what happened to lego?

[captain sambuca]

I Found this interesting, sure some of you lot will too:

http://therealityprose.wordpress.com/20 ... with_lego/

[Solo]

I gave that a quick skimming and I'm definitely going to want to read the whole thing. Thanks for the link.

[Mister Ed]

It would be interesting to see such an evaluation focused only on Star Wars. That's most of what I've been buying for the last several years, and the only LEGO I've been buying where I've felt the price per piece and average size and cost of sets has only gone up. I've certainly not seen any evidence that the Creator sets I buy (almost the entirety of my non Star Wars LEGO purchases) have been going up.

[bigospedros]

I think licenced lines seem less value for money these days as they have a different balance between bricks & construction vs specialised minifigures. They clearly eat into the cost of the set leaving less available for bricks etc. Star Wars sets are more & more becoming a vehicle to shift exclusive minifigures.

That and the fact that those that complain are generally the ones that have been buying the Star Wars licence for years and the value is diminished in people's heads when a set is a rehash. I highly valued the first RGS, searching for it for ages. The 2nd one was also desirable, but I think I'll pass on this new one. Had I not owned the other two previously, I would feel much different I think.

[emmtwosix]

I remember this being brought up when the "translucent brick" problem arose in the Monster Fighters set. Very good read with a lot of great information and external links. Glad you posted this.

In addition to the two issues the author of this article touched on, I think we also feel like prices have gone up because there are more sets with larger piece counts, and we feel compelled to buy more of them.

If Lego only put out 4 or 5 sets a year in each theme instead of 4 or 5 sets twice a year per theme, we wouldn't have the option to buy the $50 to $120 sets multiple times in a single year. Your money could (potentially) go twice as far, without feeling like you missed out on something you may have wanted. This would be great for the multi-theme collector and the completest, but apparently, the current setup is best for the Lego business model.

As for Star Wars...I agree, the constant rehashes, especially those that don't significantly improve on their predecessor, along with the minifig boom make me feel like prices have gone up, even though that may not necessarily be the case. Bigospedros mentioned the RGS: having the previous incarnation, and seeing little substantial improvement to the newest version leads me to pass (though the minifigs look cool, might have to pick up some of those on Bricklink.) Same thing for the AT-TE. A "living" property, such as The Clone Wars, Old Republic, Yoda Chronicles, etc., can breathe new life into this situation, and I think both Lego and LucasArts/Disney will be pushing for this.