MAB

Just about any acrylic will scrape off if you use clean / new (unscratched) bricks and do not prime them.

I don't think there is any hard evidence, just rumour and that at this stage.

Yes, there are many other companies' products that LEGO could copy and use minifigures in the place of other figurines. I am not sure it would be a good move though. Warhammer and so on has two types of fans, the customizer "painter" fans and the "gamer" fans, and of course there is a significant overlap between the two groups. LEGO could try to make a Warhammer style game but to do so, the game would have to be good to survive and also they would have to continually renew it with many new products every year or it would just die out. I don't think of LEGO as a strategy games maker. They tried with the games range, but ended it. They might well make money from doing lots of (insert any theme) based minifigure parts that can be mixed and matched to create armies, but would they actually be used to play a LEGO designed strategy game? If not, there is no point to the game and they might as well just make the factions without gameplay. But then they can do that now if they want. Just create battle packs of elves, dwarves, knights, archers, orcs, trolls, Vikings, Romans, Spartans, etc ... that is just historical and historical fantasy, then there are the people that would want space fantasy, space marines, and so on. But LEGO is in the business of making and selling lots of plastic parts, not games or parts for games. If they make loads of battle packs, then figure sales might go up but brick sales might go down. He probably saw the same rumours on instagram as everyone else. This is how rumours grow. He can't 100% say it is coming because he has not seen any real evidence. It won't surprise me if it is true, and it won't surprise me if when it comes people complain it is not real "Castle".

What does overpriced mean? It will mean different things to different people, just like value is different to different people. To me, if something sells to the target market at the set price at levels that are expected, then it is not overpriced. However, many people may not buy the item because they think it is overpriced. Of course, they could sell more by lowering the price to a level that more people would buy at, and while the volume of sales goes up that does not necessarily mean a higher overall profit or even higher sales (in terms of $ rather than units). Making comparisons between themes or even within themes is difficult because what is good value in one theme may not be as valued in another. Assigning a nominal value on a minifigure for example is difficult when to some people they are the only thing worth having, whereas to others they are things that get in the way of the "real" bricks.

Your kids' dream job will probably be running your company, so they can give their kids the ability to chase their dream job and so on. That is the thing about family owned businesses, they stay in the family or sell out to investors or die. There is another solution which is quicker and doesn't involve any specialist equipment. Open the packets in the shop and chuck it back if it is one you don't want. Unfortunately, I think this is the solution that some will adopt. Paper / card will no doubt be easy to tear and peek inside.

Well you are talking about value to them to produce. I am talking about the value to me as a consumer. For example, otherwise identical parts that differ only in colours should cost them roughly the same to produce. Whereas to me some are highly valuable yet others are almost worthless, depending on whether I use them a lot or little. Similarly, some minifigures are valuable to me if they have a particular print, yet worth next to nothing with a different print even though they probably cost LEGO the same. I don't really care what it costs them to produce, I care about the price I pay and whether I feel it is worth it. That goes for LEGO and also for just about everything I buy. I don't know how much it costs for a producer to grow an apple or tin a can of tuna. But I know what I will pay in relation to similar foodstuffs. I am not a fan of lychees, so whatever they cost to produce they are useless to me, and worthless if included in a box of mixed fruit. Whereas to others they may be a delicacy. If you want to discuss their profit then you need full operating costs that go into each set vs price sold for. If you want to discuss value to a consumer, then perceived value is important. And that will vary across consumers. The art range is great value to some, and poor value to others.

They sort of tried that with Heroica. And in (licensed) LOTR Battle for Helm's Deep.

Not really. 4+ sets are quite easy to put together for a four year old. PPP, weight and so on are measures that will fail for some sets and work for others. Minifigure heavy sets tend to have poor weight and price per piece, yet are highly valued due to the contents. Sets with no minifigures can have a low PPP but not be good value. Sets with large molded pieces can have good price per weight yet not be valued (unless you want those pieces and then they are valued). In most cases, I'd prefer one adult set than the equivalent cost of 4+ sets, but then I might prefer the equivalent cost of 12+ sets. It depends what they are.

Thanks, and yes I thought it probably was. I was hoping you had found a way of creating such a hat that looked good from all angles.

That age range is huge in terms of children's ages. A four year old will have trouble building it. Probably a 6/7+ year old will feel they are too old for it and that it is too babyish for them. I cannot think of many 9-10 year olds that would both admit they were into Sesame Street and also prefer this over something else aimed at their age range. So what age range is left requires the set to be buildable by a very young child - as some parents do not expect that they should have to put together a set aimed at young children. If it is aimed at youngsters then they should be able to put it together themselves. If it is buildable by youngsters, then it is not what was submitted to Ideas. Thus instead they are going for nostalgia with the 18+. Of course this does not mean that a 12 year old or a 16 year old cannot buy it if they are into Sesame Street. Similarly a 4 year old can play with it if they have help from a parent to build it.

Years ago I cast some large minifigures using two-part silicone to make the moulds and some off the shelf casting resin. They were based on the minifig torches. They came out OK, in the sense that you could see they were minifigures. I tried the same for bricks and they were dreadful and for minifigure accessories they were passable but not great. Anywhere you need a decent tolerance to get the parts to work, you can probably forget it. Accessories are not too bad, as they don't have to align perfectly to work, so long as the grip is the right size for hands or you are willing to glue a hat on and so on. For example, for the Bionicle ball-snaps, if the ball is too big then it won't fit, too small then it won't hold tight. It will involve a lot of post moulding work to get it just right, either adding varnish coats to increase or sanding to decrease. As for colouring, you will have to experiment. Paint matching is bad enough normally (and paint will be damaged in any moving / friction parts) to get the colourant inside will almost certainly depend on the exact resin you are using.

What does the bishop have on his head? Is it a motorcycle helmet the wrong way around or is it something else?

I think 18+ is spot on for Sesame Street. If the set was aged at age appropriate kids, it would be DUPLO not LEGO, or maybe 4+. If they put an age of 12+ or 8+, then it would not be of interest to those kids. Is a 12 year old going to brag to his friends that he is a big fan of Sesame Street and go for this set over something from Ninjago, Monkie Kid or Friends or Technic? I somehow doubt it. Plus put 8+/12+ will mean it is not an adult set and some adults won't buy it due to that. This set is marketed towards adults for nostalgia. It is too complicated for the age group of kids that generally watch the show now, so they might as well go for the adult market. The only official ruling we are ever likely to get is that it is an 18+ set if it says 18+ on the box.

That update with the stag shields looks great. I can see you have already done the other trick - make them archers so they don't carry a shield.

It seems to be LEGO branded Adidas items rather than Adidas branded LEGO items. So nothing interesting at all for me.

I don't think they would jump in either, instead taking a slow and steady approach. Which of course is already happening, with The Simpsons, James Bond (to some extent), Fast and Furious, Stranger Things, The Big Bang Theory, ... They all would have seemed inappropriate a decade ago.

It was only a matter of time before someone army built a deer riding faction. But that was quick! They would look great with the S3 elf shield.

You should probably read the rules about posting images with "CONFIDENTIAL" written on them.

While I agree, I hope one of the benefits of LEGO doing 18+ sets in black packaging is that eventually this leads to them doing 18+ material. I think people are becoming used to 18+ "toys" that are not suitable for kids. Funko, for example, do loads of inappropriate-for-kids licenses and people are now used to them.

The Chima C was different to this one, so I doubt they are doing a Chima area in LEGOLAND and making a new sign for it.

There is no reason that they need stay licensed, so I'd hope they would start appearing in more castle like colours in other themes too.

Actually, LEGO doesn't own it. The creator still owns the idea in the submission, LEGO just has the rights to use it assigned to them.

Probably treasure chests. They are plentiful in LEGO. As for bigger items, maybe siege engines that walk (like a strandbeest). A lot of power was animal based, so maybe horse drawn trains. A windmill powered basic computing machine. If you don't mind fantasy, then troll powered everything!

I think the change to the boxes instead of packs is two-fold. 1. Eco-friendly packaging. 2. They need to sell something new to retailers. CMFs have become expensive and do not sell that well at RRP. Boxes and boxes of packets sitting on shelves unless discounted. So they need to refresh what the product is and they are doing it through packaging. These are no longer cheap looking blind bag toys, they are now premium blind boxed toys. They are at a point that I've lost interest in them, again two-fold. 1. Price and 2. lack of anything interesting for me. I'd now prefer they did away with them completely. Just do $12-15 "battle packs" containing four related figures and some accessories or a small build.

Beyond a rumour, it is definitely an area at LEGOland!