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In lugnet.dear-lego, Nathan Wells wrote:
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To everyone at LUGNET and LEGO, I want to say this:
I was first introduced to LEGO when I was five. My family and I were going
on a long road trip and my parents bought me LEGO set #565 5+ Build-N-Store
Chest to keep me occupied during the long hours on the road. I, like any
kid, was hooked. My parents encouraged my building and soon they bought a
huge box of LEGO at a yard sale and gave it to me for Christmas. One of my
fondest childhood memories was turning a corning, rubbing sleep from my eyes,
and seeing before under the sparkling Christmas tree the original #6074 Black
Falcon’s Fortress.
Throughout the years I have collected over a hundred twenty LEGO sets:
Classic Space, LEGOLAND castle, Black Falcons, Spyrius, Adventurers,
Aquazone, Space Port, Studios, Aqua Raiders, Forrestmen, Harry Potter, Black
Knights, Aquanauts, Alpha Team, LEGO Island Extreme Stunts, many variations
on the Town theme, Mindstorms, Pirates, Dragon Masters, Jurassic Park III,
Designer, Technic, Spiderman, Royal Knights, Star Wars, Stingrays, Islanders,
Wild West, Explorian, Discovery NASA, Wolfpack and even one Paradisa set. My
LUGNET set guide tells me I have over 14620 pieces, and I’m sure I have more
than that, due to eBay buys, yard sales, trades with friends and
Pick-A-Brick. I devote at least three hours a day to building and four hours
to sorting about every two weeks. I spend 95% of my money I earn on LEGO,
and I am never sorry I did.
In 1998 my parents got our iMac hooked up to the Internet and I began surfing
the net. In late 2000 I discovered LUGNET, and I was amazing that there were
actually people out there – adults as well as kids, mind you – that played,
built and collected like I did. Finally in December of 2002 I got my LUGNET
membership and officially be came a member of LEGO fan group. It has been
nearly a years since I joined, and now I am a proud member of, in addition to
LUGNET, Brickshelf, Peeron, FBTB.net, Brickfilms.com, Bricklink.com, MOCpages
and Classic-Castle.com. LEGO has been a part of my life since age five and
has never faltered. I intend to keep it that way.
After joining LUGNET, I was suddenly exposed to millions of opinions; likes,
dislikes, complains, leaks on future sets, engaging discussions, pointless
debates, exuberant praise, and the nastiest insults and arguments. Many of
the ‘bashing’ threads have been about LEGO’s new hit theme Bionicle. Before
I had even looked the new sets, I was already biased about the amount of
‘juniorised parts’, and ‘wacky’ colors and just ‘plain stupid’ story line.
After I actually saw the sets the catalog, my bias as a LEGO fan that bought
set for the pieces was confirmed. However, when I went to a friend of a
friend’s house one evening, I saw one little boy no older than six playing
with Bionicle the same way I had many years ago when I pitting my Forrestmen
against my Black Falcons. He was having fun, and created at the same time
too. While I watched he took apart Onua and Nuhvok, added some tentacles
from Aragog (of Harry Potter fame) and began pitting this fearsome creature
against a tribe of Turagas. I may not like Bionicle for the pieces, but this
line is creating more LEGO fans, and that is all a LEGO theme needs to do to
earn my respect. “Play Well” and “Just Imagine” is still going strong.
Now of course, there is the problem with the hullabaloo over the replacement
colors of gray, dark gray, brown and one other color. People have complained
to LEGO that they have been betrayed and some intend to boycott LEGO by
buying Megabloks. To be honest and quite frank, this is dumb. AFOLs make up
about 5% percent of all LEGO sales, and even if all the members of LUGNET and
FBTB.com combined stop buying LEGO for good it’ll hardly make a dent in
LEGO’s sales. I myself will continue buying LEGO until the day I die, and a
little matter of color replacement isn’t going to rattle me. Yes, I’m
annoyed these core colors are being replaced, but I’m not having a conniption
fit over it. I feel quite sorry for Jake and everyone else at TLC right now,
who is getting more bashing and insults than Jar-Jar ever did.
Changes are part of a company’s growth. Remember the Monorail? Gone.
Maxifigs? Gone. Minifig Head Stud Hollow? Gone. Technic Gear 24 Tooth
with Three Axle Holes? Gone. With exception of the Monorail, all these
changes were an improvement. I believe the change of colors is the same.
It all comes down to this:
I BELIEVE IN YOU LEGO!!! HERE’S A PAT ON THE BACK AND A BIG HUG FROM ME!!!
Play Well…
(NOTE: Anyone who agrees with me, please post your replies in .general.
Anyone who wants to bash me/LEGO/anyone else PLEASE post to
off-topic.debate)
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I welcome innovations that add to a product. But nothing about this is
innovative. It is just going to solidify the myth among American kids that LEGO
is a baby toy. Perhaps this is just a ploy to spur us all into a buying frenzy
to match our collections of new grey to original grey.
Parts being discontinued is wholy different than saying, “No more Black bricks,
they are just to dark for kids.” Who says they need to be ultrabright to be
LEGO colors? I thought it was about system compatability.
Fans may not be able to make a dent in sales, but they can create negative press
for LEGO, or even lack of word of mouth. All it takes is a pebble and pretty
soon you have an avalanche.
I’d be pleased as punch to welcome the new color, IF I could still be assured
that true earth tones would still be offered. The only reason I would turn to
Mega Blocks now is that they make sets with large quantities of the colors that
LEGO is abandoning and at a lower cost to me. I have been turning toward them
already for their fantastic lines of fantasy sets for myself and my kids, now I
like them even more.
I’d love to love LEGO, but they are treading on thin ice doing away with product
that people want. If they sell them in bulk packs, I’ll forgive. But set
buying in multiples just became less interesting.
Gah. Makes me sick to my tummy.
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