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Petition to reissue Cafe Corner
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Comments
[Curmudgeonly is a great word, got to use that more often]
those without a Cafe Corner (or anything else) have 3 choices:
1) pay the prevaling rates for complete sets (new or used)
2) part our your own, which can be done quite reasonably
3) accept that you won't own it. This shouldn't detract from your desire or love of the other modulars - far too often we as collectors get caught up in the "I have to have ALL of a collection, or NONE". Why? There isn't really much rationality to it at all.
Lego does not need to remake older sets. They are doing very well financially with their new themes, like Ninjago for instance. In the US market alone, their sales have improved for 7 years straight. The company's share of the total U.S. toy market has tripled in five years, all without reissuing older sets. I think discontinuing sets yearly, works for Lego and the Lego fan.
I agree with dougts, if you really want it just get the parts or pay a huge amount of money. And simply be smart and buy the new sets when available. We can't have it all.
A bit the same like this goes for me. I'm still collecting parts for a set which is not available anymore, the Weetabix Castle. There are 2 for sale on Bricklink, but I settle for a copy with not all original parts instead of paying some €200,00 for it.
A lot of people forget that TLG is a volume business, even the special sets like modulars need to sell in the hundreds of thousands of units to make any kind of sense.
Why retire a set that is doing well? Because at some point, you can come out with something new that will sell three times faster using the same company resources.
Ninjago is a great example. Every ounce of production space that the pro-reissue crowd wants to use to kick out some more Cafe Corner sets is better used making more Ninjago sets. The spinners sell out very quickly at my local Lego store, they keep restocking and selling out again.
They make sets like Town Hall to keep the adults interested and to further their fan base, but I highly suspect most of the profits are in the $25 to $50 sets.
Cafe Corner was around for quite a while. I bought my copies in 2008, deciding not to wait any longer. If I had and I'd missed out, I'd have had only myself to blame (I didn't wait similarly long times for any of the other Modulars). Same goes for anyone else. I missed out on one of the Adventurers sets back in 1999 and ended up paying more than MSRP for it years later but that was the cost of not acting sooner when it was on the shelves (though the reason I didn't get it was because it never was on the shelves locally and I wasn't aware that Lego had such an excellent online sales selection until 2000; I grew up with Shop-at-Home being a few exclusives and service packs purchased by mail order and advertised on the back of packaged catalogs).
Not all of us got into Lego when the modular sets began their life. I don't want a direct reissue but definitely something similar to the Cafe Corner (like how they're always releasing improved SW sets).
The only way I see them doing this is if they put in a detailed interior...Cafe 2.0....;)
Really, folks, it's not hard to get a Cafe Corner. Just buy one off Bricklink, eBay or Amazon. They aren't really selling for that high used.
But hell, if you have to have a new in sealed box, I've got a near-mint sealed boxed one that I'm selling for $1000 which is cheaper than you'll find it for anywhere else in similar condition.
See? Not that "rare".
Library
Post Office
Corner Pharmacy
Bank
Book Store
Furniture Store
Fast Food Restaurant
Fine Restaurant
Theatre
Movie Theatre
Hospital
Hotel (an actual hotel, not a sign)
Butcher
Baker
Candlestick Maker
The potential is immense. Why rerelease a non-descript coffee shop when there's so much else that could be done?
Seriously though, it would be great to have a real restaurant, with a kitchen and everything.
Trust me, when I came out of my dark ages I was disappointed at all the cool sets I had missed. I missed all the early modulars and a bunch of the cool UCS sets. I had brief sentiments of "Lego how could you, I was only gone for a few years" and I became upset. The only person I can blame is myself for not paying attention. TLG can't be blamed for not marketing enough. They can't be blamed for anything, they're just doing smart business and it appears to be paying off with all the collectors/resellers coming into the market. Anyone else that didn't get CC, I'm sorry, but you weren't paying attention and not getting the CC may be the price you pay for this. As I've said before, if you must have it, bricklink the pieces together because that is the cheapest method you will get it now.
I would save up and buy a re-released Cafe Corner. They could spruce up the interior and ask $200 for it. You guys harping about the need to move on should just be quiet and let the guy do a petition. I've noticed that Lego Addicts are a lot like Apple Addicts...annoying with their fanaticism of purity.
I don't think LFT's point has anything to do with reselling.
The fact that parts are commonly re-used in OTHER sets is part of why LEGO's recovered from its financial problems in the early 2000's-- it's WAY more efficient. So the more parts are currently in production, the cheaper it'll be. And the more parts that AREN'T in production, the more expensive it'll be.
There's also another problem, which is the SKU. LEGO is literally limited to the number of SKUs that they can produce in a given year. I'm not sure where they purchase the ranges that they have (probably some sort of central board of retailers that mandate them), but that means-- quite literally-- that for every re-release that gets made, that's one less product that they can have for the given year.
And, again, as has been stated, LEGO has learned from its "Legends" series that re-releases don't do all that well. So if they have to sacrifice a new and different set in order to sell an old one? That's just not good business. We almost don't even have to debate that point-- LEGO's already pretty much proven it. Granted, the adult market is different today than it was when LEGO stopped doing Legends back in 2004-- but I don't think it's SO different that doing re-releases would be terribly profitable.
For the record, Star Wars "redesigns" are different. They're not targeted at AFOL collectors, they're targeted at kids. LEGO wants to make sure that there will ~pretty much~ ALWAYS be a LEGO X-Wing for sale, as long as they have the Star Wars license. They want kids to be able to walk into the store, and see the iconic X-wing on the shelf. So why do they redesign it instead of just keeping the same design? Go back and re-read the 2nd paragraph above. It's actually CHEAPER to redesign the set rather than keep making the same old parts that they always made.
As for the appeal of Cafe Corner-- it gets special treatment because:
1) It was the first one ("first" is always a landmark to collectors)
2) It's the oldest (the older they are, the more expensive!)
3) It's a corner
It's also still a great exterior design (one of the only ones that works really well when adding "extra" middle layers). You can debate the aesthetics all day regarding the build complexity, the detail level, etc, but the fact is that it doesn't "stand out" as being remarkably different style-wise or "sub-par" when lined up against the other modular buildings.
And, just in case this post (and this thread) weren't already long enough-- Cafe Corner has an amusing background story that most of the other modular buildings don't have.
In 2006, Jamie Berard got hired by LEGO. And after impressing everyone with some of his other designs, he took the idea of "modular town buildings" to the LEGO design board. He suggested the idea of detailed buildings with interiors that could be re-configured to make a city block, with various shops, apartments, and so forth.
"Oh, you mean a dollhouse? No, we've test marketed those. They don't work."
"No, it's not a dollhouse. It's like a city building that--"
"Nope, sorry."
But he built a scratch model just the same, to show them how what he was talking about really was NOT a dollhouse, and actually might have some market appeal. And only after seeing what he built did they agree that it COULD be worth making. They didn't really expect much, though.
And when it hit the market, nothing had prepared LEGO for the reaction, especially from AFOLs, who heralded the set as the dawning of a new age! And it sold well enough that LEGO essentially couldn't help but consider it a brand new series of sets that they'd continue forever after.
Essentially, it was one of the first genuinely successful sets to be designed by an AFOL, to be marketed FOR AFOLs. Sure, there was the 3739 Blacksmith Shop, or the 10022 Santa Fe cars, or even the Factory lineup from 2005. But none of them really met with the same level of success that Cafe Corner had. Cafe Corner filled a niche that advanced LEGO builders had been looking for for a LONG time, and was versatile enough to support its own complete lineup, making for a great collectible product as well (which has added value, as seen by the price of the set today!)
DaveE
At this point, this thread is just as large as that one, so the value is diminished, but there is a lot of repetition.
TLG is a business, and although they have certain principles governing how they go about conducting business that add shades of gray (i.e. no war machines), if one viewed most of their actions and inactions with the understanding that it is done to maximize profit, one wouldn't be too far off-base.
While everyone is certainly within their right to start an effort for a re-release, I think the best way to approach it is by providing TLG with concrete numbers. A petition probably could provide that, but not as drafted, since - as others have already pointed out - it reads simply as an emotional appeal and speaks more generally about LEGO than the actual model. I suspect what TLG would be interested in hearing is a commitment of quantities purchased, so they can evaluate the business case as accurately as possible. Is this starting to sound like something? http://lego.cuusoo.com/
But the arguments against re-releases are quite factual.
TLG has a finite number of product slots and producing one set means that it comes at the cost of another.
A re-release, by nature, limits the buyer pool. That is not to say that the TLG wouldn't profit from the subsequent sales, but the pool of prospective buyers is going to be less for the re-release simply by virtue of a subset of original owners not double-dipping.
In the past, there have been very vocal groans of disapproval when TLG re-releases a set too soon. I imagine there were poor sales to match. For example, look at the disparity in ownership numbers for the 1999 release of 7150, and the 2002 re-release - 2186 vs 577:
http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=7150-1
http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=7152-1
In the past, when sets that have been retired longer were brought back, the backlash was smaller (fewer people owned the sets) such that TLG was able to bring them back with the fanfare of the "Legends" line:
http://www.brickset.com/brickLists/?4672
However, again, the sales were tepid. This was admitted by LBR employees, and again, the ownership numbers in the database appear to lend credence to this.
The backlash I alluded to is a very real consideration for TLG since sales of LEGO benefit from being regarded as a collectible toy. It is a highly prized position, and the road of history is littered with countless corpses of once collectible toys that sacrificed their long-term viability for short-term profit by saturating the market and otherwise upsetting their customer base.
2. They will sell way more copies of iconic ships such as the X-Wing or the Millenium Falcon than of some vehicle that you could see for 30 secs in one of the prequels, even if it is the 6th version since 1999.
I just bought my first LEGO after 20 years this January. And it was an X-Wing. Would some Clone Wars ship tempted me? Never.
Cafe Corner is hideous. Probably the ugliest 'proper' modular (it's really a toss up between it and GG). And if it weren't a corner, I would HAPPILY sell it to the OP for well below the going rates.
But on point... I know CC sells for a ridiculous amount on Amazon and eBay... but that has absolutely no bearing on how well a reissue would sell. Those outrageously priced eBay and Amazon models are moving... what? 50-100 a month? And I realize that there are probably a lot of people that want the set that simply won't pay that much... but how many? Is it enough for TLG to even consider re-issuing this abomination?
I think a completely re-designed Cafe Corner would fare much better, though I don't particularly care for that solution, either, as I'm firmly in the camp that would rather not have my one modular for the year be something - even a re-design - that's already been done before.
TLG is a business, their goal is to appeal to as broad a market as possible. Businesses that focus on the very narrow do have a place in this world, huge toy companies are not such a business.
I think it is forgotten sometimes that The Lego Group is a toy company, that makes, you know, toys for kids... :)