Mylenium

Not sure I share your definition of "mid-range" or some of your other points. These models do exist, the problem is just that a lot of them tend to be extremely unattractive and then of course it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy - nobody buys, so LEGO do even less of them and instead focus on the higher priced items or the lower end. Quite generally, though, I think one must get away from "the good old times" thinking. The trend of producing more specialized, topical sets is nothing new and the "universal" sets you seem to hint at have long been in decline. In contrast to you I also don't think that today's kids are that much into that kit-bashing stuff of dissolving their models and re-assembling them in ever new forms. That may be true for some, but from my personal experiences it's not really the majority. most kids will be just as happy building based on premade instructions and then play with thse stuff, only incorporating minor modifications and customizations. So while certainly some things with LEGO must be seen from a critical POV such as indeed the ever more exprensive large sets, I think the layer of the market your post aims at is probably really not particularly relevant anymore. Mylenium

It looks like a cross between an infantile Orca and a Beluga indeed.... Mylenium

Lovely model! I don't like cheese, though. *giggle* I'd probably reduce the use of Sand Green a bit. It seems to weigh down the model too much. Mylenium

Yupp. As cool as it is from a LEGO historic POV, it's also oddly disconcerting... Mylenium

I could easily think of large sets in terms of what would interest me and when you see stuff like Ninjago City, it isn't much of a stretch to envision a 10000 pieces version. Interestingly it probably wouldn't be that much bigger, just have more structure and details. At the same time, though, of course I'm criticizing outrageous prices all the time, so there you go. An unresolvable paradox. I agree, though, that for many sets there wouldn't be any advantage in making them unnecessarily big. At the same time I also consider working with the limitations of what you can express using a bunch of bricks also part of the appeal. It's an art form and a challenge in itself. So in the end it's probably just right the way it is. Mylenium Ah, that old gag of "how films are made". Very little of the "interior" would actually ever fit into some exteriors. Looking for a consistent spatial logic in movies is going to drive you crazy. Locations magically shift places and change sizes all the time. And of course a lot of stuff isn't fully designed in the first place. I doubt there is a single sketch out there that even remotely shows a complete interior of Vader's castle... Mylenium

Fair enough, but let me try to perhaps make my thoughts more clear with some random, short-ish points. I'm not gonna latch onto your points because you always write way, way too much and it distracts and confuses more than it is helpful, thorough as it may be. a) I have nothing against Asian-themed sets per se. I have nothing against the "obscure" occasional set. I'm not that naive to not understand that LEGO is in it for the money and will sell you a bunch of parts worth 50 Euros for 180 Euros if it suits them and their partners - you know what I mean. However, I feel that there would be little point in a strategy that ends up being "This is LEGO for Asia/ China." and "This is LEGO for the rest of the world.". That would be pretty pointless and then LEGO could just as well have their Chinese factory be a totally independent subsidiary and do whatever they want, meaning for all intents and purposes it would be just as "obscure" to the rest of the world as some little known regional brand. b) We are all victim to wrong tropes and stereotypes. I'm not claiming that I understand some of the stuff that goes on in some places of the world nor that I'm free from reservations or discriminating views on some things. That's just how it is and it happens all the time. Similarly, my understanding of foreign markets is limited to whatever information is published in a form I can understand, meaning spoken or written in one of the many languages I understand, but which unfortunately doesn't include Chinese. Not different than our little battle of misunderstandings when we talk about German stuff which you seem to not understand. Let's just leave it at that. c) I perfectly get that China is important in business terms. It's just that I don't think that this "China is our savior" thing is working any longer and more specifically I don't feel it will save LEGO's bacon when they screw up elsewhere. As I just wrote yesterday, that alleged huge market may just have shrivelled down considerably and China is no doubt in for some tough years ahead. You also have to read the numbers for what they are - of course at this point their growth in China appears to be racing, but that's just a false impression IMO based on how unimportant LEGO used to be in that market and only now having reached a point where "organic growth", allows them to do things they couldn't before. Let's just see how this works in the long run and how things look five years down the road. I hope this clarifies some of my views. I'm gonna bow out of this thread, regardless, because it has gone off the rails "for reasons" and I'm not going to expose myself to more personal insults over misunderstandings. See you another time in some other thread. Mylenium

Perhaps those sets are not underrated, just forgotten with the passing of time. Happens all the time and the irony is that even the eternal memory of the Internet won't change that. A few yeaers down the road it's probably just as unlikely avarage people talk about current sets just like nobody outside AFOL circles talks about that old stuff. One must not forget that we're talking about consumer products, after all. They all have their time, but nobody cares about the old model when the new one comes out... Mylenium

Mmh, yes/ no/ perhaps. That would depend on whether they actually come up with suitable gear components so those standard motors can offer the same functionality. Kind of like an encapsulated plug-on transmission. Otherwise you may end up getting in a pinch and losing the advantage - you would be forced to use larger motors than necessary just to have enough torque and those in turn then would affect your overall construction. Mylenium

Yeah, those dang rose-tinted glasses... ;-) Mylenium On an idealistic level I get your point, but then you'd be competing with Octonauts or whatever "cutesie fantasy creatures series" is the current latest hit on kids TV. None of that stuff is very unique and distinguishable, it's often short-lived, LEGO would have to compete with a slew of other toy lines covering similar subjects and so on. It would sure be nice to have something like that from a LEGO-centric POV, but given the steep competition I can't quite see it working on a broader, more general level as a toy appealing to a specific demo. It would be falling into a niche that already is pretty crowded. Mylenium

Why not simply wait until the new Control+ stuff is actually available and have this discussion then? Per se there's no shortage of motors, anyway, and most of what you describe likely comes down to overall "bad" engineering. Having different motors would not fix anything then, if you still use them in less than ideal fashion. Mylenium

No need to get worked up. We all are just exchanging views and opinions here. The rest is utterly beside the point. Can't exactly blame me for bad timing of what I intended to be a harmless joke. Sorry for your loss, but that's life. And since we're already here, allow me to go back to your other reply: That no longer may be the case at all, if reporting about this week's Chinese people's counsil congreggation is to be believed. Mr. Keqiang's report sounded rather disastrous. The Chinese economy seems to be in more trouble than we all were led to believe and that alleged middle class may not be as big at all and the prospects for LEGO not as rosy, either, though arguably it's of course still a big enough market. My 2 Cents. Mylenium

You could argue this both ways, though. Replicating "real life" exactly could be just as attractive even in a City set IMO. Then the real questions are whether you can do it within a specific budget and in a way that goes down well with your target demographic, i.e. whether it's safe for kids and they can build it easily enough. Similarly, downsizing and reducing the parts count all too obviously e.g. in Ninjago Legacy may not always be necessary and have adverse effects. We can agree that it depends very specifically on the subject and situation, though. I, too, see no reason to forcibly inflate sets just to get a certain parts count nor does it make much sense engineering/ building technique wise. The Saturn V is in fact an excellent example for this - with some parts released in the last two years, its construction could be done different in some areas today, possibly even reducing the number of pieces while still being just as efficient and realistic as well as giving the same robustness of the model. Mylenium

It definitely wouldn't sell. Without an established user base that has been accustomed to the themes by ways of smaller sets, this shall forever be a pipedream... Mylenium

Nope - on so many accounts. People can't always buy them, if you can buy them, you run into storage issues, big doesn't always mean "good" in terms of thematic choices and construction techniques and so on. And then the economics from LEGO's view - your Millenium Falcon sold 9700 something copies in the D/A/CH region so far (Germany/ Austria/ Switzerland) and accounted for only 3% of 2018's revenue in that region. Not a bad number, but here's the thing: Had there been another such set, it would still only be 3% overall. People only can spend so much money and sales cannibalize each other. Half of those sales are speculative purchases, anyway, with people hoping the collector's value will increase. So there you have it - it's likely not a viable longterm business model to bring out more humungously large sets. I'm pretty sure you could rinse-repeat the same for other large-ish sets like the Hogwarts Castle, Ninjago City, the Bugatti or what have you. They are important as prestige models, but clearly only make up a fraction of LEGO's overall business. Stuffing up and oversaturating the market therefore likely doesn't make much sense, especially when you consider that even some "regular" sets are already quite large these days. Having sets with 1000 pieces and more has become quite normal, when only a few years ago it was the exception... Mylenium

Lovely piece! Mylenium

I find this line of reasoning flawed. I'm just waiting for LEGO to bring out one such themed set and then everyone goes "Oh no, this sucks!". To me the whole point is that, for lack of a better term, LEGO irons over and smooths out too specific stuff and makes it palatable to a larger audience. It's kind of like re-creating specific art styles - you may kinda want your painting to feel like van Gogh, Monet or whatever, but you would be stupid trying to copy them exactly only to fail. That also applies to Ninjago for instance - it is a fictionalized version of what we as Westerners may perceive as "Asian" and to us it "feels" right, but I doubt it is actually representative of more deeply rooted Asian cultural tropes. Similar assumptions can easily be made for a lot of other stuff. E.g. when I wrote my review of the Winter Village Station on my blog I explicitly pointed out how its style would be adequate for Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech/ Slovakian regions and so on. I think this is really a better way to go about this. The other point is of course just plain numbers. In your Modular Buildings example it would be hard to recoup the cost. Those sets don't sell like sliced bread. Peopel are very selective about them and plan their purchases due to the price tag. Therefore it's only logical that LEGO are settling on a specific type of building that mimics a style that could be acceptable to many. In the end your point about them being too American doesn't even stick for examples like the Brick Bank, the parisien Restaurant or even the Assembly Square, as American architecture in many cases is just a more kitschy re-creation of European styles, which in a Ven diagram gives LEGO that perfect intersection of covering two crowds. Your point could also be further weakened by the many, many, many examples of custom Modular Buildings that never make the cut on LEGO Ideas. It's not their level of quality, as many of them are excellent, but clearly LEGO doesn't see a bigger market there. Same for buildings in other lines like Ninjago City, The Temple of Airjitzu etc.. This stuff is simply expensive and LEGO can only sell so many sets without oversaturating the market or pissing people off who can't afford them. This could only ever work at prices like Lepin and Xingbao offer them, which is the bittersweet irony here, though even then you get to a certain saturation point very quickly. Mylenium

On that note one more provocative thought pops into my head: How many people around here actually buy Xingbao et al foir their Asian-themed stuff? In the end it may not at all be that, when you turn your theory on its head and you simply assume it should work the other way around just as well. Apparently it hasn't (yes, it's more complicated than that, but no need to turn this into an endless discussion). Mylenium

But then again it could be just as well a novelty fad that cools off faster than your recently deceased relative's body. The Chinese aren't exactly known for long attention spans and brand loyalty, either. I'm not saying that LEGO shouldn't cater for them, but the question in the broader sense is actually whether then it's still LEGO as we know it. If they start making specific sets for different markets, then what's the point? LEGO has always been about a somewhat universal appeal to a wide range of audiences with the sets finding a good middleground of not being too specific to aggravate anyone. Again, I'm not arguing the business side of things, just where this may be headed thematically. Mylenium

I'd be skeptical about it. You just need to look at the gaming industry. How long did it take "Monster Hunter" to get its first "Western" version? 15 Years? The cultural differences are still there and what works over there may not necessarily work around these parts. We can agree that quite generic sets like the Dragon Dance and Chinese New Years Eve Dinner would have worked wonderfully in Europe and LEGO were fools for not publishing them officially in Europe, but I'm not sure if too many people would be interested in stuff based on obscure Asian traditions and tales that may be "too far out" to truly relate to. It's also an issue insofar they may have to adapt those sets to be mor palatable for Western consumption and that in turn may tee off Asian people. Not saying it couldn't work, but they have to tread softly here and be careful and tactful to all sides. Mylenium

Sure they are. Unless you really think the contents of a box sold for 10 Euros are its actual material value, LEGO make a buck or two on every set even at wholesale price. A lot of this stuff merely costs fractions of a cent of actual production cost even if you figure in development, distribution and so on... Mylenium

In the given cases the writing was on the wall long before those movies hit theaters. Around that time I was still writing movie reviews for a long dead local info web site and any critic I met during those early morning press screening could have told you they would be total duds. ;-) Of course none of us know what transpired behind the scenes, so LEGO could have been bound contractually, swallow the bitter pill and just cut their losses. I agree, though, that it's not always predictable and inaction can be just as bad as being to eager to cash in. It just seems LEGO aren't particularly smart about their choices or at least not particularly lucky. Mylenium

But then the design of the parts themselves still falls under IP rights and suddenly none of that matters. That's ultimately the point. Sorry to pee on your lawn, but it's not about the software side of things. That aside, they could still file each of their their designs as trademarks or file their stuff outside the EU plus competing legal claims would still apply. In the end people outside the EU might be unable to use the software legally, even if you were to enforce the alleged "it's just data" claim (through which any judge with half a brain will shoot a hole, see above) and create a precedent. You need to look at the bigger picture here. It's a lot more complicated. Unless LEGO proactively fully waive any of their claims, including secondary and so on use cases, this can't be pinned on this regulation, at least not in a way that would achieve what's at the heart of it - the full release of the model files as public domain/ open source. Mylenium

Yes/ No/ Perhaps/ Maybe. Point in case: It varies hugely across regional markets and for at least some themes I'm 100% with the OP when it comes to my own experiences as a customer here in Germany. I've said in many threads already that e.g. Super Heroes sets sell like crap around these parts and sometimes I also feel like the only person buying some Friends sets. I would even concur with the observations on the Overwatch sets - they appear to be glued to store shelves. the rest is neitehr here nor there, as they say. Of course on balnce it will always even out one way or the otehr and LEGO will make its cut. Regardless, the question lingers if LEGO couldn't do some things better and are missing out on opportunities while throwing money out of the window elsewhere... Mylenium

But that would require for LEGO to release their parts library under an Open Source license, which no doubt is the main hiccup here. So unless their position on this matter changes and they also proactively maintain the library to always include the latest new parts, the wole thing remains somehwat dubious. Mylenium

Yes, it is, but only after some fundamental changes in Mattel's strategy. They even thought of culling the Barbie line entirely two years ago because nobody seemed to want it anymore... Mylenium