MAB

Some people collect City boxed sets and don't open them. Does that mean these sets should be discontinued as they are not being used by everyone for their intended purpose? The answer is clearly no. In the case of the SW set, some people (both AFOLs and kids) will want the minifigures only as they just collect SW minifigures, some will buy it and display it as it is with the minifigures in a vignette, some will buy it and create a much larger display or integrate those bricks and minifigures into a larger MOC. Whereas some (probably the majority of kids) will open it, throw away the box, build it, act out that scene, play with it. Different people will do different things with it. What do LEGO care about? They care that they are making sets that people buy. Compare that to a Friends or City set that are similar, so a bit of scenery and some minifigures. There, it is less likely that people will buy it just for the minifigures as they are not really that collectable. No doubt there are some City minifigure / Friends minidoll collectors but they are likely to be rarer than for a licensed theme. However, the sets are similar - they are a bit of scenery for the characters to interact in / with. The difference is that some people buy the licensed set because they want the minfiigures as they are into that license. That doesn't mean that it is a bad set, just that licensed themes attract some minifigure collectors, but the sets are still designed as playsets. Personally I see no difference between a kid playing with a set where Luke and Leia are escaping to two Friends characters in a cafe. They are both sets that enable the kid to act out a story. The difference is that less people are likely to want to collect the minifigures in the unlicensed Friends set than in the licensed SW set because of who they are representing.

No. I placed one before Christmas for five different parts (but large multiples of each). Only 1 from 5 showed up, but all on the dispatch note. Complained. And now the same 1/5 of the order shows up again - all on the dispatch note, and all parts should have been in the order. Second complaint. I'll see how it goes this time.

No, because having figures is essential for play for that type of set. But then, that is not limited to Star Wars. Would people buy any set where the action is focussed on the characters if the characters were not there. So the ski set, or the cafe above. Would people play with that type of set if there were no minifigures or dolls? I used to play with LEGO in the 1970s (pre-minifigures) and guess what we did when we built a house or a room. We used other, non-LEGO figures to be creative and act out our stories. For other builds such as vehicles, the character is almost incidental. You can still push the vehicle around to play with it. Whether or not it has a driver, the play is almost the same - which is why many toy (LEGO and non-LEGO) cars don't have drivers. They aren't strictly necessary for play. But have a cafe without people and what else do you do with it? It is no different to the scenery type sets in Star Wars. Of course, other Star Wars sets that are vehicles are more similar to the truck. It doesn't really matter if you have a pilot for an X-wing. You can play with it by flying it around. It is nice to have a pilot, but not essential.

They don't know. They ask questions but people buying sets for themselves will say it is for kids, especially the smaller sets.

It has been for a few months prior to Christmas, but I think this was one of the last fleshies to be added. So few fleshie heads are these days.

There were also some other historic looking sets that may be of interest. It will be interesting to see what Bricklink charges for these. Plus of course EU buyers will be hit with VAT and a handling fee for collecting the VAT, so I imagine they will be very expensive to import.

Journalists don't let details get in the way of a good story.

"Endor Assault" 75238 is coming, but it is a mid range price so not going to be a base.

OK, there is different pricing in different regions, but I can compare by asking which one has most play value. I chose them as they have the same USD value, but pricing is irrelevant really. They are mid range sets. They could all be improved by having more parts (and being more expensive). Which has the most play value? The answer is that it depends on who is doing the playing. The Death Star escape set is a nice little vignette set that captures a scene in a movie and it meets a price point. They could have vastly improved the build of the section of the Death Star and made it much more substantial, included 10 stormtroopers and charged $200. But it wouldn't sell. It probably wouldn't increase play value. Plus they have other sets at that price point. You regularly see sets like this in City: Is this a good build? Clearly, the answer is no. However, it is a great little set for a kid wanting a couple of minifigures. Has anyone bought it for the build? I reckon the answer is no. They are buying it for the minifigures and the bike, not the build. Do people complain about the quality of the build in these cheap sets made to sell minfiigures? Discontinue City now, as the cheap sets are insubstantial and are sold just to sell minfiigures. Or this (back up to $35) from Creator ($35, 374 parts, 2 minifigures) An insubstantial build for a house (but made to fit a price point) but one that has play value. It is longer and thinner than the SW one, but footprint is similar. Or Friends: Again a fairly insubstantial build nothing like a real store, but made to hit the $30 price point, 2 minifigures with 294 pieces. Again a similar footprint to the SW one. There is this type of set in every range, made for a particular price point. A couple of figures, a small amount of scenery in which to act out stories. There is still play value even though a real house or store should be bigger. Should Creator and Friends be discontinued because they contain sets at about $30 that contain 300ish parts that create a small part of scenery and contain a couple of minifigures?

Morrisons have 31073 at £6.50 (50% off). Also the Ninjago Movie Maker poly was sold in Argos for £1.49 for a while last summer, and there are still some of that stock under £2 on BL (plus postage of course).

I thought the finish on the helmets and armour was perfectly fine, although I can understand painting it to match all other silver parts if you are a heavy customiser. There are different versions of the armour - with and without leg protection. The ones without leg protection have a stud on the back of the armour rather than the tree print. You could probably grind that off if need be. But that is probably more trouble than it is worth, especially if you cover it with a cape anyway. I decided not to use the figures but just use the accessories. They are definitely worth it for those alone.

It wasn't me but another adult. So where is the value in a set? These sets all cost $30: 192 parts, 3 minifigures: 358 parts, 2 minifigures plus the scarecow: 329 parts, 3 minifigures: What has the best value? Is it the one flying around a helicopter and drone. Driving the tractor onto the back of a truck then driving the truck. Is it Luke and Leia fighting against the stormtrooper to swing over the void. It depends on the child. You may think the scenery of an iconic scene in Star Wars is trashy and a bad build. Others that enjoy Star Wars will enjoy both building and playing with it. But what makes an equivalent price City set spectacularly better? Pretending to fly around a helicopter and drone or driving a tractor about aren't that exciting if you are not into them. There are literally hundreds of vehicle sets too. Plus non-LEGO versions of things like that can be bought very cheaply, so amount of unique play value per dollar is quite low there compared to other toys once the build experience is complete.

Although modern capes made from the older material have changed slightly in shape. Bricklink lists them as 4cm and 3.9cm versions, for example.

My son got these two sets for Christmas and birthday. What makes you think that they were bought for the minifigures without quality in the build? He has spent ages playing with both.

Not really. And these aren't the originals either, as they will have back printing on them. So they cannot be used with current figures and the yellow skin for white people just looks odd these days. I traded out all my old yellow ones for modern equivalents. It also stirs up the whole LEGO is racist debate of years past again as they are now reminding everyone that yellow means white skin. They have reinterpreted the sets of the past (although not all are 1999 sets) so they should have done the same with the minifigures and given a few nice variations on the vintage ones with normal skin colours. They will be collectables as they are collectables. Just not really very appealing given they are so different to the almost as old view of using skin tones. I don't think much thought was put into what sets they go into. It seems fairly random.

It is interesting to note that in the UK, the final wave of the Hobbit sets were put on 50% off sale, and in some cases more than this by a couple of supermarkets, within just weeks of them being released. I imagine they had already agreed to take stock of them and presumably must have had poor sales of the second wave that took a long time to clear shelves. The supermarkets clearly knew what was going to block their shelves for months without selling and acted quickly. Also, most supermarkets here (ones similar to Walmart and Target, as opposed to specialist toy stores) do not really stock large sets any more. They tend to stock small ones only these days. The large sets seem to be going towards more traditional toy sellers.

^ Fans are the people buying the new sets. And if they are buying, they are not teed off. "Loyalty" to LEGO over decades or being "real fans" doesn't count for much since kids are by far the biggest consumer group that current sets have to sell to. It may be cold hearted, but success for a company is measured by sales volumes and profit. I doubt they care that much if a group of people that played with LEGO in the 70s and 80s were happy that certain new sets look a bit like those of their childhood. LEGO want them to sell, and that is what they care about. Model trains are quite different to LEGO. LEGO has a continuously evolving fanbase, with kids reaching about 6 years of age joining and older kids leaving.

The biggest positive for me is that they didn't redo the original Slave 1. Whereas some ships designs haven't changed that much, Slave 1 has really changed for the better.

Disney / Pixar still had to license it though and will make money that way.

Exo-suit and Research Institute were very close (Aug 2014 in the UK). Although I'd imagine they would have told us if the Ideas set was coming.

Plus the sets should be "kiddy". They are toys and they should primarily appeal to kids. Also a lot of the world doesn't get the show and yet the sets have to appeal to buyers worldwide. Many kids play with the sets without knowing about the storylines. You've moved on, yet others still play Minecraft. The kids playing it now are primarily aged 7-13, which just so happens to overlap significantly with the age range that many children play with LEGO.

Too many UCS? There are usually two and occasionally just one per year. How is that too many? As noted above, there are plenty of big sets in other themes. They just aren't UCS as UCS is Star Wars only. If you think they are too big and lack playability, then don't buy them. Buy the models designed for play instead.

There is Harry Potter though, and that is just as much Castle as LOTR or Hobbit ever was. And there WAS an active Castle range at the same time as LOTR. So the argument that they do not do Castle when a line such as LOTR is around is false.

I don't get this. While it may not be highlighted as a top 5 best-selling theme in their annual reports, it is up against some huge licenses and the high volume City and Friends. The fact that it has been around for quite some time tells us something - that it has been a good money maker. And in that sense, it is an important line for LEGO, as long as it continues to make money for them, which is why it sticks around. I doubt it costs them much to have the license either, or for the design of sets, given the somewhat simplistic builds that are common. While it may not be cool to the kids that used to play it, it is still played with a lot. By a new generation of kids. One of my kids is now 10, and he is very into Minecraft now, but wasn't even just a couple of years ago. Some kids may stop playing it after all these years, but others will start. More than any other computer game, it is like LEGO. It doesn't have to change much since what attracted kids about 10 years ago still attracts kids now. Just like LEGO hasn't gone out of fashion. There is still a lot of associated merchandise sold too - whether books, toys, T-shirts, etc. It is clearly still making money for these companies. LEGO has shown in the past that it is willing to kill a theme quickly - presumably if it is not making money. The fact that it hasn't killed Minecraft must have a reason.

Yes, but then I guess there are different ways of defining what an umbrella theme is; from Aanchir's post, I was assuming they called Ninjago an umbrella theme as it contained a very wide range of sets / styles - from classical / historical architecture, through fantasy, futuristic vehicles, etc. In fact, pretty much like Friends, where a group of named girls have a wide range of types of sets.