Support NeoGAF

[Dr. Benton Quest]

And there goes the goalposts "pffft it's only 1%" Whatever you gotta tell yourself right?

Stop ignoring my points. I'm not moving goalposts. Sure, Lego loses some money to knockoffs. Corn Flakes loses some money too kangaroo flakes.

I'm not not sure what your point is.

You have no proof these knockoffs are the reason for lost jobs. Period. Dance around it all you want. You'll just looked silly.

 

[nekkid]

The best thing about this is that I'm accused of blindly defending Lego (which is patently untrue), by someone who appears to be blindly defending another company with zero moral integrity who give even less shits that they exist.

The irony!

 

[Ponn]

Stop ignoring my points. I'm not moving goalposts. Sure, Lego loses some money to knockoffs. Corn Flakes loses some money too kangaroo flakes.

I'm not not sure what your point is.

You brought up commissions as some kind of counterpoint so why don't you tell us what your point was?

My point was you were ignoring that the designers are employed and get paid for a job knockoff companies steal and don't compensate them for. I don't see the significant difference between the two. Except that it's a point frequently brought up by people trying to make themselves feel morally right for doing what they do because they are sticking it to the corporation.

Which in this situation is even more so ridiculous because you are advocating for sweatshops that put out dangerous inferior products with slave wages who are ethically bankrupt.

Edit: and you edited your post but to your point do I have exact numbers? No, neither do you to prove they don't and I'm willing to say it's not the only reason, but it doesn't help. It is taking sales away for sure, look at this thread, look at Amazon, look at eBay. Since you are already moving goalposts I would say you really don't care about those numbers anyways. It's all about justifying what you and others do.

 

[Savitar]

Wondering which sets and designs they stole and from where.

How about the whole idea?

In the same year, LEGO's founder Ole Kirk Christiansen bought a plastic injection machine from a salesman who demonstrated the type of toys that could be produced with it by showing him some Kiddicraft play sets. This was only meant to be an example of the machine's capabilities, but Christiansen had a better idea: doing the exact same thing and calling it by another name.

LEGO went into full Thomas Edison mode, copying the Kiddicraft play sets right down to the little doors and windows that came with them:

The rest, of course, is history. LEGO went on to become a household name to such an extent that it is now impossible to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without stepping on at least one of their products on the way (even if there are no children in your house). Page, in turn, ended up committing suicide in 1957 as his company went down the toilet. LEGO respected his death by gleefully buying the rights to the rest of his ideas in the '80s, then doing nothing with them.

The article there has pictures.

At the time Lego was all about toys like wood ducks.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

You brought up commissions as some kind of counterpoint so why don't you tell us what your point was?

My point was you were ignoring that the designers are employed and get paid for a job knockoff companies steal and don't compensate them for. I don't see the significant difference between the two. Except that it's a point frequently brought up by people trying to make themselves feel morally right for doing what they do because they are sticking it to the corporation.

Which in this situation is even more so ridiculous because you are advocating for sweatshops that put out dangerous inferior products with slave wages who are ethically bankrupt.

You brought up designers not getting paid. I thought you meant designers employed by Lego and said they get a salary regardless. You brought up idea creators and yes, some do lose some money to knockoffs.

Lego uses wage slaves in China and Mexico. I'm a communist. Im not advocating that anyone buy anything. In fact, earlier in this thread I said there is no moral consumption here.

And this...

How about the whole idea?



The article there has pictures.

At the time Lego was all about toys like wood ducks.

The best thing about this is that I'm accused of blindly defending Lego (which is patently untrue), by someone who appears to be blindly defending another company with zero moral integrity who give even less shits that they exist.

The irony!

Been stewing on that one huh? Take a break bud. I'm not defending anyone. I'm saying knockoffs are a better value. That's all. You're the one who called for my banning because I insulted your favorite children's toy company.

 

[Ponn]

You brought up designers not getting paid. I thought you meant designers employed by Lego and said they get a salary regardless. You brought up idea creators and yes, some do lose some money to knockoffs.

Lego uses wage slaves in China and Mexico. I'm a communist. Im not advocating that anyone buy anything. In fact, earlier in this thread I said there is no moral consumption here.

And this...

What are the wages Lego pays in comparison to Lepin China?

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

What are the wages Lego pays in comparison to Lepin China?

I don't know what Lego pays its Chinese and Mexican workers. I don't know what Lepin pays its workers either.

 

[TheSecondSpitter]

How about the whole idea?



The article there has pictures.

At the time Lego was all about toys like wood ducks.

Wow.

Karma's a bitch, ain't it?

 

[NHarmonic.]

Lego will outlive us all.

1,000,000 years from now when Man is long gone and aliens set foot on Earth for the first time they will step on a Lego brick.

The only acceptable way to meet human's legacy. I approve.


Also, drop the fucking prices. I was real fan when i was a child but still, so overpriced, that i just gifted them to my cousin and never bought again.

 

[Devilgunman]

Remember when Lego was affordable in 80s'?


Lego used to be simple. Just square blocks that allow kids to use their imagination to build whatever they want. Now 90% of them are licensed products and goddam expensive. They're not kid toys anymore.

 

[FutureLarking]

First drop in 13 years and you need a company reset? That's a little extreme but okay. Not particularly aimed at Lego but I'm always annoyed by Capitalism when these companies are making ever increasing profits and don't think there should be a reasonable ceiling too them - they needed to go up forever. Why? You're already making ridiculous profit, perhaps too much. Drops are fine, as long as it's not like 85% YoY drops.

 

[Owari]

They cancelled Bionicles, so fuck em.

Lego was better when they encouraged kids to use their imagination. Nowadays they just shove every IP they possibly can into those ugly bricks. What the brand has become is pretty sad.

 

[KaYotiX]

Drop prices, my son loves Legos but we have started buying the generic ones unless we find amazing deals on Legos.
It's insane the cost

 

[nekkid]

Lego was better when they encouraged kids to use their imagination. Nowadays they just shove every IP they possibly can into those ugly bricks. What the brand has become is pretty sad.

I feel like there was a movie about this.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I feel like there was a movie about this.

Half of the movie was all about brand recognition.

They cancelled Bionicles, so fuck em.

Lego was better when they encouraged kids to use their imagination. Nowadays they just shove every IP they possibly can into those ugly bricks. What the brand has become is pretty sad.

Let's be real, they saw Funko and the likes cash in on the collector's market and they wanted a piece of that.

 

[Owari]

I feel like there was a movie about this.

Hardly, lego movie was just one big commercial for every lego sponsored IP.

Let's be real, they saw Funko and the likes cash in on the collector's market and they wanted a piece of that.

That's fine, but doing away with imagination based sets completely was a fucking stupid move.

 

[danthefan]

Remember when Lego was affordable in 80s'?


Lego used to be simple. Just square blocks that allow kids to use their imagination to build whatever they want. Now 90% of them are licensed products and goddam expensive. They're not kid toys anymore.

No and neither do you because the real cost of Lego has fallen with time. Let's stick to the facts.

https://flowingdata.com/2013/02/07/analysis-of-lego-brick-prices-over-the-years/

 

[HStallion]

I wonder if this affects their Lego Land ventures. They're in the process of trying to build one in New York and it would be a pretty big boon to the area.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

That's fine, but doing away with imagination based sets completely was a fucking stupid move.

Weren't those the years Lego became a little stagnated?

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Remember when Lego was affordable in 80s'?


Lego used to be simple. Just square blocks that allow kids to use their imagination to build whatever they want. Now 90% of them are licensed products and goddam expensive. They're not kid toys anymore.

And yet they still sell those same boxes of simple bricks. In a wide variety of piece counts and price points even.

 

[DBT85]

Aren't lego designs protected under copyright or something?

 

[Owari]

Weren't those the years Lego became a little stagnated?

So they just gave up completely after a bad few years. Dope move. History seems to repeat itself with this article. Wonder what they'll drop this time.

Only a matter of time until 3D printing puts them completely out of business. They'd be wise to switch to 100% toys to life/gaming/movies as soon as possible.

Insane that Ubisoft beat them to the "you build it, it shows up in game" gimmick. These guys always seem to be 3-4 years behind what they're supposed to be doing. First they completely missed the Minecraft boat, now this.

 

[AlexFlame116]

I'm still bummed that StarCraft went to Mega Bloks instead of LEGO.

We got this:

When we could have had something like this:

 

[bosseye]

It's too expensive. My son loves lego but I can't afford to buy it very often. Even basic City sets featuring maybe a couple of cars are like £20-25, even the bog standard 'pocket money' sets are around £8 which is just too much. My lad really wants the joker car but it's fucking £50!

I mean look at the lego ideas website, the place is full of people pitching massive collectors sets, the majority of stuff that hits 10,000 or gets greenlit seems to be stuff that will cost an arm and a leg.

It's a bit like they've forgotten one of their main demographics (the kids) in the pursuit of collectors editions.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Back when Lego increased their prices and specifically positioned themselves as a premium brand, their sales actually increased (not just revenue, they straight up sold more bricks by pricing them higher). Obviously the market might have changed since then, but I'm not convinced lowering prices is the solution

 

[orava]

I'm curious how much Minecraft has eaten into their profits. It scratches the same itch and is dirt cheap in comparison.

Probably phones and media in general. It's easier to just give your kid a phone so that it can learn from animal noises spouting minecraft youtuber and watch how spiderman makes elsa pregnant.

 

[newtypepilot]

those disney and marvel IPs can't be cheap.

 

[RightChandMan]

I just got into legos and its a very expensive hobby. I hope they reduce the prices on some of the star wars and marvel sets. I would love to buy the death star and helicarrier but thats 900 bucks including taxes. Too expensive!

I just bought the BB8 because I couldn't resist.

 

[Regiruler]

The reboot bombed so badly that LEGO decided year 2 would be its final year before the second wave of year 1 hit store shelves. The second wave of year 2 was exclusive to Toys R Us in the US and didn't release at all in some countries. Nothing has replaced it.

They looked worse than the robo knight line or whatever it was called. That was an accomplishment.

 

[DBT85]

I'm still bummed that StarCraft went to Mega Bloks instead of LEGO.

We got this:

When we could have had something like this:

I need that LEGO battlecruiser. And I want Trek stuff too.

 

[MintyOhNo]

First drop in 13 years and you need a company reset? That's a little extreme but okay. Not particularly aimed at Lego but I'm always annoyed by Capitalism when these companies are making ever increasing profits and don't think there should be a reasonable ceiling too them - they needed to go up forever. Why? You're already making ridiculous profit, perhaps too much. Drops are fine, as long as it's not like 85% YoY drops.

I think the talk of a reset is linked to the new CEO Niels B Christiansen starting next month too.

LEGO grew too rapidly in the last few years - 7000 more employees from 2012 to 2016. The announed job cuts are targeting administration, branding and product development branches - not the people in production - from the companys POV they´re just streamling the business development part.

 

[Starfield]

I remember when I was a kid I had a miniature Lego Hogwarts castle where I could place Harry and Hermione inside a lonely tower and pretend they're making out.

You took this from me America.


You took it.

 

[LordOfLore]

I remember when I was a kid I had a miniature Lego Hogwarts castle where I could place Harry and Hermione inside a lonely tower and pretend they're making out.

You took this from me America.


You took it.

Actually, HP sets are rumored for next year along with anniversary sets.

 

[strafer]

You havent lived until youve been to legoland in denmark

What a place man

 

[SiegfriedFM]

How about the whole idea?



The article there has pictures.

At the time Lego was all about toys like wood ducks.

The owner of Kiddicraft granted Ole permission to use the same idea, since he didn't believe there was a commercial value in it. Ole invested heavily in (back then) cutting edge molding machines to make it workable. (source: DK TV documentary).

Using that to justify pirates ripping off Lego today is ridiculous.

Or to take a gaming perspective, is it fine to pirate Resident Evil 7 because Alone in the Dark came up with the genre first?

 

[Little Old Man]

Lego have been chasing wales for many years now.

But it's going nowhere, it's attached to England.

 

[mrklaw]

Sounds more like they just need to restructure to account for a more controlled period of flat or limited growth. That is natural because when they were growing fast, controlling costs strictly would have been a secondary factor to expanding to meet the growth. Now they need to correct.

Yes their products are expensive. They are also expensive to manufacture. I don’t know if there is an estimate of the margin they make. But if you’re on top of your game and are clearly the market leader in a segment, you have some capacity to have higher margins (if the segment will support it).

 

[mrklaw]

The toys are high quality, and I still love Lego now as much as I did when I was 5-10 (I'm 30). It's always been expensive, but the toys last and there's endless creative potential in them. My 5 and 7 year old nieces are already obsessed with them. That said, it seems their licensing has gotten out of hand (the superhero sets especially are underwhelming; Star Wars ones are quite good). The sheer number of SKUs they have is ridiculous though and leads to a lot of bloat, and like someone mentioned earlier; enough with the damn police stations and fire stations.

The policies stations etc are evergreens though. They don’t expect you to buy a new one each year - they’re there so the new Lego kids coming along have a police/fire/hospital/coastguard to buy. They’re simple builds, relatively inexpensive using larger parts, and ideal for dioramas and role play.

 

[nekkid]

Anybody who says Lego has lost its creativity thanks to all the IP licensing clearly don't have kids who love to mix the sets up.

 

[AlexFlame116]

One thing I've noticed, and both my father and my younger siblings agree on this, is that lately when there are updated versions of old sets, they are smaller than the previous version. This can be for Star Wars or for Castles or even for Harry Potter. Yet they still seem to cost either the same or more. Sure they look nicer but it's just what I've been thinking.

Please don't equate that to saying that I have no "creativity".

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Anybody who says Lego has lost its creativity thanks to all the IP licensing clearly don't have kids who love to mix the sets up.

The basic point of the movie was that it's okay to mix things up and rebuild things in new ways, which is the entire selling point of Lego. Which is also why the villain used glue to keep sets together.

 

[mrklaw]

It's too expensive. My son loves lego but I can't afford to buy it very often. Even basic City sets featuring maybe a couple of cars are like £20-25, even the bog standard 'pocket money' sets are around £8 which is just too much. My lad really wants the joker car but it's fucking £50!

I mean look at the lego ideas website, the place is full of people pitching massive collectors sets, the majority of stuff that hits 10,000 or gets greenlit seems to be stuff that will cost an arm and a leg.

It's a bit like they've forgotten one of their main demographics (the kids) in the pursuit of collectors editions.

How much of this is real, and how much is nostalgia goggles?

They still make the basic sets and the buckets of bricks etc. They also sell higher end sets for collectors. So their product line has grown, it hasn’t pushed out the normal sets.

As for price, I bet Lego in the 80s was also still expensive relative to other toys. Those of you around in the 80s will have been kids so you would have been on the consumption side, and have less visibility or memory of the cost. Now you’re older and buying for your own kids and have your own responsibilities you realise they are expensive

 

[Dragon Puncher]

I love how LEGO has had 13 years of growth and are now the biggest toy manufacturer in the world, but after 1 year of decline and restructuring, people in this thread are acting like it's all doom and gloom.

LEGO has also become one of the biggest brands in the world on the back of licensing deals and smart digital strategy. They aren't going away any time soon.

 

[pswii60]

Yep 2004 they almost went bankrupt. Crazy the turnaround.

I can't believe that Lego could get themselves in to that position. Crazy.

Two things defined my youth: my Commodore 64 and Lego. Especially Lego Technic, I had so many of those sets.

 

[BGBW]

Every time someone says "Legos", LEGO increases the price of their sets.

 

[nekkid]

"But Lego was so cheap in the 80s when I had someone else buying it all for me".

I feel like perceptions are a bit skewed. The standard, non-licensed sets are no more expensive.

Two things defined my youth: my Commodore 64 and Lego. Especially Lego Technic, I had so many of those sets.

Technic is the best Lego. Along with Mindstorms.

 

[Guy.brush]

I remember the days when there was zero licensed IP sets. Nothing.
No StarWars, no Ghostbusters, no Marvel, no Cars, no special "let's tug at 30+ year old's nostalgia" collector sets - absolutely nothing.
Kids were building TIE Fighters and all the other good stuff out of basic (space) sets and building blocks.
I kind of miss lego sets being more versatile. There is so many special parts and absolutely finnicky super-small stuff, even in Junior sets, it feels like it all got less reusable for the kids, which might actually be a business strategy. Buy the big special XX set and still don't have enough proper blocks to do anything else with it.

 

[BGBW]

Do people never look at the Creator sets?

Those are literally what everyone complaining about over expensive, specialist piece filled, property licenced sets want.

Just houses, vehicles and animals from the basic range of blocks.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

As for legality, one of the first things I found on the subject:

https://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/the-legality-of-buying-knockoffs/?mcubz=0

So basically, if a company makes generic Lego-like bricks it's a knockoff and isn't really illegal. Cheaper brands like Megabloks and Kreo aren't even knockoffs at all since they buy their own licenses and design their own bricks. What Lepin does is make (mostly) exact copies of existing Lego sets, with the same box layouts and a similar logo. That could very well be considered a counterfeit (especially when sold without boxes). Selling those is illegal and while buying isn't illegal, you are contributing to illegal businesses.

I'm no lawyer but I'd say that is pretty damn close to a counterfeit...

You can try to justify IP theft/piracy any way you want because Lego are so big that they deserve it or their stuff is so expensive, but it's still what it is.

As for specialized parts, this is a part from 1973:

It's NOT something they started doing recently. Take off those nostalgia goggles.

 

[vikki]

Looks like I came in here with the same idea as everyone else, "maybe if it didn't cost so much?"