Horation

Well, it's either 100 $ for 1 figure and around 1 000 parts now OR 100 for just the figure in 5 years when the set has long since retired...

I agree they are greedy (like cartoonishly so) but this is a really bad example, in this case they are merely protecting their IP. But yeah, if you think buying a figure on bricklink for 20$ is expensive, GeeDubs makes it a personal pleasure to sell individual heroes for 45$+... To get back on topic, These sets aren't only nostalgia bait, so expecting full nostalgia for them is silly. And they aren't even your favourite faction! If you get sick of people disagreeing with your expectations... Well don't read them.

I can feel the anger to quote myself, from that post you were quoting "If you don't like it=don't buy it", I don't understand how YOU could possibly understand that to mean "buy the set to save the company" @Breakspear, a new print usually means 1 slot, except if the part has a double sided print (ex : new torso) or is also a recolour/a new mould (ex : every star wars alien head).

"Agree with me that this is bad or you are a paid shill/lawyer !" "small company X can do something at a small scale but a high cost, if they can do it, why are you a paid shill/lawyer defending company Z?" Infinity-it isn't going to happen Too many flaws = don't buy it! (vote with your wallet)

The budgets are set by physical restraints (for the most part) as the factory can't hold an endless amount of prints, or an endless amount of part colours, or an endless streak of animal moulds, so when you said "Lego could have figured out a way" you were either saying A) they had to make the storage area bigger (expensive) or B) they had to use the limited storage space and basically remove some other parts from themes you cared less about, which sorry to tell you sounds really entitled ("MY themes are more important than these other ones", I don't think that is what you mean, but that is how it sounds, no unwarranted or unwanted personal attacks intended. Sorry if you interpreted what I said as a personal attack. (sidenote : when is a personal attack wanted? asking because it seems redundant to say it is an attack and unwanted...) What I was frustrated about was the fact you said they should "just accept a lower profit margin" just to accommodate YOUR personal preferences, when it is obvious that accepting lower profit margins is unacceptable for ANY business. But I now see you meant to say that lowering the individual margins would increase sales, which makes much more sense, but I still feel this is wrong, since (as I've explained in this very thread before) selling more copies means higher costs, so it is actually better to sell few copies at a high profit than many copies at a low profit (ex: it is better make 100 times 60$ than 120 times 50$, since it'll take fewer employee-hours to prepare 100 orders, use less packaging, less storage space, fewer customer service complaints, etc...) I can feel the anger about that shield Congratulations! You have just discovered the concept of marginal cost on your own! (after I already told you that said cost was likely at most 20% of the set's price) It being very greedy implies that including an additional Shield was an easy task : to make a printed shield you need to add a slot in storage for that part, as I have explained one BAZILION TIMES : the reason certain parts are printed and others are stickers is because they can't store every single part in its printed form, so either find me a part they shouldn't have printed in this set or in another set from another theme, the 5 euros is irrelevant here, it would cost a lot of money to make their storage building bigger, so not just 5 euros per set.

Interesting data, the average rating is 7,4 (with a median of 7), and while we have no rating on brickset, it was 55%-20% for those who wanted to buy against those who don't and 48%-28% here, suggesting it has a less receptive audience on these more niche boards.

How many times do I have to explain this people, the budget doesn't work the way y'all think it does, so let me explain again : How you think it works : each set has a $ budget, say 500 000$, a new mold is 100 000$, a new print 40 000$, etc... How it ACTUALLY works (source : Lego employee interviews and my own experience in production) : each department gets a parts budget, say 10 recolours/prints, 5 new molds, etc... So when you say "set X had a bigger budget", what you SHOULD be saying is "set X was made with more parts available in the budget". Same thing goes with prints, so when people say something like this : It frustrates me a fair bit because it would not only "slightly decrease the profit margin", it would instead go OVER the budget for the department, so it would cost a lot more to accommodate than just the cost of the prints or just the material cost of the animals (very low, in this case). (Also, congrats for your suggestion, if businesses followed your "just accept a lower profit margin to make ME happy" advice, let's just say there would be fewer successful businesses out there...

This set has 6 new figures, vs 4/5 new torso designs in LKC (and they really cheaped out on majisto so...), and inflation's a b*tch ( in Canada : 7% in 2022, 4% in 2023, so around 11%), when you account for it, prices have hardly jumped, 500$ CAD becomes 555$ CAD, and a set which would've sold for 300$ in 2022 would now be 330$, clearly they cut corners to bring it down by 10-11%, so they removed the cow and the likes, sorry, at least it's not as bad as the amount bacon has increased by in my area in the last year...

So they should've added more prints, animals, figs, etc... ? How would this have made it more affordable? Wouldn't this merely increase the costs? This set is already 300 CAD, so any increase would bring it dangerously close to the 500 CAD Lion Knights Castle. @jodawill So you would rather get yet another Cow or horse colour (mind you, animals we've had for years) over a goat, an animal we haven't seen in years? I don't feel the same way at all, but if you have a thing against goats, I guess that's alright...

Lego generally uses a system of "slots" for parts, for instance a new 2x4 brick colour would use 1 slot, while a new minifigure torso print would require 1 new slot for the new print and 1 new slot for the new torso assembly with the new print, so 2 slots. When making sets, designers are given a limited number of slots (or else the factory would become overcrowded). So for instance the designer might've been told that they have 15 slots for the set, and when he accounted for the new torsos and shield prints, he likely didn't have enough slots for new prints, so I doubt it would have just been a slight decrease on the profit margin

The short answer is indeed nostalgia, but to me it is also the simplicity of old-timey stuff, nowadays everything is fancy and detailed and shiny, but old stuff (cars, toys, etc...) had a cool aesthetic to it. But to be honest, I spent a lot of time as a kid looking at blogs and other posts on old sets, so I'm partly nostalgic, too. Even though I never owned those sets...

Curent fan designs are much better because A) no part limits B) they can focus entirely on display (ex: so many tower builds use techniques which make the interior impossible to use) C) they have access to every part Lego ever made, even if it is no longer in production and D) they are AFOLs focusing on making a build fitting with AFOL specifications, and not with that of a general public, which is something we need to keep in mind, That said, the build is OK, but I must admit it isn't great. Absolutely my opinion, I understand the frustration but I just don't get frustrated. This please, Lego please do this.

It should be possible too, but you are assuming those are similar ranges ; Harry Potter is aimed at kids, who don't usually have enough money for a 300$ set [citation needed]. In addition, those kids will feel compelled to come back for more at a later date (say, Christmas and their birthday) if the sets can all be put together, an AFOL who disliked one of the buildings won't. And having a bunch of hogwarts sets at various prices is likely to target more customers, while AFOL sets already are aiming for big money clients. I can feel the anger about Lego's pricing I think you overestimate how much profit Lego has on each set and how high the costs actually are. Almost everyone thinks of the marginal cost (the cost of making one more copy), but the raw materials, whether purchased in huge bulks or not-are quite cheap (around 20 euros a kilo-not a lot even for a set as large as rivendell)- the real cost is everything else (as I mentioned in my post). Also, if Lego really had "pure profit" of 60%, I'd be really impressed, because that's not the numbers they have on their financial returns (around 30-40% profits). And anyways, I was merely giving example values, for all I care it costs 1$ to make the set and 1$ to make 4 smaller ones, the points I made all remain valid, the costs INCREASE as you make more things.

I haven't really heard anything about DPI being a problem (as long as you have a fairly recent printer), just make sure to read the instructions for the paper, other than that, go with what seems best based upon the necessities you have.

I'm not sure we are allowed to post leaked pictures on these forums... Looks good (for an official set and not a MOC, that is). I agree, but they are unlikely to do so... Let's say each set costs (all things included : machinery, insurance, employees, storage, free shipping on orders over 100$, the factories, etc....) 200$ to produce and is sold for 300$, an employee will need, say 5 minutes total to get the order from the warehouse to the shipping area. Now if you decide to split the set in 4, good now you have 4 75$ sets, for a total of at least 100$ of profit. Same margin, right? Not so fast, now they have to make 4 orders (3 minutes each, for instance), which takes more than double the amount of ( somewhat expensive) labour. Then they have to spend money marketing ALL 4 sets, which is significantly more time consuming and expensive than just one. Then you have shipping : one large set would cost say, 60$ to ship, but 4 smaller ones would cost say, 20$ each, and customers will likely purchase another small set to get to 100$, so shipping is more expensive, marketing is more expensive, labour is more expensive. And I didn't even mention the fact that some people would only purchase one or two vs all four (arguably this would be partly cancelled out by the larger volume of sales, but still...). So yeah, better, but not for the bottom line. Then again, one can still wish...