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As the subject says, these are inferences, not direct quotes. But I have
given references to why I think my "read between the lines" statements are
accurate.
1. The adult fan community is probably not as important as we like to think
we are. Brad seemed to include us in the category of "enthusiasts", which I
think he descibed kind of vaguely as someone who really loves the brand and
has some "loyalty" to the products. This enthusiast group may include the
2M people in the US and Canada that are in the Lego Club (the 2M figure I
remember directly, but I'm not sure if Brad used them as an example of other
enthusiasts besides us). We may be more vocal than the rest, but our
numbers (both in people and amount we spend) pale before the rest of the
enthusiasts; and similarly the enthusiast group pales before the general
public. Shiri's humorous advice to "treat AFOLs like alcoholics -- they buy
the majority of the product that liquor companies sell" got a response from
Brad that we definitely do *not* account for the majority of his sales,
using the example of how our Lugnet count of Guarded Inn sales was way off,
because of the flood of orders that came when the Inn appeared in the S@H
catalog. I think this means we may be valuable us as a gauge of how other
enthusiasts may feel about products, but we are not a large enough segment
to justify creating products specifically for... the products have to appeal
to the larger enthusiast market.
2. Lego does not see juniorization as a failure. I can't quote Brad
directly, but to paraphrase, he did respond to one question by saying
something like "you all may hate juniorization, but that's the way kids are
today: they want more playabilty and they get less enjoyment out of the
actual building experience". Again, that is not a direct quote. But the
essence I got was that Lego has no intention of abandoning juniorization.
Brad did add that he believes the product line should appeal to older ages
as well, with non-juniorized products (and he used Star Wars as an example
of current non-juniorized sets).
Anyone who heard it differently, please chime in.
I'm not really suprised by what I heard. And I don't think it's the end of
the world either. We may never see another annual catalog full of
non-juniorized town and castle sets, but the fact that Lego now makes
products specifically for "Enthusiasts" (like the 'Camel, MOT, etc) will
hopefully make up for it.
-Greg Kramer
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