LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Faefrost]

On 3/26/2018 at 8:16 AM, Digger of Bricks said:

Kinda like this guy's creation? 

Flynn's Arcade by Joel Baker

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That’s just gorgeous. I would so buy that as a set.

[Digger of Bricks]

The Brick Fan - LEGO Ideas LEGO Mystery Science Theater 3000 Achieves 10,000 Supporters

11 hours ago, Faefrost said:

That’s just gorgeous. I would so buy that as a set.

I just love the brick built neon text in particular! It's surprisingly spot on! 

On 3/26/2018 at 5:25 PM, LegoModularFan said:

Well, I unfortunately agree... But his other project, Retro Bowling Alley has much more luck to be approved, we never know 

Definitely, as that project is more like the Old Fishing Store that did get approved. It's modular style quality and construction without being a modular building.

[Digger of Bricks]

The Brick Fan - LEGO Ideas Acclamator Class Assault Ship Achieves 10,000 Supporters

[MAB]

They'll just dump it out due to the current policy. I don't really understand why they didn't remove existing projects like this that contravene their current rules. It looks bad to let people get to 10,000 then drop it.

[Digger of Bricks]

Does anyone have a clue as to what's up with the lack of 10K Club interviews on the Ideas blog recently? For that matter, when is the deadline for the First 2018 Review?

[Blondie-Wan]

34 minutes ago, MAB said:

They'll just dump it out due to the current policy. I don't really understand why they didn't remove existing projects like this that contravene their current rules. It looks bad to let people get to 10,000 then drop it.

The policy (about no longer accepting new projects based on currently active licenses) was instituted because the past several years' of experience had taught them most - but, presumably, not all - licensed themes had legal issues in their license terms that prevented them from having user-submitted projects approved as sets. While we can't be sure, it seems possible to me they allowed already-submitted projects to remain because at least one licensed theme actually did allow for the possibility in its licensing terms, even if it was unlikely, but they didn't want to confirm it because that would be publicly announcing something about the confidential terms of one of their licensing agreements. It's not out of the question that they wanted to preserve the small chance that a project based on an existing license actually could become a set.

I will say that of all the many, many Star Wars projects that have Achieved Support over the years, this isn't The One I'd consider either likeliest or most deserving to be approved, but what do I know? We can be sure that many of the previous projects that got this far had some other issue (besides being based on an active license already) that kept them from being approved - way too large, minifigures-only, conflicting with a set already under development, using magnet elements discontinued for safety reasons, etc.; perhaps all of them did, and Star Wars does actually offer a slight chance for a fan to come up with an idea that LEGO can do. Or maybe some other license does, and they simply can't say it.

Or perhaps they really can't do any sets based on existing licenses; that's possible, though if it's truly the case, it took them a lot longer to realize it than one would think. Whatever. By the time the policy about accepting projects based on currently-active licenses was instituted, there were already thousands of active projects gathering support, and the Ideas Team is apparently not all that large; perhaps they simply didn't have the manpower to go through and cull them all, or decided not unreasonably that it wasn't the best use of their time when the march of time would eventually remove all those existing projects anyway. I can see that.

At any rate, I don't see how "dropping" (in review) the  tiny handful of existing projects that would make it all the way to 10,000 would "look bad" in a way that was somehow worse than shutting down thousands of projects that were still gathering support; surely the latter would look much worse, and this avoids that.

[Blondie-Wan]

24 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Does anyone have a clue as to what's up with the lack of 10K Club interviews on the Ideas blog recently?

The next review results are being announced in "summer" of 2018, which encompasses a wide swath of dates from June to August, and there are only seven projects in that review, meaning that even if they space the interviews a week apart (something they don't always do), they need just seven weeks' worth of interviews before the announcement. If the announcement were coming as early as Friday, June 1st, and they wanted to space the interviews out a full week apart with the last one a week before the announcement, they'd still just need to put up the first interview... tomorrow.

And again, they don't always space them out that far apart, and they also could be planning to announce the results later - possibly months later - than June 1st. I therefore wouldn't expect the interviews to start showing up for at least a couple more weeks... though you never know; maybe we'll be surprised with Interview #1 tomorrow morning.

We do know from the last review (linked above) that they already approved one project from the batch months ago, and there might be more than one. Perhaps that additional decision is delaying the announcement.

24 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

For that matter, when is the deadline for the First 2018 Review?

If you mean the cutoff date for the batch currently being filled, the deadline for the previous batch was January 8th, so I think it's somewhere around May 8th, give or take a few days.

[MAB]

13 minutes ago, Blondie-Wan said:

The policy (about no longer accepting new projects based on currently active licenses) was instituted because the past several years' of experience had taught them most - but, presumably, not all - licensed themes had legal issues in their license terms that prevented them from having user-submitted projects approved as sets. While we can't be sure, it seems possible to me they allowed already-submitted projects to remain because at least one licensed theme actually did allow for the possibility in its licensing terms, even if it was unlikely, but they didn't want to confirm it because that would be publicly announcing something about the confidential terms of one of their licensing agreements. It's not out of the question that they wanted to preserve the small chance that a project based on an existing license actually could become a set.

 

1

How do you know this? Is it speculation or did they state this. Couldn't it equally well be due to the bad press within the lego community that they got about the Ghostbusters HQ when they designed their own that coincided with timing of the Ideas one?

It is just as likely that they agree to a number of sets and the subjects with the IP holder (either one off or continuous, with the IP holder getting a say in future sets for continuous licenses), and that they cannot make any more sets in that cycle no matter who designs them (either in-house or through ideas).

 

If they wanted to preserve a small chance that a project based on an existing license could become a set, then surely they would continue to accept new projects based on all existing licenses. If there were some IPs that allow it and others that don't, then they could continue to accept all licenses through ideas and just reject any that make it if it is disallowed under the license.

 

[Blondie-Wan]

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

How do you know this? Is it speculation or did they state this.

I was misremembering the exactitude of the statement, but the first couple paragraphs of this blog post still strongly suggest it to me.

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

Couldn't it equally well be due to the bad press within the lego community that they got about the Ghostbusters HQ when they designed their own that coincided with timing of the Ideas one?

I personally doubt it, partly because the bad press wasn't really all that bad or extensive, and partly because that particular risk is a) always present anyway with any theme that they do accept (someone can still submit a new Ninjago temple tomorrow that conflicts with something they're planning for 2019, for example), and b) the policy has a fairly negligible impact on that particular risk, while having a much more dramatic impact elsewhere.

But perhaps.

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

It is just as likely that they agree to a number of sets and the subjects with the IP holder (either one off or continuous, with the IP holder getting a say in future sets for continuous licenses), and that they cannot make any more sets in that cycle no matter who designs them (either in-house or through ideas).

Thats certainly possible, though this is the first time I can remember seeing that particular hypothesis. But it seems to me that if that's the case, they could get around it by just holding an approved project from an IP until past whatever cycle is the last one for which an agreed-upon number of sets has been set.

6 minutes ago, MAB said:

If they wanted to preserve a small chance that a project based on an existing license could become a set, then surely they would continue to accept new projects based on all existing licenses. If there were some IPs that allow it and others that don't, then they could continue to accept all licenses through ideas and just reject any that make it if it is disallowed under the license.

 

That's the strongest argument I can think of for the rationale being something else; I don't really have a counter for it, and did point out some alternate possibilities myself. Still, though, we can't be sure, and indeed the wording in the blog post I've linked does seem to leave the possibility open.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

Thats certainly possible, though this is the first time I can remember seeing that particular hypothesis. But it seems to me that if that's the case, they could get around it by just holding an approved project from an IP until past whatever cycle is the last one for which an agreed-upon number of sets has been set.

1

I think the problem then is timing. From what I understand, their agreements (in the content of the range) are often settled at least a year in advance so an ideas set might take ages to come out and there may even be plans for sets over longer timelines than that for continuos licenses. Which would be why getting a new IP for one set can be quicker than renegotiating an existing contract. The new IP holder is either up for it or not. Whereas pushing back an agreed set might cause problems for the existing IP license.

But I think a bigger problem is that LEGO can always use the excuse (which may be genuine) that they have thought about that idea and there is no business case, or they have already designed that one and it will be out in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc. In that sense, any SW ship (or anything else) is not a good Ideas idea. I reckon LEGO / Lucasfilm have thought about every single ship and scene - and is there a business case for it? A fan saying make this (and even getting 10000 supporters) may show that there is some support for it, but I imagine LEGO have already decided whether or not every ship will sell (and how well in comparison to whatever else they will have on the shelf). Minifig scale X-wings keep on coming not to annoy AFOLs that have been collectors for 20 years, but because they sell and LEGO knows it. LEGO aren't going to put something else on the shelf that will sell OK, when they can put something that will sell well.

But yes, we will never really know why they decided to make the changes. Just that they have made the changes. I cannot see them accepting any SW ideas, as it would just encourage people to try to upload new SW ideas.

Edited April 12, 2018 by MAB

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

I honestly do not see the appeal of this set at all. It's a bunch of gray parts and it's not even one of the most iconic SW ships. There are more deserving projects and I won't be surprised when this one gets canned.

[Blondie-Wan]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

But yes, we will never really know why they decided to make the changes. Just that they have made the changes. I cannot see them accepting any SW ideas, as it would just encourage people to try to upload new SW ideas.

Well, it wouldn't now, since they no longer accept them; unless and until they change the rule back to how it was before, the only Star Wars projects that might ever happen are ones that were already active when that change was instituted. I do agree with everything else you've said here, as well as with BrickHat's assessment this particular project isn't likely to be The One they finally accept.

Before the rule was put in place, I thought the SW projects with the best possible chances of being approved would come from stuff not in the released movies - deleted scenes and old EU / Legends material chief among them, and I was planning on submitting projects in both categories. Granted that I probably wouldn't have been any more successful than the many others who tried before me, but unfortunately my procrastination cost me the opportunity to even try. Oh, well...

Edited April 12, 2018 by Blondie-Wan

[MAB]

8 minutes ago, Blondie-Wan said:

Well, it wouldn't now, since they no longer accept them; unless and until they change the rule back to how it was before, the only Star Wars projects that might ever happen are ones that were already active when that change was instituted. I do agree with everything else you've said here, as well as with BrickHat's assessment this particular project isn't likely to be The One they finally accept.

 

1

On the contrary, I think it would encourage more people to try to upload new SW ideas. They wouldn't be accepted, but one SW set making it through review would make others think it is fine and that the rule is either wrong or not applicable - if they read it at all, that is.

[Blondie-Wan]

Ah, you mean "submitting" as opposed to "posting". Gotcha. That's possible. Those submissions wouldn't get anywhere, of course.

In something like fourteen months (or less), all remaining Star Wars (and Marvel and DC) projects on Ideas will stop gathering support, either by getting fully supported or by expiring. The total body of active projects will look a bit different then...

[Johnny1360]

1 hour ago, BrickHat said:

I honestly do not see the appeal of this set at all. It's a bunch of gray parts and it's not even one of the most iconic SW ships. There are more deserving projects and I won't be surprised when this one gets canned.

While I do agree with you on this one, it does look much better than the large gray triangle, currently warming store shelves. I did think of buying it, but only as a parts pack, it's a little more than I care to pay. Hoping for a clearance sale soon. 

I would have preferred this one though. At least it has a bridge and engine pods. 

[jfbat]

14 hours ago, MAB said:

But I think a bigger problem is that LEGO can always use the excuse (which may be genuine) that they have thought about that idea and there is no business case, or they have already designed that one and it will be out in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc.

There have off course been cases where LEGO released a set and people said "they stole that form cuusoo/ideas!". I wouldn't be surprised that that's a big part of the (if not, the main) reason they're now excluding sets based on an active IP license, just to avoid discussions like that. As you write: there's just too big a chance that LEGO already thought of a certain set or actually has it in the pipeline already.

[jonwil]

I still think they should have removed all the SW and Marvel and DC and Disney and Ferrari and other license-conflict projects from Ideas right away. Although that would probably have lead to allegations that Ideas is being unfair for removing projects that people put a lot of work into because of a rule that came into effect long after their project was submitted...

 

[Blondie-Wan]

4 hours ago, jonwil said:

I still think they should have removed all the SW and Marvel and DC and Disney and Ferrari and other license-conflict projects from Ideas right away. Although that would probably have lead to allegations that Ideas is being unfair for removing projects that people put a lot of work into because of a rule that came into effect long after their project was submitted...

 

That's just it. Don't you think it's fair for a project that was in compliance with all the rules when submitted to be allowed to remain?

The thing about the rule is, there may be one or more active licenses for which an Ideas set could happen, and unfortunately, we outside LEGO have no way of knowing for sure unless and until a set is approved. Commenters in this thread (myself included), and the CUUSOO one before it, have long assumed various things about what they will and won't produce. Time and time again we've been proven wrong about what they won't do, while at the same time, LEGO itself has resphaped the rules as it's gotten experience with this thing and learned what sorts of user-submitted creations are feasible. Remember how back in the early days of CUUSOO, they actually let people propose new elements? That never worked out, of course, and now they no longer accept such proposals.

At the same time, we've yielded such erroneous predictions as these:

• they would approve a single project in any given review, and/or from a single batch, no more or fewer (they've now approved multiple projects at once on five occasions, and approved none on two; they've also had a single batch that yielded three approved projects, two in the initial review and one more after it was held over for further consideration)

• they would only ever release small-to-medium sets through Ideas, or never approve something above, say, a thousand pieces or a hundred dollars (last year they released two Ideas sets back-to-back, the NASA Apollo Saturn V and the Old Fishing Store, that are both well over a thousand pieces and priced accordingly)

• they likely wouldn't release a set based on The Big Bang Theory because of the show's adult content, or on Doctor Who because the BBC is a difficult licensing partner, or on Adventure Time because they declined a previous Adventure Time project in an earlier review, or on The Beatles' Yellow Submarine because of the band's history of drug use and/or Mega Bloks having made a set of it not long before, or on the Female Minifigure Set or Women of NASA projects because they'd "invite controversy" or some such malarkey and/or the projects were too small (all those sets happened, of course)

• conversely, they surely would produce the Gingerbread House, or X other given project that seemed like a shoo-in (and of course didn't happen)

• IIRC, I think someone suggested (correct me if I'm wrong) they'd never do anything else with a licensed themed obtained for an Ideas set, and it would remain a single-set theme forever (Minecraft blossomed into a full-blown theme, followed by Ghostbusters, and now Back to the Future is getting its fourth LEGO product)

And as I've noted in the past, almost every single CUUSOO / Ideas set has represented some notable first for the program; they're constantly pushing out and doing new things they haven't done before, even while the boundaries of what's possible or feasible are becoming more defined.

With regard to approving projects based on existing (publicly known) themes, note that while it hasn't happened yet, they've actually come close a couple times - on more than one occasion, they approved an Ideas project from a licensed theme that hadn't had a LEGO product yet at the time it was approved, but did by the time the Ideas set was released. When the Doctor Who project was approved in early 2015, LEGO and its partners were working on the LEGO Dimensions toys-to-life video game; we didn't learn about the game until a couple months after the announcement, or about Doctor Who's inclusion until shortly after that, but the game was obviously well under way to be ready for a September 2015 launch. They were clearly already working on the Doctor Who stuff (which included not just virtual LEGO elements in the game, but two add-on Doctor Who packs using real, physical LEGO bricks) at the time they announced they had approved the Ideas project; by the time the Doctor Who Ideas set was actually released, the first Doctor Who pack for LEGO Dimensions was already out. Remember how there had been two Doctor Who projects in that one batch -the same one that also had the Birds and The Big Bang Theory projects - and both the DW projects were held over for further consideration while those other two were approved? That was at the same time the game was in development, at a time when the property's inclusion has to have already been planned though it hadn't been announced yet. I'm guessing part of the reason for the delay in the DW Ideas announcement is because they were already doing something with the license, though we didn't yet know about it. And as noted, the Doctor Who Level Pack for the game was actually released before the Ideas set. The Doctor Who Ideas set can be considered the first Ideas set based on an existing licensed theme.

And something similar happened the following year with Adventure Time. At the time that Ideas set was announced, they hadn't yet revealed the theme's inclusion in LEGO Dimensions, but it has to have been in the works already given development times. The Adventure Time packs for LEGO Dimensions had already been not only announced but actually released by the time the Ideas set for that franchise came out, just as with Doctor Who the year before.

That's twice, then, that they've approved an Ideas project from a new license they were obviously already working with, and from which they already had other products on store shelves by the time the Ideas set came out. If that can happen not once but twice, then maybe it's possible some of their other preexisting licenses, ones that have already had sets even before Ideas projects get to review, could still have Ideas sets as well. Obviously it's difficult and unlikely, which is why they instituted the rule to prevent people from even submitting such sets, but it may yet still be possible. It might not be possible with every single property; maybe their licenses for, say, Star Wars and Marvel just plain flat-out prohibit them from releasing Ideas sets for those properties. But LEGO has an awful lot of different licenses in its output these days, all with their own terms.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Blondie-Wan

[Faefrost]

On 4/12/2018 at 9:42 AM, Blondie-Wan said:

The policy (about no longer accepting new projects based on currently active licenses) was instituted because the past several years' of experience had taught them most - but, presumably, not all - licensed themes had legal issues in their license terms that prevented them from having user-submitted projects approved as sets. While we can't be sure, it seems possible to me they allowed already-submitted projects to remain because at least one licensed theme actually did allow for the possibility in its licensing terms, even if it was unlikely, but they didn't want to confirm it because that would be publicly announcing something about the confidential terms of one of their licensing agreements. It's not out of the question that they wanted to preserve the small chance that a project based on an existing license actually could become a set.

I will say that of all the many, many Star Wars projects that have Achieved Support over the years, this isn't The One I'd consider either likeliest or most deserving to be approved, but what do I know? We can be sure that many of the previous projects that got this far had some other issue (besides being based on an active license already) that kept them from being approved - way too large, minifigures-only, conflicting with a set already under development, using magnet elements discontinued for safety reasons, etc.; perhaps all of them did, and Star Wars does actually offer a slight chance for a fan to come up with an idea that LEGO can do. Or maybe some other license does, and they simply can't say it.

Or perhaps they really can't do any sets based on existing licenses; that's possible, though if it's truly the case, it took them a lot longer to realize it than one would think. Whatever. By the time the policy about accepting projects based on currently-active licenses was instituted, there were already thousands of active projects gathering support, and the Ideas Team is apparently not all that large; perhaps they simply didn't have the manpower to go through and cull them all, or decided not unreasonably that it wasn't the best use of their time when the march of time would eventually remove all those existing projects anyway. I can see that.

At any rate, I don't see how "dropping" (in review) the  tiny handful of existing projects that would make it all the way to 10,000 would "look bad" in a way that was somehow worse than shutting down thousands of projects that were still gathering support; surely the latter would look much worse, and this avoids that.

You have it mostly correct. Here's the thing to realize, License contracts are complex and each one is unique. So what one allows for another might not. Sometimes there are more than one contract in play. The existing contract so complicates things that it is a huge impediment to crowdsourcing designs. Plus it raises IP issues. Thus they have disallowed them going forward. The rare case where it might be possible isn't worth all the complications of trying to find out time after time after time when they know that the chances are so remote. 

[Robert8]

The Flintstones, by AndrewClark2, is the 9th project to achieve the review phase

[icm]

After several reviews dominated by a few very large projects with niche appeal, it's refreshing to see so many projects in this review that are relatively small and diverse, yet with relatively broad appeal.  I'd say the Flintstones and I Am Amelia Earhart have the best chance in this review batch.  Still, it would be nice to see more small to medium sized original ideas without third party intellectual property of any kind, and this review batch doesn't have a lot of those.

[Artanis I]

Is the Flintstones a resubmission?

 

And where is Voltron already!?!? 2 years since reaching 10000 already, it's a long time for us to wait. I hope it's worth it

[x105Black]

9 hours ago, Artanis I said:

And where is Voltron already!?!? 2 years since reaching 10000 already, it's a long time for us to wait. I hope it's worth it

I feel the same about this one.  I'm so anxious to see it!

That Flintstones project isn't bad.  Nothing I'm too excited about, but it's a good representation of the materials, and it's a decent looking set.

[Digger of Bricks]

As of the time of this posting, The Vintage Motorcycle of BMW R60/2 by maximecheng needs only twelve more supporters to reach the 10K threshold. 

11 hours ago, icm said:

After several reviews dominated by a few very large projects with niche appeal, it's refreshing to see so many projects in this review that are relatively small and diverse, yet with relatively broad appeal.  I'd say the Flintstones and I Am Amelia Earhart have the best chance in this review batch.

Personally, I'm hoping for approval of the Treehouse project. 

[LucyCol]

1 hour ago, x105Black said:

That Flintstones project isn't bad.  Nothing I'm too excited about, but it's a good representation of the materials, and it's a decent looking set.

I like this, but then I am of a certain age  although I feel it may fail due to licensing issues

3 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

As of the time of this posting, The Vintage Motorcycle of BMW R60/2 by maximecheng needs only twelve more supporters to reach the 10K threshold. 

Now 10