Subject:
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Re: Why did Model Team die?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.modelteam
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Date:
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Thu, 8 May 2003 01:13:22 GMT
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Viewed:
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3812 times
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In lugnet.modelteam, Stéphane Simard writes:
> Hello all,
>
> I never bought a Model Team set (I always thought Technic was better),
> although I did see the first highway rig they did, the 86' one, a friend
> owned one.
>
> I never understood two things about Model Team:
>
> 1) Why did it stop in the mid nineties? IE: Why didn't it sell?
Part of it was the fact that they were expensive, and the more
expensive a set gets the less people there are who would consider buying it.
Star Wars and Harry Potter are currently the only two themes that seem to be
able to sell droves of the huge sets (even Bionicle didn't move the $90
Manas set very fast), and I have a feeling a large part of that is due to
their appeal to adults who just collect SW or HP stuff.
Another part is that they really weren't designed to appeal to kids
(face it, they were designed to look cool on a shelf more than they were
designed to be played with), and that cuts out a huge chunk of the LEGO market.
Between those two things, you've fairly well eliminated most of the
potential market, and in order to survive that you need to have some serious
means of drawing the market back.
> 2) Why are 60% of the models, highway rigs? Why didn't they make sports
> cars, huge boats, submarines, tractors, construction equipment?
Semis tend to be a bit more boxy than sports cars, so they're probably
easier to make. Anyways, only about 40% actually involved semis, with ORVs
and racecars filling in a large chunk of the remainder. They did have a
speedboat, a helicopter, and a two-seater hot-rod though. I can only
imagine that the limited/skewed selection was partly responsible for ending
the line, and it's probably not coincidence that we saw the introduction of
the mega-hit Star Wars sets in the same year that the last MB sets were
released.
> 3) Why didn't they try to incorporate motors in these sets?
That I couldn't say. I've never bought any, though I do remember
staring longingly at one or two of them in my pack-in catalogs when I was
younger.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Why did Model Team die?
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| Hello all, I never bought a Model Team set (I always thought Technic was better), although I did see the first highway rig they did, the 86' one, a friend owned one. I never understood two things about Model Team: 1) Why did it stop in the mid (...) (22 years ago, 7-May-03, to lugnet.modelteam)
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