Wolfpack

I am a bit dissapointed. The only new (plastic) part is the shield, which I think would be better triangular considering the redesigned dragon. It is funny as the new logo was clearly made with the old shield shape in mind four or five years ago, but now the new shape is used. Other than that as expected, no flag and no new torsos.

It includes a spaceship! I think it is great.

I am also surprised Royal Nest was the most voted castle. Most of the castle selections since series 6 are kinda unpredictable and dissapointing. With Vending Machine retiring next year that also means there will be no Kraken set in BDP.

Regular sets are not designed by fans and are not a part of a community project. BDP was introduced in 2021 with the motto of "follow along" or something like that and it felt like the community is included in the process (voting, seeing bars etc.) and I liked that. There was basically no reason to change that except greed. And I am not writing this only as a (potential) buyer. I am writing it foremost as a fan and a follower, someone who is interested in the process and likes to read annual reports etc. Following the progress bars was one of my favourite things about BDP. I want to know what people like, what people buy etc. and I like to operate with hard facts. If you check my other posts on the forum I always back my statements with numbers and facts and it is hard to do so if they are more and more hiding the publicly important information. It would be wonderful of course if the numbers were available for regular sets, like they are for books and similar items, but of course unrealistic.

That is my critique actually. They want me just to buy it, with hidden and hard to find percentages, so they can do their shenanigans. It is not really a type of crowdfunding I would like to participate in. btw, you can still se percanteges here: https://bldp.pl/en/8?tab=info And to be clear, I am not a reseller, I just want things to be clear and transparent, which i know cannot really be expected by lego in the last decades.

They can have all the data for the past they want, it is still just a guess. They simply cannot know if and which sets will sell out, especially if we know that they all sold more than half with more than one week left. And as a result they cannot know for how much they can raise the quota. They clearly made a mistake last time, they were offering 45.000 Alchemist Shops, but then stopped selling them at 41.000. The available numbers should never get lowered, that is my point. This is not a way how to organise a transparent crowdfunding.

I was very critical already for the last round and I still do not get their logic. They increased the Dustmark Keep to 35.000, but all the sets are selling well and might be sold out. But that is mathematically impossible, as that would amount to 155.000. It would seem that also the maximum was increased, but no, it was the same last time and then they just stopped selling them before they reacehed the limit. The system is totally flawed and needs to be changed, if they have any respecxt for the customers. If they cannot get the total production capacity over 150.000, they should just stay at 30.000 and that is it. The greed is killing them.

Hm, I kinda prefer this one, except maybe for the head. It is obvious it is lego and I can see some alternative builds. But that is the beautiful thing about art, it is subjective.

No, I am comparing two brands, lego and Star Wars and I am showing how cross-branding went only one way and speculating what would the reactions be if it went the other way.

It is not just slaping a logo as you try to indicate. If some classic lego fan would refer to licenced themes as "slaping lego logo on popular stuiff" there would be an outrage. It is actually about inserting something into Star Wars and making it a part of it. If Darth Vader can become part of lego universe, why cannot Benny become part of Star Wars? And there is no grudge against Star Wars fans, I have no idea where you got that. It is just a comparison. I am pretty sure that Star Wars fans would not like if more than half of the Star Wars movies would be about characters from other IP. For most of them it would be "not getting what they want". You might say but this is no longer Star Wars, but that would be just your opinion. Many of us thought this is not lego, when we first saw Star Wars and Harry Potter in catalogues 25 years ago. But than slowly you realise sadly it is. It is something the company is now making. But I like that you see inserting lego stuff into Star wars as "it would not be Star Wars", "slapping Star Wars logo", "false advertising" etc. This way you might actually better understand how we feel with licenced themes.

I know the theory, that is why I used this word. I think it works more or less well here. First they were serving the fans and when they had a huge fan base, they started to attract bussiness partners (other media, licences etc.) and now we are where we are. It is a huge bussiness, fans are locked, other companies are locked and the product is degrading for short term profits. And yeah, I do not regard myself as a customer, not everything is a bussiness for me. I am a lego fan first and foremost (this is lego fans forum, not lego customers forum) and I do not have to be a direct customer to be a fan. If I do not like what they are selling I can buy old used stuff or not even that, I have enough to play with it for life. It is a great comparison actually. It is exactly the same as if the next Star Wars movie was about Benny and Lenny and Blacktron. I wonder how the Star Wars fans would like that.

This!

It was not a response on botanicals as such, but on the second sentence. "I guess TLG's current strategy really is that profitable, as much as I wish it wasn't." I have nothing against botanicals, but I am bit surprised it is in top5. I mean, it is just flowers, but in lego. Themes with very little playability and aimed primarly at grown ups for display are becoming so succesfull. Of the top five selling themes only one is aimed at kids to actually play with.

Yeah it is enshittification pure and simple. Every company comes there. They are making products for non-lego fans, while the core original lego fans are neglected, ignored and left behind. After two, three, four... decades of loyalty they give us nothing, because they calculated, that they can exploit other brands popculture fanbases with some random (as someone called it) slop with lower costs and higher profits, even if they are ignoring all the values (no military, modern weapons, educational and family friendly stuff, focus on quality and durability etc.) on which the company was built.

There are also reports for alter years: 2021: City, Technic, Creator, HP, Star Wars 2022: City, Star Wars, Icons, Technic, HP 2023: City, Technic, Icons, Star Wars, HP 2024: Icons, Star Wars, Techic, City, HP 2025: City, Icons, Star Wars, Technic, Botanicals