Future LEGO Pirates Set Speculation

[Medzomorak]

4 hours ago, Robin_IV said:

It would definitely not be the first time. A few months after the first wave of the Harry Potter line was released, a LEGO designer said in an Interview (I think it was with Beyond the Brick) that they initially wanted to release the Line alongside the other themes and not lay too much focus on it. They were really surprised that the sale where exploding. Don't know if this is complete bs or how much the sales affected the release of the upcoming waves. 

But this shows that Lego disperses small crumbs of a certain cake (like Pirates) throughout their product lines and look how they work compared to other sets.

But is this a good way to actually measure your market? I imagine myself as a 8 years old and my parents just bought me the new creator Pirate ship. Will they buy me another one next year when a pirate theme comes out because of good sales with the creator one?

Edited February 7, 2020 by Medzomorak

[meliander]

There are two ways of looking at it. They probably won't buy another pirate ship. But they can buy any other of the sets if you really like the theme. Like a Fort, or pirate hideout or an imperial ship.

[Brickander Brickumnus]

4 hours ago, Masked Mini said:

I'm super stoked for us, but no lie a little bummed for the Classic Castle primary crowd.
I was excited myself to get a Castle castle in Hidden side, but I'll take a new source of Pirate bits anywhere I can.

I have ~120 of the classic Blues and around ~80 of the classic Reds. I just love the original print.
The redesign of the Redcoats is repellant to me. The redesign of the Blues is barely acceptable. If I have to resort to them to increase my Blue army I will, but with poor grace.
Once I've exhausted my ability to source Classic Reds I will go with (yuck Chinese) customs based on Classic Reds. The print quality isn't as perfect as I'd hoped but it blends well with used 30-40 year old originals. The saving grace there is they added a printed back to the torso that is well done. Makes them easy to identify and sort out later if needed. Yes. I hate the New Reds so much I'd rather have custom prints on knockoff torsos. I've been talking to my wife about justifying the cost of a 3-4 color pad printer just to churn out Classic 'Coats in Blue, Red, Green and Yellow. But the only way that would have made financial sense would be to sell them on bricklink and that's been shut down now by TLG.

What's TLG;

[Robin_IV]

Just now, Brickander Brickumnus said:

TLG

The Lego Group

[Brickander Brickumnus]

Ohhhh... Silly me.

Thanks!

[Mister Phes]

9 minutes ago, Brickander Brickumnus said:

What's TLG;

Quick! Get the glossary! 
https://www.brothers-brick.com/lego-glossary/

[Robin_IV]

3 hours ago, Medzomorak said:

But is this a good way to actually measure your market? I imagine myself as a 8 years old and my parents just bought me the new creator Pirate ship. Will they buy me another one next year when a pirate theme comes out because of good sales with the creator one?

Usually the single consumer does not have a high impact on sales. I would say 99% of the average Lego set buyer, be it a parent for their kids or an AFOL, won't buy a set twice. Excluding something like Battlepacks etc. of course.

It goes more into the direction that every person stands in front of a shelf with a group of sets of a Theme. If your are not one of this hardcore buyer or a fan of this theme you would buy maybe one or two sets. So you look for 'your best sets'.  Also your general interest of topics (Are you interested in Ships, Castles, Ghosts, Pirates,Trains?) will have an impact of wich set you pull out of the shelf. If you LOVE trains and you are standing in front of the Hidden Side theme you will more likely choose the train over an other. And who does not like trains? So the train set will be more likely bought than e.g. the school or the bus. Which are (veery) roughly around the same street-price. So do people, who are in other themes pick this one out because it meets their points of interest. There are overlaps throughout the themes. A Pirate fan would not buy the ISS but more likely the Ship in a bottle. So this set gets particular more customers from another "branch". But also the ISS does from the Space branch. 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Robin_IV

[TalonCard]

TBH, LEGO probably has a pretty good idea of how a Pirates line would sell already; they've got data from 2015 and 2009, plus Pirates of the Caribbean and whatever information from the 90s that can still be applied or extrapolated to the present day. The practice of releasing just a relative handful of Pirates sets every few years is probably something they've already realized works well. 

[Mister Phes]

4 hours ago, TalonCard said:

The practice of releasing just a relative handful of Pirates sets every few years is probably something they've already realized works well. 

Yeah, they do (or did circa 2015) have a business plan for LEGO Pirates in which they were aiming to release a new wave of pirate sets every 5-7 years.

Given LEGO Pirates core demographic is 5-12 year old males, every 7 years there will is a new cycle of 5-12 year old males, so they can get away with releasing the same set concepts each cycle.

But we can only hope they decided to break free of this formula for the next wave... lest we get another Blacks Seas Barracuda clone with the striped red sales, an island featuring a skull face and a couple more soldier forts...

[Brickander Brickumnus]

12 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Βut we can only hope they decided to break free of this formula for the next wave... lest we get another Blacks Seas Barracuda clone with the striped red sales.

I hope they break it and release Black Seas Barracuda in 2020, or I might be forced in the end to buy the Enlighten BSB (especially since Enlighten is about to stop production and this may push prices of used LEGO BSD ever further up).

LEGO Tree video gives me hope.

[Mister Phes]

51 minutes ago, Brickander Brickumnus said:

I hope they break it and release Black Seas Barracuda in 2020

Re-released sets don't affect the cycle anyway...  but apparently the last time the Black Seas Barracuda was re-released (2002) it sold poorly (along with the other re-released sets from the 80's and 90's) so the LEGO Group no longer deems it profitable to re-release sets from that area again.

 

 

[Brickander Brickumnus]

37 minutes ago, Mister Phes said:

Re-released sets don't affect the cycle anyway...  but apparently the last time the Black Seas Barracuda was re-released (2002) it sold poorly (along with the other re-released sets from the 80's and 90's) so the LEGO Group no longer deems it profitable to re-release sets from area that again.

 

 

Damm...

[Robin_IV]

Fans are not happy to buy loveless warmed up remakes. New ideas are appreciated when they are made with love and effort and when the designers got free hand to unfold their creativity like in the VW Beetle or the Parisian Restaurant. 

[TalonCard]

Mmmmmmm, I think we're perfectly happy to buy the remakes, if we're honest with ourselves. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of an original Pirate set in the vein of the Parisian Cafe too, but a lot of us Pirates fans love minor variations on the same thing. Aren't we the same people who hoard not only armies of bluecoats, but also armies of Redcoats even though the design is almost exactly the same except for the color? ?

5 hours ago, Brickander Brickumnus said:

I hope they break it and release Black Seas Barracuda in 2020...

LEGO Tree video gives me hope.

I don't want to take away your hope, but while it's possible that the BSB and other Pirates sets being on the LEGO Tree at this point in time might have been intended to indicate that LEGO is planning on releasing more Pirate sets (which we know is the case; there are at least two coming out this year), it doesn't mean that LEGO has any plans on re-releasing the BSB specifically. The LEGO Tree has always been used to showcase scenes of themes from past and present, with vintage sets alongside newer ones in cool dioramas, so this is just an expansion of an existing thing.

[TeriXeri]

5 hours ago, Mister Phes said:

Re-released sets don't affect the cycle anyway...  but apparently the last time the Black Seas Barracuda was re-released (2002) it sold poorly (along with the other re-released sets from the 80's and 90's) so the LEGO Group no longer deems it profitable to re-release sets from that area again.

2002 was still a different time, those Legends sets were LEGO exclusive and many countries had no physical LEGO stores compared to now.

Internet shopping was still much smaller back then as well.

 

I think if they did the same now, they'd get more(international) buyers but there would be compromises where they use the newer brown color and likely also some different moulds.

Personally I'd rather have them release new sets with a more Classic design instead of copies of old sets.

Edited February 8, 2020 by TeriXeri

[The Island Chronicles]

20 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

Personally I'd rather have them release new sets with a more Classic design instead of copies of old sets.

Captain Redbeard would agree!

[Brickander Brickumnus]

1 hour ago, TeriXeri said:

Personally I'd rather have them release new sets with a more Classic design instead of copies of old sets.

Me too... except the Black Seas Barracuda which is a top notch Classic (in my opinion).

They don't have to release an exact copy, they can add some changes for improvement... time passes, things change.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Brickander Brickumnus

[Mister Phes]

4 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

I think if they did the same now, they'd get more(international) buyers but there would be compromises where they use the newer brown color and likely also some different moulds. 

The LEGO representatives have said (within the past couple of years) sets from that vintage will not be re-released in the foreseeable future.  Actually, I think they said never again due to the poor sales of the early 2000's re-releases - but I'm just going by re-released information from users of this forum who have spoke personally with the representatives.

4 hours ago, TalonCard said:

Mmmmmmm, I think we're perfectly happy to buy the remakes, if we're honest with ourselves. [...] a lot of us Pirates fans love minor variations on the same thing.

I'm not one of those Pirates fans.  If I see one more damn Black Seas Barracuda inspired ship with the red and white sales...  I'm gonna... 

At least change the colour of the sales for the next one!

[Roebuck]

There are several reasons they most likely will never re-release the old sets:

1. They tried a few and it was not a success (To be fair that was in the all time low period of Lego)
2. Several of the colours have changed over the years do to factory upgrades (e.g. grey)
3. They do not look as good as new sets! Yes a few of us buy the old sets, because we collect them, they are part of Lego history or we always wanted them, but never got them as kids etc. That said if they gave the mission to a designer to make a set today with the same size as an old set, then put the 2 sets in front of kids i am sure 9 of 10 would choose the new one. There are a lot more parts an building techniques that the designer back in the day did not have access to..
4. If Lego must choose between making a new set or re-release a old one they will always make a new. The only reason they made "out of the vault" was because they where in addition to the new sets.

If the pirate bay are selling a lot I think we may see more pirate sets in the future

[Hive]

38 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

1. They do not look as good as new sets! Yes a few of us buy the old sets, because we collect them, they are part of Lego history or we always wanted them, but never got them as kids etc. That said if they gave the mission to a designer to make a set today with the same size as an old set, then put the 2 sets in front of kids i am sure 9 of 10 would choose the new one. There are a lot more parts an building techniques that the designer back in the day did not have access to..

 

I think this is the most important reason why it's not a really feasible idea to straight out re-release sets from the 80's and 90's. They could try to get the best of both worlds by doing faithful re-makes with new techniques and parts instead, thus catering to new and old fans alike.

[Lego David]

58 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

They tried a few and it was not a success (To be fair that was in the all time low period of Lego)

How can they judge based on something that happened almost 20 years ago? Just because the Legends sets flopped back then doesn't mean the same will happen today. The number of AFOLs willing to buy a set like that has grown drastically since 2002. Most countries today have at least one official LEGO store, and online shopping has gotten to the point where it will soon replace buying from physical stores. 

I think this isn't a good way of judging whether a set will sell or not. LEGO really needs to think twice about situations like this. I for one, believe that they are missing out on a lot of potential cash.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Lego David

[Mister Phes]

2 hours ago, Lego David said:

How can they judge based on something that happened almost 20 years ago? Just because the Legends sets flopped back then doesn't mean the same will happen today

I questioned it myself...  I probably should find the posts where it was discussed but I don't have the time to find then.

Roebuck however, provided some reasions a few posts back:

3 hours ago, Roebuck said:

There are several reasons they most likely will never re-release the old sets:

1. They tried a few and it was not a success (To be fair that was in the all time low period of Lego)
2. Several of the colours have changed over the years do to factory upgrades (e.g. grey)
3. They do not look as good as new sets! Yes a few of us buy the old sets, because we collect them, they are part of Lego history or we always wanted them, but never got them as kids etc. That said if they gave the mission to a designer to make a set today with the same size as an old set, then put the 2 sets in front of kids i am sure 9 of 10 would choose the new one. There are a lot more parts an building techniques that the designer back in the day did not have access to..
4. If Lego must choose between making a new set or re-release a old one they will always make a new. The only reason they made "out of the vault" was because they where in addition to the new sets.

If the pirate bay are selling a lot I think we may see more pirate sets in the future

 

And also expanding on point 2: The parts required may no longer be in production.  I.e. they may not even have the moulds to produce certain older parts.

[Lego David]

27 minutes ago, Mister Phes said:

And also expanding on point 2: The parts required may no longer be in production.  I.e. they may not even have the moulds to produce certain older parts.

If they go the faithful remake route, like @Hive has suggested, retired moulds shouldn't really be a problem. They can just replace them with whatever parts they currently have in production. 

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Lego David

[Roebuck]

5 minutes ago, Lego David said:

Or just make everything brickbuilt.

Do you mean exactly what is coming in creator 3 in 1 this year?!

[Mister Phes]

16 minutes ago, Lego David said:

They can just replace them with whatever parts they currently have in production. 

Has this been done in previous re-released sets?