Things that changed Lego forever

[davee123]

Just making my own list off the top of my head...

Key:

* - Big enough change to be noticeable

** - Pretty big change

*** - Very big change

Roughly in order of appearance:

*** Introduction of the Automatic Binding Brick

*** The LEGO "System of Play"

*** Addition of tubes

*** LEGO hinges

*** LEGO wheels

*** Instructions for sets

*** LEGO gears

** LEGO Trains

* LEGO Modulex (fails)

* Samsonite & subsequent take-back

*** Change from CA to ABS plastic

** LEGOLAND theme park

*** LEGO Technic parts

** LEGO Duplo

*** Introduction of the minifig

*** LEGOLAND building 'system'

** LEGOLAND space

** LEGOLAND castle

* Fabuland

* Scala (jewelry)

* Model Team (advanced building styles)

** Electric 9v System

* LEGO starts to get clearly "evil" characters (this gets progressively pronounced)

** LEGOLAND pirates

* LEGO introduces guns! (in pirate sets)

* New face printings

* LEGOLAND Aquazone

* LEGOLAND Wild West

* Belville & Scala

*** Juniorization (Mostly in 'Town Jr')

*** LEGO Mindstorms (RCX, NXT)

** LEGO licensing

* LEGO Video Games (were mostly awful)

** Movement towards less-studded Technic builds

* Znap

*** LEGO interacting with the hobbyist community

* More characterized printings (minifig torsos & heads)

*** LEGO marketing to the hobbyist community (UCS Star Wars, Architecture, etc)

* LEGO moves away from "LEGOLAND" system to a more disparate set of playthemes

* LEGO Legends

** LEGO Bionicle (starting with Throwbots & Roboriders)

** Cheaper packaging (removing flip-up lids, instruction/sticker mooshing)

* Set numbers become less cohesive (ranges start to mean nothing)

* Increasing use of stickers rather than printed parts

** LEGO Brand Retail stores (including Pick-A-Brick!)

* Flesh colored figures

* Clikits

*** 2004 Color Change

** Outsourced LEGO video games (success!)

** Pick-A-Brick online & LDD

*** LEGO employing members of the hobbyist community (better set design, etc)

** Change to Power Functions (trains, technic)

* New dye injection (color discontinuity)

** Chinese Manufacturing

* LEGO collectibles (vintage figs, LEGO Minifigures)

So... that's quite a bit! Although I'm sure there are a lot that I missed (or didn't think were worth mentioning)

DaveE

Edited December 28, 2010 by davee123

[Enpaz]

As others have already pointed out, a major change is the more and more complex builds for some sets. You've got all those different kind of bricks and TLG is not just stacking them any more.

Additionally, there's the Chinese production issue which I find quite annoying.

Enpaz

[Nabii]

Though this is purely personal opinions from what I’ve picked up, I think these are considered the ‘big’ changes:

1. Starting to make toys instead of furniture during the great depression.

2. The fire that burnt down the wooden toy factory. Many workers slept above the factory and it is considered a minor miracle no one was injured. The move to plastic was only decided following this fire!

3. The plastic toy tractor that sold insanely well in Germany and allowed TLG to buy the brick patent from the British inventor.

4. The invention of the LEGO tubes allowing the bricks to bind together.

5. The creation of small plates for the LEGO modular architecture series for adults to design their own house in the 1960’s. Before this the only 1/3 brick high elements were relatively large base plates.

6. LEGOLAND.

7. Adding technology to the bricks, from early trains through to today’s NXT, this striving to remain at the cutting edge has been considered crucial to TLGs future for over three decades now.

8. The mini-figure. Created by Jens Nygaard Nielsen for LEGO space sets and instantly jumped on for earlier inclusion in all mini-figure scaled sets (hence many early town sets with mini-figures were designed before the figures were included and cannot fit the figure in them!)

9. Star Wars. The first (and best) license.

10. Galidor, the first attempt at multi-media story telling. Yes it was a failure, but everything learned here was then used for Bionicle and many other LEGO themes.

11. Bionicle, almost by accident a buildable action figure line was created and then combined with the learning’s from Galidor’s failure to be fine tuned to a decade long story and best selling toy line.

12. The early/mid 2000’s reorganization. After a decade of losing sight of the core idea of LEGO being a construction toy and consequent slipping sales, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen returned to appoint new leadership and as part of this culled many of the LEGO elements in existence, cutting parts from over 12.000 to between 6 and 7,000. Also shutting down LEGO Computer Games and beginning to license out computer games.

13. Return to the core, the idea of the evergreens of City, Space, Castle, Duplo and Technic – and arguably Star Wars – always being in the line up.

14. Colouring raw plastic with dye instead of buying pre-coloured plastic.

15. LEGO Board Games, LEGO Mini-figures and LEGO Universe (believe it or not).

The last one might be surprising to you, but they are the first real signs after years of hard work of regained confidence in the core of the company allowing experimentation into other types of product.

As AFOLs the hiring of Jamie Berrard and Nathaniel Kuipers could also be seen as important, their success and hard work opened the door for more adult fans to be hired.

What’s generally doesn’t seem to be considered a company turning point is the grey to new-grey (bley) change, it was a ‘minor thing’ at the time and the backlash was completely unforeseen and unexpected. It has however had a big effect and any changes are now considered very carefully for any possible impact on AFOL collectors/builders before deciding if they will be carried out.

But this is only what I’ve picked up, I’ve probably put things on here The LEGO Company wouldn’t but they seemed important to me when I learned about them! And I’m sure I’ve missed out a ton of stuff.

(BTW These days Chinese produced mini-figures and the plastic are identical to the western produced ones. There are identical measurements to the molds and even the same batches of plastic sent to the different factories around the world, so any differences should be insignificant. If you have had the printing flake off your mini-figure or the arms or legs fall off I’m willing to hear the complaint, but anything else is starting to sound like the automatic assumption in the 1950’s that Japanese products were inferior, it’s just wrong. There will always be minor differences between factories, slightly different mold temperatures or polishing to the mold, but the variation from China should not be any more then that between Europe and North America.)

Nabii.

[brickmack]

I don't think anyone mentioned this yet:

Colors. When the first bricks came out there were only 3 or 4 colors, and then black a few years later. Now there must be 20 colors currently in production and 30 or so if the ones no longer produced are considered. I'd say that's a pretty major change.

[AndyC]

I think I'd definitely agree on the colours, specifically the introduction of more 'earthy' colours like tan instead of purely primary colours.

What I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned, but what I'd consider probably one of the most pivotal moments, was the introduction of the distinction between illegal and legal (or 'in system', in TLG terms) building techniques. It changed a fair bit of the way Lego was built and sold, bringing with it less complex instructions and, sadly, less alternative images.

[Kumpelkante]

i slightly disagree. I agree in that point, that TLC introduced a great number of different colours over the course of several decades. But i do not consider it a big change as they in most cases just added one or to colours a year to the then established colours, though i have to admit that the introduction of tan in 1996 was noticable but not a really big change as it was only used in western sets back then. This by the way is how new colours are introduced: the appear first in a small number of sets or for special parts like green for baseplates and brown for weapons and later spread into other themes or used as a "regular" colour.

The only big change in regard to the colour palette is the update of the greys and brown or the replacemet of old light and dark grey and brown by light and dark bley and reddish brown. In that case i do agree as the differences are very clearly visible and for some builders this might be very vell annoying if bley and grey is mixed up.

However regarding the introduction of other colours i consider it a series of several but minor add ons rather than a big bang that changes Lego forever.

[Sirens-of-Titan]

The only big change in regard to the colour palette is the update of the greys and brown or the replacemet of old light and dark grey and brown by light and dark bley and reddish brown. In that case i do agree as the differences are very clearly visible and for some builders this might be very vell annoying if bley and grey is mixed up.

However regarding the introduction of other colours i consider it a series of several but minor add ons rather than a big bang that changes Lego forever.

That's true, and builders are annoyed because the two hues of gray clash pretty badly when placed close together in the context of a set. The bluish gray makes the light gray look dull and the old dark gray appear greenish. We have now, the most well thought out and attractive colors we've ever had, and this makes Lego even more attractive to AFOL's.

I'd like to add something that hasn't been a product of the Lego Company but has changed Lego forever; the online fan community.

Sites like flickr, Brickshelf, MOC Pages, Eurobricks etc. get most AFOL's excited to create and share Legos, and serve as a testing ground for what the fan community will think of new products, as well as a source of ideas for future sets. (If you doubt this look at the past year's worth of posts in the History forum and what most people have been wishing for and you'll see that the new Kingdoms sets for 2011 are full of the quintessential wish-list items that have been discussed on the forum for months now)

It's not that Lego goes around and nicks ideas off of the discussion boards, that would be silly, but if people overwhelmingly state, petition and desire a certain item, it only makes sense for the Company to create said item and cash in on the demand. In that respect, the online community is a powerful force in the direction in which Lego products move.

[jonwil]

Things that I think have changed TLG for the worse (IMO):

1.The drop in quality of the bricks

2.The disappearance of alternate models and idea books

3.The changes to packaging (large sets like the 7892 hospital used to have an entire box front that lifted up to reveal the contents, now its just the tiny flaps at the side that open)

4.The proliferation of parts that are only useful for one thing (especially outside licenced themes) rather than the use of generic parts that can be used for all sorts of things in all sorts of themes. (although lately TLG has gotten better at introducing new generic parts)

5.Related to #4, the proliferation of larger elements in cases where multiple small elements would have been used in the past. For example, the new nose/tail parts in the recent City airplane and helicopter sets.

[Enpaz]

It has probably been mentioned before but the thing that really changed Lego the most by far is...

*drumroll*

Definitely the switch from using wood to using plastic.

[blueandwhite]

Fortunately for us, LEGO is a constantly evolving brand. We've seen changes both negative and positive and we've seen LEGO come back from being on the edge of ruin.

Still, the change that pleases me the most as an AFOL is that LEGO has paid increasing attention to the input of adult builders and enthusiasts. The ambassador program and LEGO's active involvement in major fan conventions are two examples of this relationship. I firmly believe that the innovation and creativity that has come out of the AFOL community has been very instrumental in reversing LEGO's fortunes. Many of the innovative building techniques that are poplualar within the AFOL community are now commonplace in today's sets. Moreover, we've seen a number of product lines which seem to have been heavily influenced by AFOL input. If you had even suggested to me in 2004 that we would have a collector's line of minifigures or a castle line with a wide range of peasants I would have just scoffed at the idea. I suspect that products like these are the result of LEGO actually taking the time to listen to AFOLs and the realization that the wants of AFOLs and younger purchasers may not be entirely exclusive.

Personally I feel that the ambassador program has had a bigger impact on LEGO than most of us care to realize. LEGO is a company where the communication actually moves in two directions and for that I'm greatful. This certainly wasn't always the case.

[Eric J. Olson]

The one thing I have noticed in the history of LEGO is the defined "borders" that were crossed and where you can see them from in the product lineup (not including the addition/deletion of themes) such as the transition to more detailed vehicles as seen in the early 80s, more detailed (and playable) buildings in the mid 80s, and the final transformation to "juniorization" in the late 90s.

[Aanchir]

Here's one I observed recently: the transition from scarce use to frequent use of so-called "pearl" colors (or for that matter, any sort of metallic color).

Looking at sets from the 90s, metallic parts were rare and appeared sparsely. Where they did appear, they were a sort of a "gimmick" for the sets. Look no further than the Ninja sets, where fancy sword-holders would be yellow, not gold.

Compare that to today's sets, where LEGO expresses no misgivings about loading a set up with parts in Warm Gold (Bricklink's Pearl Gold). The Atlantis sets are a good example, as are various Castle and Kingdoms sets.

If one were to put a date on this "change", I'd say it was around 2006, when 297 Warm Gold and its short-lived counterpart 296 Cool Silver were introduced. The Vikings sets and Knights' Kingdom sets of that year used these colors a great deal. Even BIONICLE started using metallic colors more frequently, and it had already had some of the most frequent applications of metallic colors in earlier years!

One could argue for a different date when this "change" took effect, but I think 2006 is a good time to treat as the "start point" for this trend of using more and more metallic colors in sets, almost treating them the same as their solid-colored brethren.

[Sirens-of-Titan]

Here's one I observed recently: the transition from scarce use to frequent use of so-called "pearl" colors (or for that matter, any sort of metallic color).

...

Very valid point, there isn't a theme out today that doesn't use them: there is gold in the Historic themes, Adventure themes and even some City themes, no to mention how much was used in the Licensed sets (PoP Harry potter etc.)

[Eilif]

How has only one person mentioned the near-bankrupcy of the early 00's and reorganization of 2004?!!

Every LEGO fan who is interested in TLG's workings owes it to themselves to read about it.

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/07306?pg=all

It can't be tied to one specific change, but it has established much of what we've come to love (or not love) about LEGO in recent years.

1) Less Juniorization and un-LEGO-ish parts.

2) A focus on the LEGO system and more traditional LEGO sets.

3) Returning to a more standardized (at least within non-licensed) color and brick palete resulting in fewer elements produced.

4) Closer relatinships with larger retailers resulting in more "special edition" sets that you can only get at one place.

5) Closer monitoring of product development largely responsible for the new crop of bricks that aren't over-specialized and encouraging designers to use old bricks in new ways (this might have some connection with SNOT showing up in recent sets).

6) Profitability. The many specialized, Direct Order and AFOL targeted sets would never have been possible if LEGO had not been able to return to profitability or had been able to merely limp along just breaking even.