MAB

Also if it does fail in year 1, there is already an excuse that is not due to the sets but due to the current pandemic. So probably worth sticking with it. And when they stop Monkie Kid in future, then I imagine they will continue to do themes that appeal to China / Far East buyers. It makes sense, as that is where the real growth in their product is.

They invest a lot and it is successful. What should LEGO do? Invest a lot in a few things and do them well, or invest a little in lots of things and do them very superficially? LEGO simply cannot do everything that everyone else does and to a high standard. I think it better that they do what they want to do well, rather than trying to match their themes to what every other competitor is doing. People have bulk bought Spartans and Romans in the past - and LEGO know about it as they have written about it in books - so popular figures in S20 is nothing new. So there is little point of them putting PAB on BL if they are not competitive. The new XP interface has already shown that they are favouring some sellers over others via whatever algorithm they use to highlight stores, and they do not make that algorithm public.

Where have they said that these are for the Chinese market? Everything I have read says they are based on Chinese folklore but not that they are for the Chinese market. Presumably this is because they are not for the Chinese market as they are sold worldwide. Yes, it is.

I don't think that will happen. LEGO have stated that they will not interfere with the way Bricklink runs, if they become a seller there then I expect many of the independent sellers will leave. I certainly would. But also PAB is often expensive compared to BL sellers, and their range is somewhat narrow unless you want really basic bricks only. While the sets sold well, the (by hand) picking and packaging of them seemed to kill off Bricklink staff for ages. From the videos, it looked like everyone was drafted in to pick. They were very late getting many of them out, and these runs were really quite small. I cannot see how the AFOL programme can scale up cost efficiently without automatic or robot picking. And if they scale up, they might as well do a normal sized run of normal sets, rather than smaller runs of much more niche products. I'd love to see how they do the picking in future if this was the reason behind purchasing BL. To me, the real downside is the cost - Bricks and Pieces basic parts are often expensive compared to Bricklink sellers and to price per part ratios in regular sets. Presumably this is down to hand picking and the complete lack of economies of scale when picking/packing individual orders. I wonder what size run for a set it makes sense for them to automate the picking.

That is fantastic. My favourite part ... the zip, those parts are perfect.

Some Chinese people will have the money. Just like in other countries, there is a vast distribution of incomes in China. LEGO mainly targets the better off end of society in any country, especially with their larger sets.

So one person in China says they don't like it and so it will flop? I would have preferred they did it in a more traditional manner (like Nexo vs Castle), but I imagine sales for that would have been even lower.

And they couldn't do a White Castle, as they didn't sell burgers! Although their square burgers would actually have fit LEGO's design ethic.

I don't know where you got that impression. Even LEGO's description for the Exo-suit mentions Classic Space three times.

Yes, I know the meaning of the word average. The question is what prices are you going to base them on? For example - LEGO's internal prices used when they determine values of sets, LEGO's PAB prices, LEGO's B+P prices, BL prices (average), BO prices (average), etc. There are many different prices for the same part. This is very like Bricklink's AFOL designed sets programme, which is probably part of the reason LEGO bought BL. Those sets had to be designed from a narrow range of parts. The value of them was not very good compared to the BL prices for the individual parts or compared to basic LEGO sets with similar parts. I still don't see who would do this. LEGO has no incentive to, as they already design their own sets and they already have a design competition via IDEAS for popular MOCs to be made into sets. Bricklink - the largest independent marketplace (at the time) - tried through the MOC shop and failed. LEGO and BL partnered through the AFOL programme and seemed to have some success and will probably do something similar again. It wouldn't surprise me if popular MOCs that got to 10000 will go through that programme if they not pass review and have no IP issues. However, there is probably no point for niche sets that have hardly any following. Someone has to sort the parts and that is costly if the run is small.

They may be complicated for you, but clearly not to others. Bricklink has been going about 20 years now so AFOLs must be finding it useful. Of course there is a learning curve and if people are not willing to put time in, then they won't get much out. Sometimes sourcing the parts for a project is half the fun of it. These offers are for die-hard AFOLs, but unusable for the average customer who saw a nice design and just wants to order it. For that sort of person, there are LEGO sets available from the LEGO store or elsewhere. Average price of 10 cent per part Based on what prices? And why would you limit the number of larger parts (which typically cost more direct from LEGO) per set? If a set is designed and has a number of larger parts, and it did not meet your criteria, then it would not be allowed. By having such a strict limit, you are encouraging the use of smaller parts when larger ones would work and encouraging the use of many smaller, cheaper parts not because they enhance a design but as they will keep the price per part down. Direct order from a web platform without dealing with part lists Again, LEGO already does this themselves. They are called LEGO sets. Easy to understand rating system so that customers understand how extensive the design has been tested Who would be the testers? And what does testing mean? Stability, playability, difficulty of the build, ...? LEGO already test their own sets according to their in-house design rules and many people play test and review them online. For MOCs it is much harder to have a reliable test, since what people want out of a set varies from person to person. Stable set of available parts designers can rely on There is already a stable set, that is the current parts LEGO has in stock - B+P is a good indicator. If LEGO would be required to keep older parts in stock, then this means them continuing to produce parts that may not be needed in their own sets. So unlikely. Bricklink is relatively stable, unless a very popular MOC comes along and older parts get bought out. So this would stop a designer from using a retired part, even if there is plenty of secondary market stock as their design may go from being sustainable to unsustainable. Availability of all important parts As above, this implies you can only use currently produced parts. And aren't all parts important, if the casual user cannot use any other way of getting any non-important parts? IDEAS already comes fairly close to what you are asking for. A designer designs something. People can buy it according to your criteria: average price per part - this tends to be in line with regular LEGO sets. direct order - yes, as a set. easy to understand rating system - yes, it is tested by LEGO according to LEGO standards. stable set of parts - yes, LEGO's current catalogue. availability of parts - yes, LEGO's current catalogue. There are two additional constraints: that there is a business case to make the set, there is no point in LEGO testing designs or packaging sets that very few people will buy. that there are no infringements of other companies licenses. Bricklink's MOC shop came even closer, but it failed as AFOLs of the time didn't want it. They could, but do they need to and would it benefit the company? If sales of other themes go down as the people buying knights are no longer buying Ninjago or whatever, then was there a benefit? They could sell bucket loads of 20th century historical figures and sets, same with 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, ... all the way back to Ancient Egypt and pre-historical. They could also do licensed tie-ins with Horrible Histories for their historical stuff. They could do every popular kids book. They could do every kids movie that comes out, they could do modern space, futuristic space, they could do retro-futuristic space, they could do vehicles through the ages. They could do City like sets based on animals instead of people. They could do science sets where the project equipment is built from LEGO parts instead of being pre-formed. They could do large action figures. Pick just about any toy on the shelf of a toy store and they could do it. That is without touching on collectables for adults. Pick any popular movie or TV franchise, past or present, they could do it. Every single one of the things I mentioned, another company is already doing it and making it work for them.

Are they missing out though? If they introduced those themes and either scaled back or removed others, would total sales go up? Of course, none of us know the answer. Introducing regional themes (or themes that will sell well in only some regions) is risky. They have recently said that themes will be sold globally, not locally. Plus increasing the variation of themes, but having them significantly smaller, may not be an answer either. It is more development for possibly only similar sales. Really? There are many clone brands for kids on shelves, often mixed up with the LEGO sets here. You can already do this at bricklink, brickowl, pick-a-brick walls in LEGO stores, online pick-a-brick, online bricks and pieces. Three of those are run by LEGO, one is owned by LEGO and the other independent. Why would they want to introduce another route? The fact that many AFOLs MOC their own trains, spaceships, pirate sets, whatever you like (see whichever EB sub-forum is relevant) suggests that those that want to do this, already do this. Similarly, MOC / instruction sharing sites have existed for many years, again suggesting people already do this.

If you want detailed but ordinary trains why not go for a completely different style of toy like Hornby or an equivalent? They are aimed more at the railway enthusiast than kids these days, so have a much wider selection. Even if they had a very modest range - say a choice of 5 modern trains and 5 vintage/ steam trains, that is 10 sets - most of which will not be of any interest to most kids. Currently kids that want a train can get a train. It may not be what an adult would want, but most kids that want a train don't really care what the train is, just that it is a train. Modern space is somewhat niche, but there has proven to be a viable market there and LEGO has filled it well with one-off sets aimed at adults / older teens such as the Mars Rover and Saturn V rocket. It doesn't really matter to LEGO if they don't have much in the way of classic space, pirates or castle on the shelves, even if other companies do, because the kids are busy buying City, Ninjago, Creator, etc.

In that case, if you are talking about the whole buildable toy market, then LEGO are clearly the leader in the marketplace as they are the No.1 toy brand across all toy areas. They cannot possibly cover every niche area, so not doing many different buildable trains or any other particular themes is not a problem. They dominate the whole market by not specialising in one theme or area. Other companies may specialise in, for example, buildable trains but those companies will always be niche and probably suffer because of it. They may be of interest to adults that want that niche product, but it wouldn't surprise me if LEGO sells more trains than they do, despite having a much smaller catalogue of trains for sale.

What do you mean by market share? Market share of the toy market in general or market share of a highly niche area of buildable realistic trains? I don't think LEGO cares about having a large range of trains, why improve in one niche area if it is going to affect product production in another more profitable area. If a kid wants a train, they can buy a LEGO train. They don't get much choice, but they probably don't care.

I'd say the Haunted House is a toy rather than a display piece. It has play functions built into it. Whereas larger SW sets, Helmet series, etc are much less toy like.

What does work mean though? For LEGO, surely work means that they make more money overall. They can do this more effectively by designing their own sets and selling them to more new customers, rather than expecting these new customers to design their own builds and pay more for them than sets off the shelves.

It is not that they can't. It is more that they won't.

A lot of people think that if only LEGO catered for their specific niche idea, then they'd make a huge amount of money. LEGO is already the number one toy company in the world, so it knows what it is doing. They are already set apart from the competition. LEGO Used to have a custom designed set service and it failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Design_byME . LEGO stated that it was too complex for kids. Chances are that it was not cost effective for them to do it. Their market is for the most part selling their designs to large numbers of people. And it seems to work very well. Bricklink also tried this (so a third party solution) through the MOC shop. Designers could upload MOCs and customers could buy the sets from Bricklink sellers, with a small royalty going to the designer. It failed. AFOLs have other services that they can use, such as Bricklink and Brickowl to buy the parts they need for MOCs, as well as pick-a-brick and bricks and pieces at LEGO. Your main point seems to be about price. "I don’t think that lowering prices is the right answer to competition, instead, the part count should be increased at the same price." "It is no longer reasonable to collect all AFOL sets, but it is necessary to limit to one’s favorite themes and Lego offers only a faction of the sets available for a certain theme." "I’m aware that the Lego Digital Designer once allowed that and that you can still order bricks on Lego’s website and Bricklink. But it’s neither convenient nor reasonably priced nor are all important parts in all important colors available at any time nor is there any reliable source of proven designs." LEGO is an expensive luxury. Why should they reduce the price per part (by increasing the number of parts in a set at a fixed cost)? This will lead to a drop in quality somewhere, lowering themselves to the quality of clone designs and/or parts. You also say there is no reliable source of proven designs. There are 1000s of designs on the internet, many free, many paid for. However, all the "proven" ones are official LEGO designs. What makes you think a design someone uploads to a LEGO server is going to be any better than a design uploaded to rebrickable or similar? To have a "proven" set, someone has to go through it to check it fits in with LEGO's design standards, both structural and ethical.

Yeah, clever. It's only when you see the chair that you think ... wait a minute.

The Hun's under-cape is a nice idea. I made four similar torsos earlier today, with dark green, olive green, dark red and dark brown arms. Which legs have you used? I'm not a fan of the new helmet's size. It's obviously not purist, but I prefer the brickforge helmet instead.

Because it is Castle-like, and MOCs of LOTR type scenery are of interest to historic builders and vice versa. I don't see the need for sub forums for different eras. The good thing about having a main forum only is that you view a wide range of MOCs within a general theme. Sometimes you don't even know what they are going to be until you click on them. Whereas if you pigeonhole everything into specific sub-forums, then MOCs will get ever less views. If there was a Western sub-forum, for example, I probably wouldn't ever look in there. Whereas when the MOCs are in historic, I occasionally click on one and normally appreciate it. I wouldn't go looking for them, but it is nice to look at them from time to time. Plus I don't really see what problem having sub-forums actually solves. It is not like there are so many MOCs that viewers cannot keep up with them. You could separate history in categories such as pre-history, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and so on. You could have even more detailed sections, or less sections that were less focused. But a lot of the techniques used to make builds in one era are just as relevant for builds in other eras. Part of looking at a MOC is just looking at what it is. But (at least for me) another important part is looking at how it is built.

Those forums have active themes right now. What active historic themes are there that need to be pinned? LOTR was pinned while is was active, then unpinned as it is no longer current.

If you want some fun, search for Space Police or Blacktron or Insectoids or any Space-y theme in their logical new catalog. Sorry, they don't exist any more.

Most themes go to a discount so most themes "don't sell well". LEGO over produce / stores over stock. I'm sure they sold plenty at similar prices to other themes.