How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
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How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
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Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#2[flagged]
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#3Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#4http://www.brick4.com/
Not sure if this is yours, but if so: Firefox (android) and Chrome (android) refuse to load the site. Probably due to missing SSL.
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#5Apple going against general purpose computing makes it more like Playmobil, where construction options are limited compared to LEGO.
The versatility of Linux and the original x86 platform with its openness is more like LEGO in spirit.
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#6Until I have to jailbreak my bricks to make my own designs, Lego is nothing like Apple.
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#7Interesting to read this now. Lego was in a very good position during that time. But in the last years they declined in quality (bad prints, a lot of stickers on AFOL sets), increased the prices and the lack in building fun of the sets. Lots of catering to grown-ups and weird choices in the kids section like the city road elements.
The mixed reality sets were not well received. Why give a kid something to do with Lego bricks and then pull them in front of a smartphone again?
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#8Lego is still quite amazing but not quite as cool as it used to be. I suppose the various boxes were always meant to be such that you could build that one really cool building/vehicle/etc. with it. Sometimes with a predesigned variation, too.
But today it seems that the purpose of most boxes is to do only that - and then, what, put the object into a display case? Or, more likely, play with it for a while and then forget about it.
What I mean is that even though today's lego boxes let you build way more realistic and designy products, there are so many special pieces that it does not spark your own creative fantasy (in my opinion) but limits it. To me, as a child, the appeal was always that there was quite a limited set of brick types - and the creativity lay in combining them in new ways.
In comparison, the number and types of different pieces seems to have doubled or tripled today. By implication that means that you end with a few instances of many different types of pieces while before, you'd have many instances of a few types of pieces. I'd argue that the latter lends itself much better to creating new things born out of your own creativity.
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#9I like lego, but the magic that made them what they are is waning. The capitalized big on partnerships with entertainment brands, but that's feeling played out. When parents pick up gifts for birthday parties they'll get lego star wars or lego ninjago gifts because the birthday boy is into star wars or ninjago, lego is secondary.
Lego is still great, but their lack of emphasis on the creativity that has been the promise of lego for decades---think this ad[0]---has been making them less great each year.
[0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/ea/f1/71eaf11fd3ade672821b...
Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)
#10Lego is still quite amazing but not quite as cool as it used to be. I suppose the various boxes were always meant to be such that you could build that one really cool building/vehicle/etc. with it. Sometimes with a predesigned variation, too. But today it seems that the purpose of most boxes is to do only that - and then, what, put the object into a display case? Or, more likely, play with it for a while and then for…
> there are so many special pieces that it does not spark your own creative fantasy (in my opinion) but limits it.
Those pieces aren't anywhere near as limiting as you think. The Saturn V model uses the 64951 tub/barrel pieces as thruster nozzles. The LEM uses the 64644 telescope/spyglass piece for the legs. That's the immediately visible bits in the model I have handy, I remember seeing a bunch more of those on my friend's Millennium Falcon, and just in general.