LEGO® CUUSOO 空想 - Turn your model wishes into reality

[dvsntt]

I am hopeful for the Lego Birds project to make it into a set.

[dvsntt]

My project (The Twist and Whirl Ride) has reached 1000 supporters and received an offical comment from Lego! I am so thrilled!

[BrickG]

This has become very commercialized. I think non-franchise sets will probably have an incredibly tough time making it all the way at this point. I mean why pick the riskier choices when you can do something that's pretty much 100% going to sell decent like Portal? As neat as some of these things like the Birds are... it's the franchises that sell the most, most of the time.

[Faefrost]

This has become very commercialized. I think non-franchise sets will probably have an incredibly tough time making it all the way at this point. I mean why pick the riskier choices when you can do something that's pretty much 100% going to sell decent like Portal? As neat as some of these things like the Birds are... it's the franchises that sell the most, most of the time.

I actually think Birds would or will have an easier time in review than Portal. It's not so much simply that it has to be a franchise or a licensed IP. It is also "how much reliable data do they already have to help predict sales?" The Birds project may actually fare pretty well under review. It is a project that we know has the eye and effection of the designers, and it is similar enough in nature to many of the "Creator" themed sets and subjects that Lego would probably feel they have excellent predictive data.

[Blondie-Wan]

My project (The Twist and Whirl Ride) has reached 1000 supporters and received an offical comment from Lego! I am so thrilled!

I'm among your supporters for that project. Good luck!

This has become very commercialized. I think non-franchise sets will probably have an incredibly tough time making it all the way at this point. I mean why pick the riskier choices when you can do something that's pretty much 100% going to sell decent like Portal? As neat as some of these things like the Birds are... it's the franchises that sell the most, most of the time.

When you say "all the way," do you mean all the way to 10,000 votes, or all the way to becoming an actual set? I agree it's probably tougher for the non-licensed sets to garner that many votes, but I suspect the ones that do may have a slightly easier time passing the review, if anything, in part for the reasons Faefrost cites, as well as the absence of licensing hassles, the dimished likelihood of brand fit conflicts, and other concerns. And there have actually been non-licensed projects that have made it to 10,000 supporters, and many others with good chances of doing so.

[Piranha]

I wonder if Space Troopers will pass review. LEGO seems to be done with Galaxy Squad, 2014 might be an off year for space like in 2012, and that would make it a good time to do a Space Troopers CUUSOO set. They can reuse the Galaxy Patrol mold, in dark red, and it would be the first original project to pass review. I think it has a great chance since the others have been 3 science and 2 licensed.

[SandMirror38]

Is it possible for any cuusoo sets they will do new moulds?

[Aanchir]

Is it possible for any cuusoo sets they will do new moulds?

No, but a project with new molds in the concept images is not doomed as long as the final product can do without them. Projects that depend on or are based around new molds are pretty much out of luck if they make it to review.

As an example, MINGLES's Legend of Zelda project was pretty much all about minifigures decked out in unique accessories, so it didn't stand a chance. But the Back to the Future Time Machine project was able to succeed because the new mold concepts for Doc Brown and Marty's hair were swapped with existing parts.

Recolors and new prints are fair game.

[BrickG]

I wonder if getting this third Zelda to get to 10,000 will make them reconsider doing a new mold or two for it. Freakin' 3 Zeldas... Probably more to come if they don't pass the review.

[Faefrost]

I wonder if getting this third Zelda to get to 10,000 will make them reconsider doing a new mold or two for it. Freakin' 3 Zeldas... Probably more to come if they don't pass the review.

Probably not. The problem is CuuSoo is a limited production run, limited release product. Maybe 20,000 to 50,000 pieces typically made. They can't amortize the costs of new tooling over that small of a run. Regular retail sets have production runs of 1 million +. So for a regular retail set a new part may add 2-5% to the retail cost of a set. Significant, but with minimal impact on sales. For a CuuSoo set a new part increases the set price by 25-30%. A huge jump that undercuts the products perceived value.

Now if TLG were to pursue a full blown Zelda theme license from Nintendo we would see new parts. But pretty much never through CuuSoo, regardless of how many times 10k people vote.

[SandMirror38]

No, but a project with new molds in the concept images is not doomed as long as the final product can do without them. Projects that depend on or are based around new molds are pretty much out of luck if they make it to review.

As an example, MINGLES's Legend of Zelda project was pretty much all about minifigures decked out in unique accessories, so it didn't stand a chance. But the Back to the Future Time Machine project was able to succeed because the new mold concepts for Doc Brown and Marty's hair were swapped with existing parts.

Recolors and new prints are fair game.

I'm thinking of making a tintin project though I don't think tintin could be made without a quiff piece

[dcastdeclan]

The thing that bugs me is that TFOLs cannot add projects. Why not just make it so that they can, but the payment is done through a parent or guardian?

[LiamM32]

The thing that bugs me is that TFOLs cannot add projects. Why not just make it so that they can, but the payment is done through a parent or guardian?

It would be nice if TFOL's could add projects, but I wouldn't trust the parents to keep it. "You don't get your Lego commission for the month until you finish that homework."

In my topic; My Proposal to Reform Lego Cuusoo, I suggested that they should let people under 18 to have their projects up to gain supporters, but then if it achieves before they are 18, then they would wait until they are 18 to release the set. People suggested legal problems with even that though.

[Blondie-Wan]

News at last - reviews are done for the Winter 2012, Spring 2013 and Summer 2013 batches!

The short version, behind the spoiler tags:

The Exo-suit made it, and the Landrover Defender is still being evaluated; the other projects didn't pass.

[RaincloudDustbin]

Watched this earlier. Anti climax or what.

[Faefrost]

Hmmm? Not completely surprising given the slate of projects under review. It would be interesting to know what was the reason for rejection was on a few of them.

[hjmediastudios]

An excerpt from the email I received from Tim Courtney:

P.S. Please note for this and all reviews going forward, we’re not going to share specific reasons why a project wasn’t selected in the LEGO Review anymore. Instead, we outline our process and criteria on our Blog and Knowledge Base. Each project that enters the LEGO Review receives a thorough and fair analysis. The contributing reasons to a decision on one project do not affect future decisions for any other projects positively or negatively.

Essentially, they're apparently not going to release this stuff, probably to avoid alienating potential future business partners or making more information available than necessary on internal conflicts.

[CM4Sci]

Another disappointing announcement.

-Sci.

[Aanchir]

I have high hopes for the Exo-Suit. Naturally, the original concept model has a lot of flimsy or illegal connections, not to mention using several discontinued parts. But I'm confident that the LEGO designers can come up with a design that is a little simpler and sturdier without losing the greebly goodness that made the Exo-Suit model so immensely popular. Especially considering how many amazingly useful parts have come out since the Exo-Suit was first designed!

A lot of the rejected projects that I would have loved to see realized in LEGO had a certain liability in common: they started their lives as "theme projects". While in some cases the creators had narrowed them down into a few individual sets that could be released independently, they lost a lot of their inherent appeal when reduced to a single model. Examples of this include The Legend of Zelda, Thinking with Portals, and Space Troopers. Brilliant concepts for themes, but not optimized for single sets, particularly single sets that do not include any new molds.

[CMP]

That's kind of disappointing. The exo suit is an excellent model, but a shame they saw it as the best out of all ten. And it kills me we're not getting a LEGO Portal set anytime soon.

[Aanchir]

That's kind of disappointing. The exo suit is an excellent model, but a shame they saw it as the best out of all ten. And it kills me we're not getting a LEGO Portal set anytime soon.

It's not that they think it's the best, just the most commercially viable.

The Portal project was good but it was unfortunately created before it was well-understood that LEGO Cuusoo could not support full themes or new molds. That's two points against that, and that's not even touching potential licensing or brand fit issues. It was a beautiful project and I hope Team Jigsaw has more luck with their planned Legend of Korra project. But I can think of plenty of potential — and perfectly valid — reasons it might have been rejected.

[Faefrost]

It's not that they think it's the best, just the most commercially viable.

The Portal project was good but it was unfortunately created before it was well-understood that LEGO Cuusoo could not support full themes or new molds. That's two points against that, and that's not even touching potential licensing or brand fit issues. It was a beautiful project and I hope Team Jigsaw has more luck with their planned Legend of Korra project. But I can think of plenty of potential — and perfectly valid — reasons it might have been rejected.

There are a few other issues specific to video game projects that the dedicated fan bases often fail to appreciate. And these probably figured heavily in the Portal project and all of the Zelda projects.

1. Video Games have a very limited shelf life and a very short window of consumer level popularity. With the exception of very very few true franchises, the games will be long gone from shelves by the time any licensed product could be manufactured and released. Just look at CuuSoo's typical time to market. By the time a Portal 2 set would hit the market, not only would the game be long faded from ready retail availability. But all three of the gaming platforms that the game ran on would have been replaced or obsoleted. This makes for a very strained business case for video game tie in products. The only real options for video game toys, are those planned well in advance to tie in with well established franchises next release (Halo, CoD, etc. often action figures designed more for the adult collector) or cheap fast turnaround stuff designed for a quick Buck. Mobile games actually have more of an advantage in this environment. Games like Grumpy Sparrows or Minecraft tend to have broader shelf life, once they achieve a certain critical mass. Portal while one of the best games ever made is well under this threshold of longevity to make for a tolerable level of product risk. The only thing that might have given it a real chance was the interesting play element of the set. But as a general rule any video game will have a high threshold. The scary reality is most video game toys end up in stores clearance bins for exactly this reason.

2. Video game fan bases are not always as large as we think they are. Yes there are some legitimate rock stars that sell tens of millions. But most are overjoyed if they hit 1 million sales. World of Warcraft is possibly the most profitable video game ever made with 12 million customers (maybe 18 million discreet users or fans over the games lifespan). Zelda? Somewhere between 7-10 million discreet fans in total, accross the entire franchise. Compare that with BttF, which has a measurable fan base somewhere around a billion worldwide. Star Wars? 2.5 billion+. The way the business case math works, the higher the number of measurable potential customers, the lower the business risk a project is saddled with. Fan enthusiasm has little to do with it. Look at Purdue Pete as an example. It cleared 10k in a matter of hours. But the entire reasonably measurable fan base or interested customers was probably somewhere around 40-50k. So it would need at a minimum 25% of fans to convert to paying customers. While highly possible, it is a high risk sales equation, which would typically not be the best use of a company like TLGs production resources. (Oh and to make the Zelda fans feel more miserable in this regard. Adventure Time, an animated TV show that is in some ways playing around in a similar sandbox to Zelda (or spoofing it) probably has about 10x the measurable fan base of the actual Zelda games.)

3. Even with the big franchises. It almost needs to achieve pop culture status. And it needs a complete consistency of tone and look. PAC Man is so recognizable that half it's fan base probably doesn't realize that it was a coin munching video game once. Mario has maintained an incredibly consistent design, look and feel over the years. Most others, not so much. Zelda gets a little sketchy with this. For a non Nintendo owner the game of "know your Links" can be quite confusing. Zelda gets doubly hammered for this on CuuSoo because the one true element of design consistency and recognizability throughout the franchise, Links hair, ears and soft green cap, would absolutely require a new unique Lego element to properly achieve. Not matter which variant of a project you look at. ( Zelda is actually kind of unusual for Nintendo in that regard. Look at how unchanged Mario or the Pokemon have been for 20 years.)

Video games are getting more and more embedded in the pop culture psyche. And the producers have such have also more an more chased the dream of franchise, rather than unique. These will both increase the chances of seeing more video game based sets in the future. But for now it is still some rough math. Minecraft was lightning in a bottle.

[Faefrost]

That's kind of disappointing. The exo suit is an excellent model, but a shame they saw it as the best out of all ten. And it kills me we're not getting a LEGO Portal set anytime soon.

Technically its out of 9. The Technic Landrover is still under evaluation. I think there might be some hope of eventually seeing that one in a somewhat smaller form. Possibly on scale with 41999

[The Real Indiana Jones]

There are a few other issues specific to video game projects that the dedicated fan bases often fail to appreciate. And these probably figured heavily in the Portal project and all of the Zelda projects.

1. Video Games have a very limited shelf life and a very short window of consumer level popularity..........

Wow, yes, these are all brilliant points! You should echo this over on BrickSet.com, since this topic seems to be raging over there. It's so fast, I can't keep up!

Edited October 24, 2013 by The Real Indiana Jones

[Dr.Cogg]

I personal think legends of Zelda and Portal would out sell that exo suit and you guys keep saying why video games wouldn't work, but are you guys forgetting about Minecraft which lego has now made 3 sets of.