fred67

No...if they are playing up Hobit sets, it's because they are selling better. Regardless, even if they stop LOTR entirely, it changes nothing about what I wrote.

I didn't get my set, yet, but noticed that in the catalog picture. A bit racist. (Yes, that's a joke)

Oi Thiago! Welcome to Eurobricks! My wife is from Belo Horizonte, I know LEGO is hard to find there, and is pretty expensive, but that's like most imported things in Brasil. Good luck on your trip, hope you score some good sets.

I like the Cafe and Bike shop (in theory... mine should arrive tomorrow), I think it will take a lot of bulking up to actually make it work with the modulars. The cars in these sets often are sub-par; I feel that way about the Simpson's car, too. Definitely will need to mod or completely rebuild them.

Licenses are a tricky issue - nobody denies this, but we largely have no idea what the licensing issues are in any given situation. We surmise, for example, that LEGO cannot release sets of just minifigures for some licenses (like SW) because someone else has that license, so they HAVE to make it into either: a magnet (now glued), or a "building" toy by adding some minor vehicle or something. When it comes to something like Adventure Time, we have no idea what the problems are - we can only guess. AT already has merchandise, so the license may be tied up... but we don't know if that includes building toys or not, or if anything like that was even specified, we can only guess. Regardless, licenses expire eventually. A renegotiation (and this goes for any license) could split off building toys if it hadn't already. It may also just have been the case that TLG got tired of having to get new licenses just for cusoo/ideas sets. I'm glad another non-licensed set won. Edit: it's funny how we used to discuss this stuff years ago, and we'd have these great debates in the forums about the viability of The Lord of the Rings, and some argued it simply wasn't possible for various reasons (sometimes including a license argument). I'd always argued it was possible, just very unlikely. Then all of a sudden, WHAM! New license for TLG to do the LOTR and the Hobbit. Certainly it had to do with timing, but many people argued it simply couldn't happen at all.

Agree with Dharkan (again... I seem to recall writing those very words a day or two ago). For some things it makes sense, for others... not so much. When I walk into the LEGO store on a Saturday it's generally really busy, often with kids taking the boxes to the virtual reality thing they have in the stores. Saturday is a real rarity for me to visit simply because of how busy it is. But I can't imagine how bothersome it would be for employees to take the sets out just for people to examine the back of the box, then have to put it back, and people waiting in line just to see the boxes... If they kept the smaller sets in a more controlled area, and the video games behind glass, that would probably work a lot better.

Yeah... a collaboration, not existing content being made into LEGO. That's why I said "largely one way" with, as far as I know, no existing CN content being made into LEGO sets. But Turner Broadcasting is huge, and I don't watch CN and don't deal with them very often, so I certainly could be wrong. EDIT: I mean, I guess Clone Wars counts. How could I overlook that? But then that was part of the SW license, AFAIK.

I only voted for the lady scientists and the Japanese architecture set. I think another BTTF was just dumb... yes, I realize this was a lot better than the one they just released, but they just released it and I think a lot of people might even get mad they bought the bad one when a great one was right around the corner. I don't think Sherlock was a good fit, probably a much more limited audience. Now... Adventure Time, although I didn't support it, would probably be pretty darn cool... I wouldn't necessarily give up on it, though. Although it's largely a one way street (with LEGO content airing on Cartoon Network instead of the other way around), there is, at least, a really good working relationship there (full disclosure: I work for Turner Broadcasting, and I don't have any inside information, so my guess is as good as anybody's), so the future may hold that LEGO does some Cartoon Network related sets.

If you got those 3 (even somewhat modified by TLG) for $20, that would be amazing. Glad I supported this... I really love it.

@faefrost; when I read Dharkan's post,I got a completely different vibe... Not a complaint about TLG's rules but, like my follow-up, the submitters themselves... perhaps not for point 3. So I just did my daily check only to find the millionth Tardis, even while Dr. Who is already being considered... that's one of the things that diminishes ideas.

No. Sometimes it's obvious. I do when I think it's exceptional, or I feel I have some useful criticism.

I ordered the bike shop, it does seem a bit pricey. If I were cynical (and I am), I would suggest a belief that Americans are more interested in fully predesigned sets that don't require imagination. Still, it easily beats the infamous "10¢ per piece" price ratio.

Now we needed the Canyonero! Nice work, okiba75!

Agree completely with Dharkan. And.... The people posting pictures of what they would like made (but it's not even LEGO). People posting a base plate with a couple of stacks of bricks and a minifigure or two and calling it something. People posting pictures of MOCs of already existing (and currently available) sets, as if, even if it were better, TLG would release a different version. Let's face it... some MOCs there are absolute garbage. I haven't posted any of mine because, even though I'm happy enough with my own work, it's either: not good enough to be a set; isn't suitable to be a set; has already been done better by someone else (does nobody search before posting?), obviously breaks rules; or is too small or large. Don't people have any self restraint anymore? Too many achievement awards for attendance? I've had this discussion before.. and people thought I was just being mean, and that some people just wanted to showcase their creations... but that's not what cusoo or ideas is for, it's not to waste people's time wading through junk. There are sites (like this one) for people to share without ruining ideas. It also seems like some people will support anything.

+1 for TheLegoDr, thanks for the trade!

That's my store, too. I just ordered it online. Glad I did. I have no patience to wait in line for something like this. Take a look at the LEGO "investors" thread. There's a lot of them around here.

Was just at Target... they were doing buy one get one 40% off mix and match Star Wars or Creator. Got a couple of creator sets, sadly not the new "mini modular"

@UsernameMDM: I think the answer is a little of both... with a little lack of maturity thrown in for good measure.

So now scalpers force you to buy LEGO at gunpoint, or do you get the free will to decide how you're going to spend your money? Do you NOT see the difference? The comparison is absurd.

I'm sorry, but comparing something that YOU are responsible for (spending your own money) with something someobody ELSE is responsible for (criminal behavior violating your rights) is absolutely ridiculous.

I certainly wouldn't have expected completely unopened from a commercial retailer (even a bricklink store), since they must verify the accuracy. All dumped into one zip-loc is bad service, though. If you've ever ordered "new" bricks from S@H pick-a-brick, you'll get them packed generally far worse than most bricklink sellers...

So TLG is greedy? No, seriously... I know they are producing the sets, and entitled to set their own prices, but over the past decade they've made massive amounts of profit, with increases in profits exceeding increases in sales almost every year (generally meaning rising profit margins). Since TLG is not publicly traded, one has to do some math, but a couple of years ago I figured TLG's profit margins to be north of 20%. A survey I read around the same time suggested people generally thinking 10 to 20% profit margins reasonable. Let's take an admittedly extreme case of minifigures in the U.S.. If we assume TLG was making such a profit margin 4 years ago, when they first started selling CMFs, what does a 100% price increase since then suggest? It suggests they are not happy with merely making a great profit, it suggests they are maximizing the return on their investments. Are they greedy? Especially given the case we're talking about something as non-essential as LEGO... something nobody is required to buy... are they greedy? A kid in the U.S. can only buy half as many now as they could 4 short years ago. No, you weren't wrong, and it's clearly not wrong to accept some exhorbitant amount someone willingly offers you for an honestly advertised product. These are excellent case points... a "collector" is willing to pay more for an original. I was not willing to pay the going prices for Sante Fe Super Chief cars, so I bricklinked them. I ended up compromising on the roofs, which ended up black instead of grey. If I wanted it more for "collecting" purposes, I would have paid more. Even at the low end, I bricklinked a snowspeeder before the Wampa Cave set introduced a new one. It's not exact, but it's good enough. At the same time, having those complete sets gives people who missed out the opportunity to get them. TLG can't keep every set in production forever. That's just the nature of the beast. I'd like for the people who believe that something should be done to come up with a reasonable way to stop this from happening... one that doesn't violate the rights of buyers and sellers alike.

Except that people choosing to earn a living this way, or support their LEGO habit this way, are not "greedy" unless you think anyone who wants to make any money is "greedy." After all, it's not like anyone is forcing people to buy the sets at outrageous mark-ups. Is anyone that sells anything greedy? Now the wealthy guy that fraudulently cheated people to support his LEGO habit is greedy; people who fraudulently deal with LEGO (steals identities, takes figures from boxes then returns the sets, does drop-ship scams, etc), now THOSE people are greedy scumbags. Buying something then selling it to a willing buyer is not "greedy."

OK, so I haven't commented on this yet, but I wanted to add my two cents. I largely agree with UsernameMDM - I believe in the free market, and sometimes it seems to suck for consumers and "fans," but I wouldn't have it any other way, because market controls will makes things in a free market worse, not better. So really, if you think a set is too expensive, then don't buy it. Unfortunately, someone with more money (or simply who values LEGO more) will buy from those resellers, making it worth their while. I've bought a lot of sets I never built, but I never bought anything I wouldn't want myself. A lot of those sets I finally came to the conclusion that I will never have enough space to build and display it all - then I see the prices for those sets have gone up (sometimes substantially). So am I supposed to just "give it away?" Or do I get a fair market price when I sell? There's been the odd occasion when I bought something I figured I would resell... I bought an extra Green Grocer because my local LEGO store had a damaged box, so I bought the damaged box for me to build immediately, and saved a good one to sell later. Now look at what happened: I got roughly double what I paid, which gave me a large part of the next modular I bought for me. The set had long since been discontinued, yet the buyer was happy to get a brand new, unopened set (and for a reasonable price, relatively speaking... I usually chop off a bit of the lowest comparable bricklink price). I bought several Emerald Nights... built one, loved it, bought more... built the red version, now I have a better "Hogwart's Express," and an extra passenger car... ended up selling one, but still have one. I might build it, I might sell it... as I said, I don't buy it unless I want it. If I come to the realization that I will never build or need it, I will try to sell it, and I will ask the going rates. That said, I agree it's frustrating when a new set comes out, or a set goes on clearance, and it's sold out in a really short amount of time because people buy many copies of the set. Unless TLG wanted to limit it to 1, you're going to see this... (limiting to 5 helps a bit, but buyers just use multiple accounts). But do I want it limited to 1? No! Sometimes sets are better if you combine two or more! Sometimes you want a small fleeet of X-Wings or TIE Fighters! The truth is, I rarely buy sets on bricklink or ebay anyway, so don't feel like I've been ripped off at all. The only one I can think of is the UCS Naboo Fighter, which I paid $65 for for my son (I think the original price was more like $35). But then I realized it was a "valuable" set, kept it, and let him pick a different set. Now that set sells for several hundred. I still have it. I'm not offering it for sale. Some day I hope to display it. So I agree that the OP conflated various scenarios, here... 1. People buying LEGO as an investment in their own futures are probably wasting their time... investing in a variety of stocks or plans is probably more worthwhile... the interest compounds, there is no storage or work requirements on your side of the equation, and if you just do it consistently, it's a better investment for your own future. You'd have to rent a warehouse to store all those LEGO sets for the same kind of return you'd get just reasonably investing. 2. People buying LEGO as an investment in their hobby, however, might be on to something. If you buy two modulars every time a new one comes out, then sell one for double the price once it's discontinued, you could theoretically fund your whole modular line just from the purchase of the original two (more or less). Timing doesn't always work out that great, and you might want to double up (and you'll have to wait to buy newer ones until the older ones actually get discontinued), but it could work. In the same vein, "investments" in other themes can work, too, especially popular ones like Star Wars. Then again, that type of buyer isn't buying 10+ copies of the set. 3. People "scalping" LEGO (buying up all the sets to sell for a profit) initially hurt the other consumers by making those popular sets hard to find, but can be beneficial when someone gets into the hobby after the set has been discontinued. I largely am not happy with these people, but put up with them as being part of the free market, because I don't like the alternatives. But they can also be beneficial in other ways... like the ones who buy cases of CMFs, identify them, and then sell them for retail+. If I can't find that last figure, or there's ones that I want more of, it's far easier to go to bricklink then search them out elsewhere, especially older series. 4. People buying sets to "part out" on bricklink are largely like group 2 - only they may be looking for specific pieces for themselves that are available in certain sets, then sell the rest of the set to recoup their money. I have no problem with them... in fact, I think they're great, as I love bricklink, and that's a large part of what bricklink is. On top of that, you again have people like this buying cases of CMFs and taking the ones they want and selling the rest... that makes known figures available on bricklink, and makes it easy to complete a set, get multiples of the ones you want, and find discontinued ones. 5. Collectors... I put myself in this category. I buy sets because I like them. Sometimes two or more copies. I always keep at least one for me. Sometimes I realize I won't ever build the extras. Sometimes I bought SW battlepacks for army building... but I don't play, I display, and realized I will never have space large enough to build a really cool MOC with all those figures. I always have at least two full sets of CMFs (exceping the movie series); one to save (new, unopened), one to display. I don't know why. Maybe I will sell them some day, maybe I will give them to my grand kids, or even to charity. I like getting what I consider "collectibles" in twos... one to display, one to save. It's the collector mentality combined with the LEGO lover - I don't want to buy something and not show it off. As an example of how I am, when I built Cafe Corner, it had long been discontinued. I had the box from when I bought it years earlier. I asked my daughter which set she wanted to build, and she picked it out. I went to bricklink, and while I paid $140 for it, the low price at bricklink for North America was like $850. For that money, I could buy five new modular sets. So I built it. Because that's what I bought it for. Imagine, though, if I'd bought two?

It would be nice if, some day, we had competition on price and quality. I admit I would segregate my LEGO from other bricks, but I wouldn't be adverse to buying it if it were good quality.