Has LEGO ever listened to AFOLs? If so, when?

[JanetVanD]

2 hours ago, KimT said:

 

First and foremost the LEGO products are intended for the core audience - kids aged 7-12(-ish), but the LEGO Group has also stated that AFOLs are now considered a target audience and more will be done for the AFOL Community moving forward 

My 16 year old son made the observation that, since nearly all AFOLs started out as children who loved playing with LEGO,  it would be a mistake for TLG to ever shift its primary focus from child-oriented products to adult-oriented ones (something which we feel they would never do anyway) If, for whatever reason, they did, they would risk losing that unique essence which appeals to the universal child in all of us. 

[The Island Chronicles]

@meliander @KimT @JanetVanD Your points are dually noted. Now I understand. 

[ArneNielsen]

On 12/13/2019 at 5:35 AM, icm said:

nothing much comes to mind of concrete instances in which the adult fan community pointed out a flaw in manufacturing, design, or marketing so clearly and so persistently that Lego fixed that flaw

Not the same, I know, but at least back in the 70ties, TLC used adult test-builders. After a set was designed, but before it was put on the market, a number of boxes were distributed to test-builders, who commented on the box, the building instructions, and the bricks supplied. Thats the reason, that some old sets had additional error sheets in the building instructions.

So in that respect, yes, they did listen to AFOLS.

And speaking of sources, this comes from a primary source: Me. I was one of the test-builders back then.

 

[Cwetqo]

As Kim said, LEGO has whole department, which exists just because of fans, but the problem is whether they are heard inside the company.

We also need to take into account that it would be futile to expect that LEGO would change something, which is not directly aimed at fans, like for example city sets and other stuff kids oriented stuff. For some sets, which are indeed primarily adult oriented, designers will often already know what those want and implement it, if its possible. I've been on many presentations and talked to many designers of afol oriented sets and they all knew very well what we want. Designers often include popular parts (even where its not necessary), look to use interesting colors and even go that far to include baseplates (which are rare these days) in as many colors as possible.

So, from set design and structure, I would say that they listen, where it's possible (or makes sense). 

Another area is LEGO-LUG relations. Cooperation is very good here, although some changes were implemented too much in "take it or leave it" or "it is as it is" way, without any option to discuss it before.

But (there is always "but"), some fails were such that they easily broke a lot of trust, gained over years. Let's take for example last such case, the infamous takeover of Bricklink. Whoever has access to LAN will know that it caused A LOT of negative feedback. At first, it was maye a bit unjust, since it was not really known what will happen. But then new TOS came out and some of the worst fears came true. And the worst thing is that it was really communicated badly, with basicaly no answers given from the team, no warning given before new TOS were implemented (in a way that everybody was FORCED to accept them, without even slight warning) and so on (list is long).

I've been always a "promoter" of LEGO company in our LUG, saying that they are not so bad etc..., but what can I do now? Nobody from LEGO was able to present one good side of this, no questions were answered, and everything, which was done, it was done (at least seemingly) in complete ignorance of all AFOLs.  And it makes the company look really bad.

[The Island Chronicles]

1 hour ago, Cwetqo said:

We also need to take into account that it would be futile to expect that LEGO would change something, which is not directly aimed at fans, like for example city sets and other stuff kids oriented stuff. For some sets, which are indeed primarily adult oriented, designers will often already know what those want and implement it, if its possible. I've been on many presentations and talked to many designers of afol oriented sets and they all knew very well what we want.

But when it comes to City sets, should they really care about what we want? I mean....the sets aren't targeted towards us. For City, they only listen to the targeted audience and what they want to see. That's why I have said that while it was be nice to have another golden age of City.....its not happening. Children love to do the following three things catch crooks, put out fires, commit crimes and make discoveries. That's why every year, we see police, explorers and great vehicles. So that's City for the rest of our lives. Though 2020 seems to be going in a decent direction so far.  

So they know what we want, but for themes like City, it's not happening. We'd like to go back to the years of 2006 to 2009. But that was a different day and time. 

I believe that's what Lego is doing with the City theme - which has always been it's most popular theme since its birth in 2005. They're not ignoring us. They have to go with the times that we are living it  

[Toastie]

10 hours ago, Cwetqo said:

I've been always a "promoter" of LEGO company in our LUG, saying that they are not so bad etc..., but what can I do now? Nobody from LEGO was able to present one good side of this, no questions were answered, and everything, which was done, it was done (at least seemingly) in complete ignorance of all AFOLs.  And it makes the company look really bad.

Well, it makes the company look bad provided we believe in the super natural wisdom and foresight of TLG. On the other hand, it makes the company look smart when we look at the companies business perspective: Apparently win-win.

Yes, nobody at TLG has provided one good side of this - and it will continue to be like that unless they tell us why they did it. But they won't. And that is the bad thing. Not that they did this - there will be good reasons - materialized somewhere in the companies think tanks. Surely in this case they are not reaching out to AFOLs, as they already royally screwed this up. Maybe somewhere in the administration, folks were getting nervous for whatever reason (that they don't tell us). Let it be clone brands. Or stores selling current items for a fraction of the price TLG is asking for on their website.

Who knows? PR wise though, this take-over has been and continues to evolve into a - bizarre thing. Some actually call a disaster.

All the best
Thorsten

[Vindicare]

19 hours ago, Toastie said:

Well, it makes the company look bad provided we believe in the super natural wisdom and foresight of TLG. On the other hand, it makes the company look smart when we look at the companies business perspective: Apparently win-win.

Yes, nobody at TLG has provided one good side of this - and it will continue to be like that unless they tell us why they did it. But they won't. And that is the bad thing. Not that they did this - there will be good reasons - materialized somewhere in the companies think tanks. Surely in this case they are not reaching out to AFOLs, as they already royally screwed this up. Maybe somewhere in the administration, folks were getting nervous for whatever reason (that they don't tell us). Let it be clone brands. Or stores selling current items for a fraction of the price TLG is asking for on their website.

Who knows? PR wise though, this take-over has been and continues to evolve into a - bizarre thing. Some actually call a disaster.

All the best
Thorsten

You can’t say with such certainty that they are not reaching out to AFOLs because of their Bricklink decision based on you not liking the move. Some are perfectly fine with it & do see it as a potential good thing.