MAB

This is the current 2024 list on Brickset: {Unknown} (2) Animal Crossing (9) Architecture (1) Art (3) Books (21) BrickHeadz (18) Bricklink (10) City (52) Classic (5) Collectable Minifigures (33) Creator (22) DC Comics Super Heroes (8) Despicable Me (5) Disney (26) Dreamzzz (17) Duplo (21) Friends (44) Gabby's Dollhouse (3) Gear (79) Harry Potter (18) Icons (22) Ideas (8) Jurassic World (9) Marvel Super Heroes (33) Minecraft (22) Miscellaneous (11) Monkie Kid (10) Ninjago (37) Promotional (19) Seasonal (9) Sonic the Hedgehog (7) Speed Champions (10) Star Wars (46) Super Mario (14) Technic (22) The Legend of Zelda (1) Wicked (4) These numbers are a bit skewed as they contain anything flagged as that theme including promotional and polybags. I have marked themes that are licensed only as bold and unlicensed as italic. There are 14 bold, in total 205 sets. There are 8 italic, 188 sets. So even though the number of licensed themes is about double unlicensed, the number of sets in each case is about the same. If you repeat this analysis for any year in the past ten years or so, the numbers are about the same. And when you dig a it deeper ... 41 City sets cost $9.99 or more, so could be called regular sets (as in not promos or polybags). For Friends, that number is 35. For Ninjago, it is 21. For Creator, it is 17. For Dreamzzz, it is 13. For Star Wars, it is 18. For Marvel, it is 21. For Harry Potter, it is 15. And so on. There are more licensed themes, but there are far fewer sets per theme. If you add Star Wars and Marvel, the total number of different sets is less than the number of different City sets. This is why when I go into a store, I see that about half the shelves are full of unlicensed sets and half are full of licensed.

So when you go into a LEGO store and look at the shelves, do you not see the unlicensed sets? Do you find that themes like Harry Potter take up the same amount of shelf space as City? As the ones I go into are split pretty much down the middle. Licensed themes with a small number of sets do not take up anywhere near the amount of shelf space as much larger licensed or unlicensed themes. That is why it is much better to compare the number of licensed / unlicensed sets rather than the number of themes. If you want more unlicensed themes, then it suggests that you do not like the unlicensed themes that LEGO currently produces.

Yet Minas Tirith is spread out over a large area and has many areas that do not rely on each other. They could do playsets based on Minas Tirith: Lighting of the Beacon Grond at the Gates Witch King vs Gandalf The Crowning of the King They probably won't, as they aren't currently doing small playsets for LOTR.

There is about a 50:50 ratio, if you count sets.

If you don't have any faith in it, then don't engage with it. No doubt that there are plenty of people that would go to see the movie and would buy toys from it. I quite enjoyed The Hobbit even though it was different in style to LOTR. Apparently other people enjoyed it too, as it took $3b at the box office. No doubt a Gollum movie would be similar. It doesn't need to be the best concept ever for a movie to be an enjoyable watch.

And how many competing manufacturers were there for similar products? It sounds like you had no choice if you wanted to buy figures for that franchise. If you google Srar Wars toys, or Marvel toys, or Lord of the Rings toys, there are loads. Anyone choosing the LEGO toys over other manufacturers is a LEGO fan. They are not buying LEGO only because nobody else makes toys for their interests, they are choosing to buy the LEGO version. Even if they just buy Star Wars LEGO, they are still a LEGO fan. A fan of LEGO Star Wars is just as much a LEGO fan as a fan of LEGO City or LEGO Modulars. And from a financial point of view, probably a better customer for LEGO. Buying in-house themes does not make you special or more of a fan than buyers of other themes.

You can doubt it all you like. If they are buying LEGO then they are a LEGO fan. Being a fan of the license too does not mean that they are not a LEGO fan. There are many other products or manufacturers that they can choose but they choose LEGO, making them a LEGO fan.

A new movie aimed at kids would give a better chance to get playsets than a movie aimed at 15+ or adults. I guess we will have to wait and see what the recommended audiences are for them.

It is probably quicker than actually buying the set!

It depends what the current agreement is, as it could be that they have an ongoing agreement for all Middle Earth properties from Warner. Although even with such an agreement in place, I believe that they usually agree what sets will be made. No doubt they get first refusal and don't have to bid to get a contract. In some cases in the past, they have also sent figures to actors prior to release. Someone connected to Elijah Wood revealed the letter he was sent for the first Frodo figure. I don't think LEGO has any dealings with the Tolkein estate, do they? The boxes indicate that LEGO deals with Warner, and their representations of characters and storylines.

Remember too that many LEGO fans do not MOC. I doubt that the other opportunities matter to a large proportion of AFOLs as they are fans of LEGO. While HA Bricks provided some opportunities for a very niche group, it is true that the impact he had was probably negligible on LEGO's market. But it was still wrong to claim what he was claiming about 100% LEGO and he should have stopped selling the modified parts as LEGO branded when first warned. Yet he also had the opportunity to do exactly the same thing as you are advocating - to use other brands and switch from using LEGO branded ones, and if he had done so, then he would have been fine. It is strange really. He was providing other opportunities for parts that were not strictly LEGO, yet he stuck to using LEGO parts and of course made the error of marketing them as LEGO. As to fairs, I think that in the last 10 and possibly even just the last 5 years, there has been a huge change in the AFOL community. Most AFOLs I met 20 years ago were into LEGO at least partly to build their own designs, 10 years ago it was similar but now, I reckon there are more set collectors than MOCers. I have no doubt the MOC community has still grown in that time, just nowhere near as fast as the number of adults that buy LEGO sets for themselves. The number of shows now is also huge, it used to be that they were a couple of times in a year type event in the UK. Now, there are probably about 8-10 every month. Most are now run by independent businesses that move their displays around the country and/or have local MOCers displaying. But they are quite strict, they use the LEGO name in their advertising and have rules that only official LEGO sets, parts and minifigures can be sold and only LEGO parts can be used in MOCs. Presumably, even though LEGO is not involved at all, they are only allowed to use the name because it is LEGO only. If LEGO found out that traders were selling clone brands or builders were using clone brands, then I imagine they take away the right to use their name in advertising. And the "generic brick toy festival" doesn't sound quite as enticing. At least here, there is a long way to go if LEGO is ever to lose its dominance.

And that is why they would need to have a huge licensed portfolio to make a dent in LEGO's market dominance. It is not my take. Read the comment I was responding to, which was "... the only way I can see to make our point is to put our money where our mouths are and contribute to the crowd fund (which I have just done). This may demonstrate to TLG in the only terms they (and their lawyers) understand, our disapproval of the punitive action they have taken against a co-participant in our hobby." LEGO can take away even more than the free sets or other in-kind support. Brickfair could have to be labelled Brickfair - Building Block Fan Expo instead of Brickfair - LEGO Fan Expo, Similarly Brickworld could lose its LEGO Recognized Fan Convention status. Like it or not, losing the LEGO name in their advertising would presumably lose them a lot of attendees.

That's very nice use of the dino tails.

But if you go back and read threads about them written at the time, people (presumably AFOLs rather than kids) were often negative about the then current themes, instead favouring stuff from the past. Then years later when the kids have grown up, they start saying how they enjoyed them (and often hate the current offering). I imagine the same thing will happen with Dreamzzz and Monkie Kid years after they have gone. Ninjago will probably still be around, probably rebooted again for a new generation. Given how long it has lasted, if/when it does go it will have loads of nostalgic fans that enjoyed it at the time.

I imagine they already have the next LOTR Icons set designed, and have possibly already decided whether it will be released. Whether the designer statement about if it (Rivendell) sells well enough then they will do more was a planned marketing tactic or not, Barad-Dur and the figure designs didn't just appear overnight. Icons sets really are a no-brainer. LEGO control distribution, stock, pricing, sales offers. Smaller sets are totally different if they need to sell in volume, as then they need the toy stores and supermarkets to order (many months in advance) and have faith in the sets selling to their normal toy store and supermarket customers.

Yes, and also before minifigures came along lego was also about making anything we wanted, often paired with small action figures from other brands. Sometimes we even drew figures on card and cut them out to play with our lego, trains and die-cast cars all at the same time. And today kids still play like that. My kids have sets, but they also have a big sack full of lego they build MOCs with. They have continued to play with LEGO to an older age than when I first gave up as a kid, I think mainly due to the parts range allowing so much more detail in their creativity than was possible in the 80s. I think I got a bit fed up with the narrow range of colours and blocky parts, and moved on to other building materials (plaster casts, balsa wood, card, paint, etc) to satisfy creativity because leho wasn't good enough. Instructions have changed but then play has changed and sets have changed. In the 70s and 80s some sets didn't have as many parts as a polybag now, so instructions could be straightforward. And the bigger parts meant it was easier to see where the parts were going in each step, plus there were far fewer different parts then too so mistakes were easier to spot. And play has changed in that kids have more distractions these days. When I was a kid, we didn't have anywhere near the amount of toys kids have today. If they get something wrong in a build because the instructions were not clear and have to remove most of it to correct it, there is a good chance they play with something else more satisfying. That said, my kids have built vintage sets perfectly fine, even though they are used to modern instructions. I find the challenge of finding the right part(s) slows down building these days, something that didn't really happen in the past when there were often many of the same part in a set so it was easier to find the parts you need for each step quite quickly. That is also possibly part of the reason behind smaller numbers of parts per step. It is of course possible to build a polybag or small set from the picture alone if you want a challenge similar to old instructions or back of the box suggestions, or if you have a big set then you can skip five steps at a time if you like the spot what is different route to building. I also used to role play knights with toys, and cowboys, trains, police and so on, making up our own stories. But then we'd also role play Star Wars, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Grange Hill with our own stories. We knew what characters were likely to do just like we knew what police or knights were likely to do. I don't think LEGO police has really evolved with time. Police sets of today look different to those from 40 years ago only really in that the build style due to the changing bricks and design principles. But they are very much similar for role play. Cops, robbers, cars, helicopters. They keep doing them as kids like role playing action, and also parents see it as reasonably safe. If they did sets based on modern policing rather than stereotypical cops and robbers in whatever setting, I doubt that would be the case.

And no doubt that at the time, there were people that hated Power Miners and Space Police because those stupid new themes knocked the so much better older themes they loved off the shelves. Yes, Ninjago has sort of consumed many of the ideas that new themes might have used. They have covered traditional architecture to dragons to fantasy technology with antagonists varying from snakes to robots to sky pirates to skeletons and more. I have no doubt that any one sub-theme or year could have been done as a completely new stand alone theme with new heroes each time but keeping the same enemies and builds for the sets. But of course for every new theme they do, there is new advertising, kids have to get used to the new characters, and then they disappear just as quickly and there is no continuity from year to year. A theme like Atlantis or even Monster Fighters could easily have their humans replaced by the Ninjago core characters and be essentially the same storyline. Or the other way, any Ninjago sub-theme have its core characters removed and replaced by something different. I think continuity is important here, as kids buy into the franchising just like they do for licenses. Once they know the characters, they want more of them and with continuity can use them with past sets that they already own. So I understand why LEGO has put so many quite different ideas into the one theme, even if it means the core characters get repeated so often.

But then is it creative to do police and fire sets year after year? They might change the settings from town to forest to swamp back to town, yet the builds and play are frequently very similar. And the important thing is that it sells. Once Classic Space or Castle had been done for a year, was it still original after that? Is Ninjago or Friends still original? Yet so many kids will have played with castle repeating stories of Robin Hood or of Arthurian type legend. Even though the characters are not necessarily licensed or named, their backstory was already partly in children's heads from cultural stories. Having some knowledge of who a character is can actually help a child understand them and build their own imaginative stories around them. Give a kid the choice of either a plain minifigure or one from a selection with some printing on them, and I reckon in most cases, they'd go for one that is printed as the print gives them a hint as to how to play with it. Licensed sets are also popular with AFOLs. Look at the sales of Star Wars, look at the volume of discussion on EB in the Star Wars forum. Look at the volume of discussion about LOTR in the historic forum, look at the amount of discussion in the licensed forum. LEGO needs both licensed and unlicensed to retain its popularity. If it suddenly decided no more licensed themes, they would just lose customers. The people buying them won't suddenly decide that they will buy Dreamzzz or Ninjago or City instead. Other brands would take them up and produce similar sets to what LEGO does now, and LEGO would lose market share. The wide product availability within unlicensed LEGO themes may even go down as people become used to buying other brands as they are the ones with the popular licenses.

What would make a company like MegaConstrux or Cobi or one of the others a serious competitor? I doubt any clone brand will take away significant enough market share to get anywhere near LEGO's sales. To be a serious competitor, they'd have to have a huge licensed portfolio, as well as cover more niche themes like trains, as well as everyday type stuff like City does. LEGO does have some serious competitors, albeit in a totally different way, in other types of play (especially online/gaming) and changing attitudes towards toys in general. Toys, especially at the expensive end, are becoming adult collectables rather than something for kids. There are big competitors out there for collector items. The man in street probably didn't hear about it and if he did, he didn't care about it. Outside of LEGO train fans, and LEGO fan forums, I doubt the story even registered. And I also imagine many LEGO fans don't see an issue with LEGO protecting its image. I also doubt LEGO cares if he pays his own court costs or if he gets them paid by his supporters through crowd funding. Over the years vocal fans have left the hobby either after a spat with LEGO or with rival fans, yet LEGO continues to grow. Even apparently big influencers really don't have much influence. If someone disappears, someone else soon replaces them.

LEGO wasn't insanely popular all around the world in the 80s though. It is way more popular now than back then. People buying licensed LEGO sets are just as much fans of LEGO as people that buy in-house sets.

It wouldn't surprise me if they were listed on ebay before ordering was open. That happened with sets in the last round.

Yeah, it is going to be an interesting race. The train station was lagging behind a little but suddenly overtook the mushroom house. Why they suggest 24 days is anyone's guess. They could make it just 2 days, the panic would be the same.

The speed the bars are filling seems slower than last time. I imagine there is slightly less hype and less rush to buy this time. Whether there is less demand or not, I'll guess we'll see. I imagine most will sell out again.

It really depends on what you want to compare: the number of in-house vs licensed themes, or the number of in-house vs licensed sets. LEGO has consolidated a lot of its ideas into a few core in-house themes. Look at how many sets Friends, City and Ninjago each get these days. Then there are Monkie Kid, Dreamzzz, Creator, etc. Looking at brickset data, last year the three big in-house themes got 48, 62 and 47 sets respectively. Compare that to when they were doing many more themes that lasted a year that came and went. Avatar got 5, Fortnite got 2, Gabby's Dollhouse got 4, HP got 18, Indy got 4, DC got 13, Marvel got 40, Sonic got 6, Minecraft got 22, and even the big SW only got 48. There might be a lot of IP based themes, but the number of IP based sets is not actually that high. I looked a couple of years ago, and it is about 50:50 in-house to licensed in terms of sets if you ignore all the magazine bag sets and all the education/service type packs. I'm not going to buy Mario, Sonic and Zelda sets. I don't really care how many there are of those or how many themes they are counted as, just as I am not going to buy any of the 10 Monkie Kid sets this year. What matters to me is that they are producing things I want to buy. For me 50:50 overall in terms of sets is about right for the general population. There is plenty of choice of in-house stuff for those that like that, and there is plenty of choice for licensed sets. If LEGO didn't do those licenses, chances are another brand would pick them up. LEGO wouldn't make more sales by dropping the IP based themes, those IP based sales would just go to the other companies. Wicked and Zelda sets are likely to be bought by fans of those franchises. Does it really matter that those two themes exist? If they didn't exist, it is not like LEGO would be making more in-house themes. The fans that would have bought the Wicked sets probably won't be buying other LEGO.

Can't you straighten any slightly bent parts? Replacement parts will be the same material and probably more likely to get bent if posted in an envelope.