101–110 of 127 posts
Profitable companies charge what the market will pay for their products. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5039567
Your link doesn't work for me: > We've limited requests for old items. If you're running a crawler, you can get this data a lot more easily from http://hnsearch.com/api . In any case, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone#Legal_challenges
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
As a seven years old, all I wanted (and saved up for) was the biggest, most generic set I could possibly have. I still remember running like crazy to see my mom coming back from the city, carrying LEGO 733 Universal Building Set. Highly branded sets probably push children more into playing roles and sticking to, probably still imaginative enough, scenarios rather than into creative process of building.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Even if they do someday stop using third party brands for sets, it will only be to replace them with their own brands. Take a look at the new Lego sets like Ninjago and Chima. These are as branded as the Star Wars ones, the brands simply happen to belong to lego. They also have toys and TV shows and games attached to them, as well as a whole backstory. This is arguably what they should have done in the first place to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason why Lego makes sets that are branded is because other companies make good-enough lego-compatible blocks that are cheaper than legos. If lego stuck with the "generic sets only", they'd be history by now. Who would bother buying a pack of lego-branded red bricks when you could get the megablocks-branded one that is 90% as good for half the price?
Only the dorky neighbor kid whom everyone hated to play with thought megablocks were an acceptable substitute for Lego.
I've always called them Lego. Not Legos. Is that an American thing? (UK citizen here). Just curious.
I don't think that the prices are adjusted for inflation. I remember asking my dad for 100$ sets in the 80s, which would amount to gazillions of today's dollars
A little off topic but last weekend I had the privileged of watching an FLL (First Lego League) event. This is a robotics competition for kids ages 9-16. And it's AMAZING. The energy from the kids and parents was exhilarating. Details are here http://firstlegoleague.org/ . There are also a lot of videos from the competitions posted on YouTube (search First Lego League). If you have children I definitely encourage you…
The question should be what happened to the US dollar not lego. Lego is manufactured in Denmark, where they managed to spare themselves from several rounds of quantitative easing. The author could really spare herself all the time and effort and just post a chart of dollar. He/she took it from the wrong end.
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…