Subject:
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Re: BrickLink will join the LEGO® Group
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Wed, 27 Nov 2019 21:24:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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17853 times
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In lugnet.mediawatch, “Abner Finley” amf70@aol.com wrote:
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From BrickLink.com
Nov. 26, 2019
BRICKLINK will join the LEGO Group
Dear BrickLink members,
We are extremely excited to announce that BrickLink Limited has entered into
a definitive purchase agreement to be acquired by the LEGO Group. As the LEGO
Group has announced today through its official press release, the transaction
is expected to close by the end of 2019.
About 6 years ago when Jay took over BrickLink from Dan’s family, Jay
promised to keep Dan’s legacy and continue to strive for his original mission
– to help AFOL communities thrive. Our team is deeply grateful for Jay’s
generous investment and our vibrant community’s enthusiastic support that
helped us keep the promise. BrickLink now has nearly 1.2 million community
members after quadrupling the initial 300,000 members who began the journey
with us back in 2013. It’s not just volume that has grown over time. The
overall engagement level of the community is higher than ever thanks to our
avid members with various roles including catalog contributors, volunteers,
big and small sellers, MOC designers, and set/minifig collectors.
Along the way, we also set an ambitious company vision – to unlock the true
potential of LEGO bricks with the power of global communities. We believe in
the creative power of AFOL communities and wanted to harness it with
BrickLink. That’s why we launched AFOL-powered platforms and tools, such as
MOC Shop (2014), Stud.io (2016), Studio 2.0 (2018), and piloted the first
AFOL Designer Program (2018-2019) in addition to improvements on marketplace
features.
Collaborating with the LEGO Group for the AFOL Designer Program taught us how
much the LEGO Group cares about AFOL communities and how deeply they respect
all of the creations and cultural heritage of adult LEGO fans. When two
companies have perfectly aligned visions while filling in the missing parts
of each other, it’s not too difficult to imagine how the collaboration will
go. Once the potential synergy turned into reality with the success of the
first AFOL Designer Program, we had no doubt that we were ready to take the
collaboration to the next level. The LEGO Group’s acquisition of BrickLink
was the best possible choice for us to secure future collaboration
opportunities for AFOL communities.
So, what does this acquisition mean to you? It’s too soon to tell what
exactly will happen at this point, but the direction is clear. The LEGO Group
shares our ambition to create the best possible platform / experience for
adult fans.
We understand that you might have more questions about the details of future
changes. Please refer to these FAQs, and feel free to leave comments on this
post. We also welcome any suggestions or cool ideas for future collaboration
projects.
Visit Frequently Asked Questions
We’ll keep you posted when we have follow-ups or major milestones to
announce. So, please stay tuned.
Thanks,
BrickLink Team
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/community/newsview.page?msgid=1166622
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Well, I’m on a ‘wait and see what happens’.
As I’m not a huge user of BL, but have purchased lots in the past, my opinion on
this is pretty irrelevant.
I don’t have a store, wasn’t planning on opening a store, and haven’t purchased
from BL recently (think the last BL order was over a year ago...)
That said, I’ve been around the LEGO internet community going way back, and I’m
sad to see, (again like this very website), a fan-created and supported web
‘location’ that was fun and great to hang out in, and supported by the fan
community at large, after many years just stops.
The mass exodus from LUGNET was one such event, but that was mostly driven by a
variety of factors. The BL purchase by TLC is radically different--the largest
fan-based and fan supported web site which was ‘arms length’ separated from TLC
is now, well, not.
I love TLC. They’ve produced a product through my entire life that has been
fundamentally integral to who I a and what I love. It’s been my chosen hobby my
entire conscious life (with no ‘dark age). In my own small way, I’ve tried to
support the company, and shown my appreciation by always presenting it in a good
light.
I don’t think that’s going to change too much--I’m still going to do shows and
such.
That said, for me anyway, what was more important than supporting the TLC
corporation, was supporting the fans--my fellow AFOL’s as I could--the
people--my friends... Those ‘who took a risk’ to try something on their own, or
who gathered together, like minded, and built something substantial on their
own. LUGNET and BL are the two biggest ‘web presence’ sites (for me), and I
supported both as I could.
Now that BL isn’t a ‘fan base’ site anymore, will I change? Probably not too
much as I use it infrequently. Certain stores made some pretty good coin off of
my orders ‘back in the day’. That said, I never used any other site to purchase
specific bricks due to my ‘devotion’ to BL and the fans that had stores there.
I think I may have even posted here or on BL years ago when other sites were
ripping off the BL platform (I vaguely recollect something).
But now that it’s a TLC entity, I hope they do well, and I’ll still look there
to buy, but my ‘devotion’ will be less--not as a negative, but as a ‘I wonder
what else is out there?’ should I need to ‘bulk buy’ classic pieces.
Anyway, these are initial thoughts and not conveyed clearly (as it’s not clear
in my head yet)
All the best, BL and TLC. Business decisions were made, and I learned years ago
(as my letters from LEGO’s legal department will attest), you can’t fight city
hall, nor am I particularly want to do so in this instance.
Dave K
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | BrickLink will join the LEGO® Group
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| From BrickLink.com Nov. 26, 2019 BRICKLINK will join the LEGO Group Dear BrickLink members, We are extremely excited to announce that BrickLink Limited has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to be acquired by the LEGO Group. As the LEGO (...) (5 years ago, 27-Nov-19, to lugnet.mediawatch, FTX)
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