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Posted

Congratulations to Perijove! I'll admit that I wasn't too keen on his model when the news first broke that it got 10,000 votes, but over time it's really grown on me. Model-wise it's just a great fit for the Cuusoo line; definitely worthy of its spot as the fifth passed project.

It's a shame that MB_bricks' excellent UCS Sandcrawler won't be in the Cuusoo line, although to be fair it's understandable given the scale and licensed nature of the model. (My sympathies to the dude though- having two finely-made models turned down through no fault of his must be pretty disheartening.) As for Portal: it's a wait, but I'm sure Valve fans are accustomed to that, what with the company being infamous for its 'Valve Time'. :grin: Given the facts that A. Valve is usually cooperative with merchandise, and B. the project is still in review, I say there's a fair chance that Portal could achieve that #006 spot.

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Posted (edited)

Eurobricker marshal-banana, who also built Western Modular Town, gets screwed again.

What odds Lego release a UCS Sandcrawler in the next 2 years, without the need to pay him the 1% or whatever the creator commission is.

It's a shame that MB_bricks' excellent UCS Sandcrawler won't be in the Cuusoo line, although to be fair it's understandable given the scale and licensed nature of the model. (My sympathies to the dude though- having two finely-made models turned down through no fault of his must be pretty disheartening.)

The scale reason is horsesh*t. It could easily be converted to <4000 piece model, especially if you remove the lighting system and mechanized innards.

The real reason: Lucasfilm would never consent to a second 3rd party making $$$ off their most valuable IP. Plain and simple.

Edited by Another Brick In The Wall
Posted

Eurobricker marshal-banana, who also built Western Modular Town, gets screwed again.

What odds Lego release a UCS Sandcrawler in the next 2 years, without the need to pay him the 1% or whatever the creator commission is.

The scale reason is horsesh*t. It could easily be converted to <4000 piece model, especially if you remove the lighting system and mechanized innards.

The real reason: Lucasfilm would never consent to a second 3rd party making $$$ off their most valuable IP. Plain and simple.

You're probably correct. It goes to show that even working with a licensee that is known to be cooperative with TLG is a huge risk for LEGO Cuusoo projects, since those licensees often also tend to have a lot of clout in deciding what becomes a set or what doesn't.

I disagree that there's no merit in the comments on scale, though. If you remove the lighting system and mechanized innards... then you have a large, empty model that a lot of people will be unwilling to pay the necessary price for. Even if piece count is a factor in how high the price of a set is, there's more to value than just a model's size: a big model that lacks detail will not have nearly the same appeal as a more detailed model with the same piece count.

With that said, none of the LEGO Cuusoo staff comments make any connection between the size of the model and the reasons it couldn't be made a set. They simply call it "a project of epic proportions", which is a compliment more than anything else. Only then do they go on to mention the conflict with Lucasfilm.

Posted

Honestly for recommending an obvious thing like the Sandcrawler, a set that's already been out, I don't think the original person DESERVES the 1%.

Bring a new franchise to Lego? Bring a new idea? Sure.

Bring something we've had? Batman's vehicle? Sandcrawler? Something done? Nope. As awesome as the Lego Sandcrawler model was Lego was probably like "what's the point? we were going to do one again eventually anyways?"...

Posted

Honestly for recommending an obvious thing like the Sandcrawler, a set that's already been out, I don't think the original person DESERVES the 1%.

Bring a new franchise to Lego? Bring a new idea? Sure.

Bring something we've had? Batman's vehicle? Sandcrawler? Something done? Nope. As awesome as the Lego Sandcrawler model was Lego was probably like "what's the point? we were going to do one again eventually anyways?"...

It's not a matter of deserving anything. Heck the simple quality of Marshall's design work would have deserved the commission. Nor is it simply an issue of "what's the point?" The point is it is something desired that the Lego fan base is willing to support and pay for. But I think you do inadvertently do point out the crux of the problem with existing and ongoing licenses and CuuSoo. "A set ( or rather subject) that has already been released". I don't think any of us can even begin to comprehend or predict the outcomes of the various legal licensing issues that then crop up with such CuuSoo projects. The BttF set is actually much simpler. TLG was simply looking for a basic limited license to produce the one set. There were no pre existing contracts and no prior works to cause conflicts. There is no active long term production schedule and plans to work around. And the actual design approval process from the vendor is just that single product.

It still sucks that what are arguably the two finest CuuSoo projects to hit 10k, Marshall's Western Town and Sandcrawler, are the ones to bump into the weird complicated, and at least in the part of the Western Town, unexpected license conflicts.

Posted

And by unexpected you mean "totally expected" right? Because those were totally expected. :P

There's no way they're going to compete with themselves and a new license. I'd wager that the Lone Ranger contract originally had a "no cowboy/western Lego stuff" in the very contract. I saw it coming and so did others but we were ignored.

Posted (edited)

And by unexpected you mean "totally expected" right? Because those were totally expected. :P

There's no way they're going to compete with themselves and a new license. I'd wager that the Lone Ranger contract originally had a "no cowboy/western Lego stuff" in the very contract. I saw it coming and so did others but we were ignored.

The Western Town license conflict was for the most part unexpected. At least not until right at the end. I don't think anyone was predicting a licensed Western Theme like Lone Ranger that far back. It wasn't until after the LR theme was announced that a conflict became a more obvious issue. By then the project had been gathering votes for a year. In hindsight a no compete clause is obvious, but no one could have predicted that a year before the license was revealed.

The Sandcrawler conflict was however totally predictable and we have been talking about the potential problems with it and the Tumbler pretty much since they started to climb the charts.

Oh and before someone asks "why do they let projects from existing licenses proceed then?" It's because the actual CuuSoo staff who moderate and operate the site have no better idea about the legal intricacies of existing licenses then we do. Some things they will delete because they are clearly easy and obvious. My Little Pony and G I Joe are both properties that are wholly owned by TLG's direct competitor. They are not an acquire able third party license. Hasbro owns the IP outright. (It would be like Hasbro seeking a license for Ninjago action figures.) but in the case if the existing licenses, it can be really weird and complex. They won't know if it is an issue until the lawyers look at it. And they surely will not be paying the lawyers to pre screen 40,000 CuuSoo projects. Those things get looked at in the review stage. And obviously not all existing license based projects conflict, or conflict in the same way. Is it a subject done in Lego before? Is it a subject that directly appears in a movie? Is it one just described in a book? Is it one that has already been discussed with the licensor prior to the CuuSoo project? Is there any prior in house development work regarding a similar subject? What does the licensor want done in this case? Believe it or not, it is probably possible for some Star Wars subjects to be made under CuuSoo. But it will depend heavily on a lot of specifics. (Best guess would be subjects from EU materials such as books games or comics might pass review. But anything based on an ILM design that appears on screen may have an issue.)

Edited by Faefrost
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

In GlenBricker's blog yesterday, he made some interesting observations about what does and doesn't stand much of a chance passing review on CUUSOO. In particular, he was very skeptical of The CUUSOO Division (TCD) ever being able to approve a kit built around an existing licensed theme that involves mini-figures. The more I think about it, the more I feel he has a point.

By legal analogy, in the USA, there is a legal term dubbed the doctrine of inevitable discovery. The US Constitution expressly forbids unlawful search and seizure of a person's property. This law (normally) requires the police to show probable cause, justify their presence at the point of discovery, get court approved search warrants, etc. before attempting to gather evidence or confiscate contraband. Inevitable Discovery is the one exception to this rule, in a nutshell, it says that evidence collected, technically illegally, but in good faith (without malice - honest procedural mistakes, clerical errors, etc.) CAN be admitted into a court of law if, by following normal procedures, the police would have found it anyway.

As CUUSOO evolves and we have more data regarding what sort of projects fail (and pass) review, it seems TCD has its own doctrine of eventual discovery with respect to IP and MOC proposals; who cares where the idea came from, if it's something one of our existing teams _might have come up with anyway_ it probably won't pass review. As Glen points out, why would TCD fight the Lego Star Wars group to market a SW vehicle and pay royalties to an outside party when the argument can be made that (eventually) the Star Wars group would have gotten around to designing a model of said vehicle themselves? This same argument can be extended to pretty much any of their licensed themes and probably Modulars, Architecture and Technic as well. If it looks too much like something TLG is marketing today, it probably won't be a CUUSOO kit tomorrow.

If "inevitable discovery" is one of the litmus tests a project much pass, it pretty much guts a huge backlog of proposals. When last I checked, there were about 4600 active proposals. I wonder how much is left if you write off everything that involves minifigures/battle packs/minifigure scale builds from existing IPs, Architecture, Trains, Technic and Modulars. I'd bet that pretty much takes out 90% of the Star Wars, LotR and Superhero proposals and generally diminishes the chances of most projects from ever seeing the inside of a Lego store.

Further, it would suggest that, if an idea becomes successful, it closes the door behind it (so to speak) for follow-on ideas. Take Minecraft for example, now that TLG has the 'idea' they can argue inevitable discovery for all follow-on kits as they now have people on staff whose job it is to (potentially) design Minecraft related kits. The future of other Minecraft proposals on CUUSOO seems bleak. The same could be said for Back to the Future, if that kit succeeds, they could argue that things like the train from the sequel and a UCS Delorean are "obvious" follow-on kits and those projects (still struggling to reach 10K) are pretty much dead in the water.

Now I certainly don't _know_ that there is a "TCD Inevitable Discovery" test, but just thinking about it makes me question the long term viabaility of CUUSOO. There are certainly plenty of good ideas there that truly are novel and "outside the (existing LEGO) box" but is seems like a lot of the "regular supporters" visit the site for the SW, LotR and other licensed content/mini-figure proposals. Who would be left to vote for the "outsider" ideas, if fan-favorites keep getting rejected (under inevitable discovery) and disillusioned voters drift away?

When I first heard of CUUSOO, I embraced it as a really cool idea that had the potential to make a difference extending and enhancing the LEGO brand. I put together proposals, checked out the new projects every day, offered praise and constructive criticism to both the proposals of others and the site itself, took the time to write detailed essays about the merits of every project I was supporting; but after two years of watching CUUSOO in operation, my enthusiasm has waned. I still have (old) proposals there and watch it with something of a morbid fascination, but far from being the incubator of the next great LEGO idea, I've come to think of it more as the ant farm of the LEGO Universe - occasionally interesting to watch, sometimes pleasantly surprised by what I see, but overall not expecting much in the end.

Posted

Overall your post was very informative and interesting,

When I first heard of CUUSOO, I embraced it as a really cool idea that had the potential to make a difference extending and enhancing the LEGO brand. I put together proposals, checked out the new projects every day, offered praise and constructive criticism to both the proposals of others and the site itself, took the time to write detailed essays about the merits of every project I was supporting; but after two years of watching CUUSOO in operation, my enthusiasm has waned. I still have (old) proposals there and watch it with something of a morbid fascination, but far from being the incubator of the next great LEGO idea, I've come to think of it more as the ant farm of the LEGO Universe - occasionally interesting to watch, sometimes pleasantly surprised by what I see, but overall not expecting much in the end.

The thing that bugs me about Cuusoo is that people are uploading there moc's and or idea's without taking into account that some building techniques are considered illegal by Lego, There models don't comply to Lego's design rules in regard to sturdyness/playability and don't look at the pricetag there model would have.

The problem this creates it that when the model/moc/idea reaches the 10.000 votes mark and goes into the review stage, It's either already deemed too fail the review stage or when it succeeds requires such a massive overhaul by the Lego Design Team that a lot off people are going to be disapointed by the final set. (As has happened now with the BTTF Delorean Time Machine Set.)

This is part of the reason why I'm not even registered on the Cuusoo site and vote on entry's, And also one of the reasons why I see no future for Cuusoo on the long term.

Cuusoo's biggest problem right now is that it's users (uploaders and voters) in general don't seem to understand the idea behind it and the rules and guidelines it has set.

The fact that people trow there moc's on Cuusoo before they've had any reactions on there builds on fan-sites and forums say's it all to me.

Posted

As CUUSOO evolves and we have more data regarding what sort of projects fail (and pass) review, it seems TCD has its own doctrine of eventual discovery with respect to IP and MOC proposals; who cares where the idea came from, if it's something one of our existing teams _might have come up with anyway_ it probably won't pass review. As Glen points out, why would TCD fight the Lego Star Wars group to market a SW vehicle and pay royalties to an outside party when the argument can be made that (eventually) the Star Wars group would have gotten around to designing a model of said vehicle themselves? This same argument can be extended to pretty much any of their licensed themes and probably Modulars, Architecture and Technic as well. If it looks too much like something TLG is marketing today, it probably won't be a CUUSOO kit tomorrow.

If "inevitable discovery" is one of the litmus tests a project much pass, it pretty much guts a huge backlog of proposals. When last I checked, there were about 4600 active proposals. I wonder how much is left if you write off everything that involves minifigures/battle packs/minifigure scale builds from existing IPs, Architecture, Trains, Technic and Modulars. I'd bet that pretty much takes out 90% of the Star Wars, LotR and Superhero proposals and generally diminishes the chances of most projects from ever seeing the inside of a Lego store.

Snipped for brevity, but please read ShaydeGrai's full analysis.

I think you have some brilliant observations there. And it is one of the huge underlying issues with some areas of CuuSoo. I do think the actual problem may be a little narrower than you are fearing. A better term for "Inevitable Discovery" is probably "Inevitable Design Subject". And then it probably only comes into play with existing and most likely active licenses. As you say anything appearing in the Star Wars movies or TV shows is an Inevitable Design Subject. TLG already has a contract agreement in place to make them. The same with LotR's. Where I don't think there is any problem is in the public domain non licensed subjects. Things like Modular Buildings, Technic sets, etc. in those cases any claims of inevitability would be too broad and generalized. (Honestly Architecture might be a gray'er area. I have no idea if or how licensing works for that line.) The main conflict with the existing licenses is that the third party proposals are for things that TLG already has a specific in place license to make. By definition there is already prior work in place.

I think that anything that would loosely fall under the "Creator" domain is probably more than safe from this as a CuuSoo project just so long as it doesn't directly leverage something specific that has already been done. If your design is a "house" or a "fire truck" they would not turn it down on reasons that they would inevitably make one just like it. The subjects in question need to be a bit narrower and more specific to run afoul of the company lawyers (which is not the same as the business case saying "we already make a ton of fire trucks, why would we want another?" ) . Technic so long as you are steering clear of specific prior done subjects should be more than fine. The concept of inevitable discovery does not really allow you to say anything with 4 wheels is inevitable.

Plus to try and take a broad non licensed view of "inevitable subjects" would run counter to or outright invalidate what they are seeking to do with the CuuSoo experiment. So I suspect that they will view any such inevitable subject questions through as narrow a lens as possible. Which would pretty much limit it to the existing licenses. Those contracts force them to act. In the case of the Sandcrawler it is likely that the license gave them no real choice on it. Whereas in the case of Space Troopers coming up against Galaxy Squad, that allows for much wider discretion and may not have any issues.

Posted

They closed the comments for the Poptropica project. Shame. I guess kids are too excited? :tongue:

-Sci

Seems a strange one to attract a comment closing discussion thread? It's a really cute set project and by all accounts a fun game, but really what would they have to talk or argue about on a CuuSoo thread?

Posted

Seems a strange one to attract a comment closing discussion thread? It's a really cute set project and by all accounts a fun game, but really what would they have to talk or argue about on a CuuSoo thread?

Well, the official Poptropica site advertised the heck out of it, so it was probably attracting so many people that just wanted to talk about the game or other unrelated stuff. Does that mean you can only talk about the Cuusoo project in any of its own comments? It leads to something even more interesting.

Posted

By legal analogy, in the USA, there is a legal term dubbed the doctrine of inevitable discovery. The US Constitution expressly forbids unlawful search and seizure of a person's property. This law (normally) requires the police to show probable cause, justify their presence at the point of discovery, get court approved search warrants, etc. before attempting to gather evidence or confiscate contraband. Inevitable Discovery is the one exception to this rule, in a nutshell, it says that evidence collected, technically illegally, but in good faith (without malice - honest procedural mistakes, clerical errors, etc.) CAN be admitted into a court of law if, by following normal procedures, the police would have found it anyway.

As CUUSOO evolves and we have more data regarding what sort of projects fail (and pass) review, it seems TCD has its own doctrine of eventual discovery with respect to IP and MOC proposals; who cares where the idea came from, if it's something one of our existing teams _might have come up with anyway_ it probably won't pass review.

I think many of us had seen this as a tragic flaw of Cuusoo on launch but wanted to hope. Upon asked at Brickworld why Lego needs Cuusoo's participants (and why participants need Cuusoo), Cuusoo's rep at Brickworld boiled it down for me further: it's about the notoriety of adding the Lego logo to your creation. I was underwhelmed.

Posted

Overall your post was very informative and interesting,

The thing that bugs me about Cuusoo is that people are uploading there moc's and or idea's without taking into account that some building techniques are considered illegal by Lego, There models don't comply to Lego's design rules in regard to sturdyness/playability and don't look at the pricetag there model would have.

The problem this creates it that when the model/moc/idea reaches the 10.000 votes mark and goes into the review stage, It's either already deemed too fail the review stage or when it succeeds requires such a massive overhaul by the Lego Design Team that a lot off people are going to be disapointed by the final set. (As has happened now with the BTTF Delorean Time Machine Set.)

This is part of the reason why I'm not even registered on the Cuusoo site and vote on entry's, And also one of the reasons why I see no future for Cuusoo on the long term.

Cuusoo's biggest problem right now is that it's users (uploaders and voters) in general don't seem to understand the idea behind it and the rules and guidelines it has set.

The fact that people trow there moc's on Cuusoo before they've had any reactions on there builds on fan-sites and forums say's it all to me.

I don't see how the issue of illegal connections and whatnot in Cuusoo proposals is a problem at all. It is not fans' job to know exactly what would or wouldn't be able to be produced and marketed as a set. That's why Cuusoo projects are redesigned at all. No matter how much expertise a MOCist is, chances are they have no idea about certain factors that have to go into set design.

Perhaps using a blatantly illegal connection in a model generates false hope, but in general I don't think that will have any impact whatsoever on whether a project is viable. It's entirely possible the LEGO designers responsible for making projects a reality will find a solution that is legal but visually equal or superior to the earlier, "illegal" solution. I'd argue that they did so with the Back to the Future Time Machine, which was somewhat crude and boxy in its original form and gained a lot more sculptural nuance in the final product.

Remember that "disappointment in the final product" doesn't even matter for buyers who never saw the original proposal, and those probably make up a significant chunk of the audience for any Cuusoo product that is truly viable in the long term. A project that can't get any buyers besides those who have followed news on the project itself is almost certainly doomed to fail. The support threshold is based on the idea that the 10,000 supporters required to reach the threshold are a representative sample of a much larger but less vocal mainstream audience.

Overall, illegal connections are just ONE reason why some Cuusoo projects might inevitably have to be changed to become finalized products. Others include the use of parts and colors that are out-of-production, failure to meet a price point that the supporters have expressed willingness to pay, and structural flaws unrelated to illegal connections or brick stress. And most of these factors are impossible for the average fan to be fully aware of in advance. Regular LEGO fans don't regularly conduct "heat tests" on their models, nor do they have access to a full list of LEGO parts that are currently in production, nor do they know the actual cost any particular part will add to the production cost of a set. They don't have the experience it takes to know what kinds of building techniques are suited to different age groups, or access to the demographic information their project's supporters are providing, or even complete knowledge of what connections are and aren't illegal (the layman's test of "can you stick a piece of paper between the two pieces?" is not entirely reliable, as some connections like ball-and-socket joints are designed with high friction in mind).

So in general I think it'd be extremely pretentious on the part of the LEGO Cuusoo staff to reject projects based on knowledge so esoteric. Chances are, LEGO Cuusoo's moderators don't even know for certain whether certain connections are illegal or not, and even some LEGO designers might not know for certain how viable a model is until they've had the opportunity to build it themselves. Furthermore, LEGO Cuusoo is about concepts, not models. Although LEGO tries to be faithful to the original model in cases where its design was a major part of its appeal, cases like the Minecraft project show that the LEGO Group isn't asking project creators to perfectly anticipate how a concept should best be realized. They just want something that the project creator has, in one way or another, been able to visualize and present to others.

Posted

Probably the best set to watch for comments or concerns about construction and technique will be PeterReid's Exo Suit. I figure that one has the most potential for running into build issues that differentiate a MOC (it needs to look really really good) from a SET ( it needs to be structurally sound in a way that supports play, and can be easily and clearly assembled by a given age group.) hopefully even if the set fails review, we will still get a glimpse of the sketch models the designers make, so we can see the differences.

Posted

And, although nobody cares, but FTL is actually got it's 9000 supporters yesterday. And predictions are the most positive.

FTL faces the fairly standard "video game hurdles" which have a tendency to greatly diminish its chances in the business case review.

- as popular as video games are within a certain core market, the sad fact is that they do not yet have the widespread consumer appeal that we often think they do. And this does effect Lego's business case analysis. I've mentioned this before. This concept of "conversion". What percentage of a properties existing customer or fan base do you need to convert to your related product in order to have a successful release? The lower the percentage number, the greater your chances of success. Think of it this way, Star Wars has an installed fan base of roughly 2 billion people worldwide. You only need to convert a small fraction of 1% to be successful there. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter each have installed fan bases of 150 million readers from the books alone. A 1% conversion there gives you 1.5 million products purchased. Whereas the best video games. The ones with long running franchises and easy character identification hover somewhere around 10-12 million installed users. That's the really really good ones. The well known decades old properties. Zelda, Mario, Call of Duty, World if Warcraft, Maybe a bit more for Halo and similar, but nowhere near the installed customer base of other mass media. etc. that means that to have a succesful related project you need a much higher % of that installed fan base to buy your product. This is by definition a harder sell. This is also where "Purdue Pete" will fail review. It has a tight well organized fan base. But to be succesful Legos conversion of fans to customers will need to be somewhere well in excess of 40% of the current school population. Not gonna happen. A general guideline for this sort of thing is you should be selling out your planned initial minimum production run at around 2% conversion. The best video games will often cut this very very close. This is why you don't see a lot of video game toys on shelves, and what you do see tends to be short run, more collectables than toys, or stuffed in clearance bins. There are few video game toy lines that have found a profitable niche. mB's Halo line comes to mind. But most others have done marginally at best. It's some rough math that FTL will have to face. (And this is why the Eve Grifter failed review.)

- timing is everything. And video games have a greater problem here. Outside of MMO's and a few certain well established long running multi game IP's, most video games have a short shelf life. So short that they are tough to exploit with physical manufactured tie in products. By the time the plastic gobbledygook has made it to market the game has lost its position as the next big thing to the next next big thing. This makes video games a risky venture for those doing IP licenses. The big dogs don't tend to play in this park because they don't have to. They can go after the lower risk greater reward mass media IP.

Who knows? FTL may be the next Minecraft? And the success of Minecraft as a CuuSoo product certainly bolsters FTL's case. But it's still going to be very deeply and heavily reviewed on the business case and accounting side. Not just on the Lego design side. And that will be where it will live or die.

Posted

And, although nobody cares, but FTL is actually got it's 9000 supporters yesterday. And predictions are the most positive.

I think the fact that many people have no idea what this is may hurt it. I am sure the small fan base is there(which is how it got it's support) but it just doesn't seem very appealing to the casual Lego collector. The problem with fanbase projects like this is that people support just because of their loyalty to the idea or theme, but have no intentions of ever purchasing it. On the plus side, it is a rather small project which is what Cuusoo seems to be all about.

Posted (edited)

I think the fact that many people have no idea what this is may hurt it. I am sure the small fan base is there(which is how it got it's support) but it just doesn't seem very appealing to the casual Lego collector. The problem with fanbase projects like this is that people support just because of their loyalty to the idea or theme, but have no intentions of ever purchasing it. On the plus side, it is a rather small project which is what Cuusoo seems to be all about.

I see this assumption all the time, and I'd like to remind people that we heard the very same comments about the Minecraft set at one point. Many AFOLs had never heard of Minecraft, or didn't understand its appeal. Some argued that because Minecraft was a video game, it was likely to be "just a fad" and that it'd be soon be forgotten in favor of "the next big thing". It's gone on to be one of the most successful Cuusoo products to date, to the extent that it's being expanded into a larger product line.

Some AFOLs have also said that the audience for the Back to the Future project is too small, and that it's not current or mainstream enough to become a successful LEGO Cuusoo product. We'll see how that pans out.

Obviously, FTL does not have as huge an audience as Minecraft, and I'm not trying to suggest it does. Nor does its audience necessarily have such a significant overlap with the audience for the LEGO brand. But even if it doesn't end up being a strong enough business case to pass review, I really think we should stop being so cynical about the sincerity of the people supporting these kinds of projects. Reading up on FTL, a portion of its development and release was funded through Kickstarter. Those supporters certainly weren't unwilling to make a financial commitment to the game, even before they were able to play the full game! So why do we even begin to assume that such a niche audience can't be as sincere as fans of LEGO or more "mainstream" non-LEGO franchises?

Edited by Aanchir
Posted

I see this assumption all the time, and I'd like to remind people that we heard the very same comments about the Minecraft set at one point. Many AFOLs had never heard of Minecraft, or didn't understand its appeal. Some argued that because Minecraft was a video game, it was likely to be "just a fad" and that it'd be soon be forgotten in favor of "the next big thing". It's gone on to be one of the most successful Cuusoo products to date, to the extent that it's being expanded into a larger product line.

Some AFOLs have also said that the audience for the Back to the Future project is too small, and that it's not current or mainstream enough to become a successful LEGO Cuusoo product. We'll see how that pans out.

Obviously, FTL does not have as huge an audience as Minecraft, and I'm not trying to suggest it does. Nor does its audience necessarily have such a significant overlap with the audience for the LEGO brand. But even if it doesn't end up being a strong enough business case to pass review, I really think we should stop being so cynical about the sincerity of the people supporting these kinds of projects. Reading up on FTL, a portion of its development and release was funded through Kickstarter. Those supporters certainly weren't unwilling to make a financial commitment to the game, even before they were able to play the full game! So why do we even begin to assume that such a niche audience can't be as sincere as fans of LEGO or more "mainstream" non-LEGO franchises?

It's not a matter of cynicism. It is a simple matter of business math. Yes sometimes you can leverage a smaller tighter niche fan base and strike gold. But it is a far riskier investment in doing so. And Lego, being the big dog in the park, does not need to lightly or often play with such high degree of risk. Or when they do it tends to be carefully calculated. Minecraft was approved in part because it hit the marks for the business case. Remember that topic of "conversion" I posted above? It didn't hurt that the product in question was naturally very synergistic with Lego, but the key thing is the numbers were good enough that they did not serve as an impediment to the remainder of the review and decision process. Very very few video games will hit these sorts of numbers. The video game industry is only just starting to hit the degree of penetration needed to support such business case review or to drive down the risk to where the larger players will get involved.

Minecraft was an experiment into a new untried market. It's been very very succesful. But do not assume that it heralds an easy barrier for entry for other video game based or niche properties yet. TLG is a fairly conservative company. Expect them to be looking carefully at what worked with Minecraft and why.

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