Lego Designer Woon Tze Chee on Lego Overwatch

[leafan]

This interesting article on Forbes gives some good insight into how Lego Overwatch came to be:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hnewman/2018/12/03/how-blizzard-entertainments-new-overwatch-lego-models-snapped-together/amp/

For me, the most interesting tidbit was the Warcraft mention:

"Newman: If things go well, that you can see pursuing LEGO products with other IP?

Beecher: It needs to be the right time and place for both parties. I mean, we would definitely be interested in discussing that. With World of Warcraft, there’s a hundred million-plus people that have touched that experience at some point in their life, so there’s a very broad and diverse audience around the world that supports World Of Warcraft. But it obviously would be a mutual decision. We need make sure there’s enough indicators pointing to that it would be a great idea.

[Ed. note: LEGO spokesmen declined to comment on the possibility of WoW products.]"

Another interesting note is the aim to target an older audience than normal:

"Chee: I think with Overwatch being a very new IP to the LEGO group, and also we’re hitting a different age group than we’re usually targeting, a little bit higher age mark, we spent quite a fair bit of time trying to strike a balance between a set that has play features, versus a cool model that they can just display. With older children, they might not want to play with the model that much, but they find it cool and they might want to build it and display it.

Newman: And with some very adult children.

Beecher: Kidults."

P.S. - Posted here rather than the Licensed forum because I think this article has broader appeal to gain understanding of how Lego work with IP holders to come to product fruition.

[Digger of Bricks]

2 hours ago, leafan said:

Another interesting note is the aim to target an older audience than normal:

"Chee: I think with Overwatch being a very new IP to the LEGO group, and also we’re hitting a different age group than we’re usually targeting, a little bit higher age mark, we spent quite a fair bit of time trying to strike a balance between a set that has play features, versus a cool model that they can just display. With older children, they might not want to play with the model that much, but they find it cool and they might want to build it and display it.

Newman: And with some very adult children.

Beecher: Kidults."

I hope Lego walks this fence very carefully, as I don't wish to see them go on to consider certain franchise properties that would only be of interest to an older fanbase. 

[knotian]

Digger of Bricks

I hope they continue. Maybe someone will admit that AFOL's are a viable market base.

Us old farts need toys too

[leafan]

5 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I hope Lego walks this fence very carefully, as I don't wish to see them go on to consider certain franchise properties that would only be of interest to an older fanbase. 

For me, I hope they go further; and I think they will with signs like this and the new Forma range specifically targetted at adults.

I see no reason why Lego cannot serve both markets without detriment.

[x105Black]

5 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I hope Lego walks this fence very carefully, as I don't wish to see them go on to consider certain franchise properties that would only be of interest to an older fanbase. 

2 hours ago, knotian said:

I hope they continue. Maybe someone will admit that AFOL's are a viable market base.

I also hope they continue.  There are IPs I would love to see in LEGO.  I'll just throw out Game of Thrones as an example of something I'd love to see that caters to the older fanbase.  But things like that aren't likely to be happening any time soon.

[Digger of Bricks]

3 hours ago, knotian said:

I hope they continue. Maybe someone will admit that AFOL's are a viable market base.

Us old farts need toys too 

I don't at all mind Lego catering exclusively to AFOLs, its just certain fanbases/geekdoms outside of the Lego fan community that I feel Lego should be wary of. By that I mean, Lego should be good expanding beyond original lines such as the Creator Expert Modular Buildings and the such; but as for any possibly controversial adult-oriented IPs, I'd much rather prefer Lego cooking up theit own generic alternative, free of any possible controversy.

[Aanchir]

1 hour ago, leafan said:

For me, I hope they go further; and I think they will with signs like this and the new Forma range specifically targetted at adults.

I see no reason why Lego cannot serve both markets without detriment.

I think they kind of do… it's just a matter of the kid audience for building toys being bigger and so typically getting more sets/themes targeted at them than at an adult audience. Plus, adults aren't as monolithic in our interests as we like to imagine — just look at how divisive Technic sets can be even among us AFOLs!

Certainly many of the things some of us want to see in sets don't happen because they don't appeal to or aren't appropriate for kids. But that doesn't necessarily mean that if those types of sets were aimed at adults, they would appeal as strongly to as many of us as stuff like the Creator Expert Modular Buildings or Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series.

Even among adults with similar general interests, a LEGO Space or Castle fan of my generation might have very different wishes than a LEGO Space or Castle fan born 20 years earlier. And some adults might prefer sets that are specifically tailored to an adult building level, while others might prefer sets they can more easily enjoy together with less LEGO-savvy kids, siblings, and spouses.

But LEGO has known for some time that adults are a viable market and has designed plenty of their sets and themes accordingly. In 2018 alone they launched seven new sets for ages 16+, three new sets for ages 14+, and eight new sets for ages 12+. And if anything, the number of adult-targeted sets has been increasing over the past five to ten years. Plus, even most of the licenses they acquire for their more kid-targeted themes tend to be based on brands that date back two decades or more so that parents and kids alike can relate to them.

[leafan]

8 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think they kind of do… it's just a matter of the kid audience for building toys being bigger and so typically getting more sets/themes targeted at them than at an adult audience. Plus, adults aren't as monolithic in our interests as we like to imagine — just look at how divisive Technic sets can be even among us AFOLs!

Certainly many of the things some of us want to see in sets don't happen because they don't appeal to or aren't appropriate for kids. But that doesn't necessarily mean that if those types of sets were aimed at adults, they would appeal as strongly to as many of us as stuff like the Creator Expert Modular Buildings or Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series.

Even among adults with similar general interests, a LEGO Space or Castle fan of my generation might have very different wishes than a LEGO Space or Castle fan born 20 years earlier. And some adults might prefer sets that are specifically tailored to an adult building level, while others might prefer sets they can more easily enjoy together with less LEGO-savvy kids, siblings, and spouses.

But LEGO has known for some time that adults are a viable market and has designed plenty of their sets and themes accordingly. In 2018 alone they launched seven new sets for ages 16+, three new sets for ages 14+, and eight new sets for ages 12+. And if anything, the number of adult-targeted sets has been increasing over the past five to ten years. Plus, even most of the licenses they acquire for their more kid-targeted themes tend to be based on brands that date back two decades or more so that parents and kids alike can relate to them.

We're not disagreeing here. As I stated, Lego are targetting adults, but I feel that they could be doing more.

The fact that so many here keep yearning for long dead Castle, Pirates and Vikings tells me that this could be an adult theme in the style of Game of Thrones.

You may not think there's a large enough market, but we'll have to agree to disagree on that because both sides of that are only opinions after all. I happen to think that a Lego Winterfell would sell like hotcakes, but maybe that's just me aye?

As for what adults may or may not want, well that's for Lego to test the market with. There's  o reason they couldn't release 1 set direct to consumer in a often sought after theme to test the waters.

Anyway, this thread has gotten somewhat off-topic.