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What happened with LEGO

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Re: What happened with LEGO

#31

Post by EliRivers »

algorias wrote: post #28

> There is no way LEGO sets have always been this expensive; it is just molded plastic. This is the worst kind of fallacy. First of all, plastic is more expensive than you think when many different pieces in many different colors need to be produced, stored and packaged in a precise manner. Secondly, the cost of development obviously gives huge added value to those pieces of 'just' plastic. What happened to lego pric…

If you read the rest of the article instead of just the first few lines, you'll discover that "There is no way LEGO sets have always been this expensive; it is just molded plastic." is simply part of the conversational setup leading into the discussion that disproves that part of the setup.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#32

Post by tcbawo »

Lego is now competing for attention with applications such as Minecraft. It will be interesting to see if pricing trends hold, or whether they attempt to preserve market share by cutting costs. Maybe Minecraft will start to move into the themed application market (Lego Star Wars, etc.).

Re: What happened with LEGO

#33

Post by wglb »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #26
wglb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an acquaintance who by profession is a toy designer. She is independent and highly thought of, but all the work is speculative. If your design doesn't make it past the first review, all your work is for naught. She is very creative and bright and is quite resourceful in putting ideas into prototype phase and has had some big wins. But there is a certain stress level associated with any creative endeavor. The s…

I can imagine in her case, it would require a very well-rounded individual to design the toy, come up with marketing/branding, build it and pitch it. I was definitely thinking of working in the pipeline at a larger company, like you said, where someone could be more specialized and focus on one aspect of the design. Does she have any interest in moving to a big company? As in, doing spec work until she demonstrates s…

I would say that she is very well-rounded.

She came from a big company, and I think it fell apart or moved away from Chicago (at one time, the toy-design capital) and struck out on her own. I think it is quite unlikely that she would now leave the freelance life.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#34

Post by ufo »

speeder wrote: post #2

Again this post? Well, at least this time I can comment. I must say that Lego in Brazil is ABSURDLY expensive, it is just ridiculous. And this is very bad, since I love Lego!! And I miss "Tente" (a Lego clone that existed here, and had some nifty stuff, like wheeled blocks with metal axles)

Everything imported has ridiculous taxes here in Brazil. I wonder if Lego is just "normally" absurdly expensive or if its even worse.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#35

Post by DanBC »

One frustration with Lego is the difficulty with buying it in wholesale quantities and prices.

A small charity wants to buy up a lot of Lego (and Duplo) to redistribute to children of poor families. There are some suitable sets, but they're expensive, and you need to buy eye-wateringly huge amounts to get a price break on it.

And the second-hand market keeps value, meaning they can't even buy loads from auction / parent websites or car boot / yard sales for redistribution.

Still, it's a good idea and they're working the problems out before going any further.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#36

Post by DanBC »

Tloewald wrote: post #13

I don't have a problem with the price of lego, having — as a child in the 70s — saved my own pocket money to buy lego. The real criticism of lego is that it's gone from being a collection of parts that can make the thing on the cover of the box but also many interesting variations, to something that isn't very malleable. First, lego no longer has a consistent color scheme, so only pieces from one genre go with other…

I'm 42. I tend to agree with you that I dislike over-specialised pieces. But then people are creative (which is the point of Lego, after all) and they use the thing for something else entirely.

I would like there to be a few good base sets. Luckily, there are, you just have to search to find them,

I'd really like to be able to buy blocks by the kg - 200 g of 2x1, 300 g of 2x4; etc.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#37

Post by DanBC »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #14

What I find amazing in the linked article (from the footnotes[1]) about Lego's financial situation was that every product engineer used to have carte blanche to go out and acquire tons of resin, just to make one set. That, and the effort they went to to service small, local stores. It's both amazing and depressing; obviously it doesn't scale at all, but it really sounds like a kickass corporate culture. Wired had a s…

> My point being, toy-making sounds like an awesome job

Unfortunately, toy making and designing is a vicious ultra-competitive business, dominated by a few huge companies.

The book "The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for Britain's Youngest Consumers" is interesting. And the biases (as you can tell from the title) are pretty clear.

(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Toy-Story-Ruthless-Consumers/dp...)

Re: What happened with LEGO

#38

Post by acabal »

Tloewald wrote: post #13

I don't have a problem with the price of lego, having — as a child in the 70s — saved my own pocket money to buy lego. The real criticism of lego is that it's gone from being a collection of parts that can make the thing on the cover of the box but also many interesting variations, to something that isn't very malleable. First, lego no longer has a consistent color scheme, so only pieces from one genre go with other…

My beef is that Lego have become so highly branded. I would rather my kid play with generic space and castle and pirate blocks, than with Star Wars and Harry Potter and Pirates of the Carribbean blocks. As a product of the 80's I can say I spent a lot of time playing with highly branded and marketed toys, so it's not necessarily a bad thing; but there's something special about Lego that makes me feel like they should be above film tie-ins and in a special airy realm of pure imagination.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#40

Post by ig1 »

DanBC wrote: post #36
Tloewald wrote: post #13

I don't have a problem with the price of lego, having — as a child in the 70s — saved my own pocket money to buy lego. The real criticism of lego is that it's gone from being a collection of parts that can make the thing on the cover of the box but also many interesting variations, to something that isn't very malleable. First, lego no longer has a consistent color scheme, so only pieces from one genre go with other…

I'm 42. I tend to agree with you that I dislike over-specialised pieces. But then people are creative (which is the point of Lego, after all) and they use the thing for something else entirely. I would like there to be a few good base sets. Luckily, there are, you just have to search to find them, I'd really like to be able to buy blocks by the kg - 200 g of 2x1, 300 g of 2x4; etc.

Have you been to a lego store ?

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5215/5460874051_7fbf9e4bf3_z.j...

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