Subject:
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Re: what makes a legend?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Wed, 24 Oct 2001 03:00:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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682 times
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Allan Bedford writes:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > In lugnet.lego.direct, Geoffrey Hyde writes:
> >
> > > How does not having the mold for an element affect it's reproducibility? I
> > > would have thought that with all of the latest and greatest laser measuring
> > > technology there would be *some* way of getting a new master mold for a
> > > particular piece, providing you had the original piece to measure off from.
> >
> > Sure, there is SOME way
> >
> > > But there is probably a cost involved in doing this so you're not too keen
> > > on it for that reason?
> >
> > But that's it. Cost. This is a low budget operation and molds are not cheap.
> > Precision tolerances are pricey. I have heard numbers batted around that I
> > have a bit of faith in even though they were speculation... these numbers
> > are 10-50K USD PER MOLD.
>
> The solution here seems obvious... and free.
"every problem has a simple solution. Unfortunately, it's often wrong" Just
thought I'd toss that out to ponder.
> Use more plain old regular bricks in the design of future sets. No need for
> new molds. No debates over specialized/juniorized parts.
Great advice in general. Not a valid response to Geoffrey who is asking "why
can't we have this part back that we don't have the mold for", though.
> And best of all,
> more good old fashioned bricks with which to build other stuff on your own,
> once you've built the primary kit.
Again great. The rest of this is directed at more than just this post of
yours, or even just you, Allan...
LD has a mandate. That's "direct to consumer". It is not "retail". You can
fault the organization of the company if you like, or you can hope that if
LD is successful, LD type thinking will catch on elsewhere. But saying "go
sell these sets in stores" (as you have) means you are asking LD to take on
Futura, and take on the mandate of what Retail does. That may well be a
political battle that Brad cannot yet win (if he even would want to engage
it!!! Which I doubt.).
LD has a budget. That budget, I speculate, includes a few dollars for new
colors of existing parts (yes, this is not free), but almost certainly does
NOT include dollars for new colors never seen before. It almost certainly
does not include new parts.
The new parts budget, or so I speculate, (which includes OLD parts if the
molds are gone) is in the hands of Futura. Futura designs new sets, I
speculate. Futura gets sets approved by some guy in Denmark who has a pretty
good idea (or so he thinks) of what kids want. Or so I speculate.
LD has gotten permission to design a few new sets under severe cost
constraint, I speculate. LD has gotten permission to bring back some sets,
again under severe cost constraint, I speculate.
> Take a look at the Jack Stone series. Any reason those columns couldn't
> have been stacks of 2x2's? They could have saved one mold right there. :)
>
> Frankly, the problem isn't that they can't afford more molds, but rather
> that they already spend way too much on new ones each year.
Oh, you are so right. Really.
Unfortunately... All it takes to change it, though, is that KKK make Brad
president of everything, displacing all the Danes, and that he sack all the
people in Futura and elsewhere that know better than we do about what kids
want. That can easily happen overnight, right? Or can it?
Just be happy that there is change emanating from LD, and that (as I *said
it would* many months ago) the rate of change is visibily accelerating. The
better LD does at its current mandate, the more likely it is that the budget
will expand or that the mandate itself will expand.
Carping about Jack Stone, valid as it may be, will not in *any way* help LD
choose the next sets to bring back. So you might want to *save* that carping
and focus on the question you were asked, or decide that you don't want to
help LD at all, which is also acceptable. Nobody HAS to give them free
advice if they don't want to, after all.
Me, I want to help LD succeed in every way I can, as I see it as the little
engine that will drag the rest of the semi-inert spaceship that is TLC where
we want it to go.
Do you?
Note that I repeatedly say "I speculate"... that's a hedge and a shield. But
I'll stack my speculation up against *anyone* else here as more likely to be
correct, unless they actually sign their posts LD without being in violation
of the ToS.
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: what makes a legend?
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| To All, Something to think about in terms of mold cost. When I worked in a plastic injection molding plant in Fowlerville, Michigan, a few moons ago, they were making molds for various hard plastic parts for various customersd, such as Ford. A (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: what makes a legend?
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| (...) Strange quote. The way I've heard it is, "The best solution is often the simplest one." Maybe I should stop hanging around software engineers. :) (...) I wasn't really trying to answer Geoffrey's question. My apologies if it seemed that I was. (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: what makes a legend?
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| (...) <and later> (...) That's been my reading of the subject. LD has to go to the feeding trough as an intruding tendril of the company, rather than as its lifeblood--in a sense, it's a shoot off of the main vine that continues to get stronger, but (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: what makes a legend?
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| (...) The solution here seems obvious... and free. Use more plain old regular bricks in the design of future sets. No need for new molds. No debates over specialized/juniorized parts. And best of all, more good old fashioned bricks with which to (...) (23 years ago, 24-Oct-01, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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