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Originally this message was about some LEGO train cars.
It is time AFOL (`Adult Fans Of LEGO' for the new readers) take action
that prompts a change in the business practices of The Lego Group
(TLG).
This message started out as a posting about some Train cars.
Now it has turned into a crusade that requires its own thread here and
on Lugnet.
I want to see The LEGO Group make some long overdue changes to its
business practices.
I have been buying only Mindstorms and Technic sets (including the old
great big ones) in the past year after leaving my dark ages because of
the lure of robotics. I also bought the Star Wars sets for themselves
and parts. All of the above sets have been great. I am very happy
with them, the parts, and don't regret spending the money one bit.
I have also seen dozens and dozens of the posts complaining about the
new train sets, cars and town sets. But I wasn't really finding those
concerns with the sets I was buying.
The use of BURPs, and the lack of more service packs and bulk block
sales WAS beginning to concern me as my collection and dreams of LEGO
heaven grew rapidly.
But it wasn't until I bought the 1999 passenger train and started into
that LEGO obsession that I realized how god awful these Train and Town
sets are compared to their predecessors.
The LEGO Group needs to hire a new Executive Vice-President NOW! with
the mandate to start exploring, meeting and satisfying the desires of
the adult LEGO community.
The current situation is intolerable. I know exactly what I have
spent in the short year since Mindstorms came out. I have been on a
quest for every great Technic set from the past and more for building
large models.
After viewing hundreds of other people's models and web sites, it is
obvious how much money many of you are spending on LEGO.
After reading RTL and my growing list of Lugnet groups including
Robotics, Technic, Trains and General, all the adult frustrations were
becoming more and more apparent.
The LEGO Group apparently had a rough financial statement a couple
years ago. Is it any wonder? All the AFOL stopped buying sets for
the sake of owning them, unless the parts were useful. Perhaps
thousands and thousands of kids never asked for these awful sets and
themes either.
Others may feel differently about certain lines, but we all seem to
have genuine complaints about the set themes we do collect.
So many of the readily available sets are crap compared to past sets.
I don't know when our immense dissatisfaction will get through to
LEGO's CEO, but I hope it's soon for their sake, as well as ours.
They are missing the boat... A huge opportunity to sell thousands of
dollars of sets every year to each and every serious adult builder.
And I haven't even mentioned bulk block sales yet...
They must be completely out of touch. Who is at the helm of this
company? Why does it take them so long to develop new sets?
Why have they not set up an automatic computerized warehouse to handle
bulk block buying by weight? Why are they unable to reproduce older
sets that are in heavy demand? Why do they not analyzed the adult
market and anticipate the need to hold stock for really popular sets
collected by adults? Why are so many of the large sets so hard to get?
I could go on and on...
If I was the CEO of The LEGO Group, heads would be rolling right NOW!
LEGO should be marketing sets to adults.
I know that Mindstorms has been hugely successful with adults. The
LEGO Group was caught off guard by this success. They had no idea
HALF of the sets would be bought by adults for themselves.
How could LEGO marketing make such a blunder? Does LEGO completely
fail to see the HUGE adult geek population created by computers,
gaming, sci-fi, etc...??
Mindstorms success has many of those adults scrambling for every good
new and old Technic set as I do now . And look how poor last years
lineup was. The new Super Car is a start at least.
Mindstorms has been so successful, and generated so many magazine
articles and popular interest, as well as sales that The LEGO Group
has had to start acknowledging the presence of adults in the
marketplace.
The success and quality of the Star Wars sets has been the other
reason so many adults have joined the ranks of the AFOL.
Have you long time readers of RTL and Lugnet noticed significant new
numbers of AFOL since Mindstorms and Star Wars sets being released?
All of them are bound to end up here eventually.
It is an important start.
This can only benefit AFOL and all LEGO themes in the future, if
LEGO wakes up to the message, sees the potential market and all the
lost sales opportunities.
The LEGO Group had better modernize its operations, marketing and
approach to the internet and adult builders damn quick.
If TLG had competitors who could legally make LEGO as well as TLG, the
competition would solve our problems. Unfortunately we are in a
single source hobby as most of us will not buy the inferior copies.
I see a great deal of frustration from the entire adult LEGO
community. I have suddenly become very aware of the reasons that is
the case.
If I plan to build a cool LEGO model railway, I'll either have to win
the lottery (and buy through auctions) or acquire parts to build my
own designs, or designs where instructions and parts are readily
available from other sources. Neither solution is likely, or easy to
accomplish.
People, it is time to unite all the Adult Fans of LEGO from around the
globe and persuade or force TLG to take action that will benefit them
and us.
I hope someone can take the mantle and run with it.
I would suggest that Todd & Lugnet be the best choice if willing, as
every LEGO builder on the net eventually ends up there or will see
posts about it here in RTL. And of course we must spread the word to
every adult builder, and obtain their input and support.
How about a web page attached to Lugnet where you can answer these
questions that every company on the planet DOES WANT TO KNOW. Leave
blank any questions you don't wish to answer.
You Name
Your Age
Your Occupation
Your Household Income
Your Address
Your Country
Years Collecting LEGO
Number of Children
Number that play with LEGO
Total Set Count
Current Piece Count (Estimate)
Estimate how much you spent last year on LEGO
Estimate how much you will spend this year on LEGO
Themes collected
Old Themes/sets most wanted again
And one short paragraph that explains how The LEGO Group could best
meet your needs as an adult purchaser of their products.
No bitching, just constructive criticism of their products, the themes
and the companies business practices.
Add each entry to a ever growing database. Make that database
available to The LEGO Group CEO & CFO regularly.
Make the last 100 entries viewable to everyone for inspiration and a
sense of adult LEGO community. Searchable for individuals if they
approve.
We will be doing their market research for them. How can TLG fail to
see the adult market when we make it this obvious to them?
I would kill for data like this from thousands of my current and
prospective customers. And remember this. These surveys represent
only a small sample of the total adult LEGO buyers. You can easily
multiply the numbers by 100, 1000 or more, depending on how many
people the internet and we are reaching.
This survey could also benefit from some good articles in magazines
and newspapers.
I'm beginning to think LEGO's Executives need to return to business
school... Okay, I'll try to stop ranting now. I'll offer only
constructive criticism that completely hides my utter dissatisfaction.
It will be really hard, but I'll try... TLG, please return the favor.
Ian Sinclair <ICS>
Manager
Transworld Manufacturing & Distribution
P.S. Maybe The LEGO Group can be convinced to go an alternate route.
They could license LEGO to willing manufacturers or sell us parts at
production cost plus a few percentage points.
I will be very happy to sell huge numbers of sets I design, others
design, old sets TLG has discontinued and millions of parts I can sell
by weight.
I'm ready, willing and able...
I would also get extremely rich I'm sure.
Thanks for listening folks...
If you reply, please direct it to lugnet.general@lugnet.com ONLY.
I want to spread the idea, but I don't wish to see this thread in
every mailing list. That would annoy many...
I have cross posted this to the groups I read, so I'll see any replies
and redirect them to lugnet.general@lugnet.com ONLY.
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Message has 7 Replies:
 | | Re: It's Time AFOL Take Action!
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| (...) What you are proposing sounds sort of like the Dear Lego newsgroup. It just needs to be used more frequently by a lot more of us. I'm not aware of any hard evidence that TLG reads (or reacts to) Dear Lego, but it couldn't hurt to vent politely (...) (25 years ago, 30-Sep-99, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: It's Time AFOL Take Action!
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| I believe that you can add (even via mail) a "Followup-To: lugnet.general" to your message headers and it would do what you wanted. (...) I would like to point out that I think what we all want isn't adult legos, but rather sets that don't insult (...) (25 years ago, 30-Sep-99, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: It's Time AFOL Take Action!
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| (...) Ian, I was very impressed with your post. I sent it on to a good friend of mine that works for the company that handles the marketing for Mindstorms. He put on the LEGO Robogladiator event at the E3 convention that happened in Los Angeles some (...) (25 years ago, 30-Sep-99, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: It's Time AFOL Take Action!
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| (...) Sorry, Ian, but the situation is beyond our control. TLG probably just thinks of AFOLs as just another small, insignificant group of customers. Chances are, they don't see us as people so much as they see us as numbers. We'll just have to wait (...) (25 years ago, 8-Jan-00, to lugnet.space)
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