Subject:
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Re: Holy Mackerel! LEGO survey...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general, lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Sun, 17 Apr 2005 10:24:39 GMT
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Viewed:
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2120 times
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> * Would you buy LEGO toys for children 0-11? Y/N
Yes
> * Why / Why not?
Because they're versatile and inspire creativity.
> * What feature(s) would you add if you were the marketing director of LEGO?
More light/motion features in regular building sets. Integrate some small
motorised or technic features into smaller town/space/train sets. This would
make them more attractive to adult collectors too, who've been put off technic
by the lack of inter-operability caused by the studless beams.
The minifig torches are great, but where are the vehicles with lights? A single
piece flashing light/sound unit was produced for Jack Stone models a while ago,
then it was just given away with purchases in brand shops. Why wasn't this
built in to a minifigure police car or fire engine?
> * How would you change existing LEGO products if you wanted to sell them for
> more money?
As above. But, you need more smaller sets in the themes to inpire collecting.
Surely this lesson is obvious from Bionicle? One set at each price point in a
theme puts a distinct barrier up for most children. The city theme is a good
example. There's a police motorbike, a police car, a police van, a police
station. There's a fire car, a fire helicopter, a fire engine, and a fire
station. Where are all the cars and vans or houses that make up a real city?
Sets that children can spend their pocket money on? If you're a child you have
a certain perceived spending limit for one set, and another limit for your
parents to spend on you. Say your personal limit is $20 or $30 on one set -
you're left with a very small number of sets from the catalogue you can look at.
Having said that, I have noticed the low price point of these City sets and I'm
impressed. I say more!
> * What new products would you launch?
Expand the town range. Integrate it more closely with trains. Make push-along
trains that can be upgraded to running 9V trains, to bring down the entry point.
Make creator sets that allow for building minifigure-sized buildings or vehicles
with technical working features such as lifts, conveyer belts, motorised cranes,
etc.
With spares and bulk packs available on the website, engage the adult builders
to see what is useful. There's no coherent provision of a range of shapes of
bricks in a range of colours. Each colour has a different seletion of shapes.
It's hard to use the parts on offer.
Worst example is the roof tile packs - the proportions of parts they contain are
utterly useless. No-one who's ever built a roof out of Lego would ever come up
with a pack like that - yet the creator set for making buildings has just the
right parts, and so did an old spares pack from Lego with black roof pieces.
Some people in the company may have thought these roof packs would be a
resounding success, as it's what many fans asked for in surveys. But, they've
fallen flat because of critical design flaws. The customers for this sort of
thing are very picky - you won't understand them through crude surveys where you
think you know what answer options to provide. You need to understand the point
of view of a builder. Why is this so hard for LEGO? Does no-one in the company
ever actually build anything?
I'll repeat my personal request for a dark grey roof pack - the new colour of
dark grey won't matter if all the bricks go into the roof of a model. And talk
to the fans about the proportions of pieces needed to make an interesting roof.
Get it right, and you only need produce one spares pack, not two.
> * What should LEGO be doing that it isn’t now?
Many of the parents buying Lego for their children do so because they remember
playing with it. But, most of them hardly recognise it. There were some
enduring play values in the old range of public and civilian town sets that are
missing in the current City range. Legoland has become a police state!
The themes need to be more closely integrated, for more interoperability. The
designs of themes such as Alpha Team are just too extreme to integrate with
City.
The new Vikings look like a step in the right direction - bringing minifigures
into contact with Bionicle-like monsters. As mentioned above, try bringing
technic contraptions to minifigures to inspire continuity. The disparate themes
in the current catalogue are not inspiring the lifelong fans of the future.
Jason Railton
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Holy Mackerel! LEGO survey...
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| All, I know that some of you have attempted to fill out the survey announced yesterday on LEGOfan.org, only to be turned away with a message about the survey being complete. After some late night phone calls and early morning emails, I've been to (...) (20 years ago, 16-Apr-05, to lugnet.general, lugnet.lego) !!
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