Subject:
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Re: Dear LEGO Company,
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Wed, 5 Jul 2006 15:55:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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7637 times
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In lugnet.lego, Patrick McFarland wrote:
> #1) One feature I would like to see is allowing people to "sell" their works
> through Lego Designer, for, say, 5% or 10% of the selling price.
An interesting concept, although I'm not sure I quite follow it. Currently, you
can purchase other people's designs for the normal price. Even if you couldn't
directly through the website, you could sell downloads of your LDD files, and
have other people submit the same models to Lego for purchase.
I assume the idea is in terms of motivating people to submit more high-quality
models, thus driving up Lego's sales overall. So, if the original builder gets
some sort of kickback, then maybe they're more likely to increase Lego Factory's
income.
It would be difficult though:
1) You need staff at Lego to approve models for public visibility. You don't
want to blanket accept anything anyone builds.
2) Staff also needs to approve models for quality or desirability. Featuring
swaths of poorly designed models is bad PR.
3) There needs to be protection for builders against other people re-submitting
their models, or remarkably similar ones.
4) Lego becomes responsible for *paying* clients rather than just selling models
and bricks. This creates a huge amount of bureaucracy, etc.
Interesting, though I imagine it may cost Lego too much in internal costs. Maybe
if some outside vendor (IE Ebay, Bricklink) sold LDD downloads, and Lego
facilitated by selling these models at slightly reduced prices? Hence, if it
sells 10 or less, it's full price. 11-100 is 5% off, 101-500 is 10% off,
501-1000 is 15% off, and 1001+ is 20% off. Or something like that. Also gives
the incentive to buy a particular model rather than resubmitting a duplicate
model and buying that for the same cost.
> Also, following with this theme, I want the entire stock of Lego's bricks
> available for sale to be able to be purchased through LDD. That means
> expanding the palette ten or fifteen fold, and allowing more minifigs.
I agree it would be nice, but again, it may not be feasible for Lego cost-wise.
There's a reason that it's limited to the current palette.
> #2) More kits for adults. I don't have the statistics infront of me, but I
> bet AFOLs outnumber children customers.
Heh, not by a long shot. I think the estimate from Lego is that the AFOL market
represents 'less than 5%' of total sales. So, 5% tops.
By rough estimates (I think this was as of 2004), there are about 200-250
million kids in the world in Lego's target market, and, at a guess, 10-100
thousand AFOLs. Assuming your *average* kid in Lego's target market gets $20 a
year worth of Lego, AFOLs would have to compensate by spending $2000-$25000 per
year on Lego, in order to make 5% sales-wise.
And from personal experience, most AFOL's are way under that spending margin.
Especially when you consider that we buy things on sale and secondhand.
But 5% isn't a negligable percentage, either. It's worth some attention.
Probably about 5% of their attention :)
> Do large complex constructions. Works of art. UCS Star Wars is a good start,
> like the large ISD and the Death Star II.
>
> I'd like to see a return of the hyperdetailed model series that was produced
> in the 80s who's name I'm forgetting at the moment.
Star Wars and Lego go together extremely well for whatever reason. I think part
of the reason is that people who like Lego 1) Are kinda nerdy 2) Grew up in the
70's and 80's 3) Are male 4) Will spend some money on frivolous things. And
people who like Star Wars often share those exact same traits.
I'm not sure if other areas share the same success rate. It would seem that the
Sopwith Camel sold well, prompting the release of the Wright Flyer and Red
Baron, but I can only assume that those didn't do as well since we haven't seen
any more aircraft come out (though I have a hunch that WWII and modern military
aircraft might sell like hotcakes). It might also be nice to do classic cars,
though they'd have to get out of bed with Ferrari first...
I'd be tempted to suggest things like Winsor Castle, the Eiffel Tower, Taj
Mahal, etc, although I don't know if the adult audience is there for it. Ditto
for various artwork (mosaics or sculpture), but again, I'm not sure there's a
lot of overlap between hobbyists/artists in those areas and Lego builders.
> #3) Compete with Megablocks instead of ignoring them. They are dangerous to
> Lego as a competetor, and Lego's lack of popularity in Japan and other
> Asian countries is not a good thing at all.
Well, Japan's a bad example, I think, but it would seem that Lego really is
taking the competition with MegaBloks to heart. On piece is reducing the
overhead of production (still being done). Another is reducing the timeline to
production. And from what I know, that's being done as well.
As far as I can tell, the only stumbling block they still have to rid themselves
of (and are starting to) is the non-violence policy. Lego fans are mostly boys,
and boys usually like violence. Tanks, guns, jeeps, fighter jets, cannons, etc.
Mega sells 'em, Best Lock sells 'em, and AFAIK, they're on the rise.
> So I think the Exo-force line should be rebooted, and setup with real highly
> detailed Anime-styled mecha, instead of the rejects from Mechwarrior
> painted with random Kanji it has now.
I agree that the current Exo-force line is sorta ... flimsy. Fortunately for
Lego, I don't know if kids in the target audience care that much about the
construction-- I expect they care about coolness, characters, and neat concepts
(which... I also think are kinda lacking in Exo-Force, but I'm not enough of an
expert to say why other than some sort of gut feeling).
But yes, I'd be buying them more if they were nicer mecha. From the one picture
I've seen of the new MB Gundams, they look far better design-wise than
Exo-force.
DaveE
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Dear LEGO Company,
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| (...) Lego has numerous ways out of getting out of their mess, so to speak. #1) One feature I would like to see is allowing people to "sell" their works through Lego Designer, for, say, 5% or 10% of the selling price. This would allow a community to (...) (18 years ago, 1-Jul-06, to lugnet.lego)
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