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Hi all,
I’m sure most of you know that the Lego Factory contest ended on Monday and the
winners have been announced. My son’s design (car dealer) was in the running and
it looked as if he was going to be one of the winners until early Monday
morning. We had been tracking his totals and it looked like he would end up with
about 360-370 votes, which would have been enough. To our dismay we noticed that
when the winners were announced he wasn’t one of them. My assumption is that he
got disqualified, but I don’t know why. All I know is that between Monday at
around 9 am EST and the end of the contest he ended up with another 130 or so
votes and we have no idea where they came from.
Needless to say my son was very disappointed because he knows that all of his
votes (the 360 or so we thought he would get) are legit. I can’t say the same
for the other 130 and the only thing that I can think of is that maybe somebody
went in and posted a bunch of votes to get him disqualified (along with about 5
others in the junior category). Of course I can’t prove this but it is a
concern, because there are no safeguards for something like this to happen.
At this point I don’t know what to tell my son or what message the course of
events is sending him. All he knows is that he competed and went by the rules,
and got taken out for no apparent reason. If have repeatedly called and emailed
the Lego Company, but haven’t gotten a response (so Jake, if you’re reading
this.....). All I’d like to get is an explanation from Lego as to why my son’s
entry got taken out.
Obviously the results won’t be changed and my son knows that. He’d just like to
know what happened and with as much time as he and I spent on this contest and
as much $ as we spent on the plastic brick I think the company owes us at least
an explanation (and the others who got disqualified as well).
All in all, I think the contest was a lot of fun, and I spent way too much time
on it, as my brickshelf folder will tell
(http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=107738). However, as several
people have pointed out on various forums, there is definitely room for
improvement, especially in the online voting process, as the final round seems
to indicate, as well as the fact that one person ended up winning four of eight
prizes in the junior category (nothing against the builder, but I think Lego
should have dealt with this in the rules, e.g. only one winning entry per
builder to give more kids a chance to win), and that some of the designs that
ended up winning are really kind of boring and don’t have much play value. I for
one won’t probably buy any of the winning designs, other than maybe the
racetrack. Another thing to point out here is that the wildcard winnners that
were picked by the Lego designers didn’t fare too well in the final round.
Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts. Please let me know if you have any
info regarding the disqualifications, or what you think about all this. Contests
like these are good, but lets help Lego make it better by pointing out where
improvements can be made.
Thanks,
Mark
Lugnet member #485
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
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Hi all,
I’m sure most of you know that the Lego Factory contest ended on Monday and
the winners have been announced. My son’s design (car dealer) was in the
running and it looked as if he was going to be one of the winners until early
Monday morning. We had been tracking his totals and it looked like he would
end up with about 360-370 votes, which would have been enough. To our dismay
we noticed that when the winners were announced he wasn’t one of them. My
assumption is that he got disqualified, but I don’t know why. All I know is
that between Monday at around 9 am EST and the end of the contest he ended up
with another 130 or so votes and we have no idea where they came from.
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MEGA CUT
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Thanks,
Mark
Lugnet member #485
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At this time I have to add nothing that I didn’t write in my post
(http://news.lugnet.com/lego/?n=3204). I agree 100% with you. I hope TLC will
do something because a builder can’t win 4 times... it is not right.
Regards,
Luca
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
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... However, as
several people have pointed out on various forums, there is definitely room
for improvement, especially in the online voting process, as the final round
seems to indicate, as well as the fact that one person ended up winning four
of eight prizes in the junior category (nothing against the builder, but I
think Lego should have dealt with this in the rules, e.g. only one winning
entry per builder to give more kids a chance to win), and that some of the
designs that ended up winning are really kind of boring and don’t have much
play value. I for one won’t probably buy any of the winning designs, other
than maybe the racetrack.
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I actually voted for the pirate ship model but I have to agree with you that it
is both wrong and suspicious that that person won for four entries.
It was wrong, as you said, to allow one person to win more than once. It is
suspicious that out of all the amazing creations (your library, waterfall and
mountain scene in particular I LOVED) that four models by one builder would be
chosen.
What this points to, I would suggest, is the flaw of internet-based contests.
This kid probably had lots of friends or relatives who went on a email spree
saying “vote for this”. Now, while this is not against any rules it kind of
highlights the need for the “one per entrant” rule above.
The good news is that they may actually implement the “cafepress” style of set
creation which means I could buy, from LEGO, your cool models and you would get
a small royalty! Please say you will sign up if they do it.
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Thanks for the kind words. I agree with you that the idea the Lego company has
with regards to creating other sets would be a good one, given the substantial
number of very nice creations that did not win. It would be nice to see some of
my designs actually created. I had thought about maybe turning some of my
designs into custom sets myself, but after going back over the contest rules, it
looks like I can’t legally do it as all entries (not just the winning ones)
become property of TLG. However, that doesn’t mean I may not come up with some
different ones, not being limited to the 16x16 stud base anymore, or a certain
brick palette.
Mark
Lugnet Member #485
In lugnet.build.microscale, George Edward Godwin wrote:
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I actually voted for the pirate ship model but I have to agree with you that
it is both wrong and suspicious that that person won for four entries.
It was wrong, as you said, to allow one person to win more than once. It is
suspicious that out of all the amazing creations (your library, waterfall and
mountain scene in particular I LOVED) that four models by one builder would
be chosen.
What this points to, I would suggest, is the flaw of internet-based contests.
This kid probably had lots of friends or relatives who went on a email spree
saying “vote for this”. Now, while this is not against any rules it kind of
highlights the need for the “one per entrant” rule above.
The good news is that they may actually implement the “cafepress” style of
set creation which means I could buy, from LEGO, your cool models and you
would get a small royalty! Please say you will sign up if they do it.
|
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
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... I had thought about maybe turning
some of my designs into custom sets myself
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Glad to hear your designs might be available to purchase one way or the other.
But that brings up an interesting question. Assuming a 5% royalty to the
designer from sets created and sold through LEGO Factory, would it make
financial sense to compete using aftermarket bricks? I mean, most custom sets I
go “WOW!” and then look at what is a reasonable price considering materials
cost, and go “OUCH!”
Also I wonder if the small baseplate standard would apply to LEGO Factory sets
or was it just used as a limitation for the contest?
Ahh, to be a fly on the wall in the LEGO Factory head office. :)
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In lugnet.build.microscale, George Edward Godwin wrote:
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
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But that brings up an interesting question. Assuming a 5% royalty to the
designer from sets created and sold through LEGO Factory, would it make
financial sense to compete using aftermarket bricks?
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I doubt there will be a percentage royalty given to set designers if the Lego
Factory is ever opened to the general public. That would be a paperwork/legal
nightmare to implement. Think more along the lines of today’s Lego Mosaic (only
3D!).
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Also I wonder if the small baseplate standard would apply to LEGO Factory
sets or was it just used as a limitation for the contest?
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I’d imagine there will be piece total restictions. There are processing,
shipping, and packaging limitations that would have to be considered.
Furthermore there are price issues that might drive the restriction to smaller
sets. What happens if a child creates a huge $500 set in Digital Designer and
asks their parents to order it?
Spencer
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In lugnet.build.microscale, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
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I doubt there will be a percentage royalty given to set designers if the Lego
Factory is ever opened to the general public. That would be a paperwork/legal
nightmare to implement.
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A good tradeoff might be to give designers credit toward future purchases of
their own. That stays “within the system” - no checks to mail, etc. When a
designer’s model is purchased, that designer’s account gets a credit. Very
simple, right? :) (Spoken as a computer programmer.)
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What happens if a child creates a huge $500 set in Digital
Designer and asks their parents to order it?
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I assume the process will be: design the model, upload the model, pay for the
model, then the system goes through the fulfillment process. That keeps Lego
from being stiffed. It doesn’t protect against a kid being disappointed that a
parent won’t fork over the credit card for their expensive monstrosity. But
there’s not much lost there either - similar to a kid asking their parent for an
expensive toy in a store, albeit with more up-front effort by the kid.
Steve
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Steve Demlow wrote:
> I assume the process will be: design the model, upload the model, pay for the
> model, _then_ the system goes through the fulfillment process. That keeps
> Lego from being stiffed. It doesn't protect against a kid being disappointed
> that a parent won't fork over the credit card for their expensive
> monstrosity. But there's not much lost there either - similar to a kid
> asking their parent for an expensive toy in a store, albeit with more
> up-front effort by the kid.
True, but you're sort of missing the point that I'm speculating on. Limiting
model size can keep the designs within the realm of typical consumer spending
habits AND more importantly is probably required anyway, since I seriously doubt
Lego has an unbounded process capacity for this type of thing. I'm assuming the
fulfillment capability itself is automated (maybe computerized hoppers?). How
large of an individual order can be put through the system? Several hundred
elements? Most likely. A thousand? Maybe. Tens or hundreds of thousands?
Probably not. There's probably limits on packaging too. It sounds like these
sets will come with some sort of individually customized exterior packaging.
"Hey Joe, print me up another one of those refrigerator-sized boxes, I got
another order from that dude in Alabama" :-)
Spencer
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In lugnet.build.microscale, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
> I doubt there will be a percentage royalty given to set designers if the Lego
> Factory is ever opened to the general public. That would be a paperwork/legal
> nightmare to implement.
Uhm, have you seen print-on-demand servcies such as www.cafepress.com or
www.trafford.com? They do exactly that with t-shirts, mugs, books, CD's, etc.
The paperwork/legal aspects of such a venture are easy to deal with following
the Cafepress model and are, I would think, the smallest impediment to
implementation.
Now, forgive me if I am missing something but I understood that basically the
LEGO Factory idea was a robotic processing line with a limited pallette of parts
and packaging sizes that would literally allow one or a thousand sets to be made
"on demand" based on the designs submitted using the designer program. If it is
just another way to make regular assembly-line sets then I think it may be more
difficult to implement.
The biggest impediment I see is the willingness of the corporation to try
something which allows some creative control by the customers. A very cool thing
IMHO but a scary concept in the coporate world.
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In lugnet.build.microscale, George Edward Godwin wrote:
> In lugnet.build.microscale, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
> > I doubt there will be a percentage royalty given to set designers if the Lego
> > Factory is ever opened to the general public. That would be a paperwork/legal
> > nightmare to implement.
>
> Uhm, have you seen print-on-demand servcies such as www.cafepress.com or
> www.trafford.com? They do exactly that with t-shirts, mugs, books, CD's, etc.
> The paperwork/legal aspects of such a venture are easy to deal with following
> the Cafepress model and are, I would think, the smallest impediment to
> implementation.
Nevertheless, I stand by my original assertion that offering royalties isn't
critical at all in making the Lego Factory concept a success - and just adds
another layer of complexity to what is no doubt an already complex process.
It was a nice touch to pay royalties for the Factory contest winners - since
their sets will be marketed this summer by Lego and achieve a high level of
visibility within Lego advertising. However I can't see the same thing happening
for everything that gets designed and ordered through the Factory. But who
knows, maybe they we keep a version of the Factory contest going and select a
few set designs and their designers for royalties and mass marketing
opportunities. We will have to wait and see.
Spencer
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In lugnet.build.microscale, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
> Nevertheless, I stand by my original assertion that offering royalties isn't
> critical at all in making the Lego Factory concept a success - and just adds
> another layer of complexity to what is no doubt an already complex process.
Ah, I see. I did not understand that you thought the very idea of royalties
(aside from their complexity) was an issue.
However, on this I will also have to disagree. Without royalties, or some other
tangible reward, I do not think the concept will go very far. Why bother
starting such a venture without making it a success and to be a success people
who contribute designs will have to be rewarded. Why would I design LEGO sets
for LEGO to sell without ANY recompense? I can see a few people doing it for fun
but not in the long term.
Now, they could indeed run the contests repeatedly but that would actually be an
inefficient method as it requires too much staff time. If they simply turned it
into a cafepress-style free-for-all then the market would determine which
designs were produced the most and ALL sales would benefit both LEGO and the
designers. As well, less popular sets would never have to be produced.
So, if royalties are techinically feasible (IMHO the easiest method for
accounting) and there is a benefit (encouraging designers) what is your
objection based on?
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In lugnet.build.microscale, George Edward Godwin wrote:
> However, on this I will also have to disagree. Without royalties, or some other
> tangible reward, I do not think the concept will go very far. Why bother
> starting such a venture without making it a success and to be a success people
> who contribute designs will have to be rewarded. Why would I design LEGO sets
> for LEGO to sell without ANY recompense? I can see a few people doing it for fun
> but not in the long term.
I don't object to your viewpoint (I think it would be really great if it DID
work like Cafepress), I'm merely pointing out there are other equally viable and
(simpler) alternatives to the way the Lego Factory might function.
Lego already sells fan designed custom sets and has done so for several years.
They are called Lego Mosaic Maker and are 2-D Lego models instead of 3-D models.
You submit the 2-D image and then you can order your mosaic set complete with
building instructions directly from Lego. That is the incentive and reward: a
set made specifically for you, just the way you ordered it. The product has been
very successful working off this simple premise. There are no royalties paid and
Lego does not turn around and sell the submitted mosaics to the general public.
Lego simply sells the ability to fulfill orders. There are no restrictions with
sharing your image with others so that they can order an identical set. However,
it's up to the individual to do the sharing, not Lego. As I've said before I see
no compelling reason as to why the Lego Factory couldn't work in a similar
fashion (simply replace image in the above with a LDD file).*
Spencer
*and yes I was a member of Lego Factory AFOL team, but our role was simply to
design micro models. I have no knowledge of how Lego will actually implement the
Factory system. The above is just my own speculation.
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Crossposted to .lego to make sure Jake can see this. If this is true, this is
very disturbing and we need an answer about this.
-Lenny
In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
Hi all,
I’m sure most of you know that the Lego Factory contest ended on Monday and
the winners have been announced. My son’s design (car dealer) was in the
running and it looked as if he was going to be one of the winners until early
Monday morning. We had been tracking his totals and it looked like he would
end up with about 360-370 votes, which would have been enough. To our dismay
we noticed that when the winners were announced he wasn’t one of them. My
assumption is that he got disqualified, but I don’t know why. All I know is
that between Monday at around 9 am EST and the end of the contest he ended up
with another 130 or so votes and we have no idea where they came from.
| |
Needless to say my son was very disappointed because he knows that all of his
votes (the 360 or so we thought he would get) are legit. I can’t say the same
for the other 130 and the only thing that I can think of is that maybe
somebody went in and posted a bunch of votes to get him disqualified (along
with about 5 others in the junior category). Of course I can’t prove this but
it is a concern, because there are no safeguards for something like this to
happen.
At this point I don’t know what to tell my son or what message the course of
events is sending him. All he knows is that he competed and went by the
rules, and got taken out for no apparent reason. If have repeatedly called
and emailed the Lego Company, but haven’t gotten a response (so Jake, if
you’re reading this.....). All I’d like to get is an explanation from Lego as
to why my son’s entry got taken out.
Obviously the results won’t be changed and my son knows that. He’d just like
to know what happened and with as much time as he and I spent on this contest
and as much $ as we spent on the plastic brick I think the company owes us at
least an explanation (and the others who got disqualified as well).
All in all, I think the contest was a lot of fun, and I spent way too much
time on it, as my brickshelf folder will tell
(http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=107738). However, as
several people have pointed out on various forums, there is definitely room
for improvement, especially in the online voting process, as the final round
seems to indicate, as well as the fact that one person ended up winning four
of eight prizes in the junior category (nothing against the builder, but I
think Lego should have dealt with this in the rules, e.g. only one winning
entry per builder to give more kids a chance to win), and that some of the
designs that ended up winning are really kind of boring and don’t have much
play value. I for one won’t probably buy any of the winning designs, other
than maybe the racetrack. Another thing to point out here is that the
wildcard winnners that were picked by the Lego designers didn’t fare too well
in the final round.
Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts. Please let me know if you have
any info regarding the disqualifications, or what you think about all this.
Contests like these are good, but lets help Lego make it better by pointing
out where improvements can be made.
Thanks,
Mark
Lugnet member #485
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Mark van ‘t Hooft wrote:
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Hi all,
I’m sure most of you know that the Lego Factory contest ended on Monday and
the winners have been announced.
..
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Mark and everyone-
As the parent of two LEGO world champions (the 1992 LEGO World Cup, the 2000
LEGO Star Wars Galactic Challenge), I’ve seen both sides of what it’s like to
put heart and soul into these events and then win or lose.
The bottom line, to me, is that I’m grateful to The LEGO Company for giving kids
a chance to show off what they can do. There’s lots of places in our society for
child athletes or child entertainers to earn big recognition, but very few
opportunities for future engineers and architects. So, for that reason, I really
appreciate that TLC holds such contests.
That said, there sure have been problems that could be fixed. Rules need to be
made more comprehensive and they need to be followed. The problem, I’m sure, is
that TLC doesn’t anticipate putting a lot of effort (i.e., money) into rule
enforcement and judging. And if we complain too much, we will end up with
“contests” that consist of TLC picking 100 entries at random and then choosing
the best from just that 100 instead of looking at everything.
My older son entered a contest when he was about 7 in which he followed all the
rules that required building something from 3 specified sets and conforming to a
specific theme. He followed those rules and won, but TLC also awarded prices to
entrants that were not built from the specified sets and didn’t match the theme!
My younger son entered a Halloween costume contest at LLCA in which judging was
done by audience volume. His entry dressed him head to toe in LEGO and included
a full size automated operating space weapon. He lost to a child in a store
bought costume. Why? The winner brought along a large extended family. Well,
good for them, and good for LLCA one might say if those family members had all
bought admissions that day, since presumably that was the purpose of the
promotion. Except on the way out of the park, we happened to be in Customer
Service when the winner’s mom thanked the park for letting her busload of family
members visit at no charge just to vote in the contest!
At one point, TLC held a contest that precluded winners and near-winners of
previous contests. If it had been a luck based drawing, I would have had no
objection. But when the the announced itent was to find the “best LEGO builder
in the United States”, it seemed crazy and unfair to disqualify competitors who
had proven themself worthy of consideration. The Olympics would be a different
beast if anyone who had previously attended was automatically inelligible. I
found this particularly ironic for a company whose slogan is “Only the best is
good enough”!
I think the LEGO Factory concept is a terrific idea. LEGO can find some really
cool new ideas and put them in production. Kids and adults get a great
opportunity to show off and earn recognition and valuable considerations. It’s a
win-win. With so much value in it for TLC, TLC should allocate the resources to
professionally judge the submissions. Having the unqualified public do it is
just crazy for them -- and heart breaking some for contestants.
-Ted
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Ted Michon wrote:
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It’s a win-win. With so much value in it for TLC, TLC should allocate the
resources to professionally judge the submissions. Having the unqualified
public do it is just crazy for them -- and heart breaking some for
contestants.
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When a company does something outside its core competency, something infrequent,
this is the kind of outcome to be expected.
Maybe the Ambassadors could help with making serious building contests fairer.
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