Faefrost

The skirting is supposed to reflect her more Samurai leanings and origins.

That’s just gorgeous. I would so buy that as a set.

Yay and congrats. I really like that one. I think Lego May be more flexible or forgiving with regard to Modular style building Ideas sets. I think the only real point of conflict might be with the Arcade. Just as Lego did the Ghostbusters Firehouse, I can see them considering doing a Modular style “Flynn’s” Arcade as a follow up to Tron.

What you describe is actually a well known marketing effect. We discussed back at the beginning of the thread. Too much choice starts to cannibalize your sales. It's what leads to niche market crashes. The 1980's Video Game crash was caused by it. As was the 90's comic crash. The marketspace becomes so cluttered with product that the consumer cannot tell the good from the bad, has trouble making a clear decision and just walks away. Ray Krock (sp?) documented this pretty well back in the early days of McDonalds. It's why McDonalds always keeps it's menu as simple as possible. Whenever they start getting creative sales tank. Too much choice = consumer confusion and apathy. Lego has long gone through cycles of suffering from too much choice and cleaning up their operation to avoid it. They are reaching peak cluttered shelves once again. Lego will be fine because Lego is the best positioned of the toymakers to ride it out. They diversified their sales channel years ago. Plus they started cutting back TRU's credit lines limiting their exposure. Which is why Lego was only hit for $34 million when they filed for Bankruptcy while Hasbro has twice that and Mattel is on the hook for $168 million. To put it in perspective the company that makes Hatchimals has almost twice the outstanding (and now uncollectable) TRU debt than Lego.

Ok awesome episode. Non stop tension. Great Lloyd moments at the end. And a pretty good indication that Season 9 will give a bit more for the rest of the team to do. I mean really other than Zane’s magnificent episode the rest of the team has mainly been “and supporting cast” to the Lloyd show this season. (It also explains why there isn’t a Lloyd Dragon flyer set next release wave.)

A nice wonderfully detailed MOC. I love the little carriage. But one question on it. Isn't that normally a "Hanson Cab" with a driver at the top rear? Basically a Victorian Cab for Hire?

There is a great example of a doubled up DD in a thread here. You basically mirror it so the tower is in the middle. Of all the modulars the easiest and most spectacular to double up is by far the Grand Emporium. The Decrives Office I would leave the existing footprint on a 32x32 base. Extend the first floor back a bit and increase both buildings by a floor.

It wasn't so much a "2 a year" that we witnessed. Rather it looked like the release scheduled had shortened slightly to be 10 or 9 months between. So sometimes 2 a year. But it seems to have shifted back to one a year in January with a second "quasi Modular" D2C mid year. Ninjago City, Ninjago City Docks, Ghostbusters, Simpsons, Fishing Store etc.

Liquidation starts Thursday the 22nd https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/03/20/discounts-heres-when-toys-r-us-liquidation-sale-starts/443056002/ So sad... (also some Lego mentions and news in that article as Lego is one of the vendors challenging the Liquidation plan. It looks like total owed to toy vendors is $450 million+)

One interesting rumor coming out of the TRU Bankruptcy and Liquidation. Apparently they sold off the K B Toys name and branding last year. And the buyer plans on starting it up again as a Mall Chain. Also Amazon seems to be putting in a bid for a few hundred of TRU's retail properties. While it is pretty well known that Amazon doesn't plan on continuing TRU's business even rebranded as themselves. Safe bet is Amazon is looking to move into Walmart/Target style retail space. So Toys will be a big element of that. Like I said it will balance out. But it is going to be a horrible 18-24 months for the toy industry until it all shakes out and many players will be damaged or destroyed. And the problem is the failure of just a few of the really major players could cause a cascade of failure throughout the industry. Imagine what happens if Hasbro or Mattel gets into serious trouble?

The huge hit to Lego comes from the loss of retail shelf space. On a scale that will be hard to compensate for in the short term. Lego has two real finite resources that they have to carefully manage. Factory Production Line Time, and Retail Shelf Space. They just lost acres of available shelf space from the pool. If the customer can't find your product or find it within a reasonable radius of their home, they cant buy it. Yeah online and Amazon are huge. But not huge enough to completely replace brick and mortar and retail shelf space. Especially for toys. So much of the toy business is impulse buy. That's mainly just the biggest idiots in the Mainstream Media. Any and all of the Business focused Media, including the more entry level sources such as the Wall Street Journal are talking extensively about how it was caused by the LBO. The Leveraged Buyout. The business community seems to be somewhat split between terified and disgusted by this. About half of them view LBO's as a shady thing that need to be looked at more deeply. Things that if not outright illegal are certainly questionable. The others are terified that the loss of the US's last big toy chain will trigger cries of "Think Of The Children" from the mothers of the electorate demanding Congressional investigation into both Bain and companies shady LBO and Amazon's Monopoly power.

Fun game for episode 83. Watch it and see just how many of your favorite movies it homages in it's scene setup and camera work. Overall a really great episode. With a lot of time spent with some of the long time supporting and background cast that we had not seen much of this season.

True. But those loses or sales reductions are for the most part trivial compared to the massive losses brought on by the heavier R&D and developmental stuff going awry. Overproduction is and can be a huge loss. But generally they can keep it balanced. So having to clearance out year wave three TLM stuff is balanced by whatever the new thing is. It's also why modern Lego tries to put a 2-3 year EOL on all non Evergreen themes. Keep in mind that regular Lego sets are fairly low cost low risk compared to other toy products. They don't typically require much in the way of tooling for the specific product. The core property is actually the design, assembled using the more or less generic bulk parts that by their core design are totally interchangeable. For most Lego sets the tooling and production costs are pretty low, even with the extreme costs of the ultra high precision tooling used for Lego parts. So the individual sets carry much lower financial risk to Lego than most other toys. Their tooling is amortized much more broadly and the bulk of the costs per set is materials and design. The only time where it can really be a major issue is if they see a major sales drop and overproduction/overstock in ALL their themes and lines across the board. But it would take something major like the complete collapse of one of their largest worldwide retailers and the sudden loss of 15-20% of their retail shelf space to achieve that. And what are the odds of that happening?

There are a number of myths that keep circulating as facts. It is best in the discussions to keep an open mind. Especially about anything that is taken as simply being an established fact without any empirical evidence. First major fact is the proclaimed death of toys. While tastes do change and evolve the digital will never fully replace the tactile. Also that moment when you recognize a trend ie "OMG kids only play with phones!" is typically the point where the pendulum has already begun to swing back. Video Games have long been proclaimed to be the killers of toys and toy stores. But the simple truth is they've done no such thing. In fact Video Game and electronics sections of retailers are shrinking quickly while toy offerings are expanding. Also note that a decent path to success has been blending the tactile and the digital, to some degree. (I think the Skylanders type fad is finally dying off.). It's worth noting that the hottest toy this Christmas was an updated modernized Lite-Bright. Sticking plastic pegs into holes so they light up to make proto 8 bit art. An actual truth is Parents tend to buy the toys for their kids that they loved growing up. And while electronics and digital are key to a childs life and social interactions these days, there remains and always will remain a strong niche for tactile play and actual toys. The second is the assumption that Lego's lower performance last year is in any way related to the actual and specific products. It really isn't. Remember the only portion of Lego's business that is directly impacted by direct paying consumers is the D2C stuff and Lego stores. The bulk of their business goes through third party retailers. The reduction in Lego comes from the weakening of those retailers. Particularly TRU. If the retailers are ordering less Lego is selling less. Even if and when the store shelves look barren and picked over for want of a restock. When one of the largest retailers stocking your product has effectively exhausted all of their credit lines and is having trouble getting more product, you aren't going to be able to sell them more and you will take a hit. Lego apparently saw the writing on the wall and reduced exposure to TRU even at the loss of sales. Whereas Mattel kept extending them credit because they needed to move product. Lego is looking at a $26 million write off. Mattel is somewhere north of $150 mil by estimates I've seen. Look lets take a reasonable eye towards this. No regular brick building line is going to cause a reduction like Lego reported. Individually the themes and sets don't move the needle that much unless they have some astronomical tooling and development costs. They achieved that in 2003 by over creating new unique parts then underutilizing them. Or charging less for the parts than was needed to amortize the tooling and development. Stuff like the Fiber Optics gimmicks. Mechanicals and Electronics. Those can be a massive drain. Sets built with bricks and a new assortment of funny hats for the minifigs? Not so much. Investing in the movies likely brought greater reduced returns than any bad selling line ever could. When they wander outside their core product lines they get burned. For example Galador. Stuff like their tablet Augmented Reality stuff is a far greater loss than any brick theme. It isn't a question of Pirates vs Ninja vs Castle etc. They will all make money and are all nice safe product lines. The only question is how much they hit or miss estimates. It's the exotics that cause the losses.

I'm jealous that you friends down under still have a major competitor to Toys R Us to fall back on. Here in the US and Canada, ToysRUs was the last Toy store standing. They drove under Child World, Play World, KB Toys, Heck they bought FAO Schwartz once the worlds greatest toy store and destroyed it within a year or two. So all we had was TRU and it's stale sterile corridors of toys. (largely unoccupied by anything that might pass for a retail employee capable of operating the cash register...). I hope we get something rising in its wake. Maybe a group such as the Family Oriented Hobby Lobby could take a stab at building out a regional toy store using their HL model of taking over failed big box stores. The trouble is largely from things outside of Lego's direct control. But even with that they will have to trim sails a bit. There will be layoffs. As I said above the TRU supporting team is gonna be let go. This will repeat at Hasbro and Mattel, The nature of their products will have to change a bit to better fit the new retail Landscape. They have less shelf space to work with in Walmart than they did with TRU. Although that may change. The problem with TRU was not the bottom dropping out of the Toy Market. It was unsustainable debt. Loans they could not service. A $400 Million loan payment due in April. Other vendors can and will grab a piece of that. Lego is actually better situated then their competitors. They have a good direct market system of several hundred retail specialty stores, a robust web shop and good penetration of and integration with Amazon. Some of which is even supported by third party communities, such as Brickset.com's daily Amazon discount list and links. Lego will feel some pain. They will need to contract a bit. A lot of positions will be laid off sadly. But they will survive and expand back stronger. Hasbro is in a similar position to Lego. They have a bit more resources, but they have a lot of valuable IP to use for movies etc. So they have alternate paths to profit. Mattel is rather hosed I think. They need to merge with somebody. They are too big but lack Lego and Hasbro's alternate pathways to sales and profit. Their distribution channel is currently a mess and they are overextended in places. A huge amount of their product had become exclusive to TRU. And TRU owes them a ton of money. Plus they are publicly traded and their stock is in free fall. Of the other mid tier players. Nerf and Playmates will take a hit but survive on the backs of Walmart and Target.

Press F to pay respects!it’s pretty much official ToysRUs is going to begin liquidation tomorrow morning in court. They let the employees know they are boned this afternoon. Stick a fork in it, it’s done. With UK already closing all and Canada and Europe in equally bad shape. They are hoping for a buyer for the profitable Asian operation. This will have a huge impact on Lego. It will be a loss of at least 15% of their sales channel. Plus figure a fairly good number of Lego employees were specifically tasked to TRU. The product managers doing the constant store walk through and insuring restocks, orderliness etc in the Lego aisles. The sales and distribution people that serviced TRU. As much as it sucks without another retail chain on the horizon, most of those will be looking at layoffs by months end. It’s not like Lego is going to get paid for anything from TRU anymore. The only employees they will have focused on TRU will be Lawyers. Some TLG employees may grab slots servicing Walmart, Target or Lego stores. Maybe Amazon sites. But none of those will need the shear volume of dedicated staff that TRU needed.

They have a bit of a point. It isn't so much Star Wars as it is they need some sort of media push other than simply Nostalgia. Look how well Benny's ship did in the TLM sets. Actually these days it might be Star Wars, but not in the way we expect. The Lego Star Wars media properties such as the games and the TV shows such as Yoda Chronicles and Freemaker Adventures provide a media hook and use media resources that could go towards an in house Space property. And of course if and when they do return to an in house Sci Fi/Space property it has to be something very different than Star Wars in look and feel.

I know the more historical folks would hate this. But I would love to see Lego take some of the more distinct pieces and molds they developed for themes like Chima and Ninjago etc and create a Fantasy Pirate in house property. Something with a bit of a One Piece type feel. A main cast and crew vs a number of distinct wacky opponents. Skeletal Pirates. Spider Pirates. etc the skies the limit. Even throw in a big fig or two for the enemies. Just give me some cool new ships Please. Lot's and lots of ships.

I don’t think the specific provenance of a buildings stylings plays that much into where it sits in the rotation Beyond Lego having a desire to mix things up a bit and keep each one distinct. They likely don’t specifically go Euro, US, Euro etc. They just take them as they come. Besides the most European styled building in the whole line, the PR is actually based on a real building in Jamie’s New England home town. So trying to guess about this sort of thing can be strange.

If they were to a Police Station House I suspect it would be much like the FB, and based on that early 20th Century NYC style that became so well known because of how extensively Hollywood used it. 3 story building with broad steps leading up past 2 globe lanterns etc.

Megabloks. A common piece in halo and cod sets

I’m surprised they haven’t done a Police Precinct House or the Post Office yet as a replacement for the wonderful entry and crossover set that was the Fire Brigade. There was a reason that set was more produced and kept alive longer than any other Modular, with at least 3 production runs. It was the bridge set that appealed to both AFOL’s and younger City fans. It was the entry point into the Modulars for many if not most. I would even argue that it might be the most important building in the line, surpassing even the sainted Cafe Corner. The line began with CC, but FB is what made it so successful. And the line could use another crossover set to bridge in new fans. A Police Station would hit that same niche. A post office with both the beautiful building and an organic play element of delivering the mail would be similar.

The only thing that was a little annoying was you really kind of needed 2 Gatehouse Raids to work properly with the Kings Castle and balance the whole thing somewhat. Which granted made for a really great Castle. Much like plugging 2 or 3 Orc Attack sets onto Helm’s Deep.

Getting back to our fun game of speculating what comes next? We just had a very very American style building and an eatery, so what comes next will be in contrast to that. And also want some differentiation from Assembly Square, Which has a lot of small retail plus a medical office. I’m thinking something Government or service oriented. A British or European styled Post Office would seem to be a good possibility. Classical style building with lots of trim. Lots of interior detail and play possibilities. A nice mail truck etc. Other thoughts would be a Modular Police Precinct House, once again with older style police car. Or perhaps a Mechanics Garage laid out not to unlike the FB with street facing bay and extra tall ground floor to allow for a lift. Give that one a tow truck and car to repair. Thoughts and speculation?

I think the draw of the clown is those balloon animal parts.The Police Officer is the nostalgic homage. I’m more surprised at the Cactus Suit fig being that high? It’s a vaguely interesting costume for a straight up CMF’s collector. But is completely worthless for MOCers and other AFOL types unless you are making a Final Fantasy diorama.