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How Hollywood Tie-Ins Saved Lego
MBCook writes "The New York Times published an article on Saturday profiling Lego, and how tie-ins with movies have helped save the company. 'Even as other toymakers struggle, this Danish maker of toy bricks is enjoying double-digit sales gains and swelling earnings. In recent years, Lego has increasingly focused on toys that many parents wouldn't recognize from their own childhood. Hollywood themes are commanding more shelf space, a far cry from the idealistic, purely imagination-oriented play that drove Lego for years and was as much a religion as a business strategy in Billund.' The article also mentions coming Lego Stores, a Lego board game, how Lego now allows sets with violence (like a gun for Indiana Jones), and how since 2004 Lego has cut part count nearly in half by encouraging re-use of parts and stopping one-off pieces."
My son is 6 and right smack in the middle of the kids they are shooting for. He is obsessed with Star Wars, and loves playing Lego Star Wars. He's collected a few sets now for birthday, Christmas, etc. We have a lot of fun building the kits to the directions, but spend just as much time figuring out new things to build. There are a lot of different shapes that go well beyond the idea of a 'block' and I think it involves a lot more imagination to figure new ways to connect them.
It's something we can do together and have a lot of fun with it. When he's a little older we'll start working with the Mindstorm kit together.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Hey, in the business world you have to adapt to stay ahead. It's preferable to sell out than to go bankrupt . It may blacken the CEO's soul, but if whimsical toys powered by imagination don't sell, why stay the course and become the next GM?
Wait... a gun for indiana jones is new? When I was a kid (20 years ago), we had pirate sets with guns in them... medieval sets with swords and cross bows... weapons everywhere.... how is violence in lego anything even remotely new?
Who gives a crap!!? Go out and buy yourself a set! Be a kid for a little while. Don't hold yourself back because of what others might think about you. And if you want to justify it to yourself in some way, then consider there are far worse things you can spend your time and money on... cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, porn, guns and on and on. Most "adult" things are also considered vices. I see nothing wrong with doing something fun that is harmless and nice.
And if it helps you to feel less weird, "give it away" to some 'needy kids' or to a school, a day care, a church or some such place.
Lego is clearly in charge of the business. Here's how it works. A kid sees a lego kit. The branding (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc) sells the kit. The child assembles the X wing fighter, or the Pirate ship. The toy then flies/sails to the corner of the room with all the other legos. The pirate ends up in the X wing. The cannons from the pirate ship end up on the x wing fighter but the nav console from the x wing becomes part of something else. The Ferrari mechanic is wearing a horned helmet and in the battlements of the castle. By the time the child is done, the "branded toy" has morphed and blended with all the other legos. Our lego chess set is guarding a castle. Bits of X wing and Imperial Walkers are outbuildings. From the children I've observed, the branded lego kit is a way to sell the blocks at the highest possible price. To the adult. The kids play with the blocks like kids. Lego is still one of the few toys with real play value, not just a prepackaged fantasy with no where to go. Also, for those of you worried about the "gun" issue, kids can make guns out of anything....and do.
I think you are mistaken. Reuced part counts and reduced numbers of unique pieces mean exactly the opposite of what you probably think. A decade ago you would see lego toys that were basically designed toys split in more or less blocky pieces, so it was basically a puzzle made to look like a lego. Everything was a custom piece. Now, everything is done from the same set of lego blocks. No "front end Ferrari spolier" block, no "X-Wing engine" block. It's all the same blocks. And that calls for much greater imagination, more challenging (and fun!) assembly and more flexibility. In fact, I have purchased for my children Star Wars X-Wing and Tie Fighter toys, a tank, the big Ferrati Enzo and a few other toys. And in each of them there were no more than three or four (generally minor) pieces that would not be used for other toys (maybe R2D2 legs, the X-Wing windshield and the Ferrari shock absorvers. All the rest was very ingeniusly built from stock pieces. That's ingenuity, and that's how it should be. And regarding the tie-ins, my children love watching the movies, then building sets based on them, or playing the games (which are uite innocent and educative, IMO, as they call for a good deal of thinking, at least for small children) and then attempting to build the objects they saw in the game. It looks like a very healthy franchise, and I hope they are doing more of it.