Jump to content

MAB

Eurobricks Archdukes
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    8,552

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by MAB

  1. MAB
    You also need to remember about how well parts will sell. Generic parts (such as a Gondor helmet) will sell in vast numbers. Specific parts (such as Witch King's helmet) will sell far less, as people won't be making armies of them. Yet production costs for molds will be similar for both (probably more for Witch King, given the design).
  2. MAB
    I'd say both. Many current two year olds are not fans of lego, but will start to be in 2-5 years time. Plus people keep having children, replenishing the source of new lego fans. And kids getting lego often brings back parents, which creates new AFOLs. And new licenses do bring in new fans. Lego sales are up for the first half year, which is attributed to The Lego Movie. So bringing in a licensed product like that, and no doubt products such as the Super Hero, LOTR and SW range, does attract fans of the license rather than just fans of lego. I know LOTR fans that have no interest in lego that have collections of LOTR minifigs for example. To the last point, I think there is a lot of lego out there now. I probably wouldn't keep buying lego if they were not coming up with new parts. I have enough to MOC with, but I will buy more if there are new parts to buy and use. If they just did general boxes of primary colours, then I would have stopped buying many years ago. The new parts / ranges don't have to be licensed - I particularly liked Atlantis and Monster Fighters for example - and again I know of a few B-movie / horror fans that have the MF minifigs displayed. However, the license comes with an instant fan base, which is clearly a big bonus when it comes to selling toys.
  3. MAB
    Yes, but would lego fans still go if they were not able to get exclusives? Would lego still get the rates they pay for their stalls if they lost getting their share of the fanbase through the doors? If it was noticed by the organisers that lego didn't have lots of people around their stall (due to nothing worth getting), then maybe they would end up having to pay more as they are not attracting the fans like other companies. There is so much that none of us know about the financing of the event, so what may seem like an unwise business decision to do exclusives is not the point. If we had all the facts (which we never will), there is probably a clear financial reason why they do it.
  4. MAB
    Another thing to bear in mind is that sometimes it is advantageous to build in any random colour first, to learn about the techniques you want to use in the castle / build. You do not need to start building the final model from the start. There is no point buying loads of parts in a specific colour only to find they don't really work as well as you thought they would.
  5. MAB
    You can get aluminium ones. Dennis Lillee used one as a marketing stunt in 1979. But now for official matches they have to be willow.
  6. MAB
    That depends on who does the cutting. :-) I see it as how lego would have made the piece, if they made it. A combined helmet and hair piece, much like the Friends style horse rider ones. Of course, the alternative is to go without what you want and have her with hair and a separate helmet that cannot be worn without removing her hair.
  7. MAB
    I never use 60808 in my castles. Why use a large part like that, when you can use bricks, arches and arched windows. That way, you do not get the ugly recesses behind the castle walls. The masonry bricks are nice for a little detail, so long as they are not overused. Especially as the brick patterns don't line up properly if you stagger the bricks.
  8. MAB
    Probably not.
  9. MAB
    For this one, it is not too bad. You just need a straight cut on a hairpiece. The Witch King is a very different story ...
  10. MAB
    Minifig collector and MOC'er. I rarely bother building sets I buy. They are normally just for parts.
  11. MAB
    A hairpiece, a dremel and some glue fix that. I use those helmets for half my Rohan warriors too, mixed in with the official one.
  12. MAB
    Eowyn's helmet can be done quite well with the existing brickforge viking helmet in bronze...
  13. MAB
    I have one. My son removed the head with his teeth. :-)
  14. MAB
    This does sound sensible. Both brickforge and brickwarriors have had some of their popular parts "copied" by lego in official form and it of course dents their sales. I would have bought loads more Roman shields from BW if lego had not released their CMF Roman Soldier. But the unofficial BW one now looks like a fake next to the official one, even though it came first. Same with the goblin shield with hand print from BF. Once it is clear lego has finally finished with the theme, I hope a lot of customisable gaps are filled.
  15. MAB
    They do help spur sales of comic con tickets.
  16. MAB
    Business partners. There are always plenty more fans ready to come into lego, but if they fall out with their business partners (such as the studios) then future licenses may be in jeopardy and go to MB instead. What about people from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?
  17. MAB
    When I was a kid (late 1970s, early 80s), I thought nothing of using lego to build spaceships for my Kenner SW figures, often with toilet rolls attached using sticky tape or blu-tack, with lumps of plasticine for details. They landed on launch / landing pads made from painted cardboard boxes or any other junk we had around. My parents watched my play sometimes but didn't really join in or direct play. These days, my kids are stopped from gluing things to lego, mainly by their dad. :-)
  18. MAB
    Based on reports of people standing in line, the chances of getting one was about 60%-70%. So not too bad.
  19. MAB
    Yes. Well, we can dream.
  20. MAB
    There is an alternative view that the Hobbit was meant to be two series, one for each film, and that a third LOTR (RotK) series of sets would come out fall/autumn 2014. When the third film was announced, then the third wave of LOTR could have been put back / cancelled completely, as it would clash with the third wave of Hobbit sets that now need to come out in late 2014 to coincide with the film in cinemas.
  21. MAB
    So now the wait is on to find out what the last few unknown sets will be ... the polybags. I'm expecting one or two if like the other series. Fingers crossed for minifigs not already in the boxed sets.
  22. MAB
    I doubt they will. For all themes except superheroes, they seem to mainly do fakes of official figures only.
  23. MAB
    Yes, unfortunately they haven't taken on board that you give an army builder and the set sells better.
  24. MAB
    Probably so that they are not copied and manufactured by bootleg makers in the Far East before they are released by lego. They will probably fake the figures anyway once the sets are out, but at least let lego get them out first. I don't think they can have the blog / site removed, but the CEE team can stop sending free promotional / review sets. That is normally enough to make most blogs tow the line.
  25. MAB
    For me, the current situation is win/nothing for lego/me. I don't feel I have lost if I don't have an exclusive. There is a reason lego do it, as otherwise they wouldn't do it. Will they tell us the reason they do it? No.
×
×
  • Create New...