Samppu

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Everything posted by Samppu

  1. Samppu

    Updating Your Minifigs

    Samppu replied to Kingslayer's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    A little off topic to this thread, but I believe that this might consider more of us: a good tip is to start your own Bricklink store and start buying half in/sell half out method for hoarding pieces for large MOCs. E.g. if a battlepack includes pieces that you believe you want and need, you should hoard them whenever you see them in good discount and then sell the figures. You probably wouldn't make a positive result in terms of income, so it is not a way to make profitable business, but it is a very good way to get hoards of cheap bricks. E.g. want to make a massive forest MOC? Buy in the Endor playsets for ~20 bugs in discount, sell the scout trooper for 10, the ewok for 3 and everything that is not forest related for 5 and you'll end up with a bunch of good brown pieces that cost you a bug or a two. Of course, this only works for the sets in which the minifigures don't matter too much to you.
  2. Samppu

    Updating Your Minifigs

    Samppu replied to Kingslayer's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Especially Vader looks cool! Where did you get them?
  3. Samppu

    Wishlist MOC wave: A-wing and TIE interceptor physical models

    Samppu replied to Mandalorianknight's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Especially the TIE Interceptor is super cool! One vertical gray stripe is missing from the wings, unless this is based on a variant that does not have it? Also the cockpit ball around the canopy window might benefit from a more rounded shape with e.g. the brick id 62360 in light bluish gray. Anyway, this would make a great set I believe!
  4. Samppu
    Yep, this would make sense. Would be perhaps the only way to get me to buy Rey or anything from the sequels.
  5. Samppu

    Updating Your Minifigs

    Samppu replied to Kingslayer's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Wauh! Impressive!
  6. Samppu
    Very true. This could make a list of its own. Mouse droid mold would be great! From the top of my head also the communications device aka the comlink, holograms (we already have Leia and Palpatine, but a kind of a standard hologram or an Imperial officer hologram), as you said different molds for sabers and guns, thermal detonator (not a printed part, but actual round grenade), long double bladed lightsaber, Darth Maul's seeker droid, interrogation droid from Leia's prison cell, Sabacc cards, perhaps even some special part to make BD1 from Fallen Order...
  7. Samppu
    I agree. And personally I would prefer CMF series to be done without the main characters at all (unless they have those untouched and interesting variants), as they tend to be easily available elsewhere, but considering the pure business aspect of the thing, it makes sense to have them in CMF lines. I found the Batman and DC lines interesting as they had interesting and exceptional variants of the common characters. The second Potter line not so much. The butterbeer glasses ended up to be perhaps the only reason to get Ron or Hermione in the newest wave. In the first line they had the gowns that made them worthy as the gowns could be used for other students as well.
  8. Samppu

    Custom Stickers

    Samppu replied to Darth Bjorn's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Great many thanks to you again! These are just excellent!
  9. Samppu
    This is very true, and works perfectly fine with Harry Potter at the moment. They include major main characters such as professor Slughorn and Dolores Umbridge to work as lures in the sets but then more obscure characters, whom everyone wants to include into their castle but of which making sets might not make sense, into the CMF line such as professor Sprout or Moaning Myrtle. We could all easily see the same logic working in Star Wars. Put Commander Cody into the 200 dollars Republic Gunship and everyone buys the set if only for the sake of Cody, whereas everybody would probably love to get Boss Nass or a clone trooper in the red training fatigues into their Star Wars universe as well, but such characters might still not be exactly the best lures for the big sets. There is also an effect that the children become more interested and loyal to a theme if they get the main characters cheaply as a kickstart. This actually happened to me when I was 9 years old and got Luke, Vader, Palpatine and Obi-Wan from these beloved small sets: This is also the reason why they include Harry, Ron and Hermione in every Harry Potter CMF line, because they are the key to get new kids starting to build their own Hogwarts. For the same reason including the main character(s) from the originals or the prequels might make sense in a Star Wars line, too, though for us adults it might be a little disappointing.
  10. Samppu
    The lack of battle packs might indeed suggest something. However, even if Lego did CMF series and quit producing more battle packs, it would be very wise for them to keep at least some sort of ~20 e Star Wars set in the shelves all the time, because most parents buy presents for the birthday parties of the friends of theirs children with the logic "Bob likes Star Wars and it should cost 20 bugs". Regards, I worked a couple of years in a big toy store beside my studies and the best selling Lego theme was all around the year "20 bugs for Bob's birthday". Moving to 30 e "battle packs" such as the 501st set will not fix this, because the parents do not care. Not all, but really like 90% of them just grab the first thing that satisfies the conditions the price being the most important.
  11. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Short answer: yes. It might not be the majority of the target group as you said, but for the reasons mentioned above, the minority can be important in determining whether the net profit turns positive or negative. Of course, other factors play a role as well, but my point being that the general trend in free trading is often that the net profit is usually only just above the limit that trading scores positive income and for that reason these kinds of small factors shouldn't be totally ignored. The reason why big companies such as Lego are successful and stable is not that they would usually make large profits from individual sales, but because they make relatively small profits, even a lot of losses, from individual sales, but globally they make so ridiculously many of them (7 sets sold every second) that the total annual revenue is positive and huge. This does not apply to every possible company, though, but generally to the markets where there is a lot of competition. Ok, wow, thanks for the fact, I am truly amazed. Still,some part of the effect might be due to the corona and kids flowing out to stare their phones rather than new adults flowing in, but nevertheless, this is a good trend. More active AFOL world.
  12. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Like argued before, each of these subgroups is in the absolute sense very huge, so it makes sense to try to keep them all happy. In addition, one perhaps enlightening idea about the general marketing strategy in the field is that the market segments for each of these groups you mentioned are actually relatively stable. Some exceptions do occur and there are some age related predictable changes (e.g. boys moving from City to Technic as they age), but generally the concern when releasing new waves of sets is not that the people who liked Technic would now have totally changed to Star Wars etc. Thus marketing campaigns rarely fail because of total flops, when no one buys any of the products, because the interest for the products is there in the case of Lego consumers. Star Wars fans want Lego Star Wars, Technic fans want Lego Technic etc. Instead, the more typical failure is to over produce a set that is thought to be popular but that ends up not to be. People still buy it, because always someone does, but the income does not meet the production cost causing a negative net profit. With surprisingly popular sets this can happen to the other direction: 501st battle backs could make even better revenue, had they prepared to produce them in masses. And for this reason it really makes sense to consider the arm printing and other such stuff, because if a set fails to meet expectations, it might be enough that only a minority of the segment decides to pass it and the net profit turns to negative for that particular set.
  13. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    20% of the 14 billion market equals roughly 2.8 billion market for adults, be they builders or collectors or whatever. It might be a minority in the sense that yes, it is only 25% of the market for kids, but 2.8 billion market is still in the absolute sense so big that it makes a lot of sense to try to keep them happy. Of course, it might be difficult to discover which opinions truly represent the majority of the market (I bet the Lego Group as any other big business has its own high salary consultant group doing just that every day), and I wonder what effect, if any, these forum discussions might have at the Lego Group (I have heard that they indeed at least keep an eye on them as a source of information), but anyway it would be unwise to totally ignore the possibility that missing prints might affect sales or general perception of quality, especially in these times that the Chinese copycats are a real problem.
  14. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    20% of 14 billion market is not a minority in any absolute sense. Again, I suspect if the number really is that high, but say even 10% of 14 billion market is ridiculously huge. Yep, I agree that the AFOL builders, so MOCers as we are in this forum, make probably only a minority of the adult Lego world including as you said collectors, casual adults etc. and I would be interested in as well to know a little more details about the numbers associated to adults and Lego (if Lego itself even has a clue). Nevertheless, I would guess it is a safe bet that the more detailed are the most popular ones among most of the different groups. If they weren't, why aren't the majority still collecting and hunting the originals without e.g. the backprints from the early 2000s? Or let us consider e.g. the new double molded helmet of the scout trooper whose price skyrocketed the first day it was introduced. At least the many common examples of the popularity status of different figures and parts support the notion that more is more for the most with minifigures. This is not to say that one needs to care anyway as of course, anyone can focus on whatever she or he likes. And as I stated before, it is not that hard to rub the prints away from the arms etc. if someone prefers the figures without them.
  15. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    This might have been an argument five years ago, but not anymore. According to the news on Brothers Brick (that is, a reliable source) AFOL market makes up as much as 20% of the revenue since 2020, which is very very much. The number is still a little unbelievable to me, even with the corona effect when people hang out more inside, but nevertheless, Lego probably would not have started the all new 18+ series if the AFOL market wasn't big.
  16. Samppu

    Updating Your Minifigs

    Samppu replied to Kingslayer's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Absolutely! These are made by using water decals, I presume?
  17. Samppu
    Haha, very true!
  18. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Yep, hail the double molded everything and excessive printing and detailed guns! The more detailed, the better I think. But this is the thread for the unpopular opinions after all. And if one wants to get rid off printing, it is generally relatively cheap to buy plain arms or legs or simply remove the printing quite easily. The other way around requires somewhat more effort and skill by using water decals, and the boots effect does not work with the decals anyway. There is also such a thing in psychology of collecting that the new innovations face resistance by established collectors, because no one wants to feel their personal collection to lose value by the introduction of better competitors. However, there is nothing wrong with either policy, of course. Stick with the originals or go for the as detailed parts as possible, one decides. Though, some more influx of the more detailed parts, especially the double molded ones, would be helpful, as the originals can be found everywhere.
  19. Samppu
    Fun fact: Brothers Brick revealed a piece of news a while ago that the amount of income TLG makes has changed so that when around 2015 the AFOL market was only 2% of the overall revenue, it was astonishing 20% this year! This might also explain why the big sets are selling faster than before, as the market is not made up of only kids anymore. The numbers are so huge that I still find it a little hard to believe them entirely, but say it was even from 2 to 10%, it would still be mind blowing. And I don't think TLG would go for the whole new range of 18+ sets if the AFOL market didn't make at least double digit part of the overall market. Of course, some of the growth might be explained by kids flowing out to stare their phones and Youtube, not only by new AFOLs flowing in, but nevertheless, adults are getting into Lego in huge amounts. More AFOL sets and more active AFOL world, so I guess the only minor inconvenience is that one should be quick when it comes to buying exclusive stuff or sales...
  20. Samppu
    So it seems, yes. Considering the way how Lego seems to have been cutting corners constantly (battle damaged Anankin torso in Jedi star fighter, lazy printing on the cantina set etc.), I would not be surprised if the minifigures would be exactly similar pilot Luke and TIE-fighter pilot + regular stormie etc. as we have had before.
  21. Samppu

    Updating Your Minifigs

    Samppu replied to Kingslayer's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    What do you mean by casted helmets? Impressive figures indeed!
  22. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    Yep, I agree.
  23. Samppu
    Cool! I was surprised that Ninjago and Minecraft didnt make it to the list. I guess especially Minecraft might have been a more temporary rocket like Pokemon Go that comes and goes, but Star Wars has been a steady winner now for decades.
  24. Samppu
    Ah, gotta love this. The overall looks are stunning, but I especially like how you have made all the interior parts connected to each other and making the tube to the cockpit as well. It gives it a finished feeling and is inspiring itself.
  25. Samppu

    Unpopular Opinions related to Lego Star Wars

    Samppu replied to TheAbsoluteSt81's topic in LEGO Star Wars

    This Lego color actually exists ;) Though not for many pieces, but it is there. I think the name of it on Bricklink is as you wrote it: very light bluish gray. Yep, I checked it, at least many technic pieces are available in that, which is quite spot on for the effect of dirty white: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=41239&name=Technic, Liftarm 1 x 13 Thick&category=[Technic, Liftarm]#T=S&C=99&O={"color":99,"iconly":0}