During the time Prince of Persia was doing poorly, I walked in to my neighborhood Lego store to find that all the sets were selling for 80% off! The sets were respectively, 3, 5, 9, 12, 15 USD. I was so surprised since I had enough cash on me to buy all of them. This made me think how much of a margin Lego was making on their sets when they could sell them for so little if the sets didn't do well. Last week, I walked into the Lego store to see their 12.95 USD 2013 Calendar go for 0.99 USD. A 12 USD profit margin per calendar is amazing if people actually purchased the calendar at retail price. I am also suspicious if Lego's minifigures are actually their most expensive element since the minifigures line retails a minifigure at 3 USD if not more. During Christmas 2011, Series 3 Minifigures were going for 5 USD at my local TRU. That is absolutely insane.

Here's an article on their 2012 sales: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/lego-builds-new-billionaires-as-toymaker-topples-mattel.html

Considering the sales they had worth 4 billion, they could definitely afford to slash the prices on those older sets. It also seems reasonable that minifigures are the most expensive since they require a lot more detail and precision than ordinary bricks.

Geki, I guess you never took a basic economics course. Selling a clearance item for 80% off in no way indicates the profit margin of an item's suggested retail price. In the retail world it can actually be cheaper to give something away rather than have the stores return the unsold items to the manufacturer.

Since you are making a thinly veiled complaint about the price of LEGO I suggest that this thread be locked or merged with one of the many other discussions of the price of LEGO.