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Has Lego Sold Out?
Hugh Pickens writes "Matt Richtel and Jesse McKinley write in the NY Times that for generations of American children, Legos were the ultimate do-it-yourself plaything. Little plastic bricks, with scant instructions, just add imagination. But today's construction sets are often tied to billion-dollar franchises like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and invite users to follow detailed directions, not construct their own creations from whole brick. It's less open-ended, some parents and researchers say, and more like paint-by-numbers. 'When I was a kid, you got a big box of bricks and that was it,' says Tracy Bagatelle-Black. 'What stinks about Lego sets now is that they're not imaginative at all.' Lego loyalists are quick to defend the company. Josh Wedin, the managing editor of the Brothers Brick, a Lego blog, called complaints that they are less creative 'simply ridiculous,' adding that Legos always included some instructions, though he says he misses the alternative designs that used to be on the back of the box. But Clifford Nass, a sociology professor at Stanford University who studies how people relate to the physical world versus the virtual world, says some essential qualities were lost when Lego became more like other toys. 'The genius of Lego was, you had to do the work.' Learning about frustration, Nass says, 'is a hugely important thing.'" (And watch soon for a review of The Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide, a book intended to help Lego users escape the tyranny of block-by-number instructions.)
The first step is to completely ignore the manual, and this is what they're teaching children. This is a skill I wasn't able to master until I was in college, but today's kids will have it done by high school.
If you do not wish to partake in the pre-made kits, buy plain bricks and roll your own fantasy just like the old days.
Doesn't the NYT have anything more important to publish than people bitching about legos? If you just want a bag of bricks, you can still get them. In fact, you can order them in bulk now, which wasn't offered when I was a kid.
Ah, I agree so much. I had my fair share of legos when I was a child and the building blocks were nice and generic. Nowadays, all the pieces are molded to shape whatever you're supposed to make much better, resulting in a nicer looking whatever-it-is-you-were-making, but taking it apart, I wonder if there's much of a point in trying to make something else out of it, even beside the alternatives listed on the back of the box.
I'm glad I kept most of my legos for when my son's old enough for them. Other than that it looks like I'm stuck remembering the old days fondly.
What happens in my house: my son gets a Lego set. He excitedly spends hours building them (or one hour, if it's a small one). then he plays with it a little. A few days later I find it in pieces and deconstructed all over the playroom. A few days later, something else comes out as he institutes his own creations and modifications.
It's not a matter of lacking the manual, as we have kept every manual for every set he ever received. He knows where those manuals are, too.
To me, it seems like Lego has stuck a good balance.
If it was a story about Lego, fine. An editorial diatribe against lego hardly qualifies as news that matters.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
They have had detailed instructions that you could follow for almost as long as Lego has existed.
The problem with today Lego I that they made they completely out of proprietary big pieces that do not really fit together any other way.
You used to be able to buy some castle set, with step by step instructions, but it was made with the exact same pieces as every other set out there. So at the end of the day you could take it apart and build that castle into a space ship. Now Lego is basically just action figures and video games.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I thought the same thing about Lego's "they don't build the good sets anymore", but they still make the other sets, they've just expanded. My nephew could care less about the creative sets, but he buys the star wars sets.
you could still buy buckets of bricks, and the whole back wall was loose bricks for people that wanted to make their own bucket. I've been playing with Lego for thirty years. I always wanted to make what was on the box first, but eventually it became whatever the hell I wanted it to be. If someone wants to whine about children not being creative these days, I think Lego is the last reason they aren't creative!
When shopping for presents for kids it seems all of them have tie-ins to other products: Barbie, some movie, cartoon characters, etc.
Simple toys that exist on their own seem a rarity now (Spirograph, Rubik's Cube, Mechano (sp?), etc.) that I frankly hate shopping for something for kids.
Even Crayola products seem to be tied to Dora or whatever. Or come with coloured markers that seem to expire instantly, unlike crayons.
I don't remember it being so bad back in the dark ages when I was a kid. Was it Star Wars that brought us this trend? McDonald's Happy Meals? Where did it start?
A handful of years ago Lego was going bankrupt and they were searching in vain for how to stop it. Then they figured out that open ended didn't sell so well. They created their Bionicle sets. Then they started the licensed sets with Harry potter and Star wars. It is the only reason lego even still exists. And now people decry that lego 'sold out'? Make up your minds...
Through various customer surveys, Lego found that most kids are just building what's in the main instructions anyway. It's a sad state of affairs, but not necessarily stemming from Lego themselves.
My kids build as per the instructions once, when the kit brand new. After that the imagination takes over and they produce things that would be impossible with the traditional blocks alone. The new Lego sets are better than ever.
http://www.fastcompany.com/43497/why-cant-lego-click
Lego have always included instructions with their sets. What has changed is the number of specialized pieces in a set. Some of these are single-purpose, replacing a bunch of bricks with a single large moulding, so some sets end up being less versatile.
There still are plenty of sets that consist mostly of standard bricks. What you end up with after buying a bunch of sets, is a pile of bricks and a pile of specialized pieces that can still be combined to your heart's content.
It's been like this for a very long time. I remember playing with Lego when I was a kid- I had a box set with a big picture of a spaceship on the front. There were instructions for how to make the spaceship in the picture, as well as pictures of about 5 other spaceship designs with no instructions. You could make the one with the instructions, of you could try to make one of the non-instruction pictures, or you could go nuts and use the spaceshipy style blocks to make any futuristic structure you like.
Same went for some "submarine" themed sets, some "pirate ship" themed sets, etc. etc.
Not really newsworthy, is it?
I remember that my parents basically never got me just raw Legos. It was always a set that you could build a specific thing with, complete with directions. Sometimes I would, most of the time I'd just pour the pieces in to my ever-increasing pile and build whatever I pleased.
They weren't co-branded but they were still sets. And why not? It gives people a starting point, and can help for children that aren't as creative. If you take someone who has difficulty with creative tasks, and set them adrift with nothing and say "Work it out all yourself," they are likely to just get frustrated and give up. However if you give them guidance of what to build, but with the freedom to disregard that and modify as they like, then perhaps they start to learn and grow creatively.
Some constraints, goals, and guidance are reasons why games like Minecraft and Terraria are popular. If you just want unbounded creativity get Solidworks or Maya or the like. You can create whatever you can conceive more or less. However that's rather daunting. There's something to be said for having an environment that gives you some rules, constraints, and guides.
I can safely say that while all sets do come with directions, the bricks are still bricks and, once the main contraption is built, most are taken apart and the bricks are thrown into the 'misc' bucket and re-used at some later date.
There are some exceptions; I got him the Lego 42004 mini backhoe, and it's stayed together. Maybe half of the kits are put on static display like that. If you look at video of the 42004 then you'll see why; it is really quite ingenious.
One other big thing to point out in Lego's defense is their web efforts; they offer free Lego CAD software which, along with basic design in software, auto-generates instructions for building their creations, step-by-step instructions similar to what you'd see in an official Lego kit. More than that, kids can upload their creations to the Lego website and let others download them. Not only does that clearly encourage independent creation, it's shows kids how useful the Creative Commons model is :)
Last thing I'd point out: for families that can afford it, all serious lego roads eventually lead to Mindstorms, and that is even more encouraging of invention that basic Lego.
The authors are right; it is possible now to get a Lego kit, build by instruction, and exercise no imagination at all. But kids are kids and imagination comes naturally, so for me, I'm not worried.
This is not new; I used to build the pictured construct then "wreck it" and add the pieces to my collection while I had a friend who would built his models and then leave them assembled indefinitely.
I preferred the space series so I could build bigger and bigger ships, he liked the Robin Hood (Forrestmen) series because those kits looked really neat assembled and sitting on a shelf.
Completely agree. First off, one is fully entitled to throw their instructions away. One of the things I like about the playsets is that you get a diversity of interesting pieces to use. So you build it their way the first time, then it just becomes an interesting bag of parts.
Not to mention which, they do still sell bulk bricks, and bulk specialty pieces. So if that's what you want for your kids, buy it. Of course, if the same kids who lack the creativity to make their own designs have parents who lack the ability to do actual research, that I buy.
I liked building legos when I was a kid, and now my kids do. I built them a 36" square recessed table for them - just for legos - so they can build things and not have to worry about cleaning up, or about the legos falling on the floor. I love coming home from work and seeing how their designs have evolved. No instructions in sight.
That title must go to Meccano. With this you could build real things that worked and would not fall into bits at the first knock. With strips of metal held together with nuts and bolts you could create great things. I loved it.
Back when I was a kid, some 25 years ago I never had an "open-ended" box of bricks, it was always sets of some fire station, police stuff, space ships, pirates or whatever with detailed instructions and all that. No different then what you have today. Some sets came with instructions to build different things from the same set, but that's about it as far as open-ended is concerned. Of course all those sets ended up being disassembled after they got boring and turned into something else, ultimately ending up in an open-ended box of bricks, but all those bricks started out as sets. And while you could just buy plain boxes of bricks back then, just as you can now, those didn't seem to be very widespread, I don't think I ever seen one in a regular store.
But today's construction sets ...invite users to follow detailed directions, not construct their own creations from whole brick...
Absolutely sensible approach. Today's child is growing up in today's environment, and will become a designer tomorrow. Today, if you create a design for which some idiot possesses a design patent, the latter will sue you for billions of dollars. If you have a brick with rounded corners, is glossy or black in colour, even God cannot save you from litigious thugs.The child needs to learn this lesson very early, and learn to 'behave' and 'obey' and 'conform' rather than be creative.
So Lego has researched and come up with designs which are not encumbered by prior art or patents; and given detailed instructions for kids to follow. 10 years from now, a design company would have about a 100 lawyers for every 5 designers. These lawyers would tell the designers exactly what to design, what not to design, and how not to be too successful and gain the wrath of patent holding Big Businesses.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
American kids (or any other kid for that matter) aren't as dumb and unintuitive as we may want to think.
Because of this, we have the "maker generation" today. These are kids of any age that build stuff out of anything they have laying around. What can be more creative than that? Lego is no different, except it was made with the very idea that you could make anything you want out of these building blocks. Just take a look at Lego Mindstorm to get an idea about what I'm talking about here. (And of course, google make magazine, and makers everywhere).
American kids are just as curious and impressive to me as they where back in the days where we used electronics kits to build stuff with. Many of the kids today make LEVELS for video games and that is just as creative or advanced as what we did back in our days. (I'm in my mid forties and grew up with Lego and Electronics).
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Legos have had detailed instructions on building specific items in every set I've ever bought since the mid 80s. There's nothing inherently different about the licensed sets vs. the generic sets. They both give you exactly the pieces needed to build the thing on the front of the box, and license to do whatever you want with the pieces otherwise.
On a slightly different note, I always thought the Mazda Miata looked a lot like the Lego cars I remember getting. I noticed the Miata usually comes complete with that bald Lego guy that you get with the Lego car, too, though the guy in the Miata usually has legs.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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My construction toy was an Erector Set, now long gone. These days Erector Sets in the US are rebranded Meccano sets.
Anyway, the thing about the Erector Set was that it not only exercised your imagination, as does LEGO, but it also exercised your manual dexterity, which LEGO does not. When you have to use little nuts and bolts to put things together you get good at manipulating small parts, which is excellent for improving hand-eye coordination, improving delicacy of touch and learning patience.
If you make things too easy for kids how are they to learn?
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
Betteridge Violates His Own Law
Ponca City, We Love You
Lego still offers products that consist of a tub of nondescript bricks; I should know, as I bought a tub for a family member. Until they stop offering these and offer only licensed products, one cannot say that they are somehow in the wrong. The licensed products are likely more popular and more lucrative - of course they would try to milk these for all they can.
I grew up with lego, yes when I was 7 I got my first set of little bricks that could ... when I was 8 I got set #575 the Coast Guard set .. it had ... one set you could build from the instructions (that was in 1978) it was just the start ... you built it, you got other sets you built cities, forts, mountain ranges transformers spaceships and so on the possibilities were endless. I myself had children and so I set to raise them with lego, Bionical came out and I looked at those sets scratched my head and thought what on earth can you build except what the instructions had ... so I didn't buy them at first and my boys went without until a fateful birthday party and they got a gift of one ... well I was proved very wrong, they created, they built and came up with spiders and monsters, giants and trucks with arms.
Now there are so many options, you could buy the current trend (star wars, lord of the rings and so on) you can buy the box o bricks that is just a huge box of bricks you can even buy lego creator these sets have instructions for a few different models. Also you can buy the lego master builder that teaches kids how to really build in an a fun but educational way, they learn to build stability, realism, and structure in a set. Branding sets is not so much of a sell out as a step to creativity, it is what kids "want" but unlike the toy story action figures that sit in a box the lego harry potter sets that they got 4 years ago are now part of a space station and a giant mother ship with loading bays
IMHO, the "sell out" to franchises were needed to attract the attention of the kids. And it is a great idea, because at first the kids do have to follow the instructions, sorta. But after that, they hopefully start experimenting, building bigger, and more complex structures and games.
Lego were in trouble, the franchises did indeed help save the company.
Just stick to Lego City or the other generic lego ones. Better yet, skip the boxes all together, pick up those cups that they have and start picking off the back wall. I personally think that gives you more bang for your buck.
Lego "sold out" because their patents expired. Once their patents expired other companies (ie Mega Blocks) started making plastic bricks which where interchangeable with Lego blocks. Why should Lego compete on a product (generic brick) where their competitors are making the identical pieces for half the price. The expiration of patents are what brought us Star Wars Lego's and I for one love it, and find it a great reason to let IP expire.
Sod it, I'm off to play with my meccanos. Or is it meccanoes?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My 15 year old stopped with the legos about 3 years ago (I will always remember the day he had $20 of birthday money to spend and ultimately chose a CD instead)
At least in our house, after one of the fancy kits got built once, the instructions were promptly lost or eaten by the dog, and all the legos ended up in 1 giant bin. Then the real fun started (the creative part)
Lego would be bankrupt today if they were still just focused on generic sets. Today's kids need to have their imaginations spoon fed.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
This is the most ridiculous complaint I've ever heard. Greater variety in LEGO bricks? STOP IT NOW! EVERYTHING MUST BE RED 2X4!
I grew up with LEGO and I still regularly purchase, build and play in my late 20s. The new pieces are AWESOME. So are the new colours. Pick a brick and LDD make prototyping, buying and building your own creations a snap (though you have to manually generate a parts list these days). If that ain't enough to keep LEGO fun and interesting, trade in your kid.
Didn't RTFA because WTF.
Do you see what I did there?
Not all legos are equal, they have sort of diverged into two types: the traditional brick type (and in that I include even the specialized pieces, as long as they fit together in the traditional stud/brick mechanism) and the Technic/Mindstorms type, which use pieces more like girders that fit together with special connectors. The brick type has moved more in the licensing/set model direction, and those I sort of agree that the creativity seems to be missing these days. But I have to admit I'm glad they came up with a decent lego millenium falcon, which was absolutely perfect for my son for Christmas a year ago.
On the other hand, the Technic/Mindstorms type still focuses a lot on creativity, with alternate directions for different models included, and lots of resources available for idea books and programming and such. If you look on the Lego education site, they seemed to almost have moved in the opposite/more creative direction, with resources for bodging together Mindstorms electronic components with a metal frame & RC servo-based robotics construction system (vertex? Tetrix? I forget what it was called) that another company makes.
Bottom line, if you want to emphasize creativity, go Technic early, then maybe branch off to mindstorms.
As others have said, Lego's had kits for decades. I was jealous of my cousin's off-road buggy kit from the mid 70s.
What I would like are less expensive computer-programmable and remote-activated pieces so that I can make those same buggies from the 70s but be able to control them via remote (or even via my phone with wifi!). Maybe to do a demolition derby sort of setup with my kids.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Honestly, I dont see this to be an issue. ,havent quite got them sold on Star Wars yet:(, but in all cases, they build what the instructions say once, and then we never see that again. It gets broken down, and incorporated with the rest of their LEGOs.
I have 3 kids ranging from 11 to 4 who are very much into LEGOs.
My two daughters are into the LEGO friends sets, while all three enjoy the various Harry Potter and LotR sets as well
So has LEGO sold out? They still have their original set series and assorted blocks, and options to create your own, and sets for the "billion-dollar franchises"
My kids truly enjoy building worlds with some of their favorite movies, using blocks or characters they can associate, but their creations are still original.
For Christmas this year each of my kids are getting a (small) LEGO set from one franchise or another, and a larger gift of 650 assorted blocks, no sets, no instructions, but we had to go online to get the latter.
I find Toys''R''Us to be less guilty of this, but most stores do not offer the LEGO original sets, or if they do its very small section on the shelves.
As for the kids, well i know mine enjoy LEGOs as they should, but for any kid who cannot do more than follow set instructions, their parents aught to throw away those instructions and teach their kids to enjoy imagination.
In my opinion, if there is any issue, it is in what stores choose to stock on the shelves.
My daughter (4) loves them. And interestingly, they are a lot more like the Legos I remember from my childhood (early 80s) than the kits I see now. Very few specialized pieces, much more of the generic block that you then turn into something interesting. The instructions that are included are very similar to how I remember, and some of the larger kits also feature the alternate builds that I again remember.
The topic poster has a point though. Wander through the Lego section and ooh-aah over the cool kits, but a lot of the pieces are very use specific. Obviously you can re-purpose them for anything you want, but they were clearly designed to put in a certain spot on a certain kit. The ghost series is a great example. The ghost train, while very cool, you really can't build much outside of the train using the pieces that are included. Little doodad crap sure, but nothing larger.
Moreover, Meccano taught important lessons that Lego could not: understanding engineering tolerances. Lego bricks just snap together, and unless you are building something pretty infeasible that's generally the end of it. Meccano was all about lining up plates and brackets by eye (the holes were bigger than the screws), making sure things weren't too loose or too tight, ensuring that load-bearing parts were properly cross-braced, and so on.
On the other hand, Meccano was pretty perishable. It didn't take long to scrape the paint off the parts and permanently mangle the so-called flexible plates.
It's like saying "have paint makers sold out because they are pushing 'color by numbers' sets with billion-dollar themes?"
No. It's still putting the medium into the hands of their targets. It shows them how to use them and how to achieve the desired results.
That Lego needs to use billion-dollar-brands to get kids interested in Lego again is... well, unfortunate, but that's the world we live in isn't it?
And personally? I absolutely adore Star Wars Lego stuff. It's cute and fun. Sure, it trivializes the "light v dark" serious exploration of human nature and all that but I doubt many people were paying such close attention to that kind of thing anyway. One of the things I think are cool is being able to see how close we can get to building things we are familiar with using the primitives of Lego. I have always wanted to build my own Lego Firefly, for example. But the cost of the bricks?! My god... it would cost me several hundred dollars I imagine.
It's not so much selling out as it is adapting. They have created their own themes... some with success, some without. Some of the themes I loved did not catch on... Those samurai castle sets were pretty awesome. I still want them. The Pharoahs Quest? Right out of my childhood interests! Problem was they were too expensive. I did manage to get the Sphynx set even if it was a pretty bad design.
And my little one? He adores Lego and unlike his old man, he doesn't like to keep his sets together. He take them apart and makes... OMG, OMG... other things!! New creations. Okay, they aren't complex or awesome, but he is building things and then playing with them. Doesn't matter that the set was originally star wars or harry potter themed. Now he has "a dragon car!!!"
Lego is just fine. They have to stay relevant and in the hands of those who might love them.
By the way, why do you think women wear makeup? Or dress in ways to accentuate their bodies? Because without getting our interest, we won't get to know them otherwise.
Can you imagine how small the Lego section of a toy shop would be if they sold generic sets? There'd be six or seven sets of varying size, perhaps with a few accessory packs (wheels, people, gears). And next year... The exact same sets would be sitting in exactly the same spot. By marketing hundreds of sets as specific creations, the company can pad shelf space and (more importantly) give my kid something to choose between when shopping for a friend's birthday. In the end, all the parts end up in a huge bucket in the closet that's used to create weird and wonderful space ships, bizarre marble mazes and all manner of buildings.
Everybody seems to rag on SecondLife and its opensource brother OpenSim for all of sorts of things, such as being a den of perverts/furries, a virtual whore-house, and other "complaints" that don't come to mind at the moment, but I've been active in SecondLife for while, and I've met a lot of great people from around the world, and the point of this comment, that the capability to build virtual constructions in SecondLife is essentially like an electronic virtual Lego set. All construction in SecondLife is based on geometric shapes, called, suitably, prims (primitives) which can be textured with uploaded images. Until recently, Linden Lab, the company behind SecondLife had limited the size of any prim (primitive) to a maximum of 10 meters, but they recently increased it to 64 meters, making the building of truly huge constructs feasable. You're only limited by your imagination, kind of like Legos.. But UNlike Legos, once you've built your huge sci-fi build you (your avatar) and your friends avatars can walk/fly withIN your creations.. Frankly it blows my mind, and it takes a lot to do THAT.. There is a project in SecondLife called "Deshima Station" that covers 4 sims (each "sim" comprises roughly 16 acres of "virtual" land) and it models a VERY large sci-fi space station design and it is the most downright realistic build I've ever seen in SecondLife.
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I'm in my 40's and all the kits had instructions when I was a kid. There were odd kids that just built what was on the cover and then never took it apart. That singular lack of imagination had nothing to do with the Legos themselves - most of us dumped all our kits into a big bucket and then just created our own stuff...
However you could accuse them of selling out with all the co-branding. When I was a kid they were space sets and medieval sets, not Star Wars or LOTR sets. All the movie tie-in crap is annoying but a sign of the times I guess...
One way in which they can fail is, as other folks have mentioned, specialized parts. There's a fine line between making something new and different and cool, and making parts so specialized that it becomes hard to build other things out of them. But you know, I'm sure the purists were up in arms when my space kits in the 70's and 80's had wing-shaped parts and other such monstrosities. And maybe some proto-nerd of the era went on his local BBS and whined about how they were destroying Legos, that they weren't allowed to be anything other than cubes...
How sad that your parents did that. I had my first soldering iron at 8 or 9. Only after my father taught me how to use his safely.
And that just reminded me of something I did when I was around 12. A neighbor dropped a small portable radio. The case was broken and ceased to work. I fixed the electronics part of it, but the case was in small pieces. I built a new case out of Legos. I plotted out the design on paper, drilled a few holes in a few pieces and my father mixed up a small batch of epoxy.
I'm not sure where that thing wound up. :(
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My son builds the set once (or maybe I build it for him), and then after it's destroyed in the a lego battle he builds whatever he wants with it. Occasionally he will want to rebuild a set, but half his (considerable) lego are mixed in a large bin so it can be a tedious process! I think its more about how parents and society encourage kids to use the sets than what they actually start out as.
Is it just me, or shouldn't Lego be an uncountable noun?
It's always been just Lego to me, and if I need to identify them individually, they are bricks or pieces.
oh wait... yes he would have. lol
the article is just 100% horse shit though for anyone who actually played with legos in the late 1970s.
possibly, the trouble is you get a lego set that has all the special pieces for the puzzle that you get in the box. Its not like my day when a curved piece of (I suppose pavement) was a fancy piece that became the edge of the gun emplacement on my space-battleship.
Today, lego kits are really just big 3d jigsaw puzzles for 20/30 somethings who used to have lego when they were kids.
Lego needs to make big boxes of generic bricks cheaply available, though you're better off looking for these in garage sales.
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While my daughter was growing up, I had a random choice of what to step on if I went walking barefoot around the apartment in the middle of the night. I could step on a Lego, which is quite painful, or step on one of her goldfish that had jumped out of the tank. If you can see in the dark, pick the Lego. They won't die if you squash them and you don't have to explain to a little girl how you killed her pet fish. She is 40 years old now and still reminds me of this. You would think people would move on... Personally, I think the fish was depressed.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I always put the set together the way the instructions say once. It's a good way to see what techniques they use for certain things (building trees with some of the recent sets, for example). After a while it gets recycled back into the bins of Lego to be reused. I'll often buy a set specifically because it has new pieces or minifigs I want. When I was a kid, I'd often start with one of the spaceship or boat sets and just keep adding pieces. Ended up turning a tugboat into a 4' long freighter once. :)
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Having building instructions in no way precludes free play. In fact you can just get blocks from bins without buying any sets. What instructions do is let newcomers immediatelly make something impressive and people who spent inordinate time learning or think themselves to have special talent do not like that.
I don't buy it for a minute. My kids have tons of Lego sets. Yes, they build the thing on the box, but then later, they tear it apart and build a million other things too.
- Vincit qui patitur.
Part of the problem with this article is that the authors are making a vertical comparison and assuming it's a horizontal comparison. That is, they're comparing the way they play with legos as an adult (where they tend to buy a model they like, put it together, and use it as a sculptural decoration) to the way the played with legos as a kid (free form imagination play) and assume that means todays kids must have changed as well.
The Tyranny of "block-by-number" kits... That Lego fans choose to buy more often than not because they want to build the deathstar, Millenium Falcon, whatever as shown on the box.
If they wanted the "big box of blocks" experience they can still buy them, and now there are Lego stores that sell bulk Legos - something unheard of when I was a kid (early 70's/late 60's).
Some people want the end-product (the item on the cover of the box), some want the process (the frustration the one researcher noted), and some want to raw material to build what is in their imagination (the big box of blocks) - none is the only "true" reason for Lego.
Ken
Yes, Lego has completely sold out. Actually, that's not true. That implies that that there was a time that they hadn't sold out. It's a for-profit company. They are in it to make money. Nothing wrong with that, but that is what they are, first and foremost.
They will do what they need to do to survive. In their opinion, they cannot sustain their business by using the value proposition of 40 years ago. As much as I admired that value proposition, I personally agree with them. They could not survive turning out the basic building blocks, or even more advanced building kits, or even robotics kits. They wouldn't have the market share, or the advertising appeal, or the patent protection. They are fighting for their existence every day. They've got constant competition for kids' time and for M&D's dollars from endless and ever-increasing sources, and competitors willing to race them to the bottom every step of the way.
There was a time that Lego said, "we'll never make Lego guns". That is long gone. There are Lego guns, ray guns, knives, swords, scimitars. Heck, space ships with laser cannon. They've made endless marketing deals with entertainment conglomerates in order to stay relevant. They have not yet found their bottom. They have not yet found where they will not go to stay in business.
To me, as much as I still love the company, and the product, they've lost their soul, and they are walking dead guys, however successful they are currently. The color palette is out of control. The types of pieces have grown to be absurd. Although there is still play value, it becomes harder and harder for any pile of n Legos to have general playability. If you have a Luke Skywalker, and a wookie, then that is your story palette. It becomes that much more challenging to make a house. If you have the batmobile, it becomes difficult to make a regular car.
One could hope they'll split the company, and spin off a company focused only on the basics for ages 0 through 10, without marketing tie-ins, and another company focused just on robotics, and let the main company battle it out in pop culture land. But it will never happen.
Perhaps the 3D printer world will take over the basics niche. I could see a not-for-profit doing very well making it easy for people to print their own sets for their 1 year olds or 5 year olds.
Just my 2 bricks.
I used to ask for LEGO sets for birthdays/Christmas, and essentially the more motors and gears and shafts and connectors there were, the better. The last set I have like that was the original Lego Mindstorms programmable set. Sure, there were instructions (like there always were), but it was a set filled with gears and shafts and blocks and connectors. I could make anything I wanted out of that (and I did, and I was in college).
If I could still get that kind of set, and not a "Star Wars X-Wing" set, I would STILL be buying LEGOS for MYSELF, as well as buying them for nephews and nieces.
Come on we remember the headline rule. It ends with a question mark and the answer is no.
My son loves Lego. When he was very young he always wanted the Star Wars kits. He would build them and would learn to follow the instructions. Usually within a couple of weeks he would pull it all apart and then create something new - of course the instructions usually go missing as well. A few years later he now has big buckets of Lego (of almost every shape and size) and constantly surprises me what he can build from it all.
It's a pity some of the kits are so expensive.
The kits are a great way to get kids involved and because it's Lego the kits from other franchises fit too.
The writers of the article are idiots for writing such drivel.
Picture a world where Lego did not sell all of their kits and just sold plain blocks. There is only so much you can do with plain blocks and sales would slowly go down. The recession hits and that is the final straw and Lego declares bankruptcy. Slashdot readers post stories about playing with Lego as a kid but complain how Lego really hasn't innovated with the times and those old corporate fossils we doomed to fail if they couldn't adapt.
Now we swap back to our world where Lego is constantly innovating to make kits that work with 95% of existing Lego pieces, tie ins with current pop culture, even Lego video games that are actually good and we need to complain how Lego isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Go figure.
That title must go to Meccano [wikipedia.org].
Meccano is still available. Toys-R-Us carries it. I have a Meccano set I use for prototyping linkages. It's not unusual for first-round engineering prototypes to have some Meccano parts.
Working on some joint research I visited the main LEGO Billund Denmark site years before the big crisis. As part of a tour I was shown an enshrined list of commandments created by the founders. This list captured the fundamental philosophy of good, creative toys. I remember being deeply impressed with the foresight of the founders. But I also remember that there was a rule that was explicitly against the idea of LEGO ever to create human like characters that would resemble true or fictional characters from popular culture. The idea was that the characters should remain generic and in the eye of the kid playing with it could turn into anything, anybody they wanted to. Fast forward to the current situation with LEGO licensing tons of characters from Lucas Art and others. Now LEGO is saved because it give they kids the Darth Vader etc. characters “they want”.
There are many ways to think about this. I’d say acting directly against the explicit philosophy of your founders is definitely a sell out. On the other hand, what choice did they have? I wonder if the list of commandments is still on public display in Denmark or if it got moved into some dark drawer. Does anybody have a copy?
What a load of rubbish, Lego sets have included detailed instructions to make the specific thing on the box for decades! The main difference now is that sets are tied to specific films like Starwars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter and so on rather than just generic themes like space, pirates, castles etc.
How is this pirate set from 1989 any worse than this Pirates of the Caribbean set from 2011?
It may be a movie tie-in but you've still got to build the thing yourself and you can take it apart and put it together again any way you like.
It wants its complaints back.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
People are mad because Lego improved their instructions?
Just after reading this article a commercial came on TV that showed families building random things with creativity. Tagline was something like "Everyday families are building memories." Seemed like a direct response to the article!
As a 30 year old guy who has gone back into his old childhood Lego sets recently, as well as recently bought himself some new ones I uh, feel sadly qualified to comment on this story. My recent purchases were one LOTR set, and a Lego City set. In response to the lack of "creativity" in these sets, it's not the sets that have gotten less creative. It's the engineering in the brick placement amongst everything that has gotten better.
If you compare the brick selection and design of say, a 2012 LOTR set vs my early 90's Pirate sets you can easily see this. The 2012 sets use a number of small, angular pieces from what I've noted, that fit together in creative ways that the early 90's sets could only dream of. The pieces in question in the 2012 sets did indeed exist in the early 90's set, so it's not a case of simply making "less flexible" pieces.
You can tell that the designers of these sets have gotten really, really good at their jobs, in no doubt likely as a result of the difference in computing power between the early 90's and now. To suggest that the sets have gotten less "creative" is asinine. Have we gained more themed and licensed sets? Absolutely. However, the pieces they are equipping these sets with are simply fitting together better and looking more streamlined. You've still got your 4x2 bricks, your 3x3 plates, there's just less usage of them as the primary shape of a vehicle/building, and they are enhanced by the smaller 1x2 45 angle bricks say that really help bring out the details in the design.
In the end, they're still freaking Lego you can put together any way you want. It's simply the brick selection has changed for the better.
Firstly, the Lego/Legos thing has been decided. People call them Legos. Language changes, get over it.
In my day we started out with a heap of blocks, gradually adding this, taking that away until we had something. Nowadays it's so different. You can melt down the blocks and use them in your own 3D printer, after adding the correct emulsion to lower the boiling point. Now I can literally turn my Legos into anything I want.
Lego sold out already decades ago. The horse isn't just out the barn door, it foals already had foals in the wild. They even added weapon grade gendering a year ago: http://friends.lego.com/ï
'When I was a kid, you got a big box of bricks and that was it,' says Tracy Bagatelle-Black.
I think it's infinitely more likely that Tracy got instructions in the box, she just totally ignored them. She did such an efficient job of ignoring them that she's forgotten they ever existed.
Rationale: This set of instructions dates from 1968. It shows building the item shown on the front of the box broken down into a number of steps. The late '70s saw Technic coming in (though it wasn't called Technic at the time) and the instructions for Technic sets tend to be more detailed - they tell you precisely which pieces you need in a callout box in every step. The overall instructional style hasn't changed a great deal since, though the parts have.
It's the new LEGO. Hundreds of blocks that you can assemble any way that you want with no instructions.
Yes.
I don't know my first building-stuff toy was fishertechnik.
Strong steel rods for smooth rotational actions, or to brace the plastic structures.
Interestingly enough fishertechnik is still used in technical universities because it is possible to create very complex mechanics with them, including robotic arms and factories. fishertechnik was the leader at the time and lego would follow a year later, in order:
- motors
- trains (I failure for both of them)
- Pneumatics
- Electronics
- Computer control.
And this is why I don't bitch about them selling out. If selling out some means there are sets like Tower Bridge the Midieval Village, or any of the modular city sets I will take that. Granted these are larger sets targeted towards older kids but there still is the giant tub of basic legos. It seems every few years there is a story about Lego selling out. Point is they have managed to stay relevant by selling out in some areas (Harry Potter, Sponge Bob, Star Wars, etc) while still maintaining the core with their town, technic, basic, castle Legos, etc. I doubt they will ever create sets like the yellow castle, original Kings Castle, Knight's Castle that I had when I was little (and still have) but my oldest really wants the Lego City Mine set and Mining Truck for Christmas and they look to be the good kind of Legos with lots of little bricks to assemble.
Time to offend someone
Yet when ever I go into Target or Toys R' Us I can see the giant tub of basic legos or city legos, lego trains, etc without issue. Granted those don't get the shelf space that the franchise ones get but they are still there and fairly easy to find.
Time to offend someone
"invite users to follow detailed directions, not construct their own creations from whole brick"
at least when I played with legos as a kid, they had detailed step by instructions. They also had themed, colored, but entirely lego unique factions, such as
M-Tron(they had magnets), B-tron, Space Police, Ice Force(or something like that.
When we played legos, we'd PRETEND they were star wars, because, well, we liked star wars, and couldn't give a fuck about whatever lego-specific factions, that had no real great media behind them.
That said, legos, you could really snap together anyway you really wanted to, first starting by putting more lasers, and bigger engines on your ships, then body mods, than finally making complete new ones.
I'm pretty sure you can still do that.
Lego has sold out to the International Slashdot Consortium, allowing an image of their toys to desecrate this very story, right here on the front page of Slashdot.
For shame, Lego, for shame!
How's this for a prototype? http://www.e-architect.co.uk/liverpool/james_may_meccano_bridge.htm
A neighbor dropped a small portable radio. The case was broken and ceased to work. I fixed the electronics part of it, but the case was in small pieces. I built a new case
I'm not sure where that thing wound up. :(
How about here...http://windupradio.com/trevor.htm :-)
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Feast your eyes on the rise of the pink, shopping-themed LEGO.
http://sinker.tumblr.com/post/14267087602/im-starting-to-think-lego-is-evil
I cannot really pinpoint the moment, but somewhere in the last 30 years (i.e. when I started playing with it 'til now) they did.
I was into LEGO. Big time. It was pretty much all I played with between the age of about 6 and 14. And I built everything with it. Every cartoon that had its own toy line? Forget buying those, I build them. I built pretty much everything with them, including a Battlestar (of course with two working Viper launchers). Repairing the launchers when the rubber bands ripped was a hassle and a half, but it WORKED!
Fast forward to today. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but I miss the "generic" parts. They don't exist anymore. There are at best a few filler parts between the "special" ones that work out for that piece that they're supposed to be built to, and for that ONLY. You cannot simply take them and build something of your own imagination with it, it just doesn't work. They don't even fit in other ways than the "intended" one.
And, bluntly, LEGO was never about how anything was intended to be. It was about how I WANT it to be!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To address the "well, Lego sets always had detailed instructions, at least since the 1980's," well, maybe that is so. But many sets from the 1970's did not include detailed instructions. E.g., a store would typically have a bunch of general purpose sets like Set 190, plus some model-specific sets like Moon Landing and Brick Yard.
STEP 1: Is it possible to mess up permanently? With LEGO the answer is almost always "NO" so go to STEP 2. If the answer is YES go to STEP 5.
STEP 2: Do you WANT to start with someone else's design? If NO then go to step 3 if YES then go to STEP 5.
STEP 3: Are you going to EVER want to do someone else's design? If YES then go to STEP 4 else go to STEP 6.
STEP 4: Set manual aside and revisit it when you need to go to STEP 5.
STEP 5: Read the manual and follow instructions carefully. After completion of this project, go to STEP 1.
STEP 6: Destroy the manual or use it for parts or set it aside and forget about it or throw it away do whatever the heck with it you want. You or Santa Clause or someone paid for it, it's yours.
STEP 7: If you actually read any of this, you missed the whole point :)
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's smart business, and it keeps Lego viable - I'd much rather see them sell StarWars Lego, than for Lego to disappear altogether. (My kids *love* the StarWars Lego, and they're having no problems getting creative).
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
I gave my kids my old Lego and have added a few new pieces. I keep away from the franchise versions, which can be hard in some stores. When I gave them the Lego there were no pictures from the boxes let alone instructions and my son loves building his own cars and trucks. Some can fly others are so large they "pick up others when they run out of gas" My daughter has some "Hello Kitty" Lego but she puts it aside and builds her own houses and garages out of my old stuff too. My youngest is playing with Duplo right now but when she stops trying to eat it we will move her to original size Lego too. All in all I will probably not buy the Starwars or other branded sets of Lego because I want my kids to use their own imagination and not get tied down to the specialized pieces in these branded sets. but that, most likely, will not stop me from buying the death star and trying it out before I give it to the kids in a few years....
The Lego store has bins of loose bricks that they sell by weight. You can also buy generic kits like this: http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Ultimate-Building-Set-Pieces/dp/B000NO9GT4/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1356303783&sr=1-1
TFA is complaining about a problem that doesn't exist.
Firstly, I should lay the cards on the table. I hold a role with my local LUG (LEGO User Group) of "Ambassador" which means I act as a middle man between LEGO and my LUG, so I do talk with the LEGO company regularly
But I am sick to death of wankers in the media making this grand claims of LEGO losing their creativity. Yes, we have seen an increase of licensed product lines, and yes we have seen LEGO increasingly venture into other areas such as games and video games which some people may view as LEGO selling out their traditional values. but that simply is not the case
LEGO has seen a massive resurgence in the last few years and has weathered the GFC well, probably due to the fact that that the early 2000's were bad for the company and saw them streamline their products and processes. As an also organiser of a LEGO show in Australia called Brickvention (coming up in a few weeks, 19th and 20th Jan, Royal Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne) I have to say that the creativity of kids is not lacking and parents recognise this. LEGO kits have ALWAYS come with instructions save buckets/tubs of bricks.
And how many companies would have a department who's sole goal is to engage with the fans of their products? LEGO have the CEE (Community Engagement) team who appoints "Ambassadors" that are nominated by LUGs, sends representatives to LEGO shows run by the fans (Brickvention, BrickExpo, BrickFete, Steam and Brickfair to name a few) and they have a senior management who keeps a very close eye on the use of their product and reflects that in new products (look at the modular houses series originally designed by Jamie Berard to get an idea of this)
This article does have some excellent comments by figureheads of the community (Josh Wedin, also an Ambassador, not sure if is currently though) but it's one of those stories that the media rolls out every year.
Very Disappointing.
Leg Godt!
and have for decades. My childhood Legos will fit perfectly with the ones my kids have. The cheaper ones don't even seem to fit when they are from the same box.
AC just has no imagination.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I disagree, clearly you were not building big enough. (^_^)
Saturn V
Different engineering challenges to be sure, but they are still valid.
Leg Godt!
I was born in '84. Thus, I was into Legos through the late 80s and early 90s.
I never got anything that didn't have detailed instructions. In fact, it's only in recent years that I've learned that Legos were ever sold as anything other than kits for particular models. And I was rather surprised by that.
I'd build the thing according to the instructions, play with it a while, then tear it apart and go wild.
If kids are just building the things and then never taking them apart and doing their own thing... that says more about the kids of today than the legos of today. What different does it make if it's some generic Lego Spaceship or if it's a Lego Star Wars X-Wing? Both sets come with detailed instructions and custom molded pieces.
Much ado about nothing.
Mindcraft has the old time Lego feel with a new toys and you never run out of blocks! Fir more info take a look at this Wiki
Pssst don't tell any one we do not want to lose the privilege, but down load the game, and when it asks for a login, unplug your rj45 and It will let you try the game. If you like it PLEASE pay the one time fee for unlimited play. Since unplugging the net ( wait I am being shot at, a sec... ) everytime you want to play is a bother.
My son is 8 and loves Legos, just like I did at that age. However, he loves Minecraft also and spends more time playing it, creating things, exploring, etc, instead of building Legos. It's a strange state, because I feel like I need to limit his MC time because he could easily play it 4 hours at a time, but not his Lego time. Legos to him now seem to get old after having the same set an hour or two. They are too expensive to buy regularly though.
firestream.net
Lego has done two things to destroy the fun. Firstly, they produce specialized pieces in almost every pack. Pieces that are unique to that pack, making it impossible for someone to build that creation with pieces from other packs. Secondly they have tied the packs to other franchises and jacked up the prices. Worst of all is when they turned it all on its head by creating their own "franchise" and jacked up the price. Yes, created their own cartoons and market and then charged a premium price for the Lego linked to it. I am talking about Ninjago. Shame Lego, shame.
Hmm, let's see. I am in my early thirties and the parent of a five year old and a four year old. Yet, when I was a kid, there were not only kits for specific items (I had a pretty epic castle with a dragon), but there were tie-ins. My brothers had Star Wars Legos. The Star Wars stuff might have been a bit later, around the time of the special editions or Episode I, but even that would put any "selling out" as at least thirteen years ago. Even the video game tie-ins started coming out, what, ten years ago?
Tldr; If Lego sold out, it happened over a decade ago at the very latest. If they're sell-outs, it's not new or news.
What about Meccano? Maybe it's a Commonwealth thing, but when I was a kid, that was my go-to building toy. Now it's all Lego, Lego, Lego.
Example:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/15/article-1338800-0C670197000005DC-903_964x593.jpg
You can absolutely buy raw bricks and simple generic sets still. You just need to go to Lego's website, Legoland or somewhere like Amazon. If you go to Target or Walmart, they'll sell you the odd tub but everything else is branded because that's what sells better. Where shelf space isn't a premium, you can find the whole range. So is it Lego selling out or the retailers?
You can buy tubs and boxes of generic bricks, pick a brick or themed groups such as all windows and doors or all wheels.
The Creator range is where you find your classic feel sets. Generic buildings and cars with multiple ideas per set.
City is still there if you want the early 80s style minifigs and fire stations vibe.
And for those with a sense of the dramatic, they have their huge modular buildings line.
If you want "traditional lego," it's very much still available. You just can't buy it in stores because the stores choose to stock the faster selling branded sets. I'd argue that's not Lego selling out - as they still make their product for anyone who wants it - but rather the retailers doing so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
LEGO is expensive now, ...
Ok, I have to say this is simply flat out wrong. As a serious collector of Lego for over 30 years, I can authoritatively say that the price of Lego sets has held almost constant at ~ .10 per brick. Some of the newer licensed sets break that rule and go over that figure, but Lego has also introduced the Creator lines and similar sets with lots of basic bricks where the price falls well below the .10 a brick average.
But don't believe me. Go check out the prices on Brickset, a site that has a massive comprehensive catalog of old Lego sets and instructions. I looked up a few random set MSRPs from the early 80s to make sure I was remembering the prices right, and it looks like I was dead on. Holding steady at ~.10 per brick over 30 years is an amazing feat, doubly so if you adjust for inflation.
So, no Lego isn't expensive now. Its higher quality and less expensive than ever before. And Unlike 99% of the toys I had as a kid, it still works just fine.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
(And watch soon for a review of The Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide, a book intended to help Lego users escape the tyranny of block-by-number instructions.)
An instruction book about how not to read instructions?
But it's not true. The lego sets I got in the mid-to-late-'70s (the 956 "auto chassis" was apparently 1978, and it was far from my first set) came with extremely detailed instructions for building one or two things, including the thing on the front of the box.
They have always provided detailed instructions for how to build stuff, so far as I know. All that's really changed is that now we have pundits who apparently think children cannot be creative unless they are explicitly told to.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
And you think the boxes of bricks are different?
Look up set 956. Came with exact, detailed, instructions. I know, I built it. 1978.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
So, yes, obviously they've sold out.
When I was a lad, we got our Lego bricks (which were made of solid lead and coated with radium, as was the fashion in those days), and we were perfectly happy to snap them together in the shape of an amorphous blob.
Get off my lawn.
into a mindless, duplicate-the-stuff-you-saw-in-a-movie toy.
I think there is huge potential with the Mindstorms kits, but you can't get technic pieces without buying a much more expensive kit that happens to contain an item you need, or turning to the aftermarket where guys buy those expensive kits and sell them off piece by piece for a huge markup. Lego is leaving all that money on the table.
You see incredible machines on you tube, such as Rubik's cube solvers, that people have built using Mindstorms and technics parts and the most mind boggling aspect of those creations is the "how the hell did they get all those parts?" factor. Either they spent a fortune or they work for Lego and have free access to all the parts. Either way, making machines like that is way out of reach for most people.
What a shame...
My kids played with Lego when they were in single digits. A kid that young is more creative when they don't have to think about tolerances. Not all kids are interested in engineering, but if allowed to be creative in simple ways, maybe they will grow up to find the "hard stuff" worth doing. It's simply a matter of allowing the child to see the path from the toy version to the adult version and traverse if interested. Tolerances aren't exactly hard, but they aren't interesting either if all you want if a replica space ship. Let the toy maker deal with tolerance and kids deal with the part they are interested in.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
But their consumers have lost all ability to think for themselves, so they just cater to their market.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because this is Slashdot, the answer to the question is, of course: Yes, they sold out. LEGO is doing commercial properties all over the place, and while it has been going on for years, it hasn't been going on forever.
TiggertheMad points out that LEGO sets have sold for about a USD dime per brick for decades. I didn't check his facts, but I am curious why a trowel costs the same as a 64x64 peg baseplate? And I *know* the railroad tracks are *not* priced the same! There's a huge difference between buying certain sets and buying from LEGOs special-piece ordering places. OTOH there is the LEGO stores' buy a container of 'loose' bricks - they just don't usually have much of a selection when I've happened by.
But I didn't see anyone talk about how LEGO plant employees take home garbage bags of bricks for free. (an anecdote, granted, but one I've heard from more than one source). Which makes me wonder about the false LEGO economy and why it is, commercially, what it is.
While I like rtb61's suggestion of us coming up with a FOS brick system (non-LEGO), I'm wary of the thought that manufacturers would start making compatible parts... But I would *love* to see it happen!
I had a lot of LEGO bricks while I was growing up - saved them too, though some got infinitely-borrowed by a charity for kids a few years back. The Technic subbrand was my favorite, even got a couple of the motors and learned about gearing! Also played with lincoln logs, erector sets, Capsella, Radio Shack kits, and several more available to me while I was growing up. (and some guy has inter-set connector designs on makerbot sites?!) There was also a completely different block set which was much.. blockier than LEGOs, only had a couple angled pieces, and basic colors - I remember building several ships out of it - 'people' were single 1x1x1 colored bricks. Imagination ruled!
8-PP
In the 60s, "sets" mostly meant that they came in different colors, and the American versions were starting to acquire instructions like "not for kids under 3" "don't let your kids stick them in their mouths", but other than that, the instructions were your parents showing you that you could stick one block on top of another in different ways, and then BUILD ANYTHING YOU WANTED, or if you were slightly older than 3, instructions included "put them back in the box before you go play outside." There were probably pictures on the box of kids building stuff, but that's not "instructions".
And there weren't any complaints about the sets being hopelessly gender-stereotyped with the many different sets made for boys being cool and the few sets made for girls being annoyingly lame, because they were BRICKS, and didn't come in pink or pastel blue yet, just the ROYGBV and black, white, and maybe gray..
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Lego's excursion into franchises is entirely the consequence of intellectual property protection. Since the last patents on generic Lego expired in the 1980s, the company could no longer profit purely from the sale of generic brics. As such, it had to start offering unique products that stood out from the generic ones, and which could be protected. And what better way to do that, and garner increased attention in stores, than to pick up a license for a big name franchise like Star Wars etc? However, if my nephew is anything to go by, he might build the official design once, but then he ventures out and builds his own creations - out of generic brics and the ones unique to certain kits. It's still sparking imagination, even if it's somewhat more directed than it was decades past.
That would be kind of tough because (according to the Wiki article the OP linked to) Erector Sets are actually rebadged Meccano sets built in France. :-)
If you are parent looking for toys NOT made in a brutal Communist totalitarian state with child labor, LEGO used to be one of the few things you could buy. At least they were made in a European democracy. Lately, Lego has been increasingly outsourcing some parts to China for its sets, especially for the brand name ones. Unfortunately, if you want certain parts, the only way to get them is through those name brand sets. After searching. I found an Ebay store (http://stores.ebay.com/Five-Star-Bricks) that has second hand legos. At least buying used helps mitigate the need for more new Chinese products.