Cuusoo is literally targeted at discovering niche communities and using fans to find the products that appeal to those communities. That is a stated goal. BUT Cuusoo is in Beta of course and there is very limited data on what Cuusoo will and will not go with in producing a Cuusoo product. There have only been three products selected for the global market. Minecraft, BttF, and Curiosity. Minecraft is also a stated exception to the normal run of things as can assumed be any project that "legitimatly" completes its 10,000 run in so short a time. This is not an assumption, Lego recognized the active market on Minecraft and spead up production....

So, we really only have two "normal" projects that have reached review and production phase: BttF and Curiosity with an obvious interest in Portals as a property as well.

That is not much "yes" to go on to make any approximations in either direction.

We have a few rejects based on Brand Fit: Winchester, Serenity

We have some buisness and Legal whats?: Dark Bucket

A contractually prevented option: Modular Western

Inevitable Discovery: UCS Sandcrawler

Legend of Zelda: Basially a parts list

and then....Eve online: Rifter.

The Case for the Eve online: Market issue. Also stated on a TV interview the scale of the ship came up.

So, only one case has been turned down due to Market and only two "normal" projects passed proving a "good market." There is not a statistically good group to play with.

(btw, this is an address to the market issue, I accept that FTL could fail the Brand Fit, but that is another discussion)

The comments that quantity of people interested is more important that intensity is absolutly correct. It is far better to have a lot of people with the minimal interest to buy your product than a handful with intense desire to buy your product. Kickstarter is a great way to walk the line on this however but that is a digression. This was part of our strategy though. "Many" fans called for the deluxe/UCS/minifig scale version of EACH ship! The are the fanatics but I even doubt that the majoiryt of them would be willing to actually pay the price. We instead designed this set to be idea for casual fans of Lego and FTL. Big enough to be easily identifiable, small enough to be easily displayable, and cheep enough that we could accomidate a few ships to get as many fans as the models to buy into it.

Any comments regarding the general AFOL community vs FTL are a bit moot. Cuusoo is driven by non-afols. It is driven by fans of "X" that like Lego, not FOLS that like "X". 64% of users come to support a single Cuusoo project and never return.

Quite frankly any speculation about how likely a Lego FTL supporter is to buy an FTL product, either way, is also totally speculative. We have many people siting interest but that is more likely based on their willingness to post on random web sites ranter than propensity to purchase. Nobody here or anywhere else has polls on these people and I doubt the veracity of the feedback given to Lego by supporters anyway. It will take better and more resourced people then me to figure that out, as well as how big the market is for generic micro-scaled ships are in a medium that already is well occupied by Star Wars.

In the end there are simply too many unknowns. We can't tell how many units Lego is looking to sell at what profit margins to what markets. There will be at least three more reviews before FTL has its day in the sun and that will certainly help define things quite a bit. By then we will have a much better frame for comparison.

I think that FTL has a legitimate shot at production: Identifiable market, possible submarkets, viable product scale, viable brand fit (if a little violent), simple license (two guys with a kickstarter). If it does fail I would say that it would help to greatly define the barrier to production.

Than again, I can't claim to be unbiased in this: I really love Crash's work, and for another, I am an eternal optimist.

Sorry if this is a bit jumbled, doing a lot right now. Regardless of its outcome, I am proud to have been associated with this project which I think has comported itself with dignity and professionalism through its entire lifespan.

Cheers

Ha! Oh man, I need to update my signiture.

Edited July 22, 2013 by glenbricker

[Another Brick In The Wall]

I think that FTL has a legitimate shot at production: Identifiable market, possible submarkets, viable product scale, viable brand fit (if a little violent), simple license (two guys with a kickstarter). If it does fail I would say that it would help to greatly define the barrier to production.

What's the identifiable market? It's "less identifiable" than Eve Online, which was stigmatised as a "niche gaming-related product" in the Cuusoo report. I didn't even know what FTL was before i came across the CuuSoo project.

I'll eat my hat if FTL is produced.

[TheLegoDr]

That's the thing, there has to be a market somewhere. I am considered a pop culture nerd by many, but if it wasn't for CUUSOO, I never would have heard of Minecraft or this FTL. So, all in all CUUSOO isn't for me. But I'm sure there are plenty of others out there that haven't heard of some things either. If I see something on the shelf that is appealing, great. But if I haven't heard of it and it is sitting on the shelf, I will probably skip over it, unless I can use it as a parts pack, like the first Minecraft set. I have no intention to playing Minecraft, but I like small pieces, so it worked out for me even though I don't care for the official theme.

The same can be said for future CUUSOO wins. If the theme isn't appealing, but the set is, they still have a sold unit.

[Faefrost]

What's the identifiable market? It's "less identifiable" than Eve Online, which was stigmatised as a "niche gaming-related product" in the Cuusoo report. I didn't even know what FTL was before i came across the CuuSoo project.

I'll eat my hat if FTL is produced.

I think FTL is a neat little project. Nice little builds, cute little ships, and fairly good brand fit. I suspect it will face a few major hurdles in review.

1. See above and the discussions on the problems that video game properties face. At its heart it will come down to A. How big is FTL's already embedded market? And B. what is the potential for this project to spread or grow outside that market?

2. I'll trust GB's analysis on this more than my own, but just from my crude eyeballing it looks to me like there is a very good chance that FTL and Poptropica could hit 10k close enough together to put them in the same review period. Assuming that our suspicions are correct, and there is only one produced set per review period, this may be a very tough review. Going head to head the business case for the sets would be near identicle. Independent video games, with probably close enough player bases as to be too close to call. Strong enthusiastic player bases. And fairly tight clearly defined projects. Bonus points to FTL for being a smaller more minimalist project that puts it into a lower price point. But while larger, Poptropica isn't that much larger, and comes packed with greater play value and a much greater potential for crossover interest. (As someone who knows very little about either game I will confess that humorous Bunny Mecha with Mad Scientist in a bunny suit" grabs my interest more than "more mini ships", but that may just be me.)

3. How have Miniships done as sets in recent times? Star Wars planets? Polybags? Is there a drawback to not having distinct or identifiable characters or a readily recognizable story built into the project? Is that something that works for or against it as a CuuSoo review project?

Just my idle (and probably completely wrong) speculation. It will be interesting to see how the next few reviews shake out. What they have to say about the League of Legends project will probably give us a much better idea on what they are looking at for video game properties. ( and the Space Troopers will give us a better feel for non licensed properties and how they interact with Lego's in house sub themes. The Landrover may give a feel for what is viewed as allowable set size. Etc.)

[glenbricker]

What's the identifiable market? It's "less identifiable" than Eve Online, which was stigmatised as a "niche gaming-related product" in the Cuusoo report. I didn't even know what FTL was before i came across the CuuSoo project.

I'll eat my hat if FTL is produced.

@ Another Brick

I think you are perhaps reading too much into my statement of "Good". By Good chance I mean "Good." It is not great but very few projects have a "Great" chances of getting produced. I won't be gobsmacked if it fails to reach production but I am more surprised by anyone positive it will fail.

You compair FTL to EVE but I have stated the differences between the two projects. To reiterate, The user base of EVE ONLINE is probably larger than FTL but we have made the FTL project more accessible to the existing market and outside markets. The Rifter is one of MANY MANY ships in EVE and was very large. Its singular nature and scale reserve it for a display piece of distinguishing collectors with marginalized appeal to people outside the EVE community. The FTL ships are small thus easy to display and swooshable with the intent of being a collection of three ships choosen by the community to ensure community appeal, more play options given multiple ships to interact, and keeping costs and footprint low to expand the market further into the casual gamer demographic. Being small with a low price point increases the attractiveness of the set concept to people who have a generic attraction to sci-fi and space ships with little to no familiarity with FTL. Though they are both based on space ships, the direct comparison to FTL is moot. Like comparing the market for a pair of Speedors and the Ninjago Ultra Sonic Raider. The Ninjago fanbase is larger but the small Speedors are aimed at a much broader demographic.

As to your claim of not knowing about FTL, well sure. You are not the target audience. Your precense here indicates that you are likely really into Lego. AFOLs make up a minority of the projects supporters. The VAST majority of people going to Cuusoo go there to support a subject that is important to them, that they would enjoy in an accessible physical format. Lego does not need Cuusoo to target the AFOLs, AFOLs are already buying Lego, the Lego that Lego has been Legoing since Lego began to Lego. They got that part down to a science. Do you really think that Minecraft and Back to the Future are targeted at AFOLs? Curiosity? Not at all. This is Lego picking and choosing the markets that it wants to remind that hey, This is the best freaking toy in the world.

Identifiable market by the way means that it is easily defined and accessed. The primary market for FTL content is FTL users. You can reach the audience easily, you just go to Subset games and say "here." It is synonymous in many cases with IP. The Less identifiable the market, the more work you have to do to understand it and reach it. For instance, who would buy this outside of Lego fans: http://lego.cuusoo.c...iew/33733.��The list is expansive. People into Asian Culture, people who like plants, people who like art, people who just want something unusual on their desk. Each of those groups are all over the marketing globe and all of the them subgroups within subgroups with no single point of access. This tends to make the market larger but harder to pin down, harder to advertise to.

Who know really though eh?

Cheers!

I think FTL is a neat little project. Nice little builds, cute little ships, and fairly good brand fit. I suspect it will face a few major hurdles in review.

1. See above and the discussions on the problems that video game properties face. At its heart it will come down to A. How big is FTL's already embedded market? And B. what is the potential for this project to spread or grow outside that market?

2. I'll trust GB's analysis on this more than my own, but just from my crude eyeballing it looks to me like there is a very good chance that FTL and Poptropica could hit 10k close enough together to put them in the same review period. Assuming that our suspicions are correct, and there is only one produced set per review period, this may be a very tough review. Going head to head the business case for the sets would be near identicle. Independent video games, with probably close enough player bases as to be too close to call. Strong enthusiastic player bases. And fairly tight clearly defined projects. Bonus points to FTL for being a smaller more minimalist project that puts it into a lower price point. But while larger, Poptropica isn't that much larger, and comes packed with greater play value and a much greater potential for crossover interest. (As someone who knows very little about either game I will confess that humorous Bunny Mecha with Mad Scientist in a bunny suit" grabs my interest more than "more mini ships", but that may just be me.)

3. How have Miniships done as sets in recent times? Star Wars planets? Polybags? Is there a drawback to not having distinct or identifiable characters or a readily recognizable story built into the project? Is that something that works for or against it as a CuuSoo review project?

Just my idle (and probably completely wrong) speculation. It will be interesting to see how the next few reviews shake out. What they have to say about the League of Legends project will probably give us a much better idea on what they are looking at for video game properties. ( and the Space Troopers will give us a better feel for non licensed properties and how they interact with Lego's in house sub themes. The Landrover may give a feel for what is viewed as allowable set size. Etc.)

@Duke,

I think your opinions are very good ones.

A pink bunny in a mecha suit is certainly much more of an attention grabber than some more Lego space craft and the miniature space craft market is certainly a big factor. Lego does not share that data though. For all we know, before FTL even gets up to bat there could be a quiet agreement that Lego not produce any other IP's Space Craft?

Another fundamental issue is the strength of the FTL IP at the point that brick would hit the market.

Every project has hurdles it must surmount. We will learn more about Cuusoo and Cuusoo about itself as we go.

And again, like I said, it is hard for me to no be biased about this project, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Edited July 25, 2013 by glenbricker

[Another Brick In The Wall]

I think FTL is a neat little project. Nice little builds, cute little ships, and fairly good brand fit. I suspect it will face a few major hurdles in review.

1. See above and the discussions on the problems that video game properties face. At its heart it will come down to A. How big is FTL's already embedded market? And B. what is the potential for this project to spread or grow outside that market?

Here's a yardstick:

Portal + Portal 2 ~11M --> Not rejected

Eve Online ~ 500K --> rejected

I'm guessing FTL < Eve Online.

[Faefrost]

Here's a yardstick:

Portal + Portal 2 ~11M --> Not rejected

Eve Online ~ 500K --> rejected

I'm guessing FTL < Eve Online.

My gut tells me that for almost any licensed property to be worthwhile for Lego it ideally needs an installed minimal fan base of around 10 million. It's why most licenses are movie related and fewer are TV, and games are even rarer. 100 million viewers for a movie worldwide is not uncommon. TV harder to gauge but in general nowhere near a movies numbers. (Some cable channels bounce around in hundreds of thousands.) Video Games will almost never come close to this.

[Another Brick In The Wall]

My gut tells me that for almost any licensed property to be worthwhile for Lego it ideally needs an installed minimal fan base of around 10 million. It's why most licenses are movie related and fewer are TV, and games are even rarer. 100 million viewers for a movie worldwide is not uncommon. TV harder to gauge but in general nowhere near a movies numbers. (Some cable channels bounce around in hundreds of thousands.) Video Games will almost never come close to this.

Your post raises interesting question for the Macross project.

PLUS:

+ Macross/Robotech is a franchise which has spanned 30 years. It is familiar to both younger and older generations.

+ The IP is being revived for the 30th anniversary with a new anime film.

+ Significantly, it is Japanese.

+ Apart from one model in the current Galaxy Squad range, mecha hasn't really featured in Lego in any significant way.

+ It doesn't conflict with an existing licensed range.

+ The CuuSoo model is interesting enough to sell without relying on buyers being familiar with the underlying theme.

MINUS:

- Robotech carried some mild drug themes, although they were quickly retconned.

- May conflict with the Bandai license.

- Difficult to gauge the current popularity.

Thoughts?

Edited July 26, 2013 by Another Brick In The Wall

[Faefrost]

Your post raises interesting question for the Macross project.

PLUS:

+ Macross/Robotech is a franchise which has spanned 30 years. It is familiar to both younger and older generations.

+ The IP is being revived for the 30th anniversary with a new anime film.

+ Significantly, it is Japanese.

+ Apart from one model in the current Galaxy Squad range, mecha hasn't really featured in Lego in any significant way.

+ It doesn't conflict with an existing licensed range.

+ The CuuSoo model is interesting enough to sell without relying on buyers being familiar with the underlying theme.

MINUS:

- Robotech carried some mild drug themes, although they were quickly retconned.

- May conflict with the Bandai license.

- Difficult to gauge the current popularity.

Thoughts?

The Macross project is dead on arrival because it is a horribly contested license that is so embroiled in international litigation, and has been for the past 20 years, that TLG would have no clear or clean way to get it and distribute a set worldwide. Macross is not the same license as Robotech. Macross currently can't license into North America (which is why you need to buy all the good Valkyrie kits from Hobby Link Japan or specialty import shops). Harmony Gold and Robotech aren't giving up this fight either. They just released a new "Robotech" sequel on DVD this week. Unless Lego could come to separate licences with Big West in Japan and Asia and Harmony Gold in North and South America (and possibly Europe, I am not sure where HG's merchandising rights extend) they would be stepping into a legal catfight.

It breaks my heart to say this. I so want one of those Valkyries.