[NEW STUFF] News about the minifig collection

[banthafodder]

^While getting all of one figure in a box is highly improbable, TLG has a method of quality control to guarantee that when you buy a product from them, such as a star wars set, you don't en up with a bag full of 2x2 bricks. It is not inconceivable that they would also apply a similar method of quality control in their box packaging of the minifigs. This may or may not imply an external marking of some sort. It may come down to posting a weight for each package and going in with postage scale. Lord help us if it comes to that!

[GIR3691]

I really doubt there would be enough difference in weight between figs for even a postage scale to work. We're talking about fractions of ounces difference between the bags. I think we're just going to have to bite the bullet and buy series 3+ blind.

[Tyrant]

In the two miniatures games I play that feature blind packaging, Hasbro/WotC figured out a while ago how to avoid duplication of the rare/very rare figures (obviously, the occasional mistake still happens and it's no t100% fool proof, but it works 95%+ of the time) in the boosters within a case. The (D&D) cases have 12 boosters each with 5 or 6 figures (one of which is a rare). On top of the ability to avoid duplicate rares, the cases also have a near universal distribution of Commons and Uncommons (4 of each common and 1.5 of each uncommon). So, they manage to package blind boosters into a case in such a way as to have it fall within a specific set of guidelines. If Hasbro/WotC can manage to do this with the level of complexity involved in their product, as opposed to LEGO's far simpler distribution, then I am confident TLG can figure things out. Hasbro/WotC don't seem to have it all together half the time and it's questionable when they actually listen to their fans. If they can manage this so can TLG. Beyond that, it really shouldn't be that hard to get the cases to have 3 of every figure with the others to round out to 60 even without a second bar code to identify the contents of the bag.

[lostone]

I loved the idea of a minifig collection, but after collecting the first series and hearing that lego is going to scrap the barcodes for the 3rd wave. it has really made me ask the question wether as a AFOL can i afford to keep up with this hobby any more.
I mainly focus on the starwars collection, and saw the minifig series a way of a bit of extra lego goodness, but if its going to be totaly random from series 3 onwards I guess ill simply have to wave goodbye to this line and either give my dwindling supply of cash to the ebays or spend less on other line either way lego losses out some revenue.

I dont see why it would kill lego to either, keep the barcodes and let kids have fun swapping them.
As I doubt many are really going to look at the barcodes each time, or throw us a bone as collecters and release the full serises of figs in one collection maybe with stands or somthing along with them that would not immidiatly stand out to the kids.

At the end of the day legos prices are going to force alot of people to rethink where they are spending their cash, which is increasinling hard to come by (well for me anyway lol).

After all there is a recession, which isnt going away soon especially in the uncertain future of the uks economy.

[dWhisper]

Or... LEGO could simply work to fix the availability, so they're out there. At $2 a pop, these are still cheaper than a lot of other goods that have an inherent rarity built in. Take CCGs, for example, that range from $3-5 a pack, in the hopes of getting one rare or super-rare card. One new Xbox 360 title is worth 30 of these little figures. Just saying, it's not like these are breaking the bank on us when stuff like Slave I hits with an $80 price tag...

[Mister Ed]

Yeah, that's the main thing. If these things are widely available, then it isn't that much of a problem. Of course I also think the blind model on these is a failure even without the barcodes, as it is pretty easy to tell what's in the bag just by feeling it, so pretty soon the more popular ones will be culled out of the boxes anyway. I think they'd likely make more money by making MORE of the popular ones (yeah, they'd have to guess, I know) and letting us see what we're buying.

[onions]

can't blame lego for retailers not wanting to order these.

you can, however, blame them for a small production run.

[ThinkingImpaired]

Or... LEGO could simply work to fix the availability, so they're out there. At $2 a pop, these are still cheaper than a lot of other goods that have an inherent rarity built in. Take CCGs, for example, that range from $3-5 a pack, in the hopes of getting one rare or super-rare card. One new Xbox 360 title is worth 30 of these little figures. Just saying, it's not like these are breaking the bank on us when stuff like Slave I hits with an $80 price tag...

I wouldn't be surprised to see either series 2 or 3 at $2.50 a figure after lego greatly underestimated demand for series 1.

[legomatt]

Totally agree, Lego is almost definitely going to push the price off the back of series 1 selling out so fast... which will be ever so annoying given we already know they priced and valued them at $2/£2 and were meant to be a pocket-money impulse buy style product.
A lot of people may have already been put off given that they couldn't get series 1, and a price hike so soon could put off many more that did collect them, especially as they're chinese made and $2/£2 may already be about as much as people were willing to spend at retail. Still, interesting to see what develops.

[Mister Ed]

can't blame lego for retailers not wanting to order these.

you can, however, blame them for a small production run.

Which I do. Without the short production run, retailers like Target probably WOULD have picked them up once they saw how well they were selling, and the ones that did have them would have ordered more and dropped all the silly restrictions. But they couldn't because there were none available for them to order at that point.

[Daz Hoo]

Series 2 bags will definitely not be sold for more than the bags of series 1, as retailers were able to order both series 1 AND series 2 back in January (meaning the suggested retail price is already set for that series).

But a price increase for series 3 could be possible.

As for the short production run, LEGO is guilty on that one. If they had a little more faith in their product, they would have planned a longer production run, regardless of the low initial orders from retailers.

[infallible]

I think they'd likely make more money by making MORE of the popular ones (yeah, they'd have to guess, I know) and letting us see what we're buying.

Keep in mind that by doing this, you're causing the less "popular" ones to be short-packed. Should one of those prove to actually be popular, you've made things worse because they're then vastly harder to find. As a collector of other toy lines, the short-packed problem has come up many times and, I think, causes more problems than it solves. (Except in cases where they're intentionally meant to be hard to find and hunted, like variants and such. I don't think LEGO is going that route, and I hope they never do.)

Right now, I'm pretty sure a case is guaranteed to have two full sets. Three would be better, but two works. You can split the cost of a case with someone and each get a set plus some extras. So, while I prefer having the barcodes, I can live without them, provided we're guaranteed at least two sets in each case.

[Mister Ed]

I'm not sure how short packing the MORE popular ones (as they ARE doing now) is supposed to be better than doing so with the less popular ones. In either case you are guessing, but the way they ARE doing it, if they are right, they lose potential sales, whereas the other way, if they are right, they make MORE sales. Seems an easy choice to me. If they had packaging that made it impossible to tell what you were getting, then yeah, deliberately reducing the quantities of popular ones might mean more sales overall (providing they hit the sweet spot where the difficulty in getting some of the figures isn't so great as to turn people off entirely), but even without the barcodes, anybody that really CARES exactly what figure they are getting can find out pretty easily by feeling the package. So if there aren't any figs they want left in the box, a sale is lost.

[meeotch]

I think LEGO might have a hard time figuring out which ones are intended to be the more or less popular ones to begin with. Unless they were to release pictures early enough to gauge reception and then make the production run(s), it might be tough to figure out with any degree of certainty which figs will be more popular. There isn't anything objectively better about one of these figs to another. Other than knowing that some figs are better in groups as oppose to individually (definitely the cheerleaders, and maybe the clowns, although I don't think there's enough diversity to make a believable clown troupe), there wouldn't really be a way to know that, say, the spaceman was way cooler than the diver (apparently, the big loser from this first series). Also, popularity might be cultural. That mime fig may be a total dud here in the states, whereas it's the most popular fig in France (just arbitrarily throwing an example out there). These are very different than a CCG where, even if you don't play a particular faction, a powerful card has an intrinsic value due to its properties that makes it highly tradable.

[Mister Ed]

I think they HAD a pretty good sense of what would be most popular, though. And they made those rarer. They may not have been 100% on target with popularity, but they did pretty well. They can (and I assume DO) do research in advance to gauge popularity.

[Draykov]

Looks like Wave 2 is already starting to show up. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.p ... opic=44459

[Solo]

Too late hot plate.

[combattank]

Where can I get the Lego Minifigures besides at a Lego store or the Lego website? I haven't seen them at Target or TRU (at least in my area). Whenever I go to the Lego store closest to me, the store reps say they are always sell out quickly.

[JamesBenjamin]

They're out everywhere near me, too, but I happened to stop by the TRU in Annapolis, MD over the weekend and they had 8 boxes sitting out. Though, I checked a few of the barcodes in the lower (less rummaged through boxes) and didn't see any zombies/clowns, so they may have been picked over pretty well already...

As far as where to get them now, try ebay or bricklink. I have some for sale on both (wink wink)

[mr_joshua]

Just an fyi for anyone traveling to germany anytime soon. I came back last week and toys r us, Mueller, Karstadt, and most other major department stores still had plenty of the series one figs for sale. I was in the Fulda area if that helps....but also saw plenty around the Frankfurt stores as well. As a side note, legoland billund also had the series 2 figures out for sale...we made a trip there on the 14th of July and picked up a complete set. Sorry I havent posted this sooner...