LEGO Ideas Discussion

[Elysiumfountain]

I've always found it interesting that some of the sets that TLG puts out wouldn't even get 10,000 votes if they had been put through Ideas first (Maybe not even 1000). That would be interesting to watch, if one of the regular sets was put through Ideas first, just to see what would happen! Obviously that would never happen since TLG would never do that, but it would be funny!

[Faefrost]

1 hour ago, Elysiumfountain said:

I've always found it interesting that some of the sets that TLG puts out wouldn't even get 10,000 votes if they had been put through Ideas first (Maybe not even 1000). That would be interesting to watch, if one of the regular sets was put through Ideas first, just to see what would happen! Obviously that would never happen since TLG would never do that, but it would be funny!

It’s Apples and Oranges. Lego has granular data on what would And would not make a valid and successful Lego set at regular retail. And even at D2C. As others have mentioned Ideas is largely about oddball niche stuff that would be overlooked in their broader market research. Neat little niche subjects and communities. You can’t compare The Ideas process with regular product development. They serve wildly different masters and in many ways work backwards from each other. Forregular sets they develop the business case first, then go on to develop the subject, line and sets. For Ideas they develop the project set first, the idea, then go and research or seek to find the business case. And yes most single Lego sets would likely fail at the crowdsourcing step. Simply because they are not really meant to be taken as the entirety by themselves. Most Lego sets are a small piece of an integrated line. The Themes. You don’t evaluate a part without the whole. The closest internal product to the Ideas developed sets is the Creator Expert line. And most of those would likely easily pass the 10k threshold. 

[Elysiumfountain]

@Faefrost Yes exactly! That is LEGO's business model (I expect similar to almost every product-producing company in the world) Also bearing in mind that LEGO designers are paid professionals whereas many builders on Ideas are not. I simply meant that it would be an interesting process lol! :) And of course Ideas is not indicative of the regular business model through which LEGO gets consumer data (as you mentioned, niche market). An example being that Ideas is not a website that many people even know exists, hence the self promotion to draw views and members to the site itself. 

I actually found it amazing that there are 892891 member accounts on Ideas as of today! Of course one could get into semantics and argue over how many of those represent the AFOL population or non, licensing and twitter followings and whatnot, but someone else can talk about that ;) 

 

[Digger of Bricks]

31 minutes ago, Elysiumfountain said:

I actually found it amazing that there are 892891 member accounts on Ideas as of today! Of course one could get into semantics and argue over how many of those represent the AFOL population or non, licensing and twitter followings and whatnot, but someone else can talk about that ;) 

I don't think it's something that could ever be measured, but yes, I myself have always wondered how much AFOLs make up the member base of Ideas. Naturally, I'd imagine that it's a pretty small fraction, with most members probably being fans of any particular project's source material as opposed to the Lego brand itself.

[JGW3000]

The Results of the LEGO Ideas 2017 Review have been posted, and...  no projects selected.  Not too unsurprising considering the nature of the six sets reviewed - too large, not for kids, no play value, and licenced theme, or overlapping existing products.

However, they did say that at least one set from the next review has already been approved - I am guessing its the Pop-Up Book, this project is hitting on all cylinders in terms of what IDEAS is all about, but we will have to wait and see until this summer to know for sure. 

[Exetrius]

44 minutes ago, JGW3000 said:

The Results of the LEGO Ideas 2017 Review have been posted, and...  no projects selected.  Not too unsurprising considering the nature of the six sets reviewed - too large, not for kids, no play value, and licenced theme, or overlapping existing products.

However, they did say that at least one set from the next review has already been approved - I am guessing its the Pop-Up Book, this project is hitting on all cylinders in terms of what IDEAS is all about, but we will have to wait and see until this summer to know for sure. 

In my opinion this is all good news. 

[LegoModularFan]

First of all, I’m sorry for all the builders and for the people who wanted those to become official sets. But I’m personally really happy with this decision! Now I can hope for the Pop-Up book + the Boat House Diner or the Lighthouse! I know they might not select two projects in the same review but I will keep hoping   I’d say the already approved project is the Pop-Up Book without any doubts, that’s a project that everyone adores! If any other projects don’t get approved, I’ll wait until the other review - and I really hope they select a real modular in the first 2018 review- the arcade which seems to reach 10 000 or one of the beautiful buildings by italovergnat or the new brilliant golden century building if they reach + the tree house which seems to reach! We (or at least me ) really need a modular from the ideas line, there are very creative ones and I just can’t wait for one year for a modular, that’s too much  Anyway, for the third review, I really hope at least the Pop-Up book would be/is approved, it really deserves! 

[koalayummies]

On January 21, 2018 at 12:48 PM, Elysiumfountain said:

I actually found it amazing that there are 892891 member accounts on Ideas as of today! Of course one could get into semantics and argue over how many of those represent the AFOL population or non, licensing and twitter followings and whatnot, but someone else can talk about that ;) 

Yeah. I'd venture a guess that about 5% of those accounts are the people who think they're so funny submitting the type of stuff that winds up in the best of the worst of ideas.

[Blondie-Wan]

6 hours ago, koalayummies said:

Yeah. I'd venture a guess that about 5% of those accounts are the people who think they're so funny submitting the type of stuff that winds up in the best of the worst of ideas.

I doubt it, partly because I don't think all the stuff gets cited in that thread is submitted in jest, but mostly because not even 5% of those accounts have submitted stuff at all - all the stuff on Ideas, from the most hopeless projects that languish with three votes to those select few that have made it all the way to review, then approval, and become actual sets, have been submitted by closer to 2% or 3%.

More than 97% of those 892891 accounts have never posted any projects; they've only voted for other people's stuff, made comments, and so on, or even just lurked without any actual activity.

Given that the number of total projects - not just currently active ones gathering support, but all projects, including expired ones, archived ones, ones that have been approved and turned into sets, etc. is probably around 25,000, and surely no more than 26,000 (the actual total shown is a bit less than 25k, but that doesn't include archived ones; however, I don't think there are more than a thousand of those, so we can assume the total total is fewer than 26,000), or in other words only about 1/35th the number of active members, or less than 3%. And since a great many of those who do submit projects actually submit several, it's possible - if not indeed likely - that all the projects on Ideas, of all levels of merit, actually come from fewer than 1% of all active accounts. The vast, overwhelming majority of account holders (at least more than 97%, and possibly even more than 99%) never submit anything... unless the LEGO Ideas team actually does weed out an awful lot more projects than we think.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Blondie-Wan
clarifying

[Grrr]

On ‎22‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 9:48 AM, Elysiumfountain said:

I actually found it amazing that there are 892891 member accounts on Ideas as of today! Of course one could get into semantics and argue over how many of those represent the AFOL population or non, licensing and twitter followings and whatnot, but someone else can talk about that ;) 

I'd say the gross majority of those accounts are non-Lego friends of Lego ideas project submitters who have been asked umpteenth times to support a project. Many probably only support the one project that is their mates one, and nothing else.

I'd be very interesting to see a graph of the number of members by the number of projects each has supported. Engaged AFOLs will easily have supported more than 10 projects each by now.

[Elysiumfountain]

And then there are the small percentage, probably less than 0.03%, who support and follow everything! (I'm partly guilty of this). But these are interestingly the members that submit projects and are on the site almost every day. I think another limiting factor for some people is the fact that you have to have a LEGO account to support projects. Therefore views don't necessarily equal supporters. For every 10 who look at a project, you might have 1 who actually wants to take the time to sign up and support the project itself. 

[Blondie-Wan]

9 hours ago, Grrr said:

I'd say the gross majority of those accounts are non-Lego friends of Lego ideas project submitters who have been asked umpteenth times to support a project. Many probably only support the one project that is their mates one, and nothing else.

I'd be very interesting to see a graph of the number of members by the number of projects each has supported. Engaged AFOLs will easily have supported more than 10 projects each by now.

I'm sure such folks account for a huge portion of the total Ideas user base. And a bunch more also surely come from fans of the various subjects of Ideas projects - people who may or may not be fans of LEGO but who are car enthusiasts, fans of a TV show, etc. who see Ideas projects pertaining to their interests on social media and support them.

I believe that's a normal and expected aspect of the Ideas process, as is the situation you describe (people signing up to support their friends' and family members' projects). It does mean that a huge number of Ideas users are folks who sign up just to support those specific projects, and many of them likely never do much else on the site once they've done that (and that's okay).

At the same time, I know there are others like the folks described by Elysiumfountain here:

9 hours ago, Elysiumfountain said:

And then there are the small percentage, probably less than 0.03%, who support and follow everything! (I'm partly guilty of this). But these are interestingly the members that submit projects and are on the site almost every day. I think another limiting factor for some people is the fact that you have to have a LEGO account to support projects. Therefore views don't necessarily equal supporters. For every 10 who look at a project, you might have 1 who actually wants to take the time to sign up and support the project itself. 

I know I for one have supported a huge number of projects of all sorts (2459, according to the site! ) - sometimes because the subject matter particularly interests me, other times because I think the project creators did a really great job on something that may or may not interest me in and of itself. For a while I checked out the site more or less daily, and looked at every new project to consider supporting it. Life has pulled me away from such regular visits lately, but I do plan to become more active on it again (and eventually submit projects of my own, something I've yet to do but have been meaning to do for years now).

Edited January 23, 2018 by Blondie-Wan
adding info on projects I'm supporting

[Elysiumfountain]

I just checked, apparently I'm at 3373 projects supported (gasp) 

[Lyichir]

On 1/21/2018 at 6:16 PM, Elysiumfountain said:

I've always found it interesting that some of the sets that TLG puts out wouldn't even get 10,000 votes if they had been put through Ideas first (Maybe not even 1000). That would be interesting to watch, if one of the regular sets was put through Ideas first, just to see what would happen! Obviously that would never happen since TLG would never do that, but it would be funny!

That’s really just further proof about why 10,000 votes is not the be-all and end-all of determining a set’s popularity or a project’s likelihood of success. A low-priced City-type vehicle probably wouldn’t get 10,000 votes on Ideas, but I can guarantee most such sets are selling in the hundreds of thousands (likely magnitudes more). Conversely, a giant, impressive project of a semi-obscure subject might get plenty of support but might not actually have a big enough market of people willing to put down the money on a set like that.

Edit: missed the whole last page, sorry!

Edited January 26, 2018 by Lyichir

[Agent Kallus]

Is there any discussion about the lego ideas space GWP contest?

[Brickthus]

A new LEGO Idea for a Rolls-Royce jet engine with cut-away sections has been submitted. This would make a great STEM tool for education as well as a building challenge for even experienced adult LEGO fans. It includes an epicyclic gearbox at the front, which slows down the fan and speeds up the turbines, which is more efficient on the real engine and adds to the Technic functions in the model.

I'd be as proud to complete such a model as the real engineers are with making the real engines.

Mark

[koalayummies]

On January 22, 2018 at 10:28 PM, Blondie-Wan said:

I doubt it, partly because I don't think all the stuff gets cited in that thread is submitted in jest, but mostly because not even 5% of those accounts have submitted stuff at all - all the stuff on Ideas, from the most hopeless projects that languish with three votes to those select few that have made it all the way to review, then approval, and become actual sets, have been submitted by closer to 2% or 3%.

More than 97% of those 892891 accounts have never posted any projects; they've only voted for other people's stuff, made comments, and so on, or even just lurked without any actual activity.

Given that the number of total projects - not just currently active ones gathering support, but all projects, including expired ones, archived ones, ones that have been approved and turned into sets, etc. is probably around 25,000, and surely no more than 26,000 (the actual total shown is a bit less than 25k, but that doesn't include archived ones; however, I don't think there are more than a thousand of those, so we can assume the total total is fewer than 26,000), or in other words only about 1/35th the number of active members, or less than 3%. And since a great many of those who do submit projects actually submit several, it's possible - if not indeed likely - that all the projects on Ideas, of all levels of merit, actually come from fewer than 1% of all active accounts. The vast, overwhelming majority of account holders (at least more than 97%, and possibly even more than 99%) never submit anything... unless the LEGO Ideas team actually does weed out an awful lot more projects than we think.

From here on out, should the desire ever arise to participate in this thread again, I shall include disclaimers. For example the post that was responded to here would have been: lacking serious intent/not meant to be taken literally, i.e. facetious.

Edited January 26, 2018 by koalayummies

[Blondie-Wan]

2 hours ago, koalayummies said:

From here on out, should the desire ever arise to participate in this thread again, I shall include disclaimers. For example the post that was responded to here would have been: lacking serious intent/not meant to be taken literally, i.e. facetious.

Got it. That said, even had I realized you were being facetious (I freely acknowledge I had not), I would probably have responded much the same way, since the fact only a minute percentage of the total pool of Ideas users is responsible for all the projects on the site is one I find interesting, and not really discussed all that often. Your post provided an excellent opportunity to bring it up. 

Edited January 26, 2018 by Blondie-Wan

[Digger of Bricks]

5 hours ago, Agent Kallus said:

Is there any discussion about the lego ideas space GWP contest?

I changed the the course of discussion for a eariler GWP topic of mine to talk about it. 

 

[koalayummies]

19 hours ago, Blondie-Wan said:

Got it. That said, even had I realized you were being facetious (I freely acknowledge I had not), I would probably have responded much the same way, since the fact only a minute percentage of the total pool of Ideas users is responsible for all the projects on the site is one I find interesting, and not really discussed all that often. Your post provided an excellent opportunity to bring it up. 

I absolutely appreciate the math and analysis you did looking into the subject. Its a very pertinent aspect to the ongoing discussion of Ideas and is indeed interesting. Before Elysian brought it up I had never considered looking up how many total accounts there were and your work breaking down the number of total ideas ever submitted along with considering the nuances of multiple submissions per user is really insightful to the workings of ideas and all those who participate. It is excellent work. 

[bonox]

On 27/01/2018 at 4:53 AM, Mark Bellis said:

A new LEGO Idea for a Rolls-Royce jet engine with cut-away sections has been submitted.

wow - ain't that just the most wonderful thing ever. Would look great next to the model of the ULA telescope.

[LegoModularFan]

Designer video for the ship in a bottle released. What do you think about it guys?

Glad they started also to focus on the model than only the designers themselves with the new designer video format.

And here’s an interview with the fan designer:

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[Artanis I]

On 23/01/2018 at 6:38 PM, Grrr said:

I'd be very interesting to see a graph of the number of members by the number of projects each has supported. Engaged AFOLs will easily have supported more than 10 projects each by now.

Well, I am up to 2, I think

[Diablo667]

Am disappointed to find out that both Space Shuttle and Saturn V's launch Umbilical Tower failed the review. I thought those are perfectly complementing to Saturn V which is one of most successful Lego Idea sets to date. Since those are not approved, I wonder if there is any way to reach those creators/builders? I would love to buy their MOCs/instruction parts and build those myself. 

PS And I thought those 2 are probably the best idea out of those 2 ideas review this year. I don't see what the fuss about that pop-up book but then I guess I am in minority then.

 

[Faefrost]

On 1/30/2018 at 8:15 AM, Diablo667 said:

Am disappointed to find out that both Space Shuttle and Saturn V's launch Umbilical Tower failed the review. I thought those are perfectly complementing to Saturn V which is one of most successful Lego Idea sets to date. Since those are not approved, I wonder if there is any way to reach those creators/builders? I would love to buy their MOCs/instruction parts and build those myself. 

PS And I thought those 2 are probably the best idea out of those 2 ideas review this year. I don't see what the fuss about that pop-up book but then I guess I am in minority then.

 

The problem was those both would have been immediately disallowed at Review. The Saturn V Launch Tower was an add on for another set. Not really a stand alone product on its own. That’s an insta fail at review. The Shuttle was basically taking a set or subject they have already done multiple times and making it bigger or smaller. Not really much of an “Idea” there. And not something they would contemplate at Review.