Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[Captain Sidecar]

Phew! 90 pages finally read. It's been an education (and not just about Lego), it really has....

[Lyichir]

31 minutes ago, Captain Sidecar said:

Phew! 90 pages finally read. It's been an education (and not just about Lego), it really has....

You read through the topic from beginning to end? Dang, that's dedication!

[Captain Sidecar]

2 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

You read through the topic from beginning to end? Dang, that's dedication!

I will confess to speed-reading some of the more repetitive arguments after the 10th (seemingly) go-round, but yeah. It's been very interesting, and I don't mean that sarcastically.

[Ferro-Friki]

Hoarding is concerningly widespread in the AFOL community, even encouraged. And I think the hobby suffers for it.

When Lego sets/MOCs are fighting each other in order not to get suffocated on a packed shelve, to a point that they all blend together into an incomprehensible mass of multi-colored plastic, you know you’re too far gone.

Lego cities are a great way to display sets and MOCs, however they’re very easy to mess up. Often, AFOLs miss the forest for the trees and cram as many sets together as possible not considering any general composition rules, harmony or breathing space.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of personal opinion here.

[Trekkie99]

11 hours ago, Ferro-Friki said:

Often, AFOLs miss the forest for the trees and cram as many sets together as possible not considering any general composition rules, harmony or breathing space.

I agree, but the sets are to blame probably. Unless one is predominantly making their own mocs (which can be more expensive and not as enjoyable for some) cohesion may be lost. 

I think some people complained about the modular 50's diner because of this lack of cohesion, and worried about the future of the modular building theme.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Trekkie99 said:

I think some people complained about the modular 50's diner because of this lack of cohesion, and worried about the future of the modular building theme.

It seems to have survived.

[danth]

Slapping "4+" on a set does not magically make it worth 4x the normal $.10 price per part ratio.

A few printed parts does increase the value but not enough to justify some of the sillier 4+ set prices we've seen.

Also, using bigger pieces is supposed to make sets cheaper. Let me say it again so it sinks in. Using bigger pieces is supposed to make sets cheaper.

Take this panel for example. It replaces three 1x4 bricks, yet uses only slightly more plastic than one of them. And besides just using less plastic, there are less shipping costs since it brings the weight down.

It also burns though only 4 stud molds and 4 anti-stud molds instead of 12 of each, which is much cheaper, since those are the most precise/expensive parts of a Lego mold.

So a set with that panel should be cheaper than a set that used 3 1x4 bricks instead.

And that's not even considering large parts that replace an entire build of multiple different parts, which would require tracking of those different parts, overhead of pulling out and preparing multiple different molds instead of one, etc.

I don't have much skin in the game because I rarely by anything 4+, but I do think it's funny that people just accept some of the wild prices on them. I think the most egregious prices are on 4+ sets that include chase SW minifigures...Lego knows what it's doing here.

[Classic_Spaceman]

5 hours ago, danth said:

Slapping "4+" on a set does not magically make it worth 4x the normal $.10 price per part ratio.

Sorry, this thread is for unpopular opinions. 
 

[danth]

1 hour ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Sorry, this thread is for unpopular opinions. 

Try to complain about the price of a 4+ set anywhere and see how fast you get multiple responses smarmily point out that "it's a 4+ set" as if they're all racing to be the first to say it.

"4+ sets are always more expensive", they'll say, every time, as if that's some automatic justification.

It's hard to know if an opinion is unpopular, or if the people who think the other way are just really annoying.

Here's another opinion: A battle droid doesn't count as a minifigure for the purposes of calculating the value of a set. A minifig adds 3 or 4 dollars to the value of a set, but a battle droid only counts as 5 pieces or 50 cents. Is that unpopular? I don't know.

[PaleozoicBricks]

On 12/11/2023 at 10:19 PM, danth said:

Try to complain about the price of a 4+ set anywhere and see how fast you get multiple responses smarmily point out that "it's a 4+ set" as if they're all racing to be the first to say it.

"4+ sets are always more expensive", they'll say, every time, as if that's some automatic justification.

It's hard to know if an opinion is unpopular, or if the people who think the other way are just really annoying.

Here's another opinion: A battle droid doesn't count as a minifigure for the purposes of calculating the value of a set. A minifig adds 3 or 4 dollars to the value of a set, but a battle droid only counts as 5 pieces or 50 cents. Is that unpopular? I don't know.

I don't even think its the big pieces argument. I think the real enemy is Lego is making single use molds in a lot of cases. Now this isn't an excuse, because a rip off is still a ripoff. And yet that's not even an excuse for set 7533: AT-ST. That set is just horrible in its price to piece ration.

[icm]

On 12/11/2023 at 8:19 PM, danth said:

Here's another opinion: A battle droid doesn't count as a minifigure for the purposes of calculating the value of a set. A minifig adds 3 or 4 dollars to the value of a set, but a battle droid only counts as 5 pieces or 50 cents. Is that unpopular? I don't know.

I agree with that. Battle droids and skeletons don't count as minifigs in my opinion. Neither do brick-built figures or small single-piece molded droids like BD-1 or D-O.

Edited December 16, 2023 by icm

[Feuer Zug]

On 12/16/2023 at 11:43 AM, icm said:

I agree with that. Battle droids and skeletons don't count as minifigs in my opinion. Neither do brick-built figures or small single-piece molded droids like BD-1 or D-O.

Battle droids and skeletons do count for me because they are built similar to minifigs. Some parts are theoretically interchangeable between them. I'll agree that brick-built figures and small droids aren't minifigs and shouldn't be counted.

[Horation]

On 12/11/2023 at 8:28 PM, Classic_Spaceman said:

Sorry, this thread is for unpopular opinions. 
 

Agreed, here's one : resellers aren't scummy and are actually one big help for the community.

 

10 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

Battle droids and skeletons do count for me because they are built similar to minifigs. Some parts are theoretically interchangeable between them. I'll agree that brick-built figures and small droids aren't minifigs and shouldn't be counted.

All of them count for me :

  if they represent characters which are approximately (astromech droids, GONK, etc...) human sized 

     they are minifigs

  else

   if they represent larger than human sized characters

     they are bigfigs

  else 

   if they represent smaller than human characters

     they are microfigs

  else 

   they ain't figs

[icm]

7 minutes ago, Horation said:

Agreed, here's one : resellers aren't scummy and are actually one big help for the community.

I agree with that in general. Unfortunately, some bad behavior by a few greedy scalpers has given reselling a worse reputation than it deserves.

[Classic_Spaceman]

12 hours ago, Horation said:

Agreed, here's one : resellers aren't scummy and are actually one big help for the community.

Definitely; resellers are criticised when the jack up prices on desirable Minifigs or rare elements (e.g. goat), but the ability to buy parts that are not available from PaB (to include licensed parts/‘figs) is an invaluable resource! Additionally, most parts are priced quite reasonably, and some Minifigs (mainly City) are actually cheaper to buy completed on BrickLink than in pieces from PaB. 
 

11 hours ago, icm said:

Unfortunately, some bad behavior by a few greedy scalpers has given reselling a worse reputation than it deserves.

That, and the handling of CMFs. All CMFs cost the same to buy either from LEGO or retailers, and they have the same level of availability (production-wise, as each box now has the same number of each figure), so pricing the more desirable/massable ones significantly higher feels scummy (Orcs never went below $7-$8, IIRC). I get why it happens, but it is still frustrating. 
 

[Horation]

12 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Definitely; resellers are criticised when [they] jack up prices on desirable Minifigs or rare elements (e.g. goat), but the ability to buy parts that are not available from PaB (to include licensed parts/‘figs) is an invaluable resource! Additionally, most parts are priced quite reasonably, and some Minifigs (mainly City) are actually cheaper to buy completed on BrickLink than in pieces from PaB. 
 

That, and the handling of CMFs. All CMFs cost the same to buy either from LEGO or retailers, and they have the same level of availability (production-wise, as each box now has the same number of each figure), so pricing the more desirable/massable ones significantly higher feels scummy (Orcs never went below $7-$8, IIRC). 
 

Except that resellers aren't the ones jacking up the prices, the market is.

It is simply a game of supply and demand, and the resellers are not at fault here, it really bothers me that people keep on repeating that, the resellers don't have a secret cabal where they set the prices (if they do, and they are reading this, I'd love to join, please?) 

 

[Classic_Spaceman]

28 minutes ago, Horation said:

Except that resellers aren't the ones jacking up the prices, the market is.

It is simply a game of supply and demand, and the resellers are not at fault here

It is a bit of both; high-demand ‘figs are more difficult to source unless you just buy hundreds of CMFs online from retailers (so that they have not been fondled), but sellers also know that desirable items will sell even at higher prices. 

33 minutes ago, Horation said:

resellers don't have a secret cabal where they set the prices 

The “secret cabal” is the BrickLink price guide - When sellers see that the average price for a given Minifig is $8 (for example), selling it for less than $7 is just throwing money away on their part. 
 

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

The “secret cabal” is the BrickLink price guide - When sellers see that the average price for a given Minifig is $8 (for example), selling it for less than $7 is just throwing money away on their part. 
 

And buyers can view it to ensure they don't overpay. 

[danth]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

And buyers can view it to ensure they don't overpay. 

Yes. BrickLink price guide is great. It actually goes off of SOLD items so it's accurate.

I hate, hate, HATE BrickEconomy. Do not trust anything on that site. It doesn't use sold prices and I honestly think they just make up their data graphs. The prices there are FAR above actual sold prices. I think they use seller asking prices, which is literally the worst way possible to do it.

[Horation]

8 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

It is a bit of both; high-demand ‘figs are more difficult to source unless you just buy hundreds of CMFs online from retailers (so that they have not been fondled), but sellers also know that desirable items will sell even at higher prices. 
 

Nope, it isn't both, the sellers setting their prices based upon how much people are willing to pay IS LITERALLY how supply and demand works. You are still insisting that this is the fault of the resellers, what are they supposed to do? Sell 'em for less? The only people who'll get the figs will be those who buy quickly en masse, aka other resellers, so if the prices are too low, it'll only increase the price from others purchasing them for resale. 

 

6 hours ago, danth said:

Yes. BrickLink price guide is great. It actually goes off of SOLD items so it's accurate.

I hate, hate, HATE BrickEconomy. Do not trust anything on that site. It doesn't use sold prices and I honestly think they just make up their data graphs. The prices there are FAR above actual sold prices. I think they use seller asking prices, which is literally the worst way possible to do it.

 Actually, seller asking prices are literally the best possible way to do it, since if the cheapest option available is 800 $, it doesn't matter if they all sold for 600 $, since no others are available...

[danth]

1 hour ago, Horation said:

Actually, seller asking prices are literally the best possible way to do it, since if the cheapest option available is 800 $, it doesn't matter if they all sold for 600 $, since no others are available...

Good god, no. Nobody buys sets at those prices. If they did, they'd be SOLD prices, and they would actually mean something.

As they saying goes, things are only worth what people are willing to pay.

[icm]

I'm no economist, but IMHO the Lego secondary market is clearly small enough that prices and supply can be artificially manipulated by unscrupulous sellers (and buyers). A pure state of supply/demand price equilibrium is only possible with extremely large markets, such that no single buyer or seller accounts for more than an infinitesimal portion of supply or demand. Of course it's possible to jack up prices, restrict supply, and wait for the equilibrium price to climb to the artificially high point desired by a seller.

[MAB]

6 hours ago, Horation said:

Nope, it isn't both, the sellers setting their prices based upon how much people are willing to pay IS LITERALLY how supply and demand works. You are still insisting that this is the fault of the resellers, what are they supposed to do? Sell 'em for less? The only people who'll get the figs will be those who buy quickly en masse, aka other resellers, so if the prices are too low, it'll only increase the price from others purchasing them for resale. 

 

 Actually, seller asking prices are literally the best possible way to do it, since if the cheapest option available is 800 $, it doesn't matter if they all sold for 600 $, since no others are available...

For me, it is somewhere in between. Sold prices are good to show what others have sold / bought it at, and current for sale prices show what people are hoping to get / and buyers not willing to pay yet. If I want to sell something fast, then I will list close to the recent sold prices. If I don't mind hanging on, I will list above the current for sale prices. 

But I agree that if people under price items, then they will be cleared out very quickly. I recently bought a load of the same two advent calendar figures on bricklink. No doubt the person selling them bought the calendars in a large quantity cheap enough and probably made a little profit, although they listed all the figures at the same price and it looks like the unpopular ones have still not sold yet. They could have got much more than I paid for them if they had sold them singly over time to individual buyers. But they priced them cheap enough that I bought the lot. I could flip them now at about 1.7x what I paid (that is just under the lowest local current asking price), although these are small enough that they will disappear for a few years then come back at 4x what I paid. 

 

12 minutes ago, icm said:

I'm no economist, but IMHO the Lego secondary market is clearly small enough that prices and supply can be artificially manipulated by unscrupulous sellers (and buyers). A pure state of supply/demand price equilibrium is only possible with extremely large markets, such that no single buyer or seller accounts for more than an infinitesimal portion of supply or demand. Of course it's possible to jack up prices, restrict supply, and wait for the equilibrium price to climb to the artificially high point desired by a seller.

It is definitely possible to manipulate the market on older parts where other sellers don't have much stock. I have some scarce printed parts that I can (almost) control the market on. I could list them all now but demand is so low that if there was suddenly 100s of these parts on the market, nobody would buy them as there is so much stock. I drip feed a few at a time and even leave them out of stock for months sometimes to make it look like there is very little available stock. It seems to work, as people are willing to pay quite high prices compared to other similar printed parts. A few other sellers do have stock of the same parts and occasionally one of them will put loads on the market and they will sell quite quick at low prices, often in quantity (presumably to other sellers investing in them). They make quick profit but not full potential, whereas I make slow but very high profit. Two different models that both work. As they all fit in a box smaller than a shoe box, storage space is not an issue so I see no reason to rush sell.

[Horation]

17 hours ago, icm said:

I'm no economist, but IMHO the Lego secondary market is clearly small enough that prices and supply can be artificially manipulated by unscrupulous sellers (and buyers). A pure state of supply/demand price equilibrium is only possible with extremely large markets, such that no single buyer or seller accounts for more than an infinitesimal portion of supply or demand. Of course it's possible to jack up prices, restrict supply, and wait for the equilibrium price to climb to the artificially high point desired by a seller.

This is partly true, but it ignores the fact that there are tons of resellers who buy and hold until the market price is high enough, if one person tries to increase the price, they will release their stocks for say, 10-20% less and cause a reduction in price.

[Kit Figsto]

On 12/19/2023 at 11:37 AM, Horation said:

Except that resellers aren't the ones jacking up the prices, the market is.

Ehh...yes and no.  

There are some examples where the market goes wacko on something and jacks up the price, but there have been examples in the past of resellers working in bad faith to artificially inflate the prices of certain minifigures.

There were some idiots on Instagram a few years ago that would do this thing where they'd buy up all of the BL stock of desirable minifigures (usually Star Wars ones) and then immediately re-list them all at a much higher price, since they now controlled a major supply.  I believe they did it with Finch Dallow and Thrawn, possibly some others that I can't remember.  I would pull up the SW forum where people were talking about this, but it was from like the 2020 set discussion topic and I really don't feel like going that far back, sorry.  IIRC Thrawn was like a $20 figure and is now over $130 (now, I will grant that there's probably been a recent bump due to Ahsoka, but a $110 increase over the last 3 years isn't an organic growth in value, the supply of Thawn minifigures has not dwindled that much).  So, yes, people are paying that price, but it's artificially inflated because some people decided to act in bad faith a few years ago and force the prices to go way up.  Now, at least with Star Wars, LEGO has seemingly been combatting this a bit by putting fewer exclusive/desirable minifigures out there locked behind $$$ sets (the meltdown among resellers when the Captain Rex's Y-Wing microfighter leaked was rather humorous to me).

Chief from Rock Raiders is actually another example, RR Slugger did a video talking about it, but he mentioned sellers who are sitting on stockpiles of them and purposely only listing one at a time as a way to keep the sale price high, even though, again, the actual supply of that figure isn't low enough to warrant $300+ for a single minifig.

 

 

Anyway, I have what I think is an unpopular opinion about LEGO, and that has to do with their policy towards depicting war.  Every time they put out a set that's toeing this line, it seems like people tend to get all up in arms about them being contradictory and such, but I feel like their policy here has always been pretty clear.  They're never going to do anything depicting modern war, but historical or fantasy stuff has been allowed for like the past 40 years.  They've done multiple WWI biplanes that aren't even connected to any license, they've done the US cavalry, and they've done some 1930s war planes from Indiana Jones.  Stuff like Star Wars or LEGO's in-house sci-fi themes that depict conflict are pure fantasy, and then you have castle and pirates that sort of toe the line between fantasy and historical, depending on which subtheme or iteration you're talking about.  With the Osprey, I've also heard that it was more of a structural issue than anything, and they just conveniently agreed with the group complaining as part of their reasoning to cancel the set.

The point to me is that I think they've always been consistent on this, and I'm not sure why it causes a big stink every time something near the line comes up.