BrickLink Designer Program

bricktuary

Honestly, I think the scalper issue is being overblown here, from all the chat I've seen on various forums (lots) of people were buying one, maybe two, I suspect the number of people snapping up 5 at a time was actually pretty small. Of course only Lego will be able to say for sure. 

Reduce the limit to 2 if you like, but these things - especially the Boat and the Castle - would still have sold out in a matter of hours and people would still be annoyed.

pxchris

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1279639

FollowsClosely

I am going to cancel my order as June 2022 is unreasonable. 

Switchfoot55

Interesting outcome of the news update. I don't see any issues with the remedial steps they're taking for the Round 1 "issues" identified. The June 2022 timeframe is a bit crazy, but such is life. 

Not sure I'll end up going after any of the other sets on August 3rd or not, but sounds like a great opportunity for everyone who really wanted one!

bricktuary

Seems reasonable to me, glad they are making more. I'm happy to wait if that means more people get to buy these.

KungFuKenny

FollowsClosely said:

I am going to cancel my order as June 2022 is unreasonable. 

The way they worded it made it seem like the first 5000 sets would ship in January and the second 5000 in June, but I’m not sure…

“ Increasing production will delay shipping and future rounds of crowdfunding. Since we are doubling the production run, the additional 5,000 sets for Round 1 will be shipped in June 2022, as opposed to January 2022. This will also delay the release of Rounds 2 & 3. The final plan for this will be communicated at a later stage.”

Brickchap

^This sounds like the Australian Liberal Party talking about Australia's vaccine rollout.

There arent any LNP members on The Lego Group board are there? That would account for all these recent stuff ups with production and stupid ideas like the 18+ black boxes when there was nothing wrong with Creator Expert.

autolycus

Just took the time to read the note closely and to go through the main page article comments. Wow. My thoughts:

1) How did a glitch allow 10k castles to be sold?! That’s really bad. It would be worse if they cancelled half the orders, so making the extra 5k is honestly their only option.

2) Although the note is clear, there are going to be people confused and who will get upset on August 3 when they can’t order the castle, not realizing that the extra sets were already sold.

3) The castle sold 10k copies in just 35 minutes?! Wow! I know they’ve said they can’t support a full castle line anymore, but they’ve really got to find a way to do some sort of Creator line (maybe not 3-in-1) that gets the fans the castle and pirate sets we all want! I want more minifigure variety, and I want some smaller builds. Also, unrelated to castle, I want cloth sails instead of brick built ones!!

FireFox31

Any cancelled orders for the Castle could be made available for order on August 3rd.  Unfortunately, that may be hard to communicate and lead to even more buyer frustration.

Brickset commenter burnaby_bricks made a great observation about the line, "It’s important to point out that 75% of orders for Castle in the Forest were for one set".  The commenter reveals that the operative word is "orders".  Because an order could contain multiple copies, 10k units sold in fewer than 10k orders, thus 6000 or fewer people bought a single set each.

I wonder if scalpers will get burned because demand from them exceeded demand from actual buyers.  Maybe we'll see Castles on eBay going unsold.  They will sell eventually, but tying up scalpers' cash in unsold inventory feels nice.

The statement suggests that round 2 and 3 crowdfunding will be delayed.  I hope they clarify this in the near future (so I can update all of my calendar reminders for this purpose).

Good luck with the next round.

Yellowcastle

My initial thoughts (from the main site but with an additional conspiracy theory) 🙂
*********************

I’m more than happy with the response.  I don’t believe we were owed anything but I do very much appreciate the attempt at reasonably explaining how we got here and how they’ll try to improve things going forward.  Increasing the sets to 10k and resetting the limit to 1 are good ideas.  Based on the 6 month delay for the 2nd batches, I think we can all now better appreciate their current production situation.

For those hoping for cancellations or reductions on previous orders, it was never going to happen. The orders were placed in good faith and according to the guidelines set.  Any retconning would result in litigation not to mention bad pub.

For those number crunching, I can promise you that the 75% single set orders was the best way they could spin the data.  If a better number presented itself, they would have rephrased.  Clearly, a big portion of castles are destined to ship with friends.

IMHO, this program is clearly a loss leader love letter to AFOLs and I’m worried it’s sloppy execution and our first world entitlement are going to limit if not eliminate future opportunities.

All that being said, something about the castle glitch doesn’t smell right.  Somehow their systems accepted exactly 10k when the limit was preset to 5k, all within 30 minutes and not all affecting the fishing boat, safe or flight?

bricktuary

I'm not sure I follow the maths from 75% of orders were for a single set, to less than 6,000 people bought a single set each.

I think it was pretty clear, no? 75% of the 10,000 were for a single set, so 7,500 orders for 1 castle, then you'd imagine 500-1,000 or so ordered 2, and only a handful ordered 3-5.
I mean, probably distorted by them messing up and letting 10,000 be ordered (just - how???), but even so it's clear that the issue wasn't 'scalpers' sweeping in any buying all the sets in bulk, but just that they underestimated the demand.

sipuss

bricktuary said:

I'm not sure I follow the maths from 75% of orders were for a single set, to less than 6,000 people bought a single set each.

I think it was pretty clear, no? 75% of the 10,000 were for a single set, so 7,500 orders for 1 castle, then you'd imagine 500-1,000 or so ordered 2, and only a handful ordered 3-5.
I mean, probably distorted by them messing up and letting 10,000 be ordered (just - how???), but even so it's clear that the issue wasn't 'scalpers' sweeping in any buying all the sets in bulk, but just that they underestimated the demand.

75% of orders. There wasn't 10k orders, because that's physically impossible with 10k sets and people ordering more than 1.

bricktuary

Thanks, makes sense.

Yellowcastle

And they would have specifically said 7500 sets or 75% of the sets if they could.  The reality is that half the sets or more went to folks ordering more than 1.

autolycus

Yellowcastle said:

All that being said, something about the castle glitch doesn’t smell right.  Somehow their systems accepted exactly 10k when the limit was preset to 5k, all within 30 minutes and not all affecting the fishing boat, safe or flight?

Yeah, the "castle glitch" is very strange, indeed. The most benign explanation is that it wasn't really exactly 10k orders, and they noticed the glitch and fixed it before the others got to 5k orders, which happened a bit later. I think the boat hit 3,000 about an hour in, whereas Castle had already been sold out for at least a half hour by then.

Yellowcastle

Maybe but ...

autolycus

Yellowcastle said:

Maybe but ...

Come on, give us your best theory on what "really happened"! ;)

Yellowcastle

I would guess that they initially just failed to stop orders exactly at 5k for the castle and then made the decision on the fly to move the finish line for it to the next logical waypoint and retcon it all later.

Astrobricks

Computers were involved, so the number of possible glitches is almost infinite.

EGRoberts

Astrobricks said:

Computers were involved, so the number of possible glitches is almost infinite.

Computers are only as smart as programmers make them... Unless it is Skynet. Skynet would have sold exactly 5000 of each set and terminated all those that complained after.

FireFox31

autolycus said:

Yellowcastle said:

Maybe but ...

Come on, give us your best theory on what "really happened"! ;)

Lego IT planned to end the sale of Castles by manually editing the HTML of the page.  When the technician started the edit, another 5k units sold before he finished.

I placed my Castle order at 11:09 am Eastern time.  I'm curious to see if I am in the Jan '22 first 5k or June '22 second 5k.  Could 5k really have sold in 9 minutes?

Yellowcastle

I’m curious too.  I thought I was special before but I may have been one of those ordering during stoppage time.

FireFox31

Scalped Castle listing.  What five people would rush to pay $550 of $620 for the Castle?  They must have known about the set, somehow missed out, then bought the scalped copy in a FOMO rage.  This listing is so absurd it seems like money laundering.

bricktuary

Amazingly, the South Koreans are still refusing to buy the last 19 or so Kakapo :D

Also it looks like it's been confirmed that the first batch will still ship early 2022, with the 'extra' 5k later. Not sure where that leaves the people with glitchy Castles though.

ReesesPieces

I believe the number/limit was set on Bricklink but not on [email protected] which is where you are led to checkout.  Once it was sold out on bricklink, I was able to go directly to [email protected] to order my castle after it sold out.  I was actually expecting my order to be canceled but guess not.

Yellowcastle

J’accuse! :o)

Jern92

autolycus said:

1) How did a glitch allow 10k castles to be sold?! That’s really bad. It would be worse if they cancelled half the orders, so making the extra 5k is honestly their only option.

I actually had the LEGO.com page loaded with the castle in my cart, but I hadn't decided if I was going to buy it. Fast forward half an hour and when I checked the Bricklink page, I saw the castle had sold out, but my Lego.com page with it in my cart is still there. Tried my luck, and surprisingly the purchase went through. So this could be part of the reason why, but I doubt 4,999 other people did what I did though.

Fizyx

Jern92 said:

autolycus said:

1) How did a glitch allow 10k castles to be sold?! That’s really bad. It would be worse if they cancelled half the orders, so making the extra 5k is honestly their only option.

I actually had the LEGO.com page loaded with the castle in my cart, but I hadn't decided if I was going to buy it. Fast forward half an hour and when I checked the Bricklink page, I saw the castle had sold out, but my Lego.com page with it in my cart is still there. Tried my luck, and surprisingly the purchase went through. So this could be part of the reason why, but I doubt 4,999 other people did what I did though.

There we go, issue solved, it was all @Jern92's fault.  As punishment, they have to give up their castle.  To me. <.<

Astrobricks

Jern92 said:

autolycus said:

1) How did a glitch allow 10k castles to be sold?! That’s really bad. It would be worse if they cancelled half the orders, so making the extra 5k is honestly their only option.

I actually had the LEGO.com page loaded with the castle in my cart, but I hadn't decided if I was going to buy it. Fast forward half an hour and when I checked the Bricklink page, I saw the castle had sold out, but my Lego.com page with it in my cart is still there. Tried my luck, and surprisingly the purchase went through. So this could be part of the reason why, but I doubt 4,999 other people did what I did though.

I bet they did.

autolycus

Random, but related, question: The credit card I used to place my order for the BDP sets had a fraudulent charge on Saturday and the account is being changed to a new number, new card, etc.

Does anybody have experience with this type of situation with a Lego.com order that was far enough later that the CC company wouldn’t still process the charge?

Is it possible to change the method of payment? I’m guessing it’ll take a call (not chat or email) to Lego support?

KungFuKenny

autolycus said:

Random, but related, question: The credit card I used to place my order for the BDP sets had a fraudulent charge on Saturday and the account is being changed to a new number, new card, etc.

Does anybody have experience with this type of situation with a Lego.com order that was far enough later that the CC company wouldn’t still process the charge?

Is it possible to change the method of payment? I’m guessing it’ll take a call (not chat or email) to Lego support?

I would definitely call or maybe do a live chat. The chat function has worked well for me and sometimes is faster than waiting on hold.

I had a bit of a scare when I saw an email in my inbox from Lego customer service saying “Sorry! Your Bricklink Designer Program order was cancelled…”  Then I realized it was for the Particle Accelerator project that didn’t get funded, and breathed a sigh of relief…

bricktuary

The Kakapo is still available for our South Korean friends.

The_Rancor

…and will be until the end of time

bricktuary

https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/introducing.page

Bit of a site update and tidy up ahead of orders re-opening on 3rd August for the remaining 4 sets.
Including confirmation that pdf instructions will be made public, as well as being in the Lego building app.

Jern92

FYI additional pre-ordering starts in about 36 hours, so get your credit cards ready!

"Great Fishing Boat, Pursuit of Flight, Sheriff's Safe, and Kakapo will open for additional pre-ordering on August 3rd at 12:00pm Pacific / 9:00pm CET."

https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/introducing.page

FireFox31

30 minutes into the sale, none of the sets were sold out.  I estimated how many sets were sold based on the number of pixels in the progress bars.  The bars are 464 pixels wide (including black vertical), so one pixel represents roughly 21.552 sets.  I took estimates at three times to judge rate.

20:30 UTC, 20:45 UTC, 21:00 UTC:
Boat = 7759, 8707, 8879
Safe = 6013, 6121, 6185
Flight = 5625, 5690, 5733
Kakapo = 5000, 5066, 5086

For reference, the two non-funded sets sold before the cut off:
Bionicle = 1272
Particle = 1099

Some people on the BrickLink comments were saying that the Boat was sold out in their area within the first hour.  This regional limitation is probably throttling the apparent rate of sales (ie: the last few available Kakapo in South Korea).

CCC

Boat is still available in the UK.

madforLEGO

Knowing LEGO's  apparent 'hard on' for releasing things during a workday I guess I can give up my dream of getting the final VIP coin of the original five that I need to complete the set....

Yellowcastle

I heard they were including all 5 coins with any purchase of a Castle in the Forest...

Astrobricks

Yellowcastle said:

I heard they were including all 5 coins with any purchase of a Castle in the Forest...

That’s just mean.

FireFox31

madforLEGO said:

Knowing LEGO's  apparent 'hard on' for releasing things during a workday I guess I can give up my dream of getting the final VIP coin of the original five that I need to complete the set....

Since quantities of BDP sets were allocated to specific geographic regions, each region could have had release time of "6pm your time".  Since a Lego.com account is required to buy, Lego knows each person's address.  Thus, Lego.com could tell you the launch time for your region.

This may be more complicated than they want, but hey, they started the complexity with their regional allocations.

bricktuary

Boat sold out, plenty of the others though. Maybe they should have let people buy more than one after all....

pxchris

I still think that 2 is the sweet spot. 5 was absolutely too many to let people buy, but there are certainly legitimate buyers who would want 2.

bricktuary

People with kids, for example?

FireFox31

I wonder if this seeming lack of demand means that the scalpers were the true demand.  Thus, scalpers may be stuck with loads of sets that people don't desperately want.

Yellowcastle

I don’t think so.  It’s just that people are going to want some sets more than others.  A hard static limit will result in some going fast and some going slow.  I originally only wanted the castle but the novelty of the program and designs got me on board the safe and flight too.  In looking at the next waves, I’m not sure where the next castle will be.

KungFuKenny

pxchris said:

I still think that 2 is the sweet spot. 5 was absolutely too many to let people buy, but there are certainly legitimate buyers who would want 2.

(Nervously raises hand in the air…)

Yellowcastle said:

 I originally only wanted the castle but the novelty of the program and designs got me on board the safe and flight too.

This was me as well… showed up for the Castle (two of them to be exact), and left with a safe and a flight as bonus sets!

Yellowcastle

It looks like the safe and flight are progressing towards 10,000 but not very quickly.

As this round is likely to use up all of August, when do we think Round 2 will start?  Is September too much wishful thinking?  Looking ahead, I’m curious what’s folks think will be the “Must Haves.”  A lot will depend on pricing and which sets compete in which round.

That being said, I’m going to try and rank the popularity of the remaining 19 sets:

1. Mountain Windmill
2. Winter Chalet
3. Observatory
4. Ruined House
5. 1950s Diner
6. Bowling Alley
7. Seasons in Time Calendar
8. Working Waterfall
9. Science Adventures
10. Aquarium
11. Train Station
12. Modular Construction Site
13. Lego Store
14. Space Troopers
15. Venetian Houses
16. Anatomi 
17. Brickwest Studios
18. Quest Builder
19. Exploratorium

Astrobricks

^ Didn’t they say the next round would be pushed back something like six months due to the “corrective actions” taken for this round?

Yellowcastle

The second delivery of Round 1 will be pushed back 6 months.  I don’t think they addressed timing of subsequent rounds.