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Subject: 
LEGOs dirty trick: making money by not producing all masks as announced.
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.technic.bionicle, lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.dear-lego
Followup-To: 
lugnet.technic.bionicle
Date: 
Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:51:44 GMT
Highlighted: 
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Hi Bionicle Fans out there,

hopefully someone at LEGO Direct will read this too and can clarify the things.


In Europe the randomly assorted mask bags (#8530) came out in february. I
picked up many of these bags already. To be excactly I do have more than 70
of these bags, which means I spent about US$150 for these masks so far for a
collection of about 150 masks.

However, I am seriously dissapointed now as I had to find out that LEGO has
put in some nastiness here - what rotten luck! Want to know why I am so
dissapointed? Then take a look at the statistics I came up with:

http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_masks_list.gif

[Image showing a list of masks I own.]

You will see a list of all possible mask combinations as well as the number
of copies that I own of each combination.

It is more than obvious that these bags are *not at all* randomly assorted!
Out of the 150 masks that I bought, there were no masks at all from the
following colours:
orange, ltgreen, tan, ltblue, grey, dkgrey!
However, I do have more than 50 black masks. That is 30% of the masks being
black although LEGO announces twelve different colours in their catalogues,
magazines and on the bags themselves!

But read on as it's even more barefaced! Obviously, TLC has not even
produced all the different shapes of the masks they announced! There were
only 8 shapes in the bags I picked up out of 12 possible shapes. How can
that be possible? Spending US$150 on these bags (no child will ever pay that
much) and still have no single Huna, Mahiki, Komau or Rau mask? That's more
than weird and definitely a dirty trick in order to make as much money as
possible. No kid will ever be able to get all the masks shown on the bags:

http://www.brickmaster.de/images/bio_masks2_temp.jpg

[Image showing the back of the bags (#8530).]

Yes, take a close look at the bags LEGO is selling and you'll see many
combinations there that will never be sold!


LEGO, I'd really like to get some answers on these - I know someone is
listening (as LEGO seems to be very concerned about their Bionicle theme) so
get anyone at LEGO Direct behind the screen and explain the following:

- How does it come that LEGO only sells 48 different masks rather than 72 as
announced? (even more than 144 combinations are possible anyway)
- Why are more than 30% of all masks black and six other colours missing
completely? (as well as missing shapes)
- Why were the masks Matatu and Ruru produced in other colours than shown on
the bag? (for example no green Ruru should be available according to the bags)
- How can it be that I already have ten copies of one certain mask, but zero
copies of another one? (that's anything  but randomly assorted)
- Will we ever see the 'unknown' type of mask that is shown right in the
middle of all masks ?


I think it's really a disgrace to LEGO to start such a lousy marketing
strategy. Even the kids will soon find out that they were leg-pulled and
LEGO never produced all the masks they show on the bags. Of course - once
the kids find out that they were cheated, then it'll be too late for them as
they've already spent all their money on the Bionicle stuff. However, a very
bad taste of disappointment about the LEGO brand will stay in their minds! I
don't think they'll buy LEGO any time soon again. What a stupid dirty trick
LEGO is playing on them!

Product #8530 totally sucks - play well!


Bye, Christian --- xTIAN.
--------------------------------------------------
Lugnet Member #479 -- The World is full of AFOLs !
mail: xtian@brickmaster.de web: www.brickmaster.de



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: LEGOs dirty trick: making money by not producing all masks as announced.
 
This reminds me of how hard it is to get the 7-dot Throwbot [Slizer] discs. If this were Pokémon cards, rare items would be understandible, but these "collectible" items are merely there to support sets which are available in plenty. I really wish (...) (24 years ago, 10-Feb-01, to lugnet.technic.bionicle)
  Re: LEGOs dirty trick: making money by not producing all masks as announced.
 
Christian Gemuenden <xtian@brickmaster.de> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: G8JqM8.Du7@lugnet.com... (...) I second Christian's opinion: #8530 is a total rip-off by Lego. My kids bought some of these masks to find out that they have bought once again the (...) (24 years ago, 11-Feb-01, to lugnet.technic.bionicle)
  Re: LEGOs dirty trick: making money by not producing all masks as announced.
 
To Christian and everyone else who is concerned about this issue, I'm just posting to let you guys know that we *are* looking into this. I don't have enough information yet to give you any answers, but I or someone else will post when we do. Tomas (...) (24 years ago, 20-Feb-01, to lugnet.technic.bionicle)

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