MAB

I think it is more our loss than theirs. When it was a reasonably well kept secret, orders took under two weeks to arrive, part availability was good (variety and speed) and the prices were often very good. As more people found out about it, presumably it was costing them more to run it through staff costs. If it doesn't scale well in terms of costs to them and starts to affect regular orders, then it is not a surprise that they start to reduce the service leaving just the basics and removing the popular parts. Because the service changed in the sense it became popular. Just like there were rarely problems buying new sets in the first few months after release five or ten years ago, now there are sets that disappear quickly and are hard to find. A stable service becomes unstable when too many people use it, unless they make changes to cope with the additional volume.

Because that would mean another product entry and the need for separate packaging for that product. They could of course do it but then these become a set of 12 figures rather than collectible, blind bagged minifigures that are an impulse buy.

Why would they only announce this to long-standing customers? Any announcement to a secret society would soon be leaked anyway so if they were going to make an announcement then they might as well just make it available to all and anyone interested. New customers are just as important, if not more so. Not that it is likely to help, since it would be so generic as to be useless. They could say, for example, no newly released parts will be available for sale until at least three months after they appear in sets. That does not guarantee a date in even that they will appear. They might still appear before that date, but that could be explained as an error. CS reps by phone could allow sales beforehand too, depending on who you get. People will brag they got orders in before the three months meaning others will then want to check before the official availability date. Also the delay times for different types of parts are likely to be different. If there is a key generic part only available in one set, it makes sense to withhold that for some time. Whereas a new colour of an otherwise common part that is available in 10 cheap sets is less likely to be in high demand. Same with one off minifig prints vs common City prints.

The green forestman hat is coming back in the new cactus / succulents set. That should help bring the price down.

What does this mean? If someone buys licensed LEGO sets, joins a lego discussion forum and discusses licensed lego sets then I'd say they are interested in LEGO. In fact, no less interested in LEGO than a LEGO pirates fan, or a City fan, or a minifigures fan, or anyone else here. Similarly there are non-licensed fans that forget lego used to be a child's toy. I say used to be because a significant minority of sets are now sets aimed at adults. I consider myself a fan of lego even though I'd probably consider buying less than 1/4 of the sets they produce, and actually buy maybe just 1-2% of what they produce for my own use. There are some themes I prefer and some I'd never buy or discuss. Does that make me less of a fan of LEGO?

It's a shame those 1x2 tiles aren't printed.

The language used to describe lego sets is quite funny. A set I like that sits on a shelf = a great display piece. A set I don't like that sits on somebody else's shelf = an uninspiring dust catcher.

It is probably very difficult for them to communicate when every part they produce will be available for sale as a separate part via this service. The other people that benefit from the not knowing are lego and the stores where resellers buy the sets to part out.

My unpopular opinion is that LEGO should keep doing what they are doing. It seems to be working.

The Eagles in LOTR/Hobbit are strictly a combination of molded and built just like Smaug as they conatin multiple parts (3 in this case). You have to attach the wings, giving flexibility in posing. Although if anyone wanted a truly brick-built one then the creator set 31004 was about right scale and easy to adapt to allow a minifigure to sit on it. Or if you wanted a smaller one, there is 30185. Although I prefer the molded ones at that scale.

They'd probably lose close to 50% of their range within a few years. If they insult Disney by unilaterally dropping one of their largest properties, Disney is likely to refuse any new licenses for existing and new properties, instead moving them all to another manufacturer. The anti-license fans would probably be happy for a while until LEGO fades away becoming a second class company, replaced by the new number 1 block company that has a Disney partnership and a large portion of the shelves in toy stores and toy sections of supermarkets. Whereas catering for fans of both licensed and unlicensed products, producing 100s of sets each year for both camps, they retain their overall market share.

And what would they replace one of their perpetual best selling themes with that would perform as well, in even harsher sales conditions after Disney shifts all its properties to a rival building block company?

I doubt they could have made a good decision within one month back in 2011-15. There weren't that many lego stores back then and a lot if the sales of the one year themes were through third parties and not through lego. It was such a different time then too, unlike today when there are so many people that rush to buy on day 1. Especially for a completely new theme, without any media support, it takes some time to get into people's minds. This is my thinking too. A theme with six sets is likely to have had more proposed sets designed than actually go into production.

It makes you wonder how many months of sales data they base a cancellation on. To not go into production or even into stock catalogues for stores suggests they make the cancellation decision after significantly less than a year of sales for the first wave. Given the one year nature of multiple themes in a row - PQ, AC, GS, MF - it could be they were planned to be released as one year only but that there were other sets suggested in development that were not chosen for production in that year. Maybe the second year of Atlantis was found not to be so strong, leading to a decision to go for one year themes instead of two for all the similar themes following it. I enjoyed those one year themes. If there was one you didn't like, it was OK as there would be another completely different one along soon.

Does anyone really believe that we no longer get Classic Space (and Pirate and Castle) sets because of DOTS? They are completely different products aimed at different markets, only linked by the company that produce them. We don't get Classic Space any more because LEGO has moved on from 40 year old views. The toy market has changed and LEGO has evolved with it, rather than died without changing, endlessly repeating what it did 40 years ago rather than aiming for what kids want today. We don't get Classic 40 Year Old Views of Space because we now get Modern Views of Space. Same ideas, just updated. Whereas DOTS are essentially the replacement for the jewellery in "Classic Scala" that evolved through non-Classic Clickits into what we have today. If they had sold Star Wars LEGO in the late 70s and 80s, I would have asked for it rather than Classic Space. And now that would be called Classic Star Wars. It would be different to modern Star Wars, with yellow skin minifigures (as the original SW sets were), much more basic parts (even more basic than the original SW sets), a more basic colour palette, barely any printing on figures or parts. The only thing that is special about Classic Space, Classic Castle and Classic Pirates is that these were the themes that happened to be produced in the childhood of many AFOLs of a certain age and among the first minifigure sets produced. The ideas behind the themes have been repeated many times since, updating them for the contemporary audience each time.

I find the upside-down keyboard really off-putting on that one.

The 170cm tall maxifigure joke by LEGO.

I liked Rex's ships, the dark blue was a nice change. Also the shapes of Sweet Mayhem's and Wyldstyle's ships were nice although I wasn't a fan of the colour scheme there.

The official list still has it there: Pirate Bay (including Pirate Ship/galleon style ships and pirate island) concept Is it meant to be an April Fools joke? As it is not really funny, just misleading.

They are just spaceships not Spaceships. What do you mean by concentration? LEGO make many unlicensed sets too. Whenever I go into a LEGO store, I see about half and half. That is, they cater for people that like (some) licenses and they also cater for people that like unlicensed themes. They don't concentrate on one or the other. They don't cover every license possible and so some fans will complain their favourite franchise is not covered, just like they cannot cover every unlicensed idea that some fans want them to do. I think there is way more variation and choice in unlicensed sets now than there was 30 or 40 years ago. And if they suddenly stop doing licenses, would there be even more unlicensed sets in the long term? I doubt it. As the fans (and hence sales volume) they lose when they stop doing licenses will instead be buying MegaConstrux Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, Harry Potter, etc sets. Cutting out licenses would be like cutting off a leg. Just like cutting out unlicensed sets would be. Modern LEGO is both and needs both.

What's wrong with it? Would those people prefer that LEGO didn't make sets that are popular with other people, and only make things that are not licensed. It's not like all unlicensed sets are popular with people that class themselves as the "real" LEGO fans.

Sure half the store would be expected to be licensed sets as roughly half the output is licensed. I'm really surprised the majority of the licensed stuff was IDEAS though, as there aren't that many IDEAS sets out at any one time, and they are a mix of licensed and unlicensed. That's great if you want generic figures. But if you want specific ones, flesh colours can help.

It depends on your budget and what else you might want to use it for. For taking pictures of lego for the internet, so long as you can focus close enough a cheap tablet or second hand phone takes decent enough photos and can be used for other things. Whereas if you want it for more quality work, a dedicated camera with decent lens will give better results.

There are plenty where it makes sense to specify the gender and have yellow skin such as these (there are similar examples with fleshie skin too). It is this type that annoy me. If they had made that little bit of neck white instead of yellow, then it would have looked like a shirt collar, it would be possible to use it with fleshie hands and head, plus it would have saved them a print colour.

It might be a bit late, but yes you can do this. Just use -sticker