Mylenium

I'm afraid your arguments don't make too much sense. You can have ideas all day, but that doesn't do you any good if it doesn't sell. Don't you think those themes disappearing had/ has anything to do with that? SRSLY? What does it even matter? I grew up in Eastern Germany and started doing LEGO only in my late thirties. I've never been in touch with any of that stuff, yet I don't see how not being pre-conditioned should have prevented me from becoming a LEGO designer. In the inverse why should being primed with a certain product be a prerequisite? Your "logic" isn't any logic at all. And as someone who has worked as a graphics and 3D designer it seems to me you are constantly throwing together "design" in the most abstract sense vs. implementation of design vs. technical solutions. Are they, though? I haven't seen any model ever that is an actual 1:1 copy of a movie prop. Again, you are mixing up terminology here and are trying to determine a red line between "good" and "bad" creativity where there is none. Only speak for yourself. If you can't draw inspiration from the art forms surrounding you no matter how commercialized they may be then I don't know what to tell you. There are great Star Wars MOCs of vehicles and locations that never existed in the official canon and you are basically saying they don't count because they are "In the style of...". In which universe does that even make sense? It basically sounds like your definition of "creative" translates to crazy color schemes and weird structures. Again, what has this at all to do with "design"? Mylenium No, it doesn't. See my previous reply. Mylenium Yes. But what is the cause, what is the effect? Couldn't they have pulled through if they had done a better job? It's ambiguous. Agree, though, that their multitude of poor business decisions and their delusion of grandeur at the time had a lot to do with it. They thought they were untouchable and it was their downfall. Mylenium

Why do you keep posting such videos with false information? Mylenium

What's that nonsense talk about "creativity" even supposed to mean? I'm afraid none of you are actually making a proper point and are not selling it well. You are just falling back on generic, hollow phrases without explaining what you actually want or would consider "creative". This makes the whole debate utterly useless. Falling back on "the good old times" is just as un-creative as some stuff that goes on with the licensed IPs. I'm the first to criticize LEGO for their laziness, but you have to differentiate between the "creativity" of the designers and the framework they are working in. And let's be real: You can be "creative" all day, but you still need to pay the bills. Every creative person makes compromises along those lines even under ideal conditions. No point being artsy for art's sake, if you get my meaning. Amen. And that ship has sailed a long time ago. Not only can LEGO no longer compete with alternate brands in that department due to price considerations, but those genres are not anywhere near as popular as they once were. It's just wishful thinking and an overdose of nostalgia on the part of some people. Mylenium

Yepp, exactly - for all the reasons you mentioned. Outside our own little AFOL bubble people just don't care whether it's brand X, Y or Z and LEGO losing even one of their long-standing licensed IPs would have a negative impact on them and cause shockwaves... Mylenium

And how would you pay for the development cost? That's the one important question you are not asking. I've said it many times and I'm gonna say it again: Even developing e.g. a sci-fi property with a consistent lore and coherent design philosophy that runs across multiple years could cost hundreds of millions. This stuff doesn't fall out of the sky and to make it even more complicated, this isn't the 1980s or 1990s where you can just color some pieces Trans Neon Green and call it "space". People have completely different expectations these days, not just because 50+ years of Star Wars and Star Trek as well as modern games have conditioned them in a certain way. Rinse repeat for other sub-genres. I'm as fed up with the flood of uninspired licensed stuff just like the next guy and the same could be argued for LEGO's own legacy themes running stale, but I understand why things are the way they are. And we basically have had the proof in front of us several times over the last years with Hidden Side, VIDIYO and DreamZzz not being the hits they should have been. Point in case: It's just infinitely hard to establish a new theme/ series if you don't get it right and the market already is over-saturated with other stuff. Mylenium

Of course they were losing money with their games. Programmers, asset designers, play testers, QA people, marketing and all that costs a lot of money and you don't earn anything back until the game is actually released. Sure, it was part of a bigger problem, but it was a major contributing factor, not just some minor tangential thing as you put it. And what's different now? Have you even looked around? Ubisoft and Warner Gaming are on the verge of collapse due to a series of failed games, Playstation/ Sony has burned around 2 billion last year on failed games, EA is shrinking, Blizzard is no longer the gaming behemoth they were a few years ago and so on. Those are companies that at their height made many times over what LEGO makes every year and if they can stumble and fall, so can LEGO. Game development is a bottomless pit to sink money into and unless you have an eventual hit that recoups all those hundreds of millions of development costs any company in that business can fail. It's super volatile. You don't need to be a market analyst to see that. The only mitigating factor here is that of course LEGO aren't going to spend five years on developing a 300 million AAA+ game, but rather some simple games in the 20 million or less range. Even if those fail it's still a neat tax write-off as long as they're still generating enough money with their other ventures. Mylenium

Who cares? The last two LEGO-fied games were complete duds and the less said about the company's digital incompetence the better. Also look at the state of the gaming world in general. Companies are struggling left and right, even big ones. Getting into the game (no pun intended) may just not be a good decision at this point. Mylenium

Doesn't really matter one way or the other. I've bought a couple of 4+ sets just for "rare" pieces, specific figures or animals. It's neither over- nor underrated. It's more a question of would we actually need there to be a specific sub-set of sets to which I would not agree. There are enough simple City and Creator 3in1 sets already that feature just as many chunky special pieces. It's really more of a marketing thing to justify the exorbitant prices. That also touches on your flawed argument on prints vs. stickers, but let's not go there again... Mylenium

I can only echo the other's sentiments. Capitalism works! You know, that old thing of demand and supply regulating prices. I've seen similar German shops, but at the end of the day it's entirely up to the buyer whether you use them or not. There are of course a few things to consider. The shop you linked has many older items, though in very limited numbers. Maintaining such an inventory already ramps up the cost. Also they have no minimums on lots and overall price, so they have high operating costs when sending out perhaps a handful of pieces below a certain threshold. Packaging costs money and parcel delivery in the US seems to be a complete nightmare, anyway. They simply may have figured that into their pricing. Anyway, they'll adjust their pricing as they go no doubt based on their sales. Mylenium

Huh? I'm pretty sure even in the Swedish legal system LEGO would have to file a complaint in court first before anyone gets fined or is penalized in another way. The worst that can happen on YouTube is that the video gets taken down over a copyright complaint and even that may or may not have any merit depending on what country you're in. You know, freedom of speech, different legal regulations and all that... Mylenium

That's nonsense. People who aren't affiliated with LEGO or the LAN can still do whatever they want. I've said it many times on other sites and blogs: This whole strategy is bound to fail. It's 2025, not 1980. There will always be some leak and information will spread like wildfire on the Internet, with or without LEGO's approval and there is nothing they can do about it. If the shill brigades adhere to this to retain their benefits like free sets then it's their decision, but all others sure won't give a hoot. Mylenium

They're suing for damages with malicious intent. That's a whole different thing from amendment rights. People and other legal entities have been awarded money for all sorts of strange things, usually in a settlement. LEGO withdrawing and making a fuss about it could count as some sort of bad act. The real question is, though, what's in those contracts and what policies are stipulated there. Did the contract just expire or was not renewed? Was it handled through some third party? Does the legalese contain a "No f***s given" clause that would have allowed them to cancel their commitment any time? It will depend on these things. I would agree that chances are slim that X "wins" in the legal sense, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. At the very least they're gonna squeeze out a few million of the companies sued, be that by offering them specific conditions and getting them back on or coaxing them with the threat of long and costly legal proceedings... Mylenium Well, miraculously a lot of companies in such situations seem to realize how cheaply they can produce stuff and how they have overcharged customers. Point in case: They'll probably rather take the hit to their revenue than raise prices and lose customers. You know, making a penny on the dollar is still better than making nothing. Mylenium

I checked your images and as the many people on Reddit already said, there appears to be nothing wrong. I can't vouch for the foil bags, since that was before my time, but the rest seems fair & square. From others mentioning this I know that retailers would reinforce the seals with extra tape since they were very flimsy back then and given the age of the set they may simply have come off and covering them may be a well-intentioned attempt to preserve them. Your tires are also not used. They are simply old. "Blooming" is a common occurrence with synthetic rubber, since Butyl/ Butadien and Styrene are stabilized with Sulfur, Fluorites or other chemicals that over time simply react with the Oxygene in the air. The differences in the small and big tires are likely simply LEGO's usual quality issues with inconsistent mixing of the ingredients and other factors. Mylenium

I could think of something similar using a sideway building technique with curved slopes, but not an exact simple match. Some notable re-engineering would be required to fit such a roof and of course you'd have to ensure to have enough elements. The ones I'm thinking of don't even exist in Dark Blue yet as far as I know. As @Lyichir said perhaps settle on something different. Mylenium

It's ultimately an academic discussion. There is per se no intrinsic reason "The System" could not have this and that element and wacky, uneven offsets or weird angles. The real issue is that in order for any of that to be useful you'd always need a second element to undo these irregular operations and then it simply gets too specific. It's no longer a universal connection and it ends up in a mess that is snowballing into an avalanche of single-use special parts. A case could probably made that their could be a sub-group of dedicated road-building elements as per the OP's request that allow to do this using sideways building with gap-less slopes plus tiles, plates and bricks without grooves, but even then you run into that simple problem of people getting creative and wanting to use this for other stuff and then you'd have to explain to them why they can't use it or implement technical counter measures that prevent these from connecting with the regular ones. It's really a catch 22. Mylenium

One of those nonsense "solution in search of a problem" apps. The time he spends spreading out the pieces and scrolling through the lists could just as well have been spent sorting stuff manually. Mylenium

Never? It's one of those weird things where LEGO's design philosophy figures in. They rather invest in seemingly redundant molds of existing pieces turned upside-down to keep the build experience simple (in their view). I also mentioned in another thread that those direction inverters could be problematic in terms of internal tension in the elements, elements grinding on one another and of course disassembling stuff. Based on those criteria it's unlikely we will ever see this. Mylenium

I can understand pretty much all your points. I'm just not there yet. Due to my health issues getting worse every year I have considered just stopping and selling off my stuff, but I still enjoy it. It's more a case of not being able to live out that hobby as I would like. Mylenium

Agree with the others. If you buy so rarely, it probably isn't even worth pondering over it. Just get whatever you want at the cheapest price and/ or when there's a good deal with some extras thrown in like with the upcoming "Endurance" set where in theory you could get three GWPs. Mylenium

Most people likely never make that much. I'd have to look it up, but if I remember correctly you get 3 Cent for a 1000 views plus the share of the ad revenue. Arguably a lot of smaller creators never make back what they invested or barely break even. Shilling for someone or something isn't exactly a new concept, is it? Thank god I'm old enough to no longer care, but I've seen those circle wanks enough in software and creative communities and can without shame admit to have been a troll and fanboy myself far too many times, but ultimately it's just a stupid waste of time to defend stupid corporate decisions or "geniuses" that are terrible human beings or company drones. In any case, it's a natural thing and it just takes time until you wise up. Sometimes people have to learn this the hard way when the mask comes off on their favorite influencer, but it's a repeating pattern and will happen again. Mylenium

Though that always is one of the biggest points of contention and a personal pet peeve, TBH. You know, it's easy to go out and buy another 200 Euro set on your own dime when you have gotten five others for free and saved the money... Mylenium Not sure if it's entitlement, but simply some form of non-considerate ignorance (as in being ignorant of circumstances, not dumb). I have this picture in my head where you just click on some form on the LEGO LAN web site or get a mail where you just need to confirm that you want the latest release and then it's easy to just always click and say yes. After a while you just may not think about it anymore... Mylenium

Allow me to trim your words and make them even more generalized. Especially in the last two years things on YT seem to have turned sour for many creators. The arbitrary rule changes, the continued abuses, copyright battles and their highly dysfunctional reporting system make it a struggle to have your content on the system let alone work on expanding your channel and getting it promoted by the algorithm. I know several creators who have been on there for years and do excellent content, yet the system simply works against them. That's why everyone is begging people to sign up to Patreon or other alternative platforms with regular, predictable monetization because YT is simply kaput and doesn't work for them. Mylenium

At the end of the day it's one of those "You don't dump where you eat." things. Most sponsored reviews are simply too positively biased, period. You just need to look at the respective sites to have that verified. I'm not accusing anyone of doing this consciously, it's just simply psychology getting in the way no matter how much they claim to be "neutral". When you're getting stuff for free via the Ambassador Network literally almost every week you just live in that world and take on a certain view of things. Same with others. Arguably there is no harm in getting free stuff, but you need to be self-aware enough that it will influence your decisions. That said, I've long tuned out of that creator I think you are referring to because he's generally quite too soft on that stuff IMO and let's LEGO and the others get away too easily with terrible products, so it probably won't skewer the scales much one way or the other. Mylenium

White space is the oxygen of any print design or for that matter even classic paintings. Nothing wrong with that per se. Yes, they could have used a different style and framing, but overall it's okay. But then again they clearly have used more than one software and there may have been other restrictions and preset requirements. Somehow your comments feel like you don't understand much of the technical side of print production and package design and you also don't seem to acknowledge that at the end of the day the client is always right. The design actually even tells the story in a way - standardized package size and placement of elements to keep things cheap and the dark brown text just didn't work in this case, but would be just fine on a red rose or whatever other flowery stuff they may have. I'm certain the designer was fully aware of this. It was just a restriction that the client imposed. Mylenium

Yeah, it looks okay for a 5 dollar job. Not sure what you expect. Not every design job is luxury brand level where you spend weeks with meetings and design iterations. Many times it's really just a job done by a freelancer who needs to fire out twenty designs in a week to make a living and who works with clients that don't appreciate the finer points. They just want functional packaging that communicates the selling points at as low as possible cost. And let's be real: LEGO's box designs won't win awards, either. Given how much money the company throws around I'm always baffled by how bad some of that is. Mylenium