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Why Can't LEGO Click?
A reader writes "This article from FastCompany.com contains a fascinating history of Lego, from wooden toys and the basic eight-stud brick to Star Wars kits and Mindstorms. According to the article, changes in the way children play has made the Danish toymaker struggle to adapt, while holding on to the values that helped build it's reputation. 'Once, for a brief moment, Lego changed the way kids played as well as the way kids learned to think. Lego hasn't been that kind of leader in a long time.'" The article itself paints a sad picture - LEGOs were such an integral part of my growing up, I can't imagine growing up without them. My favorite thing was to construct vast cities, and then launch billiards balls at them, pretending it was meteors coming down. Hurm. I think that may disqualify me from ever being put in charge of heavy weapons ordnance.
All of the intelligent, thoughtful, and creative people that i've met in my age group grew up with these toys, and they made all the difference in the world.
It takes a long time to put together a good Lego creation. Trial and error, following directions, and organization are all involved, and that can really take a lot of hours.
Today's kids don't have the attention span to handle this stuff. They are obsessed with TV, computer, video games, and other lame little things that don't require much time or energy.
Gee, I sound like an old man criticizing today's kids, but I'm only 22...
I've found that buying a set of just simple blocks is difficult if not impossible! When I say simple bricks, I mean the 2x4, 2x10, etc. not the 1x4, 1x8, etc that now come in the "buckets" that are available at .
I had the luck of growing up near a Lego plant (then manufactured by Samsonite here in the US) and employees could by large bags of the bricks that were swept up from the floor of the plant for a dollar a bag. The bricks were dirty, many were misshaped. We had a Christmas tradition of dumping the newly delivered bags in the sink and washing each brick and sorting out the melted ones. I didn't knwo 'sets' were available until I'd moved on to the next stage: girls.
Can't get a bag of bricks like that -- just those useless 1x pieces.
I just wonder why reporters have to do this all the time. Sometimes a reporter just saying "boy, things are going badly for this company" is enough to start a company on a downward spiral. If others jump on the bandwagon, it means certain disaster. Sometimes, I am sure, articles like this are done because the reporter has a grudge of some sort. A lot of time it's just because that particular reporter has no background to write about their subject (did YOU see the interview done by the Los Vegas TV station? see it for a great example).
You know.. everyone is doing badly now, so a lot of products are having some problems. A good amount of the blame for this is because of media "experts" saying "the bubble is going to burst in the next three months!" Look back... I think they said this every month for 3 years until it eventually came true!
Just because a toy or any product isn't following in the current mold doesn't mean they are going to disappear forever. There are always comapanies and people the jump the current trend and continue.
I doubt Lego is going anywhere soon. If I ever have kids (yuk) it will be on my toy list, because they're still one of the best creative toys ever. They're still one of the basic toys you think of when you think about childhood. They will always be around in some form. Look at the other classic lo-tek toys still around: the Etch-a-Sketch, dolls, bikes, roller skates, yo-yos, hobby horses, matchbox cars, etc.. etc... Lo-tek != bad.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Well, gee whiz, how did kids ever play togther before there was TV? Your argument is ludicrous... if anything I think the problem with Lego is that it's not Lego anymore, unless you stick with the very basic stuff. Lego was originally large quantities of very generic pieces that would as easilt build a house, spaceship, car or dinosaur. Nowaways, most Lego sets are essentially models. You build the model, there might be some variations possible, but with all the specific pieces they have now it doesn't require any imagination. Also, one of the strengths of Lego was its limitations. There weren't pieces to cover every possible thing you might want to build so you had to learn both creativity and compromise. In more recent days, they make models that look like the things they look like (to paraphrase Homer Simpson) in part by making one-off pieces specifically for the target model. Sure, the resulting model looks better, but to me it violates the basic principle of what makes Lego the best toy ever. My kids have a lot of Lego, some of it is 30+ years old from my early childhood. They received several of the Star Wars sets, which are very cool, and in each case, the sets were built once, and then cannibalized for the latest original creation. Now the Star Wars sets do seem to have fewer non-generic pieces than other sets I have seen, but in my family's case, being able to create your own toys out of Lego is the highest requirement.
I'm sorry if you feel the way you do, but in my book, if a child can't be creative without a TV show or something to draw from, he or she is going to grow up to be another boring person. My kids do watch their share of TV.. I'm not a purist in that regard, but their imaginative games, drawings, Lego models, etc, veer wildly into realms they create themselves. I think all children should have to drive and capacity to be like this. I have always steered them towards toys that lend themselves to creative play, which is what I myself was brought up on, and at the end of the day, with a toy box stuffed full of cool things, often times their favorite indoor toy is blank paper and something to color with.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Given the LEGO kids have to work with today, they probably envision futuristic spacecraft as being a single irregularly shaped plastic piece that's no fun at all.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
I think that Lego's biggest problem is that by having so many themed sets, they have introduced many very specialized pieces that cannot be used except to build that set. Mind you I have no problem with certain specialized sets, but the pirate themes really stand out as having too many specialized pieces. I think that after the Lego Town sets, they went downhill. Town was good because it made use of normal pieces (albeit sometimes off from the regular colors) and the town blocks could be used to build other things. I guess it helps that lego blocks are rectangular, and go really well with making buildings :)
So basically what Lego needs to do is to get away from all the custom pieces like boat hulls, and make sets from pieces that can be used for other projects as well. I always liked the sets myself, often building what was on the box, and using my general bucket of pieces to make enhancements on the set, or else another town building or something of that nature.