Subject:
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Re: An alternative open letter to the CEO of the LEGO Company
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.color, lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Sat, 29 Jan 2005 04:03:49 GMT
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Viewed:
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4781 times
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In lugnet.color, Bryan Wong wrote:
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In lugnet.color, Mark Jordan wrote:
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In lugnet.color, Thomas Stangl wrote:
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To date, TLG has *yet* to give a *valid* reason for the change. Any reasons
given have been debunked as fluff or outright lies.
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This is a very serious allegation. Please explain which reasons given by TLG
have been debunked as fluff or outright lies.
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Well here’s *my understanding* of it. TLG changed the colours because the old
grays and brown did not fit in with their “vision” of the colour palette.
They tested the new colours with groups of children, and the kids liked it.
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That’s my understanding as well. That’s a good summary of what Jake posted here
http://news.lugnet.com/lego/?n=1791 and referred to here
http://news.lugnet.com/general/?n=47149.
What’s more, to my knowledge, that’s the only reason which TLG have provided.
Seems to me that either its fact or an outright lie.
If its a lie, how far might it go? That the children actually hated the colours
and TLG went ahead anyway? That the “children” were really a bunch of guys from
the warehouse on their coffee break? That there was no testing at all? Or that
the change was due to the Procurement department and not the Design Lab?
Now, why anyone would assume its a lie is beyond me. If in fact the colour
change was due (this is the best suggestion I have heard of) to the new greys
being available as industry standard dyes rather than custom dyes made up
especially for TLG, then maybe Jake would have told us some carefully worded
“fluff” which neither confirms or denies.
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After changing the colours, I’ve heard/read about parents who question the
change.
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I have raised this subject with my wife (a big buyer of Lego for our daughter
and for gifts but not a builder). She shrugged. When I showed her some of the
.color traffic on this subject she was amazed at how upset people were.
I could be mistaken, but I wouldn’t even raise this topic with my non-AFOL
friends who are Lego buying parents for fear of being laughed at. To them, Lego
is just another toy. Do you think that the average person, who thinks that the
plural of Lego involves the letter S, would care either way backward
compatibility? Or sorting? Or that the new greys don’t go so well with yellow or
white ? Or that there is some guy down the road building the Yamato in 1/40
scale who will be severely inconvenienced?
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Adult fans have been split into 3 camps: some are in favour, some
against, and some don’t care - with the first group being the minority.
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I’d say that any AFOL who doesn’t care either way would be in the minority.
Maybe Fabuland collectors? The MISB only crowd? Almost any AFOL who builds
(surely the majority) would care one way or another. Please don’t mistake
silence for “don’t care”.
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As for
kids (the primary audience), we haven’t heard much feedback.
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And you probably won’t. Compared to Lego, most toys are pretty shoddy. Kids are
happy if the parts fit together let alone worry about colour matches. When I
was a kid, I didn’t have enough Lego to consider building colour coordinated
creations.
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The one thing that doesn’t make sense is, why would a company spend money to
make a change, and not advertise it? Assuming that the change has had no
positive effect on sales1, does that mean the change was a big mistake?
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TLG makes a lot of changes and none of them get “advertised” as such. Click
hinges, changes in tyre tread from smooth to knobbly, colours of Technic parts,
etc etc etc, are all changes that weren’t “advertised”.
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The only way this would make sense is if TLG changed the colours as a
cost-saving measure, especially given their recent financial situation. I
think this is the reason a lot of us are looking for. The naysayers may not
be happy with the colour change, but we’d accept that as a reason.
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Well, I can see how the simplification of the palette would reduce costs, but I
can’t see how the grey/brown change would do anything but increase costs -
unless as I described above, the dyes used are now standard. If anyone finds a
non Lego plastic object which is exactly the same colour as a new brown or grey,
then I will buy this argument.
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Please keep in mind that the above is my *opinion* on this issue, so take it
for what it’s worth.
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OK, your opinion seems to indicate that you believe TLG is lying to us. In
your heart, do you think that TLG is lying to us on this matter?
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1 Ok that’s a huge assumption. But regardless of sales figures, we can all
agree that the colour change has caused great discontent within the AFOL
community.
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I agree with this assumption. I’d be very surprised if anyone TLG or otherwise
can prove that the change has been good for sales to kids/parents, whilst on
the other hand it has almost certainly held some AFOLs back from their
purchases.
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Even if our purchases are an insignificant portion of TLG’s annual
sales, you cannot dispute the fact that we are a valuable (??), vocal
marketing tool at TLG’s disposal.
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TLG has already provided an explanation, made bulk bricks available in the old
colours, apologised for not warning AFOLs earlier, and done some other things
like provide the universal colour list. It seems to me that, according to you,
there are only two courses of action which would make the “naysayers” happy:
1. Changing back the colours, whether or not it fits in with TLG’s vision for
the product going into the future.
AND/OR
2. “Admitting” that the reasons given were lies, whether they were or not.
To illustrate how absurd this is, I have provided a humourous account here:
http://news.lugnet.com/fun/holiday/?n=209
Bryan, Tom, have I got you right? You think the explanation in Jake’s email is a
lie?
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