Mattel announces new brand of building blocks similar to Lego

[BrickBob Studpants]

What’s the point of a construction toy if virtually every piece is specialised to this degree and the end result looks like any other model car?  Sure, LEGO has specialised parts too, but not to this extent and it always still looks like LEGO.

If this replaces Mega, I’m not sure they’ll be able to compete. For all their flaws, Mega products were still construction toys at heart.

[MAB]

5 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

What’s the point of a construction toy if virtually every piece is specialised to this degree and the end result looks like any other model car?  Sure, LEGO has specialised parts too, but not to this extent and it always still looks like LEGO.

If this replaces Mega, I’m not sure they’ll be able to compete. For all their flaws, Mega products were still construction toys at heart.

The point is that they fill a bit of a niche gap in the market. They are quick and fun to build, need little to no parental supervision, easy to take apart and build again, and look pretty decent models with few parts. They are essentially a 3D jigsaw puzzle, between molded / pre-assembled toys at one extreme and at the other, fiddly construction sets whether that is LEGO style or plastic models you have to glue together. It can still be a construction toy even if only built in one way following the instructions. When I look at the way a lot of kids play with lego these days, it is not that different - the set gets built following instructions then not taken apart again. It can be taken apart and rebuilt into something else but kids have so much these days that sets tend to be kept together and only ever built as instructed.

I doubt these are meant to compete with LEGO,  as they already have Mega Bloks / Construx for that. These are for kids that like to put something together but want to do it quickly. 

[Toastie]

21 minutes ago, MAB said:

They are quick and fun to build, need little to no parental supervision, easy to take apart and build again, and look pretty decent models with few parts.

That is my take as well, 100%. I believe that to the targeted audience the looks really matters - and as others said - these hardly look brick-built. They simply look good. I believe that is the point. For true brick heads, a model not looking brick-built is ... not a brick-built model, and thus considered bad

The Technic brick-built supercars, with their thousands of machine gun holes - I'll never get it. I would just get a good-looking not-brick-built car, should I like such cars, which I do not. And yes, I know, the functions. Hmmm. Why are there more and more “wall-hanging” cases for these? Certainly not for the functions, rather for collecting dust, I believe.

BTW, Pantasy (and Cobi, and others) is going (very modestly) into the same direction: When you e.g. take a look at their retro telephone (for $60 ), the dial long with the number plate a totally just for this model - they have nothing to do with traditional LEGO pieces. Which makes all the difference: I have that phone on my desk (which is stupid, as it does nothing other than standing there and collecting dust); but these two elements are just fantastic and render the thing very close to a retro telephone.

We'll see. These alternative companies do not seem to go bankrupt by making new elements whenever they see fit, even for niche products such as a retro telephone.

All the best
Thorsten