Subject:
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Re: End of Year Thoughts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 4 Dec 2001 06:04:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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1275 times
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In lugnet.general, Allan Bedford writes:
> In lugnet.general, Erik Olson writes:
> > In lugnet.general, Allan Bedford writes:
> >
> > > The volume of new and odd pieces in recent years seems to counter the
> > > argument that they are trying to keep costs down. If this were the case,
> > > why are we seeing lines like Jack Stone, Rock Raiders, Bionicle etc. that
> > > use more new pieces than ever before?
> >
> > Because they can patent new pieces?
>
> You're going to have to help me with this one. How does this make economic
> sense?
It sounds absurd to me too. I said it wasn't a whole theory... it's a
partial theory, postulating patenting pieces as the formal cause.
Look, we know it's really expensive to make new pieces. But they keep doing
it. It must be that they regard it as the prime directive. Sometimes they
get a hit like Bionicle--all new proprietary (hmm) portfolio! Next year
there will probably be 5 more wacky ideas, and they could all fail and give
way to the next crop rotation (time for frijoles, paisanos.) Remember when
Throwbots were just a weird sideline?
For decades, Lego has been inventing weird construction toys and not
bringing them to market. (So have their competitors... Lego's weird ideas
tend to be more playable.) Nowadays they let more of them out. Jack
Stone-Walls have been in the lab for some time, seething. Desperation, or
merely given a passing grade by enough focus group kids?
Today they're searching for the next Minifig. Remember when the stiffie was
a weird sideline to the bendy arm folks? Remember all the weird Duploids?
(OK, Chris Weeks gave me a giant bag of different ones.) Remember the fig
(http://guide.lugnet.com/set/390_1) with human head and Fabuland body that
appeared in only 4 sets, then died? Where is the Fabuland body anyway?
Expired! (like the minifig.)
Interlego as venture capital.
Wouldn't it be better to focus on the pieces you have, the ones that
> are already useful and for which molds have already been created?
Yeah. If you want to keep playing with your father's company's toys.
Godtfred Christiansen... the more you learn, the more you have to just stand
in awe. (OK, he had a handful of key employees too.) The man behind our
happy childhood discoveries, the secret engineering course disguised as
play, running underground beneath our tech culture generation. But who is
this Kjeld guy running the company since 1995? The funny looking kid in the
Idea Books. Hasn't he confessed that he didn't really like building all that
much?
I think Kjeld, and the other directors behind the scenes that we never, ever
hear about, want to make their own toys. They're rebelling against the past.
One day there will be CEO action figures. Maybe in the next bull market.
> > the theme gets the "venture capital exit test (we can save 1 million if we cancel it now instead of next year)"
> Ah, the millions that could have been saved by axing the Jack Stone series
> before it ever hit the CAD stage.
Ha ha... but I view Jack Stone as Metamucil. It clears the way to produce
ages 7-12 sets again. Oops, that's hope. I don't think Town is coming back
next. Nice if it was on the schedule, but only wishful thinking.
>
> > I feel like I have just stocked my bomb shelter. I have opened all my brick
> > tubs and buckets and sorted them into bags with the year stamped on them.
> > Little survival rations to the future.
>
> Are you serious about this? I can almost believe that someone might do
> this.
Yes. I have more bricks than I can use at present. I did not know the extent
of it (I just got 6000 new ones). So they have been neatly packed away.
I am -->][<-- thees close to declaring that 10000 will be my last Lego set,
inaugurating the coming Dark Ages.
The gates have been thrown wide. Darkness has belched forth to cloud the
skies. From my closets have issued forth piles of classic MISB Lego sets.
(I've already opened many copies anyway.) I figure I can raise $2000 at
ebay. Then that would be it. (Except Star Wars, and Winnie the Pooh--don't
ask--and a few special items.) Buh-bye. Formal break. Graduation. History.
I'm unstable, mon--one big Ebay session will do it. Tick tick tick.
(There would still be the million bricks in my living room.)
-Erik ("Don't do it, mon! Think of yeer unborn children!")
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: End of Year Thoughts
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| (...) You're going to have to help me with this one. How does this make economic sense? Wouldn't it be better to focus on the pieces you have, the ones that are already useful and for which molds have already been created? I mean, Megablocks has a (...) (23 years ago, 4-Dec-01, to lugnet.general)
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