Of course Lego's emphasis on minifigures changes the way kids (and AFOLs even) interact with lego. I really only purchase the LOTR and Hobbit line just for the minifigures, because the builds don't really interest me, but that's just me. From my experience, kids view their Lego sets as "playsets", which their minifigs play on.

Uhm.... I can't say that TLC don't know it in their hearts. Maybe exclusive minifigures is one of their strategy to sell products (though personally I'm unhappy that minifigures from other themes are less distinctive than LOTR ones).

However, if the buildings are not just less apppealing than minifigures, but they're really bad desiegns, TLC should make a critical review and improve the buildings. After all there is a C2C market that allows us to exhange minifigures. If the buidings and products are not appealing enough, it would result in that only few people buy the actual products.

Uhm.... I can't say that TLC don't know it in their hearts. Maybe exclusive minifigures is one of their strategy to sell products (though personally I'm unhappy that minifigures from other themes are less distinctive than LOTR ones).

However, if the buildings are not just less apppealing than minifigures, but they're really bad desiegns, TLC should make a critical review and improve the buildings. After all there is a C2C market that allows us to exhange minifigures. If the buidings and products are not appealing enough, it would result in that only few people buy the actual products.

See, I just don't understand this evaluation. I look at some of the Lord of the Rings sets (like Helm's Deep, Weathertop, or Orthanc) and I see models that surpass even Lego's own Castle themes in originality and complexity. Obviously they're not as accurate as AFOL models, but these are meant to be affordable sets for kids to be able to put together. That doesn't make them bad designs. I don't think they're relying solely on the exclusive minifigures alone to sell the sets, although, as I said in my previous post, there are and always will be kids and adults who care more about the minifigs than the builds, so having exclusive figs is a viable way of appealing to those buyers.

I don't think you're correct that minifigures in other themes are universally less detailed than figs in licensed themes, either. Certainly figs in themes like Castle and City tend to be less detailed, since their faces and torsos are made to be generic so that you can mix and match them to fill out a city or army. But compare licensed figures to other character-based figs, like those in Ninjago, Chima, or even The Lego Movie, and you'll see a more similar level of detail.

Edited January 17, 201411 yr by Lyichir