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I had #314 Police Launch, #617 Cowboys and #147 Refrigerated Wagon that I know of and there are still loads of them, along with some of the old Maxifigs in an box of Lego at my parents' house. Which was raided a long time ago for all of the Classic Space and other sets that I wanted to rescue! ;-)
It's really tiring seeing these sort of comments on every single new set reveal.
'I'm mad that I can't buy your service! You suck!'
People enjoy complaining.
There. I said it. Whew!
Now, how could we harness this to generate usable energy 🤔
LEGO, this is not microscale. It is minifigure scale. It just happens to be a small shop, but that doesn't make it microscale.
Brickset catalogues it as LEGO brand store although also uses the microscale tag. Why???
PS. it is a good time to rob the store like the minifigures here. The door is open but no employees come with the store.
-grumble grumble-
-Mind blown-
I also hate lego friends dolls, I have nieces and the minifigure works just as well for them as my son. I would not hate friends if they used standard minifigures in there sets and would probably have bought some.
The first is that I really like the digital building instructions in the Mario sets. You don't appreciate how good they are until you watch a child using them to build. They're not just a PDF on a tablet, they're fully interactive in ways that are completely intuitive. And having only one step on a page is a genius idea for children who will lose their place or get distracted when they use paper instructions.
Honestly, until you've used them, you don't realise just how intuitive and well-thought-out they really are. And I actually think that Lego should do more instructions like that - alongside paper ones though.
I recently spent some time out in south-east Asia, and I've seen a lot of clone brands out there. I suspect that when most people think of clone brands, they think of Lepin ripping off Lego's IPs, or the kind of cheap crappy clone brand which you get in discount stores.
And yes, those brands exist in south-east Asia, but they're in a significant minority. Most 'building block' sets out there are completely new designs that those companies have designed themselves, and honestly, a lot of them look bloody good.
I can't speak for the quality, as I didn't buy any, but had they been Lego, I'd probably have about a dozen on my wishlist - the designs are that good.
Here's a few photos from a shop I stumbled across:
Count how many sets are direct rip offs of Lego sets. I counted about half a dozen in the shop, out of probably a hundred or so different sets. The rest were completely new and not related to and Lego sets at all.
Yes I'm aware that they've all used the Lego 'system' of bricks, but honestly the cat is out of the bag on that one, and it's simply a fact of life that Lego's system is the dominant one.
One other thing that you may notice - apart from how attractive some of the sets are - is that they're not from a single company. There was at least 5 or 6 different brands in that shop. None of the sets were what you'd call 'cheap' (although none were quite as high as you'd expect from Lego), and none of them looked cheap either. They all looked like quality products (again, whether they are or not is another matter).
So my unpopular opinion is this: at some point in the future, I now believe that Lego will become just one brand, out of about half a dozen, in the 'building bricks' market. In Europe and North America they'll continue to be the dominant brand, but in other markets such as Asia, where Lego doesn't have any history to rely on, they will find themselves competing with other brands (indeed, they already are), who also have good quality desirable sets.
In a way, the Lego market is an anomaly, in that they almost have an effective monopoly. Most other product markets have a number of companies competing with essentially the same product - think of the model train market, where Hornby is the best known, but other brands (such as Bachmann) exist and are happily accepted.
That Lego might one day end up as just the largest player in a hotly contested 'building bricks' market may seem fanciful or even sacrilege to many, but I challenge you to walk around a shop filled with hundreds of (non-rip off) sets from other brands, which are likely to be comparable quality, and not have it change the way you think about things, even just a bit.
To be clear, I'm not saying I'd welcome this, but I do think it's quite likely to happen.
Thoughts welcome! :)
Amongst my friendship group and family (China/Malaysia), there's sort of two mentalities around it; one, they will generally always want the "true"/premium brand, because of this cache and the recognition of quality, but equally two - it's (even more) expensive/unaffordable for many families in this market, so there is definitely a demand for a product that gives you a similar experience. And although cheaper, some of them are pretty good quality; possibly not quite Lego-par but one or two are extremely close (possibly more by now, it's been several years since I've been). Some are obviously poor, though. There's a whole range, and it's this range that I think will eat at Lego's dominance in markets other than the West. I can't remember if I encountered anyone at all who had a problem with buying "off" brand, and certainly off brands are just about all my nieces and nephews* use. That being said, Lego is definitely the desired brand as far as I can see - but as with anything, if a generation grows up with something as the norm, how long until it's acceptable to be content with a close second? (I know I feel this way about designer vs high street purchases!).
Long winded way of saying i agree with you @Paperballpark 😂
*blanket term for any younger generation relation in my family is a niece or nephew.
There are Lego stores out there, and while the prices are comparable to UK prices (or even cheaper - I got Grand Piano for about 15% less than UK RRP), the fact is that those prices are affordable for westerners and expats, but not for the general population, for whom a lot of the larger sets may cost more than a month's wages. So there's definitely a market for lower priced brands.
I do NOT like it when people add floors to them or buy multiple to make it wider/bigger...
I feel like it always looks wrong/out of proportion when people do this.
That’s the only older set I own still New in packaging. Every time I look at it...it looks so daunting and repetitive I figure it can keep appreciating and I’ll sell it eventually.
I won’t say which minifig I did actually vote for but it wasn’t Star Wars themed (Garindan and the Jet Trooper are awesome though).
Haven't posted an unpopular opinion for a while, so while we're on the subject of Classic Space, Pirate and Castle. I love Space, had loads of its growing up in the early 80s, I inherited my brothers sets when he moved on to Technic sets. I loved the vehicles, the astronauts, the crater baseplates, everything. Pirate and Castle ? Meh, really don't see what the fuss is all about, the yellow castle just looks a very odd colour for a stone building and I just can't get excited about a sailing ship.
What interests me are the comments from Classic Space fans, desperate to demonstrate its popularity to LEGO. I wonder what such people actually want from LEGO. They already acknowledge the range constantly and it seems highly unlikely that LEGO would return to the Space theme by producing sets to match those from the late 1970s and 1980s. I think children would find those minifigures and sets bland in relation to others.
Creating brand new Space sets, as LEGO did with Alien Conquest or Galaxy Squad, would be brilliant but there is probably a reason those were retired quickly. We know for certain that an additional wave of Alien Conquest was cancelled relatively late, unfortunately.
I should clarify that I have absolute respect for Classic Space but I have little interest in its return. I would love to hear from Classic Space fans on this subject though!
I didn't find Tower Bridge boring, and I'm sure I won't find the Colosseum boring either.