5 ms·

Unfortunately Lego kind of went backwards, evolution-wise, in the last 20 years or so. I had quite some Lego blocks in my youth and the best part was free assem

Unfortunately Lego kind of went backwards, evolution-wise, in the last 20 years or so. I had quite some Lego blocks in my youth and the best part was free assembly rather than those overpriced build-xyz-mega-sets one sees today now. I get it that they cater to another market, e. g. also collecters, but the creativity part really went down. And that was a deliberate decision made by Lego.

sp4cec0wb0y 9mo ago
That is where the money is. Grown adults in their 20s-30s with expendable income looking to collect Lego sets. It helps that Lego is a big part of people's childhood, combine that with pop culture references and you are golden. Ngl, I enjoy my fair share of Lego sets from my favorite fandoms.
jwblackwell 9mo ago
Yea as somebody who played extensively with Lego as a kid, almost exclusively just the "base components", I never really got the appeal of those set with all sorts of custom, single-use items
Aurornis 9mo ago
My kids will build a set according to the instructions and then a day or two later it's disassembled for parts so they can build something else. The reason they sell sets is because the people who buy these are parents, uncles, grandmas, and other people. The sets make it easy for them to identify something that seems like kids would love it and possibly intersects with some brand the kids like, such as the Marvel crossover sets. Once the bricks get in the kids' hands, they can do whatever they want with them.
- r_lee 9mo ago
  this is the way, especially with Technic sets
- hshdhdhj4444 9mo ago
  Yeah, I don’t understand this criticism. Unless they’ve changed drastically, the sets are always just the beginning of what you want to do. If it’s an object you build the object and add it to another landscape that you may have built. If it’s a castle you build the castle and then add a whole bunch of custom features to it.
  - nailer 9mo ago
    Technic used to do these cool books of instructions only - they were 14 dollars around 1992 - which if you owned Technic set X and Technic set Y you could build Z. You could build the ALIENS PNEUMATIC LOADER in Lego Technic. Coolest thing ever. Anyway yes creativity is great but also official instructions are great too. Edit: https://oldinstructions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1991-8891-1-Ideas-Book.pdf https://oldinstructions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1991-... page 59 thanks Grok.
- geodel 9mo ago
  Well, true. But it is true in same sense that Microsoft require newer hardware, and online accounts only to provide greater security, latest innovations to largest number of customers in shortest possible time.
- dunham 9mo ago
  Yeah, I was concerned about the creativity thing early one, but both of my kids build random stuff from a sea of parts. Occasionally my older kid would decide to build a set again and be frustrated when they couldn't find the part they needed. As a family, we have a couple of the ninjago city sets, those are largely intact, but the kids play with them. The minifigures can be a little bit of a problem, they seem to trigger an instinct to collect unique items. My kid will ask for a set so they can get one (or more) of the minifigures in it.
- abe_m 9mo ago
  I think the main complaint is that the percentage of the kits dedicated to specialty parts limits their usefulness for free-form play. Sets of the 80's had fewer block types, which forced Lego to be more creative in how the sets were put together, which subsequently allowed more freedom in using the blocks for other designs. The sets my kids are playing with look much more "realistic" to what the set is trying to model, but very difficult to build something entirely different, such as building a house from a car kit.
  - Aurornis 9mo ago
    > I think the main complaint is that the percentage of the kits dedicated to specialty parts limits their usefulness for free-form play. I understand the complain, but from observing my kids play with LEGO I don't agree with it at all. The specialty parts from every kit inspire a lot of new builds with their growing part collection. > The sets my kids are playing with look much more "realistic" to what the set is trying to model, but very difficult to build something entirely different, such as building a house from a car kit. I guess I just don't see this with my kids at all. Every small set we buy or that someone gifts them grows the range of things they can build. They remember every single different part and will go searching for it in the bins because they want to put it to use.
- turtlebits 9mo ago
  The problem with these hyperspecific sets is that your imagination can't keep up with what is a 90% replica of the original thing the set is based on.
LeifCarrotson 9mo ago
I have noticed that the self-directed part has been deemphasized in favor of selling to adults (with more money than they'd spend on plastic toys for kids), but you can still totally buy the "Classic brick sets" and "Creativity" toys, or just bulk bricks by the pound. In those bulk sets, there are now way more colors than just the primary and secondary colors that original sets came in, way more flat tiles and wedges with stickers or screen-printed imagery from the branded product lines, but kids don't seem to mind. My 9yo has a bunch of bulk bricks as well as planned sets - Minecraft in particular - and when he gets a new set, he builds it to the instructions, brings it out to the living room to show off his creation, and then before he's walked back to his room he's in the process of adding new stuff or taking it apart to integrate into the rest of the jumble of bricks. I think there are only two builds (both from this Christmas) that are currently intact, and they probably won't last long...
- miningape 9mo ago
  Not sure if they do this, but I'd actually really like if they included instructions for things you can make with just the brick sets - just to help you get started or to come back to later. fx with a box of 1000 bricks, instructions for 2 or 3 things that can all be made from the bricks in the box (maybe not all at once)
  - cryzinger 9mo ago
    Not an official site, but Rebrickable has a section for "alternate builds" you can use to repurpose an existing set: https://rebrickable.com/sets/alternates/ https://rebrickable.com/sets/alternates/
    - ygra 9mo ago
      Rebrickable is awesome. One of my children loves building with instructions and will do relatively little free building with Lego, and Rebrickable makes it very easy to find alternative models (often with questionable stability, though) that can be built from the same set. It also features a search of alternative models you can build with all the sets (and bricks) you have.
SG- 9mo ago
they're doing this because their market has shifted to adults and toy collectors spending large amount of money on them.
thr0waway001 9mo ago
These days Legos are more akin to model kits. Except they dumb down everything that not even a monkey can screw up assembling whatever is being built. There’s no creativity in it. To wit, I’ve bought some kits for my nephew cause his mom asked for them for Christmas, he assembles them while we are still unwrapping gifts, then never or hardly ever goes back and touches them again. They just stay built and untouched on a shelf. Like a model kit. I remember 20-30 years ago when you’d just get a bucket containing an assortment of pieces and if you were inclined to build a house then you’d have to get creative with the pieces that you had. The fun part was playing with a friend, agreeing to build a house but having too wildly different designs. Then learning from the experience and tearing it down and building it again but bigger and better.
- frumplestlatz 9mo ago
  I think it's a bit judgemental to declare what "the fun part" is. As a kid, I loved both -- I'd build sets as defined and keep them as-is forever. I'd play with them, too, but I liked the model aspect. I also had tons of extra bricks that I'd use for free-form play. I loved both aspects. As an adult, I don't really have the time or interest in "playing space explorers" or "driving" little cars and trains through lego "city" towns. But I still love building the prettier models and having them on a shelf.
- robertfw 9mo ago
  I do think that the "model" form of something recognizable (thinking mostly about the Star Wars kits here) does lend itself to kits that sit on the shelf, but no one is forcing you to keep it assembled. With that said, one thing I remember seeing in older kits is instructions for more than one build, which could serve as a kicking off point for someone to reapproach a bundle of bricks in multiple ways. My own guideline is that once something is built, after a little while it has to be either modified/evolved, or disassembled and put into the bucket-o-bricks for reuse (well if I'm honest, it's several very well sorted craft/hardware bins)
- hamdingers 9mo ago
  So because your nephew chooses not to reconfigure the kits he receives, there's no creativity in lego any more? Come on. Lego still sells buckets in various sizes (10696, 10698, etc). If you want to encourage that kind of play, perhaps these would make a better gift.
NoSalt 9mo ago
My son has ... SO MANY LEGO sets; he is twelve and has been collecting regular LEGO since he was four or 5. Yes, the sets get built, but soon after they get broken down into their constituent parts, and we have massive build sessions where we sit in the middle of all his LEGO and just build stuff. It's some of the most fun I have with him.
virtualritz 9mo ago
The two main issues with Lego sets I have are: The huge amount of specialized parts that are pretty useless for basic building. They're basically adornments. Prices are insane. I.e. quantity and often quality (as in: how good is the set play-/ construction time wise) is just shite. I usually buy competitors. Here in Germany Blue e.g. bricks have opened some stores so that's where I take my nephew. Their sets are much more like the Lego I grew up with. Using more basic parts that exist in creative ways so the specialized/adornment meaning is derived from context, not the part itself/its shape. Which also requires more imagination from the kids playing with this.
- robertfw 9mo ago
  I feel like the special parts have eased off, it was pretty bad with the bionicle stuff (which ironically are apparently what saved lego from financial difficulties), but I'd say all of the recent sets I've got (I get one a year for Christmas) going back at least 5 years have been made up of relatively generic parts, with the odd little special bit for flair.
- virtualritz 9mo ago
  I'm so curious why this was downvoted. Please tell me!
spike021 9mo ago
Someone I know who is about 65 years old has been getting the space shuttles and super car ones the past couple years and it's unlocked a creative side of them they haven't had in years. Nothing wrong with those mega sets. There's nothing really stopping people from just buying bulk legos or even breaking down sets and reusing their pieces elsewhere.
lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
My son has a enormous bin full of lego that he just free builds with. Every time we go by Lego Land when we're on a road trip we make a stop and gets to pick out a bunch of stuff from the "random brick wall" and he just adds a bunch of stuff to his pile. He got a Minecraft set for christmas a couple years ago. I was the one that built it but he just uses the blocks and minifigs for whatever he wants now.
torginus 9mo ago
My personal gripe is that they did away with the studded beams in Technic and everything is smooth beams now with axles and pins. While it might look marginally better, everything is 3x the parts and the building time, and you can just sit down and slap stuff together any more, in fact with the rise of things like Arduino, and 3D printing, I think it's easier to just do electronics + CAD (even with kids) than to work with this stuff. Which is a shame, because older sets used to be cheaper and contain much less parts for the same amount of functionality, and something like a crane truck set that could do all the tilting and motor stuff was categorized as suitable for kids 2-3 years younger.
legitster 9mo ago
> And that was a deliberate decision made by Lego. A prime example of this are the flower sets they sell. You'll get, like, 90 purple flippers. What are you supposed to do with that besides make flowers? It's an excessively overengineered and wasteful jigsaw puzzle. Even their line of Technic stuff is super watered-down. It's really hard to get useful components, and they have changed the design of their motors and controllers several times (no cross compatibility, obviously). People are moving to buying bootleg components.
hypercube33 9mo ago
I agree - technics sets used to be really awesome function wise, then came mindstorms and it kept getting better, then all of that seemingly vanished for new sets and cosmetic sets instead.
micromacrofoot 9mo ago
it was a deliberate choice that made them absolute mountains of cash

sp4cec0wb0y 9mo ago

That is where the money is. Grown adults in their 20s-30s with expendable income looking to collect Lego sets. It helps that Lego is a big part of people's childhood, combine that with pop culture references and you are golden. Ngl, I enjoy my fair share of Lego sets from my favorite fandoms.

jwblackwell 9mo ago

Yea as somebody who played extensively with Lego as a kid, almost exclusively just the "base components", I never really got the appeal of those set with all sorts of custom, single-use items

Aurornis 9mo ago

My kids will build a set according to the instructions and then a day or two later it's disassembled for parts so they can build something else. The reason they sell sets is because the people who buy these are parents, uncles, grandmas, and other people. The sets make it easy for them to identify something that seems like kids would love it and possibly intersects with some brand the kids like, such as the Marvel crossover sets. Once the bricks get in the kids' hands, they can do whatever they want with them.

r_lee 9mo ago
this is the way, especially with Technic sets
hshdhdhj4444 9mo ago
Yeah, I don’t understand this criticism. Unless they’ve changed drastically, the sets are always just the beginning of what you want to do. If it’s an object you build the object and add it to another landscape that you may have built. If it’s a castle you build the castle and then add a whole bunch of custom features to it.
- nailer 9mo ago
  Technic used to do these cool books of instructions only - they were 14 dollars around 1992 - which if you owned Technic set X and Technic set Y you could build Z. You could build the ALIENS PNEUMATIC LOADER in Lego Technic. Coolest thing ever. Anyway yes creativity is great but also official instructions are great too. Edit: https://oldinstructions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1991-8891-1-Ideas-Book.pdf https://oldinstructions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/1991-... page 59 thanks Grok.
geodel 9mo ago
Well, true. But it is true in same sense that Microsoft require newer hardware, and online accounts only to provide greater security, latest innovations to largest number of customers in shortest possible time.
dunham 9mo ago
Yeah, I was concerned about the creativity thing early one, but both of my kids build random stuff from a sea of parts. Occasionally my older kid would decide to build a set again and be frustrated when they couldn't find the part they needed. As a family, we have a couple of the ninjago city sets, those are largely intact, but the kids play with them. The minifigures can be a little bit of a problem, they seem to trigger an instinct to collect unique items. My kid will ask for a set so they can get one (or more) of the minifigures in it.
abe_m 9mo ago
I think the main complaint is that the percentage of the kits dedicated to specialty parts limits their usefulness for free-form play. Sets of the 80's had fewer block types, which forced Lego to be more creative in how the sets were put together, which subsequently allowed more freedom in using the blocks for other designs. The sets my kids are playing with look much more "realistic" to what the set is trying to model, but very difficult to build something entirely different, such as building a house from a car kit.
- Aurornis 9mo ago
  > I think the main complaint is that the percentage of the kits dedicated to specialty parts limits their usefulness for free-form play. I understand the complain, but from observing my kids play with LEGO I don't agree with it at all. The specialty parts from every kit inspire a lot of new builds with their growing part collection. > The sets my kids are playing with look much more "realistic" to what the set is trying to model, but very difficult to build something entirely different, such as building a house from a car kit. I guess I just don't see this with my kids at all. Every small set we buy or that someone gifts them grows the range of things they can build. They remember every single different part and will go searching for it in the bins because they want to put it to use.
turtlebits 9mo ago
The problem with these hyperspecific sets is that your imagination can't keep up with what is a 90% replica of the original thing the set is based on.

LeifCarrotson 9mo ago

I have noticed that the self-directed part has been deemphasized in favor of selling to adults (with more money than they'd spend on plastic toys for kids), but you can still totally buy the "Classic brick sets" and "Creativity" toys, or just bulk bricks by the pound. In those bulk sets, there are now way more colors than just the primary and secondary colors that original sets came in, way more flat tiles and wedges with stickers or screen-printed imagery from the branded product lines, but kids don't seem to mind. My 9yo has a bunch of bulk bricks as well as planned sets - Minecraft in particular - and when he gets a new set, he builds it to the instructions, brings it out to the living room to show off his creation, and then before he's walked back to his room he's in the process of adding new stuff or taking it apart to integrate into the rest of the jumble of bricks. I think there are only two builds (both from this Christmas) that are currently intact, and they probably won't last long...

miningape 9mo ago
Not sure if they do this, but I'd actually really like if they included instructions for things you can make with just the brick sets - just to help you get started or to come back to later. fx with a box of 1000 bricks, instructions for 2 or 3 things that can all be made from the bricks in the box (maybe not all at once)
- cryzinger 9mo ago
  Not an official site, but Rebrickable has a section for "alternate builds" you can use to repurpose an existing set: https://rebrickable.com/sets/alternates/ https://rebrickable.com/sets/alternates/
  - ygra 9mo ago
    Rebrickable is awesome. One of my children loves building with instructions and will do relatively little free building with Lego, and Rebrickable makes it very easy to find alternative models (often with questionable stability, though) that can be built from the same set. It also features a search of alternative models you can build with all the sets (and bricks) you have.

SG- 9mo ago

they're doing this because their market has shifted to adults and toy collectors spending large amount of money on them.

thr0waway001 9mo ago

These days Legos are more akin to model kits. Except they dumb down everything that not even a monkey can screw up assembling whatever is being built. There’s no creativity in it. To wit, I’ve bought some kits for my nephew cause his mom asked for them for Christmas, he assembles them while we are still unwrapping gifts, then never or hardly ever goes back and touches them again. They just stay built and untouched on a shelf. Like a model kit. I remember 20-30 years ago when you’d just get a bucket containing an assortment of pieces and if you were inclined to build a house then you’d have to get creative with the pieces that you had. The fun part was playing with a friend, agreeing to build a house but having too wildly different designs. Then learning from the experience and tearing it down and building it again but bigger and better.

frumplestlatz 9mo ago
I think it's a bit judgemental to declare what "the fun part" is. As a kid, I loved both -- I'd build sets as defined and keep them as-is forever. I'd play with them, too, but I liked the model aspect. I also had tons of extra bricks that I'd use for free-form play. I loved both aspects. As an adult, I don't really have the time or interest in "playing space explorers" or "driving" little cars and trains through lego "city" towns. But I still love building the prettier models and having them on a shelf.
robertfw 9mo ago
I do think that the "model" form of something recognizable (thinking mostly about the Star Wars kits here) does lend itself to kits that sit on the shelf, but no one is forcing you to keep it assembled. With that said, one thing I remember seeing in older kits is instructions for more than one build, which could serve as a kicking off point for someone to reapproach a bundle of bricks in multiple ways. My own guideline is that once something is built, after a little while it has to be either modified/evolved, or disassembled and put into the bucket-o-bricks for reuse (well if I'm honest, it's several very well sorted craft/hardware bins)
hamdingers 9mo ago
So because your nephew chooses not to reconfigure the kits he receives, there's no creativity in lego any more? Come on. Lego still sells buckets in various sizes (10696, 10698, etc). If you want to encourage that kind of play, perhaps these would make a better gift.

NoSalt 9mo ago

My son has ... SO MANY LEGO sets; he is twelve and has been collecting regular LEGO since he was four or 5. Yes, the sets get built, but soon after they get broken down into their constituent parts, and we have massive build sessions where we sit in the middle of all his LEGO and just build stuff. It's some of the most fun I have with him.

virtualritz 9mo ago

The two main issues with Lego sets I have are: The huge amount of specialized parts that are pretty useless for basic building. They're basically adornments. Prices are insane. I.e. quantity and often quality (as in: how good is the set play-/ construction time wise) is just shite. I usually buy competitors. Here in Germany Blue e.g. bricks have opened some stores so that's where I take my nephew. Their sets are much more like the Lego I grew up with. Using more basic parts that exist in creative ways so the specialized/adornment meaning is derived from context, not the part itself/its shape. Which also requires more imagination from the kids playing with this.

robertfw 9mo ago
I feel like the special parts have eased off, it was pretty bad with the bionicle stuff (which ironically are apparently what saved lego from financial difficulties), but I'd say all of the recent sets I've got (I get one a year for Christmas) going back at least 5 years have been made up of relatively generic parts, with the odd little special bit for flair.
virtualritz 9mo ago
I'm so curious why this was downvoted. Please tell me!

spike021 9mo ago

Someone I know who is about 65 years old has been getting the space shuttles and super car ones the past couple years and it's unlocked a creative side of them they haven't had in years. Nothing wrong with those mega sets. There's nothing really stopping people from just buying bulk legos or even breaking down sets and reusing their pieces elsewhere.

lifetimerubyist 9mo ago

My son has a enormous bin full of lego that he just free builds with. Every time we go by Lego Land when we're on a road trip we make a stop and gets to pick out a bunch of stuff from the "random brick wall" and he just adds a bunch of stuff to his pile. He got a Minecraft set for christmas a couple years ago. I was the one that built it but he just uses the blocks and minifigs for whatever he wants now.

torginus 9mo ago

My personal gripe is that they did away with the studded beams in Technic and everything is smooth beams now with axles and pins. While it might look marginally better, everything is 3x the parts and the building time, and you can just sit down and slap stuff together any more, in fact with the rise of things like Arduino, and 3D printing, I think it's easier to just do electronics + CAD (even with kids) than to work with this stuff. Which is a shame, because older sets used to be cheaper and contain much less parts for the same amount of functionality, and something like a crane truck set that could do all the tilting and motor stuff was categorized as suitable for kids 2-3 years younger.

legitster 9mo ago

> And that was a deliberate decision made by Lego. A prime example of this are the flower sets they sell. You'll get, like, 90 purple flippers. What are you supposed to do with that besides make flowers? It's an excessively overengineered and wasteful jigsaw puzzle. Even their line of Technic stuff is super watered-down. It's really hard to get useful components, and they have changed the design of their motors and controllers several times (no cross compatibility, obviously). People are moving to buying bootleg components.

hypercube33 9mo ago

I agree - technics sets used to be really awesome function wise, then came mindstorms and it kept getting better, then all of that seemingly vanished for new sets and cosmetic sets instead.

micromacrofoot 9mo ago

it was a deliberate choice that made them absolute mountains of cash