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What happened with LEGO

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Re: What happened with LEGO

#41

Post by DanBC »

ig1 wrote: post #40
DanBC wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

No, but that'd be great.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#42

Post by jdietrich »

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…

The trend you describe is old news. Lego realised that the vast proliferation of pieces was undermining their profitability, by bogging down their supply chain. Over the last eight years, they have massively simplified their inventory, cutting out huge numbers of single-purpose pieces. The number of colors in use has been halved.

The Lego you remember is still available under the Bricks & More line - big boxes and buckets of simple, primary-colored pieces.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#44

Post by chaostheory »

acabal wrote: post #38
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…

> My beef is that Lego have become so highly branded.

The problem was no one bought general Lego blocks. This is still the trend today.

I guess not many people remember, but Lego was in deep financial trouble during the 90s and early 2000's. Until they started creating licensed packages and video games based on 3rd party franchises like Star Wars, Lego wasn't selling anything.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#45

Post by acheron »

acabal wrote: post #38
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…

Totally agree. I hope Lego will move back to the more generic themes by the time my kid(s) get old enough. (Currently my 1.5 year old loves Duplo blocks; apparently there are even licensed Duplo sets though he doesn't have any of them.)

Re: What happened with LEGO

#46

Post by jeffbarr »

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.

You can buy (or sell) any and all types of LEGO parts or sets at BrickLink ( https://www.bricklink.com/ ) . The site serves as a marketplace for thousands of sellers who maintain what appear to be fairly large inventories (tens or even hundreds of thousands of pieces).

You can find parts by condition (new or used), sort by price, filter by location (to minimize shipping costs and/or delivery time), and more. If you need more of a part that came in a particular set, you can find the set (by name or by number) and drill down to a parts list.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#47

Post by unthunk »

DanBC wrote: post #35

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 / par…

They might want to try talking to the local LEGO Users Group/AFOL group and see if the group participates in buying bulk from LEGO and would be willing to order for the charity. The members of the group in my area, NCLUG, jointly and annually order in bulk at a discounted rate. It is a slow process, but saves them a bunch of money.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#48

Post by smackfu »

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…

Look at the Creator series from Lego. Every model has three very different variants on the front of the box, and they are built from pretty standard old-school Lego parts. It's pretty much exactly what you are asking for.

Re: What happened with LEGO

#49

Post by cantrevealname »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

> I wrote a web scraping program Better to ask beforehand, many websites are quite happy to hand you data if you ask nicely and your goal is something non-competitive.

> Better to ask beforehand, many websites are quite happy to hand you data

If they say "no", what then? If it was within your rights to scrape the data, and you go ahead and do it anyway, then you're going to (a) look like a jerk, and (b) if the company is litigious, they're going to use this as evidence that you knew what you were doing was wrong.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't ask, but pointing out that there are sometimes downsides to asking.

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