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[TheSadRanger]

IDK I recently got the urge to look at some lego's. While I was looking at the sets that are currently sold it seems like they're all licensed property themes outside of lego city. While lego city is still pretty awesome there's tons of cool themes that they've completely abandoned.

The castle and pirates lines were cool as fuck. We went from cool as hell kingdoms and castle sets that everybody loved to shitty ass Avengers sets that nobody wants because the theme is limited in scope. The Lego marvel line was a mistake along with the DC theme. Pirates and Castle are both dead, both were long lasting themes that lasted decades, no cool one off stuff like Aquazone. Airport and other specialized themes like trains were rolled into city. Why the hell is there no castle or pirates line on the market?

Lego City is by far one of their most popular sets so it doesn't make any sense money wise when kingdoms sold extremely well. Instead there's mountains of licensed trash that Lego rolls out that nobody wants.

 

[Sejan]

Licensed properties sell better. Lego nearly went out of business before changing their business model in the late 90s-early 2000s. They keep a few specific lines like technic, but stuff like Star Wars will always be bigger.

 

[TheSadRanger]

Licensed properties sell better. Lego nearly went out of business before changing their business model in the late 90s-early 2000s. They keep a few specific lines like technic, but stuff like Star Wars will always be bigger.

Castle and Pirates sold well, it was stuff like Bionicle that nearly bankrupted Lego.

The Marvel and Minecraft are wasted lines taking up a slot. If they sell so well then why do I always see so many in stores and why are they always being sold at deep discounts?

Lego City is what sells and is always difficult to find for their better sets. Harry Potter and Star Wars are fine but they should trim the fat on their licensed sets like Jurassic World which was clearly a flop.

 

[Shrinky Dink]

I like the Ninjago, Bionicle and Marvel sets the least. I guess they are targeting American kids more these days than Euros.

(Of course, when I was a kid in USA I also liked dumb shit like TMNT. Thank God I was too old for Power Rangers!)

 

[ScarletSpider]

.

 

[kingwingin]

Remember getting these back in the mid 90's. Loved them so much

 

[TheSadRanger]

Remember getting these back in the mid 90's. Loved them so much

When all the rich kids got the top set but your parents were poor and you got the bottom set -_-

 

[Scotty W]

I read a book that had a chapter about this a few years ago. I’m not positive, but I think the book was Consuming Kids, or maybe Buy, Baby Buy (both are excellent).

What happened is imagination went out of fashion, and the licenses saved the company from bankruptcy.

 

[MetalAlien]

I dunno since the metoo crap lego just doesn't appeal to me anymore.

 

[kunonabi]

I havent kept up since the prices are so outrageous but I remember thinking that girls line that came out a few years ago looked pretty awesome. Feminists hated it which made it even better.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

They axed castle lego?!

What happened is imagination went out of fashion

 

[Alx]

As a kid I never owned any fancy themed Lego box, I just had that container full of generic Lego pieces and characters and built anything I wanted with it. I don't remember where those came from actually, but the fate of any Lego set is to end up in "the container".

 

[Shrinky Dink]

I would play a LEGO RPG if they ever made a really good one.

 

[Paasei]

I remember flipping my entire bedroom as a kid just so I could build a town. Using those roads and everything. Good times. The best toys I ever had.

 

[Scotty W]

I would play a LEGO RPG if they ever made a really good one.

In the style of Super Mario RPG and written by he writers if Lego Batman! I would be all over that.

 

[Stitch]

They actually made a pirate set a few weeks ago

 

[Scotty W]

they also lost the great music they used to have

 

[JordanN]

When all the rich kids got the top set but your parents were poor and you got the bottom set -_-

You were lucky to even get LEGO.

I grew up with Mega Bloks.

Although I loved the hell out of my Skatepark set.

 

[newtypepilot]

It's sad that a lot of the classic Lego themes like Castle and Space were discontinued in favour of licensed IPs.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

My seven year old son likes Ninjago, but he just builds it up as decribed in the manual, and never does his own shit with it. He is even angry at me if I try to build something else with it..

Just waiting for him to say "ok, boomer" to me when I try next time.. : D

 

[Alx]

My seven year old son likes Ninjago, but he just builds it up as decribed in the manual, and never does his own shit with it. He is even angry at me if I try to build something else with it..

Just waiting for him to say "ok, boomer" to me when I try next time.. : D

Just steal half of the pieces and let him try to follow the manual now. Creativity comes from restrictions.

 

[Shrinky Dink]

They actually made a pirate set a few weeks ago

Can you buy that set in a store? (Honestly, I wouldn't because it looks like it would be really expensive. Also, I have no kids.)

 

[Shrinky Dink]

In the style of Super Mario RPG and written by he writers if Lego Batman! I would be all over that.

I was thinking of something more like Shadowrun Returns. Simple gameplay. Smooth colorful graphics.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

( Also, I have no kids.)

(as if we need kids to buy children stuff for our own to play with in this day and age... : D ; ))

 

[DKehoe]

Castle and Pirates sold well, it was stuff like Bionicle that nearly bankrupted Lego.

Yeh? I thought Bionicle was big?

 

[Stitch]

Can you buy that set in a store?

No, it's LEGO Online shop exclusive :/

Yeh? I thought Bionicle was big?

Nah it wasn't very popular. They tried again with the Star Wars Buildable Figures but it also failed. A shame because I really liked them. Well the ones in armor. Most of the human ones like Luke looked retarded. They were clever with Obi-Wan because they gave him his Clone Wars look were he's wearing armor.

 

[Shrinky Dink]

Star Wars Buildable Figures

I keep forgetting about these. I am curious how the joints work, range of movement, etc. I have one Bionicle, but it is not very anthropomorphic.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Well you already explained it: licensed stuff sells better. Part of me misses the old sets. However I now have 3 kids "into" LEGOs and they tend to break the sets within a few days/weeks/months and then reconstruct things from the pieces over the following years. Therefore, the sets you buy don't matter so much as long as they provide the sort of "pieces" you want.

I miss Spyrius, M-Tron, Ice Planet, Blacktron, Space Police, the Pirates and Imperials and Islanders, Wild West LEGOs, the various Castle sets, and Aquazone, and so forth.

But it's also kinda cool for Spider Man to visit LEGO Minecraft Steve in his house when a 3-year old and 7 year old are playing together.

The mindmelt is when you're buying licensed LEGO sets from LEGO Batman or LEGO Movie Part 2. LEGO sets themed by a movie about LEGOs.

 

[Hissing Sid]

Yeah I hardly ever browse the Lego shop anymore, same old shit year in year out.

Oh look, A UCS Star Wars vehicle thats been done a thousand times before!

Check it out, another industrial vehicle!

Yay, a fucking sweet shop!

I like the ship in a bottle and some of the Nasa stuff but other that TLG's recent offerings leave me cold. Booooooooooooring.

Oh and stickers. Fuck. Stickers.

I tend to look farther afield these days. The Chinese make some cool stuff. Check out the Xenomorph by Xingbao (Probably just a rebadged Lepin). Nice model, plenty of pieces and looks good. Only downside to the thing is that I had to use genuwine Lego pivot bricks for the hips and arms, otherwise the model just kept bending over under its own weight. Worth it though. Think I paid fifty quid.

Dunno if Megabloks are still going but I bought their 50th anniversary USS Enterprise TOS a couple of years back. 34 Inches long and the warp nacells light up which is a nice touch. I'd have preffered a smoother finish to the saucer section but apart from that minor quibble I think its a cool attempt at the ship. I have a Klingon Cruiser by the same company hanging around somewhere (Probably in the loft). I think they also did the enterprise bridge and transporter room...... Probably out of production now but I imagine they can still be picked up from various places. Again I think I paid fifty quidish but I had to import this one from the US so shipping costs bumped the price up. Oh and no stickers here, just printed parts.

Then there's a little Polish company called Cobi who do a brilliant line of WW2 stuff and other bits and bobs. I have their run of WW2 submarines and intend on buying their version of the Titanic when the price becomes more reasonable. Awesome company to deal with and their customer service puts Lego to shame. They do go in heavy on the stickers though but I tend to be more forgiving of this with these guys as their stuff is cheap and they don't bundle them with six hundred quids worth of Millenium Falcon (Lego). I believe their large Titanic has printed parts so maybe they dispense with stickers for the pricier models.

God I hate stickers.

Anyhow if you look around outside of Lego there's plenty of interesting stuff to be had from other companies and thats without getting into the whole custom/bricklinking scene which has produced some truly incredible creations.

 

[n0razi]

Minecraft happened

 

[infinitys_7th]

I spend somewhere around $1000 on Legos each year. The Ideas line has been mostly great (the new pirate ship is one of them, along with a recent dinosaur skeleton set and the moon lander) and I always get all of the winter/Christmas sets.

I do miss the old Technic sets though. Even the small ones used to be interesting - like a tractor that had a mower that can be disengaged by raising it or engaged to run as the hind wheels turned - but now they are just cars. The Creator line is decent, especially the 3-in-1s which tend to have very versatile bricks.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I spend somewhere around $1000 on Legos each year. The Ideas line has been mostly great (the new pirate ship is one of them, along with a recent dinosaur skeleton set and the moon lander) and I always get all of the winter/Christmas sets.

I do miss the old Technic sets though. Even the small ones used to be interesting - like a tractor that had a mower that can be disengaged by raising it or engaged to run as the hind wheels turned - but now they are just cars. The Creator line is decent, especially the 3-in-1s which tend to have very versatile bricks.

Do you get a chance to build and/or play with the sets? $1000 on LEGOs a year sounds like heaven.

To be fair, my family probably spends about $400-600 a year on LEGOs between various birthdays, stocking-stuffers, Easter basket gifts, Christmas, etc.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Do you get a chance to build and/or play with the sets? $1000 on LEGOs a year sounds like heaven.

To be fair, my family probably spends about $400-600 a year on LEGOs between various birthdays, stocking-stuffers, Easter basket gifts, Christmas, etc.

I try to put them together - it's usually one big set (the larger Ideas line costs in the $300 range) and then smaller sets, and Christmas sets usually run about $300 a year all in all. I've gotten extras of some of the Winter Village sets because I want to have a full custom Christmas village eventually. I watch the store for when they have promotional sets free with $50 or $100 purchases. Some of the Christmas ones are amazing - snowglobes and dioramas and Christmas carousels.

I haven't had a lot of time recently, unfortunately. I've got the moon lander, V2, and dinosaur sets to put together. It's wonderful stress relief for me - I can put on a podcast and just try to build sets off the boxart.

 

[zweifuss]

Is it OK to say LEGOs now? I remember back in the day it was frowned upon to pluralize the word.... anyhow, I agree, the licensed stuff is very uninspiring. But I admit I salivated over the new Ideas Pirate Ship until the wife told me no. Is there a LEGO community on Neogaf? Also thank God for Bricklink and Re-Brickable and tons of other similar sites, they make the hobby more interesting and fun for collectors like myself. I recently got back into LEGO thanks to the LEGO Movie and spinoffs, and also my 5-year-old son really got into it last year so I've been riding off that. It's a great toy and really easy gift choice.

 

[deafmedal]

I have several cool sets (mostly City sets) and buckets and buckets of pieces. As I’ve gotten older and due to RSI I have had trouble putting large sets together so I mainly fuck with figures now. I like to think when I’m retired I will build a cool setup. A little imagination and I reckon my town will have similarities to all the awesome unlicensed sets I drooled over as a kid.

Had a lot of fun when my kid was err, a kid playing with Lego.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Lego's???

Bloody yanks.

 

[TheSadRanger]

Is it OK to say LEGOs now? I remember back in the day it was frowned upon to pluralize the word.... anyhow, I agree, the licensed stuff is very uninspiring. But I admit I salivated over the new Ideas Pirate Ship until the wife told me no. Is there a LEGO community on Neogaf? Also thank God for Bricklink and Re-Brickable and tons of other similar sites, they make the hobby more interesting and fun for collectors like myself. I recently got back into LEGO thanks to the LEGO Movie and spinoffs, and also my 5-year-old son really got into it last year so I've been riding off that. It's a great toy and really easy gift choice.

The pirate ship is dope AF.

Also Brick Link is soooooooo ridiculously expensive for older sets and most of the time they don't even have any of the older castle sets.