Subject:
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Re: Rants about Bricks
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Jun 2003 08:24:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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818 times
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Benjamin Ellermann wrote:
> I stumbled on this article accidentally and it intrigues me. I agree that LEGO
> is most likely aware of what many afol's want.
Some people inside LEGO may be aware of the existence of AFOLs, but most
of the company does not seem to care about this potential market.
Learning new paradigms is something especially large companies are more
or less incapable of.
For years, LEGO experiences a sharp decline in sales in the kids
department. While once kids upto 14 or 16 years of age bought LEGO,
todays cutoff date is mor likely to be placed at 10 years.
They catered for this by creating more childish sets (i.e. sets that
consist only of a few, large, expensive pieces that can be sticked
together with one page of instructions worth). This leads to more
specialized pieces that can only be used for a very limited number
purposes, therefor killing all possibilities for creativity.
While the ordinary bricks and plates of my childhood (although badly
bitten and bruised) can (and are) still be used in my current MOC
(although, because of their appearence, only as hidden pieces), a
Galidor body part or Bionicle 'thingy' is absolutely useless outside its
original scope.
On the other hand, the growing number of AFOLs has been mostly ignored
so far. A few sets (Starwars, Statues) have been issued, and some
'classics' have been reissued, but they totally lost the point that the
person that is todays AFOL is someone who is used to play and build with
'normal' bricks, to build creative things from a range of _universally_
usable bricks. This universality is the one big advantage LEGO has above
almost all other toys. And they are just ignoring this vitally important
point.
Another large mistake this company makes is the concentration on S@H and
brand stores. Once upon a time, I could buy all the pieces I needed in
the shop around the corner. Nowadays, its only a small selection of
Explorer, Bionicle, Jack Stone (We're safe from Galidor, as TRU was
stupid enough to sell them exclusive round here), located right next to
two or three shelves of Playmobil.
How could a potential adult customer re-gain curiosity and interest in
the favourite toy of his or her childhood? I daresay that the collection
available in todays toyshops is more a barrier than an incentive. Who of
them could know that there are designer sets designed for adults (or at
least experienced hands) available in the online-shop behind the
kiddie-front of lego.com?
Over the last years, Playmobil has gained more and more shelf space off
the LEGO sections in the toy shops around. I can only hope that they
come back to their right mind early enough.
> Sometimes they do give us these
> things. However, it usually is because that piece is necessary for them in a
> set, not because we want it. An example is the 2x2x3 double convex slope in
> red. (one of my favorite peices) This peice is necessary to make moc's like my
> albatros d III airplane. The problem was that you could only get them in
> blacksmith shops released in 1984. Anyway, Lego rereleased this piece in one of
> their new designer sets. We also got cypress trees briefly. I know there are
> tons of pieces I want like grey slopes (especially peaks), black roof peaks
> (these should NEVER run out), brown 1x4x6 doors, brown ladders (old type), etc.
> I think we occasionally get nice suprises. Hopefully they will happen more
> often in the future.
For years and years, AFOLs and Usergroups have virtualley begged LEGO to
sell them bricks. They (at least, the more sensible ones) don't expect
bricks for free, or that LEGO would sell '3 pieces of this in yellow, 5
pieses of that in lime'. But LEGO would not even sell pieces in
quantities large enough to make an economic sense - they have cardboard
boxes with bricks in quantities, e.g. 3000 pcs 1x2 or suchlike for
deliveries for the Brand Stores Pick-A-Brick walls and the miniland
designer studios. With a distribution system like Bricklink, the bricks
market could be catered for, even with pieces not available in (current)
sets. Only, they don't want to.
LEGO will have to learn that AFOLs are customers, not beggers.
Yours, Christian Treczoks
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Rants about Bricks
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| (...) I stumbled on this article accidentally and it intrigues me. I agree that LEGO is most likely aware of what many afol's want. Sometimes they do give us these things. However, it usually is because that piece is necessary for them in a set, not (...) (21 years ago, 23-Jun-03, to lugnet.castle)
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