
What Happened with Lego (2013) - ThomPete
http://www.realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/
======
iamthepieman
When I was eleven, three local K-mart stores had a simple drawing to win 1000
dollars worth of Legos. They had these little boxes with stacks of entry forms
next to them and a pencil to fill them out while you were in the store.

Each store was going to give away a thousand dollars worth of legos.

Even though there was a store just a few minutes from us, we drove to the one
20 minutes away in a dilapidated shopping center because inspection of the
drawing box indicated that fewer people were submitting entries at that store.
We would drive to the stores in the morning, take all the entry forms
available except for a few and I would spend my summer mornings filling them
out. I believe we dropped close to a thousand entries in the various boxes. I
put the majority in the low traffic K-Mart but entered a hundred or so in the
other two stores as well.

I got a big manilla envelope in the mail with Lego letterhead congratulating
me and 3 different catalogs, lego, duplo and technique.

I spent two glorious weeks poring over the catalogs with my brother carefully
tallying up to the 1000 dollar total.

A month after submitting the order we received two giant boxes. Few things
have ever made me as happy.

~~~
Roritharr
As cute as that story sounds... my mother taught me that doing these types of
things is unethical.

I'm not really judging, just want to hear how other people feel about
"cheating" in these types of promotions.

~~~
oqnet
If the contest doesn't specify how often you may enter then, I see no problem
with it. It may not be exactly ethical, and really shitting thing to do if you
were an adult in what appears to be a kids contest. If the contest doesn't
specify the number of entries go for it, you've done nothing wrong.

If the contest did specify and the kid stuffed the ballot that's pretty low,
but at least a kid who was super dedicated and excited got it. I wouldn't do
it but I would definitely shrug it off if that were the case. I would be angry
as hell if an adult did it, or encouraged a kid to do it.

~~~
somedudethere
There is a lot of things in life that aren't explicitly disallowed but make
you a selfish asshole if you do them. If a kid was brought up properly by
there parent and can assess right or wrong and then sees other kids being
unethical and then winning, it only promotes negative behavior.

------
gilbetron
As a parent that played with legos as a kid and now has enjoyed the past 4
years buying my son legos, my answer to the question "What happened with
Lego?" is: they became _awesome_. They managed to find a great balance between
having more complex, interesting legos and still being legos. I think the
modern legos are just brilliant. If you want simple, you can still get simple.
If you want complex, you can get complex, but the complex pieces still feel
like lego pieces and not toys with a few lego nubs on them.

~~~
krupan
Agreed. Whenever I read these pieces complaining about the current state of
things it makes me as, "do you even Lego?"

If you want a bucket of bricks they sell that set at Walmart, or better, get
on ebay and buy a bag of bricks used. It's awesome.

~~~
jerf
But _did_ you in fact read the piece?

~~~
krupan
Yes. 2 years ago when it came out. I didn't really look at it again before
commenting, so you I guess you caught me. This is the one where people have
complained that Lego bricks have gotten more expensive but actually they have
gone down in price. It's kind of a link-baity title, don't you think?

------
jack-r-abbit
What happened to _my_ LEGO? This is a question I ask myself from time to
time... and kick myself (a little) because I know part of that answer. I'm the
youngest of 3 and all the various LEGO trickled down to me. My brother and I
were big into the space themed sets. We had a bunch of those base boards in
grey with moon craters and what not. When I left for college I had amassed a
large suitcase full of bricks. One of my best friends in HS had a
significantly younger brother that was the coolest little kid I knew. I gave
him my suitcase. He was so happy. I think I quadrupled his collection. It felt
good then and it still feels good now when I think of how happy little Elwood
was. But now as an adult with kids of my own, I kick myself a little bit for
not seeing the future. What I would give to go back and tell 18yr old me to
hang on to those sets. Even back then I probably had at least $1k worth. Today
that suitcase would probably be worth several thousand. But most of all, I
would love to be sitting on the floor with my boys, building (non Star Wars
themed) space ships with the same bricks I used 30 years ago.

~~~
abakker
I almost traded my whole collection for an xbox in high school, but I ended up
keeping them. I think they're still in a giant bin in my mom's attic
somewhere. I'm going to keep your lesson in mind every time she suggests
getting rid of them.

I think I still have all my k'nex also.

------
fragmede
(It should be noted that while the economics of Lego hasn't significantly
changed, this piece is from 2013; previous discussion at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9096253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9096253))

~~~
teh_klev
And further back:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5181406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5181406)

------
frik
LEGO just released their "LEGO Worlds" game that is very similar to Minecraft,
but with LEGO bricks.

In recent years LEGO is ver much in franchise/brands, with specialised sets
reach from StarWars to Batman. Nowadays kids get sets and build them once and
that's it.

The joy of LEGO used to be to build what you had in mind with mainly generic
bricks.

~~~
rquirk
I dunno... anecdata here, but my kids have quite a few sets - Batman, Ninja
Turtles, Star Wars as well as some brick boxes and Lego City stuff - and they
mixed them all together and now build whatever they fancy all the time. I was
horrified actually, they don't care. In fact when I tried to build up a mini
Millenium Falcon that's hidden in there I was told to clear off.

The new sets do have a few weird "only for that set" bricks, like batman
helicopter blades or weird rubber Jedi hair pieces, but generally everything
still fits together with everything else. I will say that there does seem to
be a high percentage of small round 1x1 transparent studs. Every set seems to
come with loads of 'em.

~~~
colomon
My problem is my son looks at the sets and says, "Dad! Dad! There's a brick I
don't have in that set! You need to buy me the set!"

But yeah, he builds a set by the instructions once, lets it stay together
maybe a month, and then it's just parts going into the bins of bricks, to be
endlessly remade into whatever catches his fancy.

------
Tloewald
The price of Lego isn't the problem. It's the tiny, over specialized parts.

~~~
baldfat
I still would like to buy legos ala cart. Give me 1000 single units in black
and 500 half units in black etc...

Actually using a CAD like program that would give a list of pieces needed and
than a way to buy the items online would make my kids a wonderful place. Oh
wait they killed that in 2012 ([http://ldd.lego.com/en-
us/subpages/designbyme](http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/subpages/designbyme))

~~~
zck
You can buy Lego a la carte here: [http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-
ByTheme](http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-ByTheme) . I'm not certain it
has every brick, but it definitely has the a bunch of the standard ones I
looked for.

Also if you go to a Lego store, you can go to the "pick a brick wall"
([http://stores.lego.com/en-us/store-experience](http://stores.lego.com/en-
us/store-experience)), and fill up a cup with whatever bricks you want.

~~~
rmxt
As a tip: if you are building a specific project, and are looking for a large
number X of a specific shape of brick, odds are there is an employee there who
knows the best way to to pack the cups to get the most brick for your buck.
The "shovel it in and pack it down approach" isn't always the best way,
especially for oblong pieces. I recall that the best way to pack your average
2x4 brick was to arrange them in two layers in concentric circles, standing up
on their tall axis. Also, counter intuitively, at the store that I went to, it
was better to buy two smaller containers of 2x4s than one bigger container at
the price points they had at the time.

------
eastbayjake
You can get a knockoff "Big Bag of Bricks" 1000 pc set for $39.95 on
Amazon[1], but at ~4 cents/brick it's only 23% cheaper than the 580 pc generic
LEGO set from Walmart[2] for $30 (~5.2 cents/brick). It doesn't seem like
there's an exorbitant margin on the cost of making a small plastic brick.
You're just paying a small premium for the LEGO brand. I agree with the author
that the pricing seems fair (and has even gone down!) but we don't perceive it
because we didn't buy our first LEGO sets and we acquired huge collections
over a long period of time.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bricks-Blocks-Pieces-
Compatib...](http://www.amazon.com/Building-Bricks-Blocks-Pieces-
Compatible/dp/B00NAPJ8DM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433959708&sr=8-1&keywords=lego+bulk)

[2] [http://www.walmart.com/ip/LEGO-Creative-Building-
Box/4291088...](http://www.walmart.com/ip/LEGO-Creative-Building-Box/42910881)

~~~
yincrash
the tolerances and quality assurance on the off brand bricks seems to be lower
according to reviews. tolerances are super important if you're making
something relatively big and complex. it's up to you to decide if the
difference in price is worth it.

------
jameshart
This is _not_ one of those pieces bemoaning that Lego is all specialist parts
and complaining about the lack of big buckets of bricks - the tl;dr of this
article would be "What happened with Lego? Nothing, you just grew up.".

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, doesn't seem like many people read the article, just the title.

------
Glyptodon
While this has been posted before, one thing I'd like to see considered that
wasn't in the analysis is whether a 2015 Lego piece is on average the
equivalent of a 1980 Lego piece, or if the increase in average set size has
been accompanied by shrinkages in average piece size (to go along with the
profusion of smaller specialty pieces).

~~~
sarah2079
Wasn't this covered? He looked at the average price per gram of Lego in
addition to price per piece.

~~~
Glyptodon
I think the way I'd go about it is number of full 1x1 cells per set rather
than grams, which could change based on manufacturing or the replacement of
"real" pieces with specialty pieces likes shields or antennas (which would not
contribute towards the cell count).

------
weinzierl
Bought my daughter 4 bags (red, green, blue, yellow) with 1000 bricks in each
bag. 500 transparent bricks (4x2) for windows. Made in Italy, manufactured
according EU standards, contaminant-free according EU code, indistinguishable
from the originals. Cost: about 200 EUR

Our local LEGO store sells buckets for 11 EUR and you can fill them with
whatever you like. One bucket with figurines and tools and other stuff was
enough, so far.

What happened to LEGOS? More choice for less money (If you and your children
don't fall for the ads)

------
chrisdbaldwin
Is LEGO struggling today? Probably not.

This article is from 2013-01-17.

~~~
StephenFalken
It's pretty impressive how LEGO has changed its destiny in the last 10 years,
given this: [1]

    
    
      In 2003, The LEGO Group faced a budget deficit of 1.4 billion DKK (220 million
      USD at then current exchange rates; equal to EUR 175 million),[40] causing
      Poul Plougmann to be replaced by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen as president. In the
      following year, almost one thousand employees were laid off, due to budget
      cuts. However, in October, 2004, on reporting an even larger deficit, 
      Kristiansen also stepped down as president, while placing 800 million DKK of 
      his private funds into the company.
    

Right now, LEGO is the largest toy company in the world, surpassing Mattel
since late 2014. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lego_Group#Financial_resul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lego_Group#Financial_results)

[2] [http://time.com/money/3268065/lego-largest-toy-company-
matte...](http://time.com/money/3268065/lego-largest-toy-company-mattel/)

------
bengoodger
As someone with a lot of these pricy adult sets I find the presentation in
this article weird. Lego described as a "victim" of aging consumers etc. vs.
this being a deliberate calculated strategy by Lego to go after the
adult/hobbyist/collectors market. It's actually the latter, and the result of
a deliberate effort to turn the company around from near disaster early in the
2000s. There have been several good articles written about this. I have no
problems paying for the big sets. If you don't like that, buy the smaller
sets, they're just as much fun as they were when you were a kid.

------
loup-vaillant
That was one hell of a non sequitur. The citation at the beginning of the post
talks about the _complexity_ of the sets. The post is all about their _price_.

Frustrating.

------
DanielBMarkham
Sidebar: for those of you who are unaware, the Lego platform has actually
spawned a business facilitation technique, Lego Serious Play (LSP). There's a
certification and lots of application in various industries. It ain't cheap.

To the author's point, it's very interesting how the adoption of Lego decades
ago is now affecting product sales, perceptions, and spin-offs today, as those
kids become power users and buyers.

------
mathattack
As a parent who loves having kids play with Legos, I'm all for "Just Duplos".
I've already had one trip to the doctor for stepping on a sharp toy. I'd much
rather have them play all day and night with their imagination. Legos are a
fun way for teaching letters too. My older likes to get in on the game with
the younger. (Teaches the abstractions behind what are otherwise perfect
shapes)

------
CatsoCatsoCatso

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Mirror:
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happened-with-lego/)

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danmaz74
What I personally wonder is what happened with Lego Technic. Where are the old
generic studded pieces, gears, axles, etc? I learned so much with those...

------
jivardo_nucci
I was brought up with Lincoln logs then Tinker Toys. When I saw Lego blocks I
thought "Those are for dumb kids" and kept on tinkering. It's an easy step up
to chemical models from Tinker Toys.

The difference is generational: the ultra-bright and creative Boomers used
Tinker Toys and Erector Sets; the comparatively dull bricklaying Lego
generations followed in the Boomers' wake. So much had to be changed to suit
the latter:

\- TinkerToys abandoned; Legos promoted.

\- Cursive writing discarded; printing promoted.

\- Pen & paper downgraded; typing promoted.

\- SAT tests downgraded; quotas promoted.

\- The rise of illiteracy and innumeracy in the USA falls in there someplace.

