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Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

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Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#71

Post by grahamel »

ebg13 wrote: post #33
jncraton wrote: post #24

IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. The fact that they have been able to thrive like this in a market with many competitors cloning their product is a a testament to their product quality and related brand strength. If you've used and compared the various brands in thi…

> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but these days LEGO thrives because of their relentless promotional brand tie-ins. It's not just LEGO anymore. It's LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Disney's Frozen, LEGO Toy Story 4, and so on.

also it seems they thrive on their focus on price - I'm sure a fair part of that is in the licencing of the tie-ins - but you never see them in a race to the bottom

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#72

Post by bhaak »

martin_a wrote: post #69
bhaak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story about "Held der Steine" looked to me like an attorney going too far. Stupid move, stupid shitstorm ensues. The design of the classical Lego minifigure OTOH is protected. It's completely legal and understandable to go after copies of that. But with "Bluebrixx", I'm not so sure if this is all. There might be more about that. Look for example at this page: https://www.bluebrixx.com/de/bluebrixxspecials/scifi T…

> This looks very much like something fishy going on. They call them "Bluebrixx-Specials" but they are clearly not original designs. I'm with you on that, but can you really protect designs like these? Obviously they are trying hard to sail around paying licensing fees which I can understand and don't really see a problem with. Paying those licensing fees is mainly for marketing reasons and if you want to keep market…

Trademark law is lot more fuzzy than copyright law. Whereas copyright comes into existence just by creating something, trademarks are only granted after official registering. And then they can still be challenged.

But with the Ecto-1-look-alike, this is still very clear to me. That's not how a NY classical ambulance looks, that's how a classical ambulance looks after being modified by the Ghostbusters. That's a significant point.

Given that this is even a licensed model, I'm surprised that it isn't part of the provisional injunction.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#73

Post by hjnilsson »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #62
CannisterFlux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only the model quality, but the Lego bricks themselves are pretty disappointing too. If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. More models have special parts with narrow waist sections that easily snap. The c-shaped grips that hold poles either warp or snap and become useless. More and more sets come with stickers rather than printing the pattern onto the bricks like they used to…

> If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. Are they really like that nowadays? When I was a child they were near indestructible.

I buy LEGO regularly and the bricks I get are very tough. Even dropping entire models I don’t think I’ve had one brick shatter. But it is possible the quality varies.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#75

Post by majewsky »

bhaak wrote: post #61
Animats wrote: post #5

"Lego has become the world’s largest toymaker by sales..." Had no idea they'd grown that much. Mattel used to be on top. Apparently Lego passed them around 2014. The movie tie-ins seem to have done it. Even though Barbie had her screen moments in one of the Toy Story movies.

They are also the world largest tire manufacturer ([citation needed] for this year but at least for 2011 it was true).

> the world's largest manufacturer of tire-shared plastic

FTFY

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#76

Post by bluetomcat »

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #59
tr3ndyBEAR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that legos were/are traditionally thought of as boy toys and a generation of women grew up without them. It's basically what happened with computers too. Many of the most important early computer pioneers were women

That's just bullshit, a narrative feminists peddled by posting selective pictures and ads of LEGO sets. They even complain about modern "girl's Lego", instead of being happy that it brings girls to using Lego. It also doesn't make sense to complain about a Lego car as enforcing gender stereotypes. Don't they want girls to build cars? It is so illogical. They claim girls are not interested in engineering (cars), becau…

> The new "themed" sets apparently sell better than the "random box of colored bricks" from the past.

In the 1990s, almost no sets were "random boxes of colored bricks" and they were all themed, but the themes weren't the commercialized junk they are today. You had Castle, Pirates and Space without any references to movie characters and the structures were rather harmonic without too many special or overly-sized parts. The minifigs had serious faces and were not cartoonish. A child would be able to invent its own story and get creative with those themes, rather than using the toy to play when it's not watching the movie.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#77

Post by CannisterFlux »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #62
CannisterFlux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only the model quality, but the Lego bricks themselves are pretty disappointing too. If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. More models have special parts with narrow waist sections that easily snap. The c-shaped grips that hold poles either warp or snap and become useless. More and more sets come with stickers rather than printing the pattern onto the bricks like they used to…

> If you drop a normal brick on a hard floor the brick is likely to shatter. Are they really like that nowadays? When I was a child they were near indestructible.

Yeah, they are not nearly as good. I've had pieces snap just from having them in a box, rooting through to find other pieces, they must have snagged. And dropping regular pieces on a tiled floor from table height, had the side break! Maybe I was unlucky, but that would've been unheard of back in the 80s.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#78

Post by martin_bech »

ebg13 wrote: post #33
jncraton wrote: post #24

IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company. The fact that they have been able to thrive like this in a market with many competitors cloning their product is a a testament to their product quality and related brand strength. If you've used and compared the various brands in thi…

> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality. I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but these days LEGO thrives because of their relentless promotional brand tie-ins. It's not just LEGO anymore. It's LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Disney's Frozen, LEGO Toy Story 4, and so on.

Thats not completely true, I know people at LEGO, and the best selling sets are Legos own Lego City and Lego Friends.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#79

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

bluetomcat wrote: post #76
nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just bullshit, a narrative feminists peddled by posting selective pictures and ads of LEGO sets. They even complain about modern "girl's Lego", instead of being happy that it brings girls to using Lego. It also doesn't make sense to complain about a Lego car as enforcing gender stereotypes. Don't they want girls to build cars? It is so illogical. They claim girls are not interested in engineering (cars), becau…

> The new "themed" sets apparently sell better than the "random box of colored bricks" from the past. In the 1990s, almost no sets were "random boxes of colored bricks" and they were all themed, but the themes weren't the commercialized junk they are today. You had Castle, Pirates and Space without any references to movie characters and the structures were rather harmonic without too many special or overly-sized part…

Oh, give me a break. Every Lego Star Wars or Ninjago set my kids have gotten has long since been dismantled and reassembled into new creations.

Re: Lego to open 160 new stores as other toy retailers suffer

#80

Post by bhaak »

majewsky wrote: post #75
bhaak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also the world largest tire manufacturer ([citation needed] for this year but at least for 2011 it was true).

> the world's largest manufacturer of tire-shared plastic FTFY

In your opinion, in what way does a Lego tire differ from a regular tire?

The Wiktionary definition for tyre is "The ring-shaped protective covering around a wheel which is usually made of rubber or plastic composite and is either pneumatic or solid."

More than close enough IMO.

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