My answer was quite simple: "My Lego and my Brio - that's about it"
Lego is made to last a lifetime and more, specified to an extreme degree and made with tolerances far and beyond most consumer electronics; it is something that can be inherited. The important part here is that I wouldn't want my children to inherit a set - I would want them to inherit the bricks - that is the fun of Lego. I want to give them 2 30 gallon boxes of bricks and boards and men and all sorts because creativity is not born of following instructions - it comes from deciding to create an aeroplane from the odd bits and pieces that you have at hand.
There is a very good reason that these[1] adverts aren't for sets - Lego is amazing because you can create whatever you can imagine with it and for that reason this doesn't sit very well with me. But then I have 60 gallons of lego waiting for me when I eventually procreate so what do I care...
[1] http://speckyboy.com/2009/03/16/39-creative-lego-advertiseme...
So yes - keep the Lego, ditch everything else. You can download almost all of the old instructions online, which makes it that much better.
Legos were awesome because you could experiment and build and create new things. Now, they're just a paint-by-numbers, follow the instructions, build something Hollywood designed type toy.
I think children learn more by mixing, matching and making their own creations not just following the instructions. It was nice to see that the Lego movie was about this too.
No, they're both. The sets we loved as kids still exist, they just don't advertise them as much as the licensed properties, but they sure as hell haven't discontinued them:
http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator/products/all-models http://www.lego.com/en-us/city/products http://www.lego.com/en-us/castle http://galaxysquad.lego.com/en-us
[1] http://lego.gizmodo.com/5019797/everything-you-always-wanted...
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/qi_tah/13303087844/ a little evolution shot
(For that matter, do kids still ask their parents to buy these sets?)
Now my son has a bunch of mixed up Lego sets and occasionally gets a new Star Wars set. As much as he loves playing with the pre-built stuff, Luke Skywalker also spends a considerable amount of time down on the ranch hanging out with cowboys.
Agreed. Building the kit by the instructions was only about 1/10th of the fun. The real fun was building new stuff out of the pieces from all the sets you have.
Their selection of the larger sets is limited, which is understandable. They've been getting better, but there have been times when it took days or weeks to ship the next set because I only wanted a 1000+ piece set, and they didn't have enough of them.
The sets I've received have either been brand new (still in original plastic bags), or missing several minor pieces. You can log in and tell them which exact pieces are missing and they'll ship them to you (or supposedly add them to the set for the next person), but it's only after you've tried to build the full thing that you know all the pieces that are missing.
Unlike Netlix DVDs, it's hard to turn around a set quickly. I end up holding onto each one for a week or three.
I enjoyed the Lego Movie, it touched on the idea of following the instructions vs building something unique. Pley/Pleygo is trying to encourage inventiveness, with photo contests.
Still, I'm happy with the service, and have recommended it to friends.
I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough.
I've long had a theory that Lego is vulnerable to 3d printers in exactly the same way as Polaroid was to digital cameras. Polaroid also seemed on top of the world for a while, but they clung to their model too long and it was too late.
And if Lego wants to survive it when it does come, imo they should be thinking about this now.
Recently he got some cheap "no-name" chinese produced "lego-clone" - just a tractor and a character to drive it. It was so bad, the pieces were not sticking together properly. The character's head kept falling off, and the hair piece too.
But eventually he used some real lego "replacement" pieces and did it.
We must have like 10,000+ pieces now... If only there was a sorting LEGO machine!
Plus no matter how great 3d printers become, the bricks would still need designing, and making sure they have the exact fit on each other like lego bricks always do.
lego won't be killed off by 3d printing.
2. You get a set with 1273 pieces. You find out there are only 1265 pieces. There is great sadness.
3. When you combine Yellow Tiger and Red Tiger and all their friends you get Voltron. You can play with friends and share, at the end of the day you uncombine and you each have a tiger. Much fun is had. With Lego if you combine Lord of the Rings and Spiderman much fun is had. When you try to uncombine you end up with a lot more red and blue in middle earth than there used to be.
"Photoshop" is not a verb (and should be replaced with the equally-easy-to-say verb "enhance using Adobe® Photoshop® software") [1], but that doesn't stop people from using it as such anyway. The presence of an extra 's' doesn't impair meaning and focusing on it tends to be a distraction.
[1] http://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html#photo...
1. Plural of Lego is Lego or Lego bricks
2. Kids in this day and age are lacking creativity because they never combine their Legos into a big box when they're done building the initial design
3. The makers of Legos demean girls by marketing girly sets to them.
“The word LEGO is a brand name, and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Please always refer to our products as “LEGO bricks or toys” and not “LEGOS.” By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud, and that stands for quality the world over. Thank you!”
If there was a 6-day round trip for receiving sets and sending them back, you could get around 3-4 sets a month. That's 45-60 free pieces.
You could perhaps realistically steal a 32x32 baseplate ($4.99), 4 2x8 bricks ($0.50/ea), and 10 2x4 bricks ($0.30/ea). That's up to $39.96/month worth of legos.
If you just stole 2x8s and 2x4s, that would be anywhere from $18 to $30/month. Their lowest tier starts at just $15/month.
Prices from http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-ByTheme
Sets can be weighed back in. Missing pieces are held in stock and can easily be replaced.
Lego can go into a washing machine/steriliser.
It is light and virtually impossible to damage in transit (assuming they devise good packaging)
There is minimal depreciation, and demand for new sets won't be absurd. (vs textbooks and general toys)
You have to work hard to hurt yourself with faulty lego.
The only problem I see is (for my family at least) Lego was faddish. We didn't touch it for months, then couldn't get enough of it for three weeks. This is a difficulty for a subscription model.
Overall this is an excellent idea.
Not really. When you are buying Star Wars set, you are paying for IP. Of course it is incredibly expensive. It is different when you are buying non ip packs of bricks and less popular sets. Brick price measured by volume or number is cheaper then ever been.
Here is someone who calculated it: http://therealityprose.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/what_happene...
Lego's worst mistake was discontinuing that. Mine was not keeping what I had over the decades. Same Mistake...
