Subject:
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Re: TLG investigation 1st answers
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 22 Feb 1999 19:48:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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1508 times
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Jeroen Ottens writes:
> Lego develops for kids, not for adults. Kids have developed as well through
> the years.
I can't find fault with either of those statements, but I must point out that
developing a product for kids does not require "dumbing it down."
Let's use some examples.
The Star Wars movies and merchandise were not generally "dumbed down," yet
their popularity among kids has spanned over two decades. A convenient side
effect of this phenomenon is that there are many adults out there who are avid
fans of the trilogy and major consumers of related products.
The recent Godzilla movie was "dumbed down" for its young target audience.
Ticket sales were underwhelming, the film was rejected by critics, and toy
stores can't even sell their Godzilla toys at discount prices. Sure, children
across America were obsessed with the movie for a week back in early summer,
but they forgot about it in record time.
I think we know which of the above did a better job of "developing for kids."
To relate this directly to Lego:
Lego was _not_ my favorite childhood toy. I went through many phases and fads.
First I played with He-Man toys, then Transformers and GI Joe toys. Later I got
a Nintendo. What made Lego unique was that I kept coming back to it. Other toys
were given away or put into storage when I lost interest, but Lego grew with
me. I'm not suggesting that I followed the Duplo-Lego-Technic track that the
old catalogues seemed to suggest (I stuck with Space sets for about a decade,
and was never really interested in Technic models). I collected Lego sets
because they gave me a range of building and playing possibilities that was
limited by the scope of my imagination, rather than by the toy itself. This
aspect of Lego, which kept me coming back as a child, brought me back as an
adult.
In terms of modern sets, I don't think that a 12 year old would have much
interest in building with his old Town Jr. sets, but I bet his 5 year old
brother would love building with the Star Wars sets.
And don't write off AFOL's comments just because we're not your target
demographic. We may not be looking for ALL the same things that kids are, but
we are experts on your product, and we do remember the sorts of things we
looked for in Lego products as kids.
I'm sorry if the above comments are of no use to you - I just want to point out
that underestimating children frequently backfires.
> If you ask for better sets, you ask for bigger sets with smaller (unprinted)
> bricks for yourself.
That's a good generalization, but as others will say, it's a lot more about
versatility than size. But the big composite peices are awful: 5 1x2x1 bricks
are almost always worse than 1 1x2x5 brick.
I'd also love to see more use of the neutral colors (grey, dark grey, tan,
brown, black, and white) in sets. I love the idea an AFOL suggested of a Mos
Eisley tan bucket as a part of the Star Wars theme. I'm don't know whether kids
would agree with this one, but I know that dark grey is one of my 8 yr old
brother's favorite Lego colors.
> My question is: Does Model Team fill that need (if only partial)? I mean is
> that a good direction?
I'm usually impressed by the Model Team sets that I see in catalogues, both in
terms of set design and piece availability. But I've never bought one, since
they're so expensive. I'd love to see smaller MT sets, perhaps in the $20
range.
Josh Spaulding
http://members.tripod.com/~josh_spaulding
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | TLG investigation 1st answers
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| Hi everybody, Thanks (again) for your overwhelming responses. I have had over 100 responses within 4 days and still counting... A lot of questions have been asked, most of them I can't answer unfortunately. All questions regarding comments to be (...) (25 years ago, 19-Feb-99, to lugnet.general)
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