Subject:
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Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:22:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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20660 times
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In lugnet.general, David Eaton wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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He’s got a (half baked) hypothesis. He wrote a paper 10 years ago and is
still milking it. Don’t confuse him with data.
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I think he’s doing the same thing that virtually everyone does when they see
modern LEGO-- trying to figure out why they don’t like it as much.
Everyone that grew up with LEGO seems to go through that same stage of
curmudgeon-ity, where they think that the new LEGO sets are awful, and the
old stuff is WAY better.
One of the more defiant examples being one recently of someone who was born
in the early 90’s, who thought that roughly 1998-2005 was the “golden age” of
LEGO, despite the fact that it was probably the roughest time for LEGO when
the sales figures bear out the fact that it was pretty bad.
Anyway, he’s trying to wrap his brain around why he doesn’t like the new LEGO
sets that he’s seeing, and he latched onto the paper that he wrote years ago,
despite the fact that the paper doesn’t really prove anything about the
*quality* of a building toy-- it just proved certain tendencies for part
diversity in some cross-section of LEGO’s lineup (I’m not even sure if his
cross-section made any sense).
So, he’s mis-applying the conclusions that he came to 10 years ago-- which
were actually pretty interesting. But I don’t think they don’t serve as
evidence to validate his claim that modern LEGO is terrible. I think that
reaction is due to the specificity of modern parts, and the decreased focus
on building that LEGO has now. And that’s basically where much of the target
market has taken LEGO-- quite successfully!
For the record, I’m not sure I’d call that particular trend “juniorization”,
but we (the community) probably ought to have some sort of other term for it.
Things like Exo-Force, Ninjago, Mars Mission, etc, aren’t really *juniorized*
per se, so much as they’re focused on non-rebuilding. They’re feature-rich,
less focused on exercising kids’ imaginations, and more “specific” rather
than “iconic”.
By contrast, I think of “juniorized” as having fewer pieces that are simpler
to assemble for younger age groups. But these models often involve more
complex technic assemblies that are actually pretty difficult to build for
young kids. But they’re just intended to STAY built.
But maybe that’s just my concept of “juniorization”. Perhaps the term is
meant to encompass these other aspects as well, or has been sufficiently used
to that end in the community?
DaveE
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I think you’re spot-on. He went fishing for empirical support for his intuition
and really had to stretch to make it seem to fit. I think one contributing
factor is that people who have not maintained familiarity with LEGO pieces over
the years look at one of the realistic models on a box and assume it is made of
large, specialized parts.
I have a junior builder in my own household whose first LEGO sets were Bionicle.
While I tut-tutted about the pre-formed fairings and large molded pieces, he was
busy combining his sets into enormous, complicated creatures. This was tacitly
encouraged in the set instructions, which cross-marketed other Bionicle sets by
showing a sample model that could be built by combining two or more sets.
I’m not sure TLC still does that. He just bought a couple of the 2012 Ninjago
sets, and the instructions do not have any suggestions for alternate models.
Instead, they have a large centerfold checklist of the various weapon
accessories that can be collected. We may be seeing another shift taking place.
Bionicle had an element of that collectible incentive, but it seems that with
Ninjago it is central to the series. They use specialized pieces (minifigs and
minifig accessories) sold only in certain sets as an incentive.
But is it a trend? Because at the same time, TLC does more than any other
company to support the free-form use of its product. Rebrick and CUUSOO are the
most recent efforts, but my son has been sending in snapshots of his creations
for years hoping to get one in the LEGO Club magazine.
And he was delighted to find that the new Ninjago Rattlecopter uses minifig
knight helmets as engine parts. Once he had finished building it, he remarked
that he thought it would look better with more structure underneath and noticed
that there were some bare tubes on the underside not covered by inverted slopes.
He speculated that LEGO had probably left them like that so people could add
stuff underneath if they wanted. Who knows - maybe they did.
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