How come Lego only makes sets based on licenses? What happened to all the OC stuff?This goes for preety mich every toy company. Where are all the original toys and designs? Things like Bakugan, Gormiti or NERF. Nowadays the only original character figures are japanese, therefore super expensive and anime adjacent. Even toys have fallen prey to the mass enshittification of everything. What is going on?
Licensed bullshit apparently sells so well that there's no room for originality.Lego is a zombie, like Simpsons. It exists and walks, but it's been dead inside for decades now.
>>11546237But it was supposed to be built on imagination and creativity. Aren't licenses and static 18+ builds the antithesis to that?Imagine NERF suddenly started doing swords and bows and arrows because they're more popular. Or if Bakugan started doing cubic monsters. Oh...
>>11546240>But it was supposed to be built on imagination and creativity. Aren't licenses and static 18+ builds the antithesis to that?Yes. Yes they are. They don't care. Money is money.
>>11546237desu I mainly just buy sets based on what pieces are included. I got a couple of the small scale millennium falcons because it has a lot of good parts for making my own ships complete with lots of small details. Or the 3-in-1 sets are great for getting certain categories of pieces/colors for a reasonable price
>frenchshill thread
>>11546860Schizophrenia mostly
>>11546221Shut the fuck up spammer
>>11546221NERF also died when they started doing Minecraft and Fortnite garbage. If you have been paying attention you'll know what this means for LEGO.
>>11546860>>11546870>samepedo
>>11546221>>11547275Based nooticersIn 10 years this will crumble as kids that grow up will be nostalgic about nostalgia itself. You can't monetize something like that.
>>11546221>What happened to all the OC stuff?their OC was retarded and bankrupted the company>muh bionicleretarded OC they got lucky autists liked it (to collect) but a terrible toy and an absolutely retarded lego toy
>>11546240>But it was supposed to be built on imagination and creativity.it never was faggot, it was always build the thing on the box.>Aren't licenses and static 18+ builds the antithesis to that?no you stupid retard, it's no different than their old builds.
>>11546221By the late 90s, Lego sets became so fucking expensive only rich kids and adult NEETs could afford them, which caused their sales to collapse and the company was in dire fucking straits financially. To try and save themselves, they did a hail mary and acquired the rights to make lego sets of Star Wars shit, at the height of the prequel mania and it saved their asses and brought in huge money; so much so that they not only had money for other franchises (Marvel, DC/Batman, LOTR, Harry Potter) but also to fund shit like Bionacles and their new female centric Lego line. The later of the two being the only hit that Lego's had with their original content in ages, as Bionacles was one of those original ideas that was super polarizing on it's initial release and how it's later relaunches have always failed to live up to the success of it's original incarnation.
>>11548279Wrong, star wars in 1999 was huge until phantom menace released then later sets flopped hard because of the film. OT line came after and was a good hit but not enough, there was too much stock from prequel sets so they released bionicle and that saved lego with harry potter. Ninjago is their biggest hit right now.
>>11548272>it never was faggot, it was always build the thing on the box.You're retarded. For the first four years LSW was a thing, every single build was mandated to have alt builds published on the back and in the instructions. > it's no different than their old builds.Lego would release 2-3 static "models" a year. Now, it's the vast majority of their 18+ portfolio.
>>11548413Why tho?
>>11548137Yes it is lol
>>11546221Just because they make money. They’re too dumb to make money in multiple ways so they stick to licenses
>>11548279Lego grew a bit too fast in the 90's as it was gaining popularity, and started to invest in unprofitable shit such as theme parks. Star Wars didn't help; in 2003 it posted a massive loss of $223M.Bionicle was actually a big hit, due to being an OC universe with a lot of lore. They even made comics, and a movie out of it, and it saved the company.What's infuriating is that building original universes is very lucrative eventually - you don't have to pay for IP rights, and kids that play now become the kidults "AFOL" tomorrow that spend their income from their bullshit jobs on Legos.Right now, there's a fucking bubble forming, as more and more buyers are "Lego investing", as the returns on those sets are higher than the stock market. As a result, Lego makes fewer and fewer playable sets and hikes prices, pricing children out of the market. It's clear that they are deep into this repositioning - even Lego Classics, which is the entry door into the hobby, has less and less interesting sets each year, and they get smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, we get boring shit such as "Botanicals" for millennial girlbosses who want to signify that they are "nerds" by putting a Lego flower on their work table.
>>11556606>Bionicle>it saved the company.this is a retarded misconception autistic bionicle fanboys spread. bionicle was expensive to produce which was one of the reasons for their debt. restructuring the company and cutting costs saved them, not bionicle what retards constantly parrot.
>>11556636Yeah, closing legoland, and abandoning stupid product lines helped, but Bionicle was very successful and provided the cash needed. Check the catalogs, at that time they had scrapped a lot of classic System models to go all-in into their trashy new concepts. About half of the American children owned at least a set at that time.
>>11556606>kidultsStop. It's not going to be a thing.
>>11546221They now have star trek
>>11556814You understand that this is how marketers see you as they discuss how to extract more money from the market? Why do you think licenses sell more ? Because the main consumer now is a 30 something single man who thinks that he's a "geek" since he "likes" Star Wars or other boring commercial IP ran down to the ground by merchandizing, ready to spend hundreds of dollars for sets that he will then "display" as a replacement for a real personality, since having an authentic one would mean entering into the adult age.
>>11556970It's a gay word some fag made up and is trying desperately to spread it across the internet. It's not going to work because it's an embarrassing term that already has better alternatives.
>>11556970>the main consumer now is a 30 something single man who thinks that he's a "geek" since he "likes" Star Wars or other boring commercial IP ran down to the ground by merchandizing, ready to spend hundreds of dollars for sets that he will then "display" as a replacement for a real personality, since having an authentic one would mean entering into the adult age.Very accurate description lol, though too many adults’ personalities simply revolve around watching sports, so I’m not sure that’s much better.
>>11556606>>11556774Bionicle is a flop Ninjago is way more profitable get over it.
>>11556925The most soulless Star thing ever
>>11556970he's talking about the word you autistic retardalso the word is manchild
>>11546221Because it's less of a risk in the investors' eyes. Licensed toys already have a baseline market of people who are familiar with the product, so there's less marketing required. Why invest in making Johnny Thunder or Dino when you can just sell to people who already know Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park? That's also why anything that doesn't fit in a license gets swept into City or Ninjago – they already know it'll sell. It's the same reason we get so many franchise and nostalgia movies, rather than new stuff. If it flops, the exec who pitched it can just say "I guess people just weren't as interested in that brand as the data implied" rather than "we made a bad product"On a related note, we're never getting the old way back. Now that the market is saturated with IPs people recognise, they're not going to buy up toys of the no-name characters they don't recognise. It's true of the old Lego building style too; now that every Lego set is packed with little bits for exact details, something with a simpler build like pic attached wouldn't be bought by a lot of buyers. It's probably more in line with the 4+ sets these days.
>>11559766That’s really sad. Old Lego was wonderful, and now it’s succumbed to the same muh graphics sickness that engulfed gaming.
>>11546221>Why this flight forward?Because their patents expired and chinks are eating their lunch and drinking their milkshake with all sorts of parts and sets (and business model) that are actually innovative (yes) funny and affordable, so they got cornered into the collectoor market, that what's "trendy" and "hot" (as opposed to coollector, which buys what everyone else missed) and the exclusive licensed deals, turning them pretty much into merchandising company.
