Subject:
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Re: LEGO is listening! (was...are you listening?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego, lugnet.dear-lego
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Date:
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Tue, 7 Nov 2000 06:36:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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2469 times
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"Ashley Glennon" <ashleyg@america.lego.com> wrote in message
news:G3HsC9.JG@lugnet.com...
> As you might imagine, the lack of time is one of the significant factors
> that hinders our responses. To write a detailed response that caters to
> your needs is quite a complex task. Some of your questions would require
> volumes to answer rather than a short, quick message. Case in point:
> "Juniorization." I can tell you right now that kids have told the Company
> that they have less time to build and want things that are faster to • build,
> therefore the Company has created what you call "Juniorized" sets. [The
> very fact that I mentioned this is likely to solicit a mile long response
> which we will not likely be able to respond to(which brings me to the next
> point).]
Well! You certainly predicted it! Let me just chime in, as the father of a
9 year
old girl -- she doesn't have much time (what, with FIRST LEGO League, etc.
:-)
but she would rather savour a good, complex model built over several days
(and I notice she picks up on the design tricks like two technic beams
separated
by two plates is the right spacing for a cross beam to make things stronger
better
when she does savour a large model, like the 8480) than mess with juniorized
sets.
In fact, the other day, in ZanyBrainy she looked at a couple of models (the
space
port, a couple others) and said "Daddy? Are they putting Duplo pieces in
LEGO
sets now? All these pieces are really big, you can't do much with them!" so
we moved
on to other things. I admit, I used the opportunity to teach her the word
"juniorized" :-)
All I can say is that LEGO needs to look at who they *really* want to
target. Do you
want the brain-dead TV mush heads who will give up "toys" for video games
or, worse,
drugs and are extremely unlikely to ever exit their dark ages. Or do you
want the kids
with active minds who may briefly leave LEGO for other pursuits, but do,
eventually
find their way back to the joys of LEGO, either thanks to their own children
or because
of things like Mindstorms. I'm sure commonsense will tell you that it is
the latter demographic
that is most likely to have significant amounts of disposable income to
spend on LEGO!
When you consider the amount of money people spend buying the good, old,
sets on
places like e-bay, it has got to hurt! All of that money going to buy the
sets you gave up
making years ago, when you have to sell the sets you make today at firesale
prices in
Wal-Mart, etc. As others have mentioned, the UCS and sculpture sets are a
great start
(as is Mindstorms) but thats all they are, a START. Bring the rest of your
sets out of
the juniorized dark ages, or, as I've suggested before, sell the old sets as
special edition
bulk packs, don't even bother printing the original instruction set, just
make the brickshelf
instructions "official" or offer your own scans (though why you would
re-invent the wheel
at your own cost, I don't know) and let the buyers get them online. One
other option
would be to make the juniorized stuff official as "Lego Jr" and let the
mush-heads waste
their money on that, while LEGO's current and future bread+butter buy the
proper stuff!
Thanks!
-Peter
Coach, FLL Team #1096: The Unibots
AFOL
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | LEGO is listening! (was...are you listening?)
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| Dear LEGO fans, The LEGO Company IS listening. I have spent some time reading the posts here tonight and you can rest assured that the company is well aware of LUGNET and your concerns, desires and feedback. As some of you have acknowledged, there (...) (24 years ago, 4-Nov-00, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.dear-lego) !!
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