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Krispy Kareem posted:
No way. There are an infinite amount of ways to market Lego. Any IP that is a hit among children can have a Lego spin off. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Marvel, Disney. Hell even Mega Bloks was making GAMER bricks for a while, Warcraft, Call of Duty, Halo, all had their own line.
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Sep 10, 2017 18:10
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Fried Watermelon posted:No way. There are an infinite amount of ways to market Lego. Any IP that is a hit among children can have a Lego spin off. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Marvel, Disney. See, that's where LEGO started to lose my interest. I wanna see the cool crazy stuff they come up with, not Harry Potter set piece #50 or Star Wars vehicle #83
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Sep 10, 2017 18:18
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Boywhiz88 posted:See, that's where LEGO started to lose my interest. I wanna see the cool crazy stuff they come up with, not Harry Potter set piece #50 or Star Wars vehicle #83 They never stopped making their own stuff too.
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Sep 10, 2017 19:05
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Fidget spinners. Those seem to have been one of the quicker fads to come and go that I've seen. Stores with huge sections and at the Pne fair this year someone paid for a huge double booth selling them too. Never see any customers for either of these now.
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Sep 10, 2017 20:29
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Inescapable Duck posted:They never stopped making their own stuff too. I've only seen them adversities original stuff here and ther recently. Post-Mission to Mars, it seemed like the only space sets were Star Wars themed. Ah well, doesn't matter anyway. I'm gonna give my niece and nephew my old sets as they get old enough in the next couple years.
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Sep 10, 2017 21:45
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ianmacdo posted:Fidget spinners. Those seem to have been one of the quicker fads to come and go that I've seen. Fidget spinners and other twitchy toys are great for special needs kids, but the trendiness has been real fuckin annoying to a lot of that crowd and it's a shame if they go up in flames because they could be a great resource.
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Sep 10, 2017 22:40
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I believe lego specifically called out that their lego batman sets heavily underperformed as a reason for worker contractions.
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Sep 11, 2017 01:19
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Barudak posted:I believe lego specifically called out that their lego batman sets heavily underperformed as a reason for worker contractions. They did
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Sep 11, 2017 01:39
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Remember those LEGO Prince of Persia sets? Yeah, licensing deals can fail fast. You’d think Batman would be a safe bet, but who wants a Ben Affleck minifig?
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Sep 11, 2017 01:44
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Krispy Kareem posted:Remember those LEGO Prince of Persia sets? Lego Batman was a movie spin off from the Lego movie. He was voiced my Will Arnett
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Sep 11, 2017 01:49
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Yeah, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t have a Justice League set which swings the pendulum right back into the other shittier Batman’s territory.
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Sep 11, 2017 03:37
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Krispy Kareem posted:Remember those LEGO Prince of Persia sets? Every gay man
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Sep 11, 2017 05:32
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Saw a Lego Wayne manor and bat cave from the 60s series for $200. Had the batmobile and like 5 villains and I thought about buying that for a minute. It looks pretty rad
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Sep 11, 2017 07:11
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They definitely went way too all in on Lego Batman stuff. And I say this as someone who has a proud collection of Z-list villain minifigs. The Eraser has his own freaking custom head! And then Zodiac Master, March Harriet, and Mime, freaking Mime. Kinda weird that despite having the other Alice in Wonderland themed villain, The Mad Hatter was conspicuously absent from The Lego Batman Movie and associated merch. Trying not to step on Disney's toes?
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Sep 11, 2017 07:55
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Krispy Kareem posted:
I do, but I'd only get it if it featured drunk out of his fuckin mind, cheating on his wife with mad strippers.
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Sep 11, 2017 10:24
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I legit wouldn't mind a Good Will Hunting set. I guess I can make my own. LEGO has apple pieces and I could use a LEGO Harry Potty Hagrid as Robin Williams. There's probably a bland yellow faced miniface that would work for Matt Damon.
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Sep 11, 2017 13:19
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Give me my Lego Reindeer Games play-set or give me death.
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Sep 11, 2017 14:25
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enigmahfc posted:Give me my Lego Reindeer Games play-set or give me death. modeled after The Crying Game?
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Sep 11, 2017 14:38
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Mr Robot Lego set No wait Fight Club Lego set for maximum irony appeal
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Sep 11, 2017 18:35
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MikeCrotch posted:Mr Robot Lego set And here we have our Red Revolution sets w Trotsky and Stalin figures. Marx and Lenin too!
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Sep 11, 2017 20:27
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enigmahfc posted:Give me my Lego Reindeer Games play-set or give me death. 1000%
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Sep 11, 2017 20:36
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Lego Hunt For Red October and Lego Das Boot to go with Lego Yellow Submarine.
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Sep 11, 2017 21:26
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I imagine a Toys R Us as just a bunch of "grown" men fighting over action figures and Amiibos.
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Sep 11, 2017 22:35
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I think the problem was that none of the Lego batman sets had anything to do with movies or comics, and I think they've been relying too much on rare minifigs to sell sets. But I'm also not a Legohead. I would go for a Batman technics set. They made the Chris Nolan Tumbler years ago that's hard to find, and I'd totally shell out for a Tim Burton bat mobile.
red19fire has a new favorite as of 11:21 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 00:28
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Clitch posted:I imagine a Toys R Us as just a bunch of "grown" men fighting over action figures and Amiibos. I used to work for that lovely company and you aren't that far off. Half the stores are totally dead 11 months out of the year, including the ones with Babies R Us, save for collectors of random crap. The other stores make like 90% of their money off foreign tourists where it's cheaper for them to buy tons of merchandise and take it back as luggage rather than buy it in their home countries or ship there from websites, particularly to South America. Seriously, Toys R Us is loving horrific and doesn't deserve a penny from anyone.
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Sep 13, 2017 01:57
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The mainstream Lego craze seems to be more a recent thing. While they were popular enough toys in the 80s/90s, I think with the Lego Batman and Star Wars games and toys about 12 years ago their popularity started to skyrocket with the then-growing geek-chic culture craze that was starting to take root. But they've started to become more reliant on licensed IPs for their sets, too, which can't be good when they have to spend a lot of time trying to come up with sets for movies/etc. without knowing how popular they're going to end up being, either. A film can make a $1B, but that doesn't mean that the toys are going to sell all that well. Dimensions came out during a time when the market was sort of getting saturated with everything from the continuing hype of amiibo, the long-running Skylanders and Star Wars Disney Infinity to a revival of plastic instrument games vying for shelf space and attention, so I don't think it caught on the way it would have a year or so earlier It also probably can't be good for Lego with the first two major expansion/story sets for the Lego Dimensions game were for films that I don't think really excited the game and movie audiences, either: Ghostbusters 2016 and Fantastic Beasts.
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Sep 13, 2017 02:53
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What happened was Lego's patent expired which is why you saw the rise of similar block toys using the same studs and notches design. This cut into their market share (most alternatives were cheaper, since Lego's quality control is so ridiculous) and they were kinda in trouble until they got the Star Wars license. Licenses and the accompanying video games, cartoons, and so on have helped them and so became a big part of their business model but there are risks.
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Sep 13, 2017 03:00
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Sadly there were no licensed Lego toys when I was a kid, because i would have gone nuts for those at the time
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Sep 13, 2017 03:27
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I'm sort of surprised with all the retro-inspired sets they put out, they never did a Stargate SG-1 set for Dimensions. Granted, it's not got the pop culture nostalgia of Goonies, GB or Gremlins, but the series ran for years and is still on in syndication. (There is a very cheap looking non-Lego Stargate building block set, though.)
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Sep 13, 2017 03:35
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FlamingLiberal posted:Sadly there were no licensed Lego toys when I was a kid, because i would have gone nuts for those at the time There almost certainly were. I remember McDonald's licensed Legos when I was a wean back in the early 80s. Like it was a build your own McDonald's Lego kit or something, not from a happy meal, which was still a relatively new invention at the time and didn't come with anything as cool as Legos. e: digging around, I see they used to do a lot of stuff with actual companies. Exxon gas stations, Shell Oil trucks, Viking and Maersk ships, various real airlines, etc. Though I can't find the McDonald's I remember so clearly. ReidRansom has a new favorite as of 04:37 on Sep 13, 2017 |
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Sep 13, 2017 04:08
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ReidRansom posted:There almost certainly were. McDonald's Legos are different than Star Wars Legos. As a kid, my cousin and I would have killed for Star Wars and Superhero Legos.
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Sep 13, 2017 04:53
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Davros1 posted:McDonald's Legos are different than Star Wars Legos. As a kid, my cousin and I would have killed for Star Wars and Superhero Legos. It was a different time. You played with your authentically branded gas station and you liked it, dammit!
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Sep 13, 2017 04:59
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JediTalentAgent posted:(There is a very cheap looking non-Lego Stargate building block set, though.) I remember seeing that at Target. I like Stargate, but I can't imagine there are many kids who even know what that show is.
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Sep 13, 2017 05:00
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I think Lego's explosion of licensed stuff might have been encouraged by tons of fans on in the internet building replicas of anything and everything out of Lego. Clearly the demand was there. Though maybe not as much as people think. I think a lot of the Simpsons minifigure blind bags were shelfwarmers.
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Sep 13, 2017 05:45
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I may have my dates off here, but I want to say Lego first getting the Star Wars license in the late 1990s (It was prior to Episode I coming out, so like 97 or 98) coincided with them coming out of that slump from a few flop lines, like that whole rock-based line I can't remember the name off. Someone did a good write up on it in another thread some time ago...
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Sep 13, 2017 06:08
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The lego documentary that as far as I can tell has been removed from Netflix had a pretty good summary of why lego were doing so poorly. IIRC a huge part was because they massively expanded into every market possible, but only the lego sets themselves were making money and everything else turned into a pit you tossed money into. Then they cut everything but the legos and aggressively started selling licensed sets, and causing many a tantrum when a parent wont buy their child a lego Death Star. Maybe that last part was only applicable to me, I'm sure my mom still curses when Lego got the star wars license in the late 90s. Also Rock Raiders were great and the video game was the poo poo when I was 7 and this is the hill I choose to die on 
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Sep 13, 2017 09:16
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fartknocker posted:I may have my dates off here, but I want to say Lego first getting the Star Wars license in the late 1990s (It was prior to Episode I coming out, so like 97 or 98) coincided with them coming out of that slump from a few flop lines, like that whole rock-based line I can't remember the name off. Someone did a good write up on it in another thread some time ago... I remember Star Wars legos in the mid 90s, although I guess it's possible 5 year old me thought all spacehips were Star Wars.
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Sep 13, 2017 09:56
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The Moon Monster posted:I remember Star Wars legos in the mid 90s, although I guess it's possible 5 year old me thought all spacehips were Star Wars. Nope, they re-released the original trilogy in the mid-nineties. I remember my brother had a X-wing toy, and seeing the films at the cinema as a child, and I'm 26.
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Sep 13, 2017 10:07
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According to Brickipedia, Lego got its star wars license in 1999. e: there is a lot of self-loathing lurking inside this post Grand Prize Winner has a new favorite as of 10:40 on Sep 13, 2017 |
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Sep 13, 2017 10:36
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Don Gato posted:The lego documentary that as far as I can tell has been removed from Netflix had a pretty good summary of why lego were doing so poorly. IIRC a huge part was because they massively expanded into every market possible, but only the lego sets themselves were making money and everything else turned into a pit you tossed money into. Then they cut everything but the legos and aggressively started selling licensed sets, and causing many a tantrum when a parent wont buy their child a lego Death Star. Maybe that last part was only applicable to me, I'm sure my mom still curses when Lego got the star wars license in the late 90s. I loved that game except the drat thing would always crash on this one mission and I could never get any further. I recall the Time Twisters line which was painfully obvious even to the Inescapable Duckling that it was an attempt to clear out unsold parts.
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Sep 13, 2017 11:21
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