bagalux

Same here, for my favourite theme. For me, it was a thing to look in shops and catalogues, thinking "These sets I can get if I save enough money, that one I can put on my bday list and perhaps that really big one can go on my Christmas list" etc Perhaps kids nowadays are different in that aspect and don't care about (or even enjoy) having 50 different sets (of which 10 are really big) to decide between. I guess we'll see :) Interesting to read people's thoughts on this over the last bunch of posts!

Hahahaha, so many fallacies I can't even ... nice try though! =) I think 2017 has been a great year, so many awesome sets (including Star Wars ones!) However, I believe LEGO's success onwards from this point will be dependent on the below ideas: "Kill your darlings" Don't try to run a restaurant with 75 different courses on the menu You might certainly think otherwise, but neither of us have access to any sales figures for the sets, so meh. Like I said, we'll see ;)

"but I don't want them to end that theme because I gain nothing from Lego sabotaging its own success." Like I said, that's exactly what they will do, if they keep puking out those SW sets ;) We'll see!

The only basis for the argument that Lego should keep pushing out Star Wars and Ninjago sets the dozens is wishful thinking on the part of people who have a personal preference for those themes ;) Or perhaps with a heavy financial investment in them, worried to see them tremble, hehe

There's a difference between short-term profit and long-term interest and brand building. I'm sure it makes a lot of sense profit wise for Apple to keep pushing out iPhone iterations. However, where will that take them in a 5-year perspective? Guess we'll see, if all they do is stick to the "why change what's working" approach. What is your analysis of why LEGO is losing revenue and 1400 people (almost 10 % of LEGO employees) are laid off? What is your analysis of why LEGO is losing revenue and 1400 people (almost 10 % of LEGO employees) are laid off?

"I don't see why the average number of pieces or the number of larger sets going up is that much of a bad thing anyway." Not necessarily the increase in average number of pieces per se, but I believe releasing more of the really big sets (i.e. 1000 pieces and up) will quickly saturate the market. "[...] that means it's not necessarily a case of fewer small sets so much as the addition of larger sets to the overall product range" It's more sets across the whole size range. The general increase in number of sets released doesn't match the increase in number of big sets released.

I think it's more important to look at the long term trend line since 2007. Last year (2016) was pretty much the same as the year before. This year, we see slightly fewer sets, which indeed is a break in the trend - hope it continues in that direction. Only one year with such a small difference won't matter. The major part of the market won't react immedeately, it takes (will take) years to change, I think. However, we can also see that we have a record high percentage for big sets, which I don't think is a good development. Also worth noting that there may be sets from 2017 that haven't had their piece count added (I'm only counting sets with 10+ pieces) to Brickset yet, making them not be included in the set count.

To clarify on the above graphs: Only sets with at least 10 pieces are included Sets from theme "Educational" were excluded Sets from sub-theme "Product Collections" were excluded Some sets were manually excluded (e.g. staff gifts, tour sets) I think the main problem is, just like Faefrost mentions, flooding of the market. Too many sets are released on a yearly basis, both as a whole and within specific themes. It's becoming difficult (especially for kids) to decide what they want. Even more so, impossible to collect everything released within a theme of their interest. There are now seven $100 sets within a theme, rather than one or two. There's simply too much and I believe the long term reaction will be that people simply won't bother. I believe some themes are kept for way too long (Star Wars, Minecraft) and some rather new themes (Nexo Knights, Ninjago, Batman) have received way too many sets already and the interest for these themes will soon die. Same with the DC and Marvel series. I think LEGO needs to go back to its roots a bit more (while still staying modern) - more sets around classic themes such as pirates, castles, boats, airports, animals, cars etc as well as SHORT-term and FEW sets around more niche, limited themes like current TV shows, computer games, movies and so on. The jungle theme is interesting and in the right direction, imo. Technic, Architecture and Ideas are great addition for an older crowd, imo! Perhaps LEGO sales numbers say otherwise, but it's clear they're facing challenges considering the lay-offs.

I had similar thoughts and decided to pull some data from Brickset. Originally posted this over at BP, but will post here as well as I believe it works well in the context of this discussion. ----- ----- ----