Horation

Thank you, that's what I've been trying to say for a bit : sure they can restock the ones that sell, but they still have to deal with the ones that didn't.

There seems to be this idea amongst the community that only the popular ones need to make a profit, but if TLG makes 12 figs, ALL 12 cost approximately the same to design, require approximately the same amount of resources and use the same amount of space. They can't decide to only make one of these, and while army builders might want a lot of soldiers, they don't make up as large of a share of sales as people think they do. I have the real answer to this whole debate right here. I do think they should sell them on PAB, but then that defeats the point of making them be sold in blind bags, maybe make them available for a short period of time after end of production? I'm not sure they are allowed to do this, most stores have a limit on the number of items you can purchase.

You see, Lego is often surprised by which ones sell better (according to the designers). So they can't just guess which ones will sell better. Alright, you say, but they can make more, easily! Yes, but this takes a lot of time and resources (which won't be available for making other sets, ex: when they made the barracuda, it took them several months to get it back in stock after an unexpectedly good sale, and making a whole batch of figures that sell poorly is not a good business decision, and then you end up with a number of problems : you might overproduce a certain figure ( a lot of people buy the knight, but once they've purchased it, they don't want any others, but the company thinks that they do, so they make more than necessary and now they have a bunch of unsold figures lying around), or you might have a bunch of unsold figures awaiting their sale while already being out of stock for another (ex: the ballerina stays in stock for a while after the sale of all the knights), and now what are you supposed to do? Sell it at a reduced margin? Nonsense! So then you say "they can limit sales on their website", as if resellers can't purchase from other places that have stock, or don't have various tricks to get around the limits (asking friends to purchase them for you, having multiple accounts, using bots, etc...). They do stock up, why do you people keep on saying that I think they don't stock up???? But stocking up takes time, and unsold figures take space.

How does this stop anything? Now instead of making things fair it makes them truly unfair; people who show up first get the figs they want, and that stops everyone else. Say if I want to get a bunch of knights, I show up and buy all the knights. Then the next person shows up and they can't have any, instead of random luck it is speed that determines who gets what. Now I hear you say, but this will still drive down the price, right? WRONG, the prices will go UP, not down, since now even fewer people will have them (and many will have gotten them for army building), so the remaining copies will sell for even more. Fine, you say, but the limit of 3 will stop people, right? WRONG AGAIN, this will create an artificial limit on the numbers available, now instead of buying in bulk to make it more affordable, people have to buy them 2-3 at a time, so the supply is lower. hence the price goes UP, not down. In conclusion, the best solution is a bunch of blind boxes.

Why are the blind boxes responsible? You know people were paying silly amounts for these even while they were being produced, in fact the bags made it worse; a single person could simply buy all of the copies of X by feeling the bags and this would create artificial scarcity, inflating the prices even more, now that's scummy, but boxes make it fair again (especially if they make them truly random by adjusting the weights so they all weigh the same), the resale market is generally OK if you just want a complete set (say 100$ for all 12 or maybe 30$ for the 2-3 you didn't have-which can be offset by reselling the ones you don't want).

Yes, you are. I stated plainly that parts which fit too tightly are not in fact moulded correctly. You then stated that the clutch of an object as a whole changed if you assembled it differently, correct? This is clearly referring to structural integrity, here's another example with nails : if I take THE WHOLE OBJECT of a piece of wood with one nail driven through it and onto another piece of wood, it is poor compared to a piece of wood with 10 nails driven through it, since that one will hold much more tightly, but this has nothing to do with the perfection of the wood or the nails, it is a physical property of such an object. I was NEVER talking about the strength of a single stud. Here's your original post (I've underlined a key part of your argument): So what you are saying here is that the clutch power has increased, but not because of an imperfect mould, which is true, but you clearly say that when you have fewer connections, the clutch power changes, in fact it is not the clutch power but the strength of the connection which changes, again explain to me how the clutch power of the whole object is changing here, it should not be affected by how you use it. The physical connection of the whole object is what matters here, and I was doing some simple math explanations of why what you were describing was happening, if you somehow understood it to mean that I was talking about a single stud's connection (when I clearly said I was talking about ALL the connections involved), let me know.

How did you make the larger trees? They look quite interesting. This is an excellent design, great atmosphere.

You appear to be confusing physics and clutch power. If I use one nail to hold a piece of wood, it won't hold very well, if I use 25 spread out over the wood piece, it damn bloody will. Take a 2x4 brick and connect it to a 16x16 plate, it will have an 8 stud connection, but it is easy to grab a relatively tall brick and remove it, meanwhile a 2x4 plate will require the use of nails or separators since it is too low to remove easily with fingers. Now take a 16x16 plate on top of one another, you have a 256 stud connection, are you really going to claim this is supposed to be just as strong as an 8 stud one? No you won't, and you have your answer. Now give me an example of better clutch by comparing apples to apples, say take a 2x4 brick from Lego and compare it to one from Cobi, some kind of experiment like say how hard it is to take apart a stack of them, and how well they hold a structure with tension points (ex: making a bridge out of one vs the other)? For missing parts, ask for replacements from customer support, they are considered excellent by most users and I've never had any issue with them. As for the colours, yeah that's frustrating, I'd say complain, complain and complain. and of course ask for replacements (even if they end up being incorrect as well, the company will note it down since it costs money to make replacements), but that's why I appreciate the competition (even if I don't buy from it), since it'll hopefully force Lego to up their game. You are clearly not a native English speaker (neither am I), and as such you made a few mistakes, it is not unreasonable to expect such errors from non-natives on official products, but I do agree that it can be bothersome, again complain, complain and complain, in our world that is the best way to be heard (or complain with your wallet and don't buy the item). Now I hope I didn't give any impressions of fanatic defense of anyone, I have mostly had MegaBlocks and cheap chinese Knockoffs, so the poor quality does not necessarily translate to say, Bluebrixx or Cobi being bad.

So I'm a jerk if I resell a product (which people don't need to live) I legitimately purchased at a price others are willing to pay? Why? Would it be fair if I purchased an item for say 10$ and resold it for 20$. That would make me a jerk right? Well that's retail for you... Most resellers are either a) regular fans who had a few extra copies or b) people making a living from resale of stuff, you can't reasonably expect these people to sell at cost, now can you? Oh reselling isn't an honest job? Again that's retail for you : providing items at a cost to people who want them, nothing dishonest to me... Well, you can always contact your local stores to know when they will have stock, otherwise you can do it like everyone else and order online from LEGO (free shipping on decently small orders) and resell/exchange the rest. For the record the bags didn't really fix the problem (ex: see the thousands of stories of people feeling all of the bags containing figure x and reselling it at 2 to 3 times RPP...). How do you know said resellers are buying in local stores? It is much easier to purchase 100 boxes from LEGO and getting some VIP points for further purchases than it is to go in a local store and resell them later (where there are limited quantities of stuff). Now as for the last point, sounds like some effective free market capitalism to me : you buy at a discount, and resell for more, what's the issue? You didn't get any? Well sounds more like you are jealous than anything else... But yeah someone selling items weeks before release day is not only breaking the law but also scummy, report that person if you can.

Parts which fit too strongly together are considered imperfect, that is the default position on this issue. If you disagree, the burden of proof is on you. If the clutch power is better, surely someone has more than anecdotal evidence (say measurements of the relative strength needed to take them apart), because that's all I'm hearing as of right now. If someone can prove it, I will happily admit being wrong. you said : Also, the bow and stern sections really benefit from that stronger clutch power - there is absolutely nothing wrong with the moulds, in contrast. I'll never take that beauty apart. Yes, this is not in the sense of true LEGO, My apologies, your opinion was confusing...

I don't understand the hate people have for resellers, to me a scalper is someone buying more copies than they are allowed (using bots and fake accounts) or buying a lot to create a fake scarcity or buying a lot of a limited production item (ex: tickets to a play) and then reselling them for a high markup. Meanwhile a reseller like you are describing is someone who is a) buying the figures legitimately b) opening and organising every single one based on its type c) dealing with storage and shipping of all of these d) saving a lot of money by charging a small markup (ex 6-10$ per fig vs 5$ to buy a random one, your luck would have to be immense to outdo that price for a whole series).

Well, it seems like we have a very different philosophy- I like builds I can disassemble and reuse with ease (hence my dislike of technic, which uses hard to undo mechanisms). But you appear to like display models more, to the point where you have no intention of taking the sets apart. Fine by me but you can't claim it is a plus that a part is harder to take apart and call it "stronger clutch power" when it is obviously a cheaper mould used to make the part that makes it less reusable (a high quality mould will make a part fit pretty much perfectly, meaning without too much friction and without too much looseness), of course if you have some evidence that parts which fit too tightly are a sign of quality moulds, let me know... From what I've seen, the folks in Billund's large sets are filled with tons of parts which are easy to reuse if you want to. The choice is yours.

The 1st part has nothing to do with the companies' products, it is likely a by-product of an agreement by the two for a better shipping deal, when ordering in Canada, Lego is quite fast while others are often painfully slow, so it is all relative. Well, Lego's quality has remained quite good, and they also reply on your email, I have never had a problem with their customer service, any business that doesn't really care about their customers tends to fail (at least in this industry).

If it met sales expectations, wouldn't that mean the brands are happy? I'm confused now.

Well, from what I've heard, the main reason was the fact the colours available at the time and the machinery used meant that it was easiest to use yellow to print on. Regardless, if their intentions were to have it represent white they'd have changed it by the 90s for sure...

Well, yellow being inadequate to represent any flesh tone is intentional, since it is meant to represent all colours. The issue at play here seems to be the lack of representation in licensed sets-which as you say is due to under-representation of coloured people in media. So the solution is to go pester Hollywood about it, since they are the ones in control. One of the biggest hurdles with shifting over completely to flesh-toned figures, for fans, is the challenge of customizability. One of the nicest things about Lego is that I can take a decades-old brick and just plop it on any modern build and they will fit fine, no need to constantly buy upgraded parts packs, no 2nd or 3rd edition bricks needed to make a build. Now this is also true of minifigs; I can take a figure like the maiden that appeared in a few sets in the 1980s and 1990s and mix its torso parts (which include yellow skin showing on the print) with a modern fig without any issue. Now with such a change, ALL the parts showing any skin colour (ex: heads, hands, torsos showing skin colour, etc....) I'd have purchased before the flip would be worthless (or partly worthless), so I'd have to buy upgraded ones. Also, [Non White] kids would feel pressured to play with [Non White] minifigs and white kids with white ones (especially if skin colour is shown on the non-head parts), this would negatively impact play opportunities. Then, the issue of representation, in the US, close to 40% of the populace isn't white, in Canada the % is much smaller, should TLG make different proportions to better reflect everyone? What about in Asia? South America? Everyone will want fair representation, but there are far fewer white people in Peru than in Norway, wouldn't there be a perception of under-representation if there were still too many people of one race compared to the local average? By comparison 0% of the world is yellow (source : National association for the advancement of yellow people, NAAYP), so EVERYONE is under-represented, and kids in China, Italy and Chile will all be able to project themselves on to the characters, they can all be doctors, mechanics, astronauts, etc... If that's not a progressive, accepting message and we need to shove diversity down these kids' throats to make them fit some arbitrary definition of acceptance, well then we have a problem. TLDR I don't think the change to flesh-toned figs is coming, such a change would be for the worst overall possible result

I'm also fairly conservative on economical issues : if people want to support cheap competitors, they are welcome to do so, but the better product will usually win. Well ,there are still some standards, and I must assume they are also partly doing this for supply chain issues (ex : harder to ship from Europe to China than China to China) and partly to build a name in the area (the courts are likelier to help a company that makes them in China and creates jobs there than a company that only works elsewhere).

Brickset says 11337 members own it, so if we say an average of 1.1 models by user (ex : 95%+ bought one, and a couple bought a lot.), this adds up to 12 471 units sold, for a total of (assuming the US price is the average, which is a reasonable assumption here) : 1.27 million USD 1.73 million CAD 1.01 million GBP 8.66 million Danish Krone out of 43 700 million Krone in revenue last year So 0.02% of the company's earning (AT LEAST), so 1 in 5 000 dollars came from this product, which made up around one in 1 000 of the products they sold, if you assume they made one third of their sales to non-brickseters (or inactive users), this becomes one in 3 300, if you remember that a part of their revenue comes from non-set items (sponsored products, theme parks, individual parts, etc...), that this was a niche product, on the middle end of their product price scale, sold with semi-exclusivity. It did ok. For comparison's sake, using this method for 10305 we get 8170 sales from active brickset users, which would give us 3.268 million usd, so around two and a half times more money (but I think there were fewer impulse buys of 10305, so Brickset users likely made up a larger part of the fanbase). So around one in two thousand of their dollars came from that set in the past year or so.

There was that one time a piece was missing... Well, I had that problem with some helmets, it was due to the parts being damaged, check to make sure the parts aren't damaged and if they are ask for a replacement. Alternatively it might just be such an annoying design, what is the part ID? (ideally with a link to Bricklink, Brickset or TLG's website

There is such a thing as clutch power and another thing which is poor parts quality : here we can see the parts are TOO HARD to take apart, which suggests not good clutch power but imprecise moulds which result in hard to unbuild sets, I have that same problem with parts which got bent or damaged, it has nothing to do with the parts having gained clutch power from better expertise, and much more to do with the opposite.. Also, you might simply be getting too old for this (no offense intended). I will concede that cobi is rather good, but I always have a good experience with TLG's stuff ( am I that lucky or is it just a vocal few complaining while the silent majority is happy?) The 18+ label does serve that purpose, but one of the niceties of Lego is that anyone can play with any part of it, if you want a model kit, buy a model kit (those are a lot of fun), but this product is still supposed to be a toy. But I'll admit to having a very nostalgia-induced opinion on how things should be done.

I have either received or purchased competitors, and yes their quality IS worse : worse clutch power, worse durability, worse child-friendliness (ex: BlueBrixx's black pearl looks great-but only as a display scale model-and you need to use fiddly cables on top of it all, by comparison it is quite easy to reassemble most Lego sets to play with or to display in a new way) and worse colour consistency, now those ARE criteria you can discuss, I never mentioned anything about a Logo making a product better or worse.... Also, the patent on Minifigs expired a long time ago, but courts have agreed with the company that it is a shape intrinsically associated with the product (ex: like coca-cola's bottles) and as such no competition can be had- up to you to decide if you agree or not, but for me that's enough to not buy any illegal counterfeits.

What do you mean by "wayyyy better"? It seems very subjective. Also, when you say "cheap minifigs bought from certain shops", you happen to realise you are buying illegal counterfeits, right?

Redacted-pointers

There is no proof of this : https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/help/buying_parts/replacing-or-buying-minifigures-kA009000001dblNCAQ LEGO did stop doing the normal minifigures in the SW magnets, instead gluing them and this is often cited as Hasbro's fault for demanding they stop producing individual minifigures as they encroach on their action figure license. This was because of Hasbro, because very few people were buying the magnets instead of sets that the minifigures appeared in, as these were mostly common and popular characters who were maybe a little cheaper that way but which were much harder to find, so if an average consumer (aka a kid) wanted a minifig, their best bet was buying the set(s) it came in, since they likely had no clue about the magnets. Also, if that's the case, why would Lego make battle packs with Ki-Adi-Mundi and Barriss Offee, or a bounty hunter battle pack, or even the latest 15$ mecha series? Your argument doesn't add up. Also, it's fairly cheap to make individual figures vs full battle packs, and kids (and army builders...) would quite likely buy a lot more of them...

From experience, it's cheaper to just get the original Lego parts than it is to -buy the parts from China -pay the (often high) shipping fees -hope the parts are in good condition (because these sellers are notorious for ignoring defect claims and refusing to send replacements), if not you will need to repeat the (expensive) process above. Also, these parts are not that great, except if you're willing to use glue to hold them correctly and have no intention of using them a lot (they accumulate wear and tear much faster). But t'is just my opinion, you do what you want...