Unpopular Opinions about LEGO

[SpacePolice89]

1 hour ago, Yperio_Bricks said:

Here's an other story:

When Lego bought molding machines in the UK in 1947 they were presented Kiddicraft bricks and probably documents by the manufacturer of said machines. Only god knows what they took with them back to Denmark. Surely it is a just a coincidence that the Lego bricks share the exact size with the Kiddicraft bricks. And it is just a coincidence that the Lego brick is in scale with a British standard brick (used to build real houses). Oh and Kiddicraft had bigger bricks too. The size Duplo uses.... another coincidence.

Lego writes that they contacted Kiddicraft in the late 50s. Probably after Hilary Page's suicide in 1957 because of financial and business struggles. His wife and daughters later stated that he did not know about Lego bricks.

I guess we will never find out what exactly happened in the 1940s and 1950s

 

"A Briton, Hilary Fisher Page, and his company Kiddicraft has invented the plastic bricks that Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred are presented with. In the late 1950s, the LEGO Group contacts Kiddicraft to ask whether they object to the LEGO® brick. They do not. On the contrary, they wish the company good luck with the bricks, as they have not enjoyed much success with their product. In 1981, the LEGO Group purchases the rights to the Kiddicraft bricks and trademark from the descendants of Hilary Fisher Page."

https://www.lego.com/en-us/history/articles/c-automatic-binding-bricks

"Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred became aware of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample, and possibly drawings, given to them by the British supplier of the first injection moulding machine they had purchased. Realising their potential, Ole copied the Kiddicraft brick and in 1949 marketed his own version, The Automatic Binding Brick, that became the Lego brick in 1953"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Page

 

 

Edited May 21, 2024 by SpacePolice89

[Yperio_Bricks]

Yes, of course i have read all of that.

[Peppermint_M]

Which is still pretty murky over "ownership" of the concept and design. They purchased the rights in the 80s so they could sue Tyco for making construction bricks, essentially to make sure the skeleton in the closet wasn't too loud when it was revealed. 

Now TLG is going after fan goods, legitimate competition like Zuru and Cobi (note that they are not trying to take on and USA based brands now...). Then you add in the tribulations in Bricklink and it gets to be a case that for myself, someone who enjoys making my own things out of construction bricks (not needing a theme to tell a story, I can tell my own. It is a lot more fun.) that I am finding it hard to maintain what little brand loyalty I had. 

I mainly stick to LEGO things so I can share builds without too much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the purists. With perfectly reasonable complimentary parts like figure accessories and custom prints.

[icm]

Wait, how is Lego going after Cobi right now?

[Peppermint_M]

It was a little while back when the 1x5 plate was introduced, they were trying to make it a LEGO exclusive part. 

Granted, I have not seen the outcome of that one. 

[icm]

IIRC that case was laughed out of court.

[Peppermint_M]

Score one for common sense. 

Considering how my reddish brown parts keep shattering, I was also thinking of switching to a more reliable source for those  Cobi and Zuru have nice finishes to their bricks.

[SpacePolice89]

7 hours ago, icm said:

IRC that case was laughed out of court.

Lego has been winning several cases lately

 https://www.dw.com/en/lego-wins-design-patent-case-against-german-company-at-eu-court/a-56978555

https://www.politico.eu/article/lego-win-design-case-german-company-delta-sport-handelskontor-eu-court/

 

[Mikdun]

This one is not so simple (to me at least).

It does not cover "basic brick", but rather special one.

I understand that when you design something you want it to be protected for some time. Question is for how long?

Moreover, I don't speak lawyer's language ;) so cannot fully understand all the documents.

[MAB]

11 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

"A Briton, Hilary Fisher Page, and his company Kiddicraft has invented the plastic bricks that Ole Kirk and his son Godtfred are presented with. In the late 1950s, the LEGO Group contacts Kiddicraft to ask whether they object to the LEGO® brick. They do not. On the contrary, they wish the company good luck with the bricks, as they have not enjoyed much success with their product. In 1981, the LEGO Group purchases the rights to the Kiddicraft bricks and trademark from the descendants of Hilary Fisher Page."

https://www.lego.com/en-us/history/articles/c-automatic-binding-bricks

"Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred became aware of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample, and possibly drawings, given to them by the British supplier of the first injection moulding machine they had purchased. Realising their potential, Ole copied the Kiddicraft brick and in 1949 marketed his own version, The Automatic Binding Brick, that became the Lego brick in 1953"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Page

 

 

Remember history is written and often later re-written by the victors.

[MAB]

16 hours ago, JesseNight said:

This attitude to just flip it for profit is exactly what I call greed, but that's my opinion. I'm not here to offend anyone and I'm not fully blaming the sellers, I'm honestly more surprised how many buyers are willing to pay crazy prices in times of life itself already being really expensive, although that's probably a bigger thing here in EU than in some other parts of the world. I can't complain about my income, but to spend 500 on something used is just crazy to me. But yeah, that's just my opinion.

To sell something for profit is what I call business. If resellers were not able to make a profit, that retired stock would never be available again, not even for the people willing to pay higher than RRP prices.

16 hours ago, JesseNight said:

The creating scarcity kinda was a different story. It's a well known that resellers for profit use tricks to play the market to their advantage. Call it creating business opportunities by doing research and studying the market, sometimes knowing or even gambling on an item to become more wanted in times to come.
Buying up something that's limited (say it has like 20 offers up and you know for a fact that chances are fairly low that many more show up), then selling it 1 at a time to make it appear even more rare, is what I meant by creating scarcity.

I don't think it is possible for a reseller to create scarcity. It is impossible for an individual to suck up all the stock worldwide or even nationally then control the market straight away. Someone tried it here in the UK with the limited edition Technic Crawler, and it appeared to turn out badly, travelling the length of the UK buying up what they could at retail then paying secondary market prices to get as much stock as they could. Then prices didn't increase further for years, if anything they dropped after the initial jump. And that is for a truly limited product, not somethingwidely available in many stores.

For something like CMFs, it is impossible to corner the market. There are simply too many made and are so widely distributed, it is impossible to stop buyers that want them from getting them. It is also hard to make a quick profit on them if the seller wants a quick flip, because there are so many and so so many sellers. Holding stock for years is a better way to get high prices but of course it means money is tied up for a long time. There is also a risk of price crashes or no price increases.

Holding back stock is also not necessarily a tactic just to create scarcity. I frequently hold stock to get longer term profit. For example, I bought loads of the Wizard Battle and Witch-King Battle at clearance for £5 and £6 each. I sold some quickly at about 2-3x what I paid. That gets cash flow back. I could have flipped all of them quickly, but the rest were longer term investments. I dripfeed them into bricklink not to create scarcity but to monitor price and maximise my return. If I had put them all on in 2014-5, they would have sold and possibly to another reseller who then gets to ride the market. Once they are sold, I can no longer profit. Whereas if I release one at a time as they sell, I can monitor pricing and slowly increase my price as the demand to supply ratio changes.

[Peppermint_M]

Oh but MAB, you should sell them all cheaply to true fans or you are a terrible horrible no goodnick 

I don't purchase with intent to resell, but that sounds like a sensible way to make money to spend on more LEGO, a self funding hobby is the dream. Personally, I have some minifigures that I know I could sell off at good prices if I ever needed some quick money. Older Star Wars Troopers from battlepacks on sale, a Batman or two. 

It really is supply and demand. Years ago, I turned two Disney Infinity tokens from a £3 blind pack purchase to a £20 sale. Why? Because someone on eBay was willing to pay that much for the Frozen backdrop and terrain tokens, they were doubles for me (I was trying to get the Frankenweenie ones and the packs were cheap in ASDA...). Today? Absolutely no point trying, I don't know if the games would even work now. So yeah, watching for values and selling as you see fit is just the best way to do business at this scale. 

[SpacePolice89]

20 hours ago, MAB said:

Holding back stock is also not necessarily a tactic just to create scarcity. I frequently hold stock to get longer term profit. For example, I bought loads of the Wizard Battle and Witch-King Battle at clearance for £5 and £6 each. I sold some quickly at about 2-3x what I paid. That gets cash flow back. I could have flipped all of them quickly, but the rest were longer term investments. I dripfeed them into bricklink not to create scarcity but to monitor price and maximise my return. If I had put them all on in 2014-5, they would have sold and possibly to another reseller who then gets to ride the market. Once they are sold, I can no longer profit. Whereas if I release one at a time as they sell, I can monitor pricing and slowly increase my price as the demand to supply ratio changes.

I understand you completely. That's the proper way to run a business. It's actually also a big favor to all of us because older sets are available that otherwise wouldn't be.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

It really is supply and demand. Years ago, I turned two Disney Infinity tokens from a £3 blind pack purchase to a £20 sale. Why? Because someone on eBay was willing to pay that much for the Frozen backdrop and terrain tokens, they were doubles for me (I was trying to get the Frankenweenie ones and the packs were cheap in ASDA...). Today? Absolutely no point trying, I don't know if the games would even work now. So yeah, watching for values and selling as you see fit is just the best way to do business at this scale. 

That is how I started. I had quite a lot of unwanted duplicates from early CMF series that I either traded for ones I wanted, or sold on ebay.

[Alexandrina]

On 5/21/2024 at 7:44 PM, Yperio_Bricks said:

The size Duplo uses.... another coincidence.

I'm not getting into the weeds of how legitimate Lego's initial creation of the brick was/whether Kiddicraft was copied, because frankly I don't know - but this seems like a spurious point to me. There's nothing malicious about the size of Duplo bricks, they're in scale with System bricks. Legitimate or not, once Lego had the size of their standard System bricks, the Duplo bricks were always going to be that particular size (and so too the Quatro bricks, when they were a thing)

[Lion King]

I don’t know if this does count as “unpopular” but i will drop it anyways….

it seems that Lego has so many licensed themes lately, such as Disney, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Wednesday, Super Mario, Wicked, etc. And the company has FEWER -house themes, such as Monkie Kid, DreamZzzz, Ninjago, City, Friends, Creator. The Icons and Ideas themes are basically a blender of in-house and licened IP. I am a fan of minifig-focused in-house themes and I rarely buy sets from licensed themes.

Are the licensed themes too much for Lego to keep up? I get that those theems appeal to different groups of fans (for example, Pharrell Williams set will appear to Pharrell’s fan bases). 

To me, I feel it’s not a right balance for both licensed and in-house themes. 

Edited June 6, 2024 by Lion King

[SpacePolice89]

22 minutes ago, Lion King said:

I don’t know if this does count as “unpopular” but i will drop it anyways….

it seems that Lego has so many licensed themes lately, such as Disney, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Wednesday, Super Mario, Wicked, etc. And the company has FEWER -house themes, such as Monkie Kid, DreamZzzz, Ninjago, City, Friends, Creator. The Icons and Ideas themes are basically a blender of in-house and licened IP. I am a fan of minifig-focused in-house themes and I rarely buy sets from licensed themes.

Are the licensed themes too much for Lego to keep up? I get that those theems appeal to different groups of fans (for example, Pharrell Williams set will appear to Pharrell’s fan bases). 

To me, I feel it’s not a right balance for both licensed and in-house themes. 

I also think there are too many licensed themes. I'd prefer a 80:20 ratio in favor of in house themes vs. licensed themes.

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Lion King said:

I don’t know if this does count as “unpopular” but i will drop it anyways….

it seems that Lego has so many licensed themes lately, such as Disney, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Wednesday, Super Mario, Wicked, etc. And the company has FEWER -house themes, such as Monkie Kid, DreamZzzz, Ninjago, City, Friends, Creator. The Icons and Ideas themes are basically a blender of in-house and licened IP. I am a fan of minifig-focused in-house themes and I rarely buy sets from licensed themes.

Are the licensed themes too much for Lego to keep up? I get that those theems appeal to different groups of fans (for example, Pharrell Williams set will appear to Pharrell’s fan bases). 

To me, I feel it’s not a right balance for both licensed and in-house themes. 

 

46 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I also think there are too many licensed themes. I'd prefer a 80:20 ratio in favor of in house themes vs. licensed themes.

It really depends on what you want to compare: the number of in-house vs licensed themes, or the number of in-house vs licensed sets.

LEGO has consolidated a lot of its ideas into a few core in-house themes. Look at how many sets Friends, City and Ninjago each get these days. Then there are Monkie Kid, Dreamzzz, Creator, etc. Looking at brickset data, last year the three big in-house themes got 48, 62 and 47 sets respectively. Compare that to when they were doing many more themes that lasted a year that came and went. Avatar got 5, Fortnite got 2, Gabby's Dollhouse got 4, HP got 18, Indy got 4, DC got 13, Marvel got 40, Sonic got 6, Minecraft got 22, and even the big SW only got 48. There might be a lot of IP based themes, but the number of IP based sets is not actually that high. I looked a couple of years ago, and it is about 50:50 in-house to licensed in terms of sets if you ignore all the magazine bag sets and all the education/service type packs.

I'm not going to buy Mario, Sonic and Zelda sets. I don't really care how many there are of those or how many themes they are counted as, just as I am not going to buy any of the 10 Monkie Kid sets this year. What matters to me is that they are producing things I want to buy.

For me 50:50 overall in terms of sets is about right for the general population. There is plenty of choice of in-house stuff for those that like that, and there is plenty of choice for licensed sets. If LEGO didn't do those licenses, chances are another brand would pick them up. LEGO wouldn't make more sales by dropping the IP based themes, those IP based sales would just go to the other companies.

Wicked and Zelda sets are likely to be bought by fans of those franchises. Does it really matter that those two themes exist? If they didn't exist, it is not like LEGO would be making more in-house themes. The fans that would have bought the Wicked sets probably won't be buying other LEGO.

[Karalora]

It's not just LEGO. Visual media--movies, TV shows, and video games--have become almost the only things people respond to with their imaginations anymore. Even LEGO's in-house themes are promoted with animated series in order to get traction.

[Lion King]

23 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I also think there are too many licensed themes. I'd prefer a 80:20 ratio in favor of in house themes vs. licensed themes.

Yeah, way too much licensed themes for sure. I have read arguments about Space sets being put into. City theme because there are no slots for it as a standal theme. However, I don’t mind that Space sets in City theme at all. 

I think 50;50 ratio would be great. 

[SpacePolice89]

6 hours ago, Lion King said:

Yeah, way too much licensed themes for sure. I have read arguments about Space sets being put into. City theme because there are no slots for it as a standal theme. However, I don’t mind that Space sets in City theme at all. 

I think 50;50 ratio would be great. 

I grew up as a fan of the original themes and therefore I find it very sad that they have been largely replaced by licensed movie products that I have very little interest in. While I like some of the movies the licensed sets are based on I have no interest in the licensed sets. I prefer to use my own imagination when it comes to characters and story and back in the 80s and 90s they provided the right amount of information about the different factions and left the rest to your own imagination.

[Murdoch17]

8 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I grew up as a fan of the original themes and therefore I find it very sad that they have been largely replaced by licensed movie products that I have very little interest in. While I like some of the movies the licensed sets are based on I have no interest in the licensed sets. I prefer to use my own imagination when it comes to characters and story and back in the 80s and 90s they provided the right amount of information about the different factions and left the rest to your own imagination.

I'm sure the fans of Homemaker figs, HO scale cars, and even wooden toys also bemoaned the fall of those themes.

Here's an unpopular opinion of my own: Everything has it's time, and things have to change. In fact, change the only constant thing in the Universe - Lego or otherwise! TLG has to modify itself with the times, or die off like the former big names in construction toys. (Erector, Meccano, etc...) It it stands still too long, it will cease to be relevant and die.

[Black Falcon]

On 6/6/2024 at 4:12 PM, SpacePolice89 said:

I also think there are too many licensed themes. I'd prefer a 80:20 ratio in favor of in house themes vs. licensed themes.

I do belive Lego is doing what is working well for them, and as MAB said, the inhouse themes might be less in number of themes but the overall number os Sets isn´t that small actually. In the end I can only buy so many sets anyways so even if more inhouse themes, could possibly result in more Sets attracting me, what would buy would still be limited by space and money. That beeing said, I do like some IPs Lego is (or was) producing (like Indiana Jones, Jurassic Parc, Star wars, Lord of the Rings etc) but even there I don´t buy Sets from every Theme I like.

On 6/6/2024 at 5:21 PM, MAB said:

It really depends on what you want to compare: the number of in-house vs licensed themes, or the number of in-house vs licensed sets.

LEGO has consolidated a lot of its ideas into a few core in-house themes. Look at how many sets Friends, City and Ninjago each get these days. Then there are Monkie Kid, Dreamzzz, Creator, etc. Looking at brickset data, last year the three big in-house themes got 48, 62 and 47 sets respectively. Compare that to when they were doing many more themes that lasted a year that came and went. Avatar got 5, Fortnite got 2, Gabby's Dollhouse got 4, HP got 18, Indy got 4, DC got 13, Marvel got 40, Sonic got 6, Minecraft got 22, and even the big SW only got 48. There might be a lot of IP based themes, but the number of IP based sets is not actually that high. I looked a couple of years ago, and it is about 50:50 in-house to licensed in terms of sets if you ignore all the magazine bag sets and all the education/service type packs.

I'm not going to buy Mario, Sonic and Zelda sets. I don't really care how many there are of those or how many themes they are counted as, just as I am not going to buy any of the 10 Monkie Kid sets this year. What matters to me is that they are producing things I want to buy.

For me 50:50 overall in terms of sets is about right for the general population. There is plenty of choice of in-house stuff for those that like that, and there is plenty of choice for licensed sets. If LEGO didn't do those licenses, chances are another brand would pick them up. LEGO wouldn't make more sales by dropping the IP based themes, those IP based sales would just go to the other companies.

Wicked and Zelda sets are likely to be bought by fans of those franchises. Does it really matter that those two themes exist? If they didn't exist, it is not like LEGO would be making more in-house themes. The fans that would have bought the Wicked sets probably won't be buying other LEGO.

Exactly and we shouldn´t forget that without Licensed Sets Lego likely wouldn´t be as big as it is now, so less or no licenses wouldn´t mean they would do more unlicensed stuff but likely less Sets in general. In the end there are surely some themes I don´t care about (from both inhouse and licensed) but it is still good that they are there. And sure I would love if they would bring classic themes like Adventures, Castle, Pirates and Space back as whole series - but in the end they can´t produce everything to please everyone - maybe one day we will get them back and till then I will hope for nice Sets like the Lion Knights Castle or the Galaxy Explorer and nice GWPs. 

5 hours ago, Lion King said:

Yeah, way too much licensed themes for sure. I have read arguments about Space sets being put into. City theme because there are no slots for it as a standal theme. However, I don’t mind that Space sets in City theme at all. 

I think 50;50 ratio would be great. 

Well, that argument about Space beeing put into City because of that reason was a claim with no evidence and if they would have wanted to produce them as standalone Theme they would have just done so - however there are surely several reasons why they didn´t. 

[SpacePolice89]

20 minutes ago, Murdoch17 said:

I'm sure the fans of Homemaker figs, HO scale cars, and even wooden toys also bemoaned the fall of those themes.

Here's an unpopular opinion of my own: Everything has it's time, and things have to change. In fact, change the only constant thing in the Universe - Lego or otherwise! TLG has to modify itself with the times, or die off like the former big names in construction toys. (Erector, Meccano, etc...) It it stands still too long, it will cease to be relevant and die.

The original minifigure themes made Lego insanely popular all around the world and proved that they had a winning concept. It was actually only after the financial difficulties in the late 90s and early 00s caused by junior-ization and product diversification that they had to resort to licenses to get quick money to be able to survive. I believe that the original themes and what they represent are far superior than the licensed products. Nowadays they cater mostly towards fans of different media franchises instead of fans of Lego. But all hope is not lost, every now and then we get great products like the new Galaxy Explorer and the Lion Knights Castle. 

[Lion King]

58 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

I grew up as a fan of the original themes and therefore I find it very sad that they have been largely replaced by licensed movie products that I have very little interest in. While I like some of the movies the licensed sets are based on I have no interest in the licensed sets. I prefer to use my own imagination when it comes to characters and story and back in the 80s and 90s they provided the right amount of information about the different factions and left the rest to your own imagination.

I totally get how you feel. It’s really ad to see a big change since 2000s. I feel that the younger generations show little or no interest in the original in-house themes - they have been arching Star Wars, Disney, Harry Potter movies and they recognize the sets that are based on those movies. I don’t know if they have imaginations or not. But while growing up, I love using my imagination and come up with stories. It was such fun! 

I only have little interest in licensed sets becasue i buy dinosaurs from Jurasssic World, fantasy creatures from Harry Potter, cool minifigure parts/accesories from licensed theems seperateldly (in other words, not buying the whole sets) and use them for my in-house world.