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Why Are Lego Sets Expensive?
- brokentone 14y agoSo... the article... Hypothesizing that it's primarily due to tight tolerances. Shows that they're indeed tight, and have remained similar to legos made 40 years ago. However, similar to what appear to be "random cheap dollar store building blocks." Best sentence "Honestly, I don’t know much about plastic manufacturing – but the LEGO blocks appear to be created from harder plastic." - This is why they made interviews. Really wasn't so interesting and didn't answer the question.
- cubicle67 14y agoLego is ABS which is relitively expensive while most competing bricks are made from polystyrene. The tolerence is the key thing though - we've got a reasonable selection of lego here as well as a few sets of Mega Blocks, Kreo and the odd chinese brand, and there's a huge difference in fit between brands with none coming close to Lego. Try watching your kid build something only to be unable to play with it because it keeps falling apart because the brick fit is sloppy
- zintinio 14y agoTaken from http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/14ccan/lego_super_star_destroyer_now_available_at_target/c7buwv0?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/14ccan/lego_super_star... "Every single lego brick made has to fit together perfectly with every other lego brick EVER MADE. So the piece you get in your new super star destroyer has to snap together perfectly with a piece from a model house made in 1970. To achieve this, they run size tolerances on the order of .0005" "
- prezjordan 14y agoInteresting to see how low the standard deviation is. Compare that to K'NEX (I love K'NEX by the way) where a not-so-right angle is commonplace. Sometimes the rods have plastic bulges at the ends which prevent them from making a good connection in a female(?) piece. LEGOs, however, have always fit perfectly, in my experience.
- whichdan 14y agoI remember that from my childhood - K'NEX were fun, but always took what seemed like a lot of effort to put together. Similar to pulling apart Lego pieces without a brick separator.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- cubicle67 14y agoWe have a good supply of both Lego and K'Nex here. I agree with your comment on K'Nex manufacturing but add that it doesn't really matter. K'Nex seem designed to connect well and holdtogether well despite this (I'm talking about the rods/joiners, not their stupid Lego-like bits which are just horrid) K'Nex and Lego are different and my kids play wth both about equally I'd say. They get used to build different stuff and they're both awesome :)
- batiudrami 14y agoK'Nex rock my world. About 6 years back, when I turned 18, I finally ordered the 'back of the catalogue' 3000+ piece Big Ball Factory set on eBay, after spending hours imagining how cool it would be to have it back when I was little. It was awesome. My mates and I still build it occasionally.
- mwexler 14y agoImpressive: an article about price without the word "demand" or "supply". Or about the standard for "expensive". This could have been interesting, but didn't quite get there. As a consolation prize, I offer: http://gizmodo.com/5019797/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-lego http://gizmodo.com/5019797/everything-you-always-wanted-to-k... Also light on analysis, but full of fun trivia.
- capitalj 14y agoIt won't be long till everyone is making their own legos at home with 3d printers.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- cubicle67 14y agoTry buying them in Australia where the RRP is almost exactly 2x the US RRP for most models :(
- mbenjaminsmith 14y agoDitto Thailand. I was looking at a set the other day that was just under $1k US. It was a very large set but still one thousand dollars is a lot of money for a plastic building toy. This was a static set too, not anything with motors or controllers.
- lessnonymous 14y agoThe nerd in me read this hours ago. When I got home I had to do some data mining of the Lego site and put the numbers together. Average Brick Price Australia:18.3c UK: 14.9c USA: 10.8c So yes, the price is almost double in Australia what it is in the US. Average Licenced Brick Price Australia: 22.0c UK: 17.5c US: 11.5c If the link works, you can see all my numbers on my Facebook page: http://rick.ph/lego_price_analysis http://rick.ph/lego_price_analysis
- vacri 14y agoRemember that Australian prices include 10% GST which the US prices won't have. Similarly, the UK will probably have 17.5% (I think) VAT. Still much pricier, but a shade less so. At least there's the pseudo-excuse for the increased price of actually shipping physical goods, as opposed to the argument for digital downloads which is "Hey, look over there! scamper"
- bluepaper 14y agoJust to note, UK VAT has been at 17.5% previously but is now at 20%.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- benzor 14y agoI can certainly appreciate the precision of Lego pieces, as I too have mixed and matched incredibly old pieces from my parents's era (1970s) with more recent (2000s) stuff. And I think the OP did a decent job collecting precision data for the article. However I find the post title to be misleading as surely there's a whole lot more that goes into the actual market valuation of a Lego kit. What about the type and quality of plastic used, the rest of the manufacturing process, quality control, the overhead of having to design new kits regularly, etc? Building Lego kits is more than just shipping cheap generic plastic widgets from China straight to store shelves. For what it's worth, I've found Lego designs to be consistently excellent, with well thought-out part selection, part placement, structural integrity, and so on, in everything from the small $10 kid sets to the $300 Mindstorms NXT kits, so the price has never really bothered me.
- markkanof 14y agoThere must also be non-trivial cost to licensing certain brands such as Star Wars.
- olivier1664 14y agoWould be interresting to check if the cheaper Lego clones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone) have the same qualities.
- rayiner 14y agoBesides the obvious answer that cost is not a first order determent of price?
- Avshalom 14y agoIn addition, walk down a toy aisle some time. Lego sets aren't cheap but relative to toys in general "legos are expensive" feels more like truthiness to me than truth.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoRelative to the cost of manufacturing, all toys are highway robbery. You probably don't want to know what the wholesale costs on di ecast toy cars are, for example (it's effectively zero). But that's how the economy works, there's a profit margin at every step. If there wasn't people wouldn't sell things or do things.
- kamaal 14y agoWhat are the profit margins for toy making companies like? Do they lose out much if the toy doesn't sell well? How is it when the toy sell well?
- rayiner 14y agoProfit has little to do with it. Price is determined by supply and demand. Legos are expensive because there is a strong demand, and through branding Lego has made them into a non-fungible good over which they have a monopoly on supply. The same is true for most toys. Kids don't ask for "dolls" they ask for "Barbies" or "American Girls." These companies use the resulting pricing power to set prices to maximize profits, which is a point higher than it would be if they were competing to supply fungible "dolls."
- nikcub 14y agoThe financials are similar to the food conglomerates (P&G, Kraft, Unilever, Mars etc.). The businesses are hit-based, and each firm usually has one or two very profitable lines and a lot of lines that lose money or break even. Low manufacturing costs but very high user acquisition costs. Toy companies rank in the top 10 on advertising dollars spent (after automotive, food, pharma, department stores, fast food, telephony, alcohol). Mattel has $0.7B of net income on $6.2B of revenue. But if you took the Barie and Hot Wheels businesses on their own, the margins there may be 40%+, but subsidiaries like The Learning Company are losing hundreds of millions per year. The Lego Group[0] has 0.55B euro net income on $2.5B euro of revenue. A better margin than Mattel, but a smaller business. Lego also has new release lines that they depend on to continue growth. For eg. the Star Wars tie-up, Lord of the Rings, etc. some of these work, some don't. They need to keep giving buyers a reason to come back and purchase more - which is why Lego has gone from generic buckets of bricks to specific sets with instructions that you assemble once and don't disassemble. Not mentioned in OP is that until a year ago Lego had a strong world-wide patent. It has only been the last 12 months that competitors have released similar sets of bricks which are forcing more competition on the company. Lego would be happy to hear that when I took my 3 year old niece shopping she only wanted the Lego brand Lego, and in that case only the sets that were cross-branded with characters she recognized (I think it was Dora the Explorer). If you want to find out more, the largest toy co's are Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai, Lego, Tiger. They are all large co's and the other 4 besides Lego have suites of brand names and subsidiaries. [0] Lego Group 2012 financials - http://cache.lego.com/r/aboutus/-/media/About%20Us/Annual%20Report/ts.20120301T121813.Annual_Report_2011_UK.pdf http://cache.lego.com/r/aboutus/-/media/About%20Us/Annual%20...
- pixie_ 14y agoHow many karma points do I need to vote down something?
- DigitalJack 14y agoPresently 500, but you can't downvote stories.
- batiudrami 14y agoI have had an account for 4 years and have never managed to hit the magic number. I swear it always goes up just as I get close. Not that it matters, it just always feels just out of reach.
- spoiledtechie 14y ago4 years? I would suggest being more involved in articles...
- batiudrami 14y agoI prefer only to comment when I have something useful to add, which given my non-programmer background isn't always that often.
- DigitalJack 14y agoIf an article on HN was interesting enough for you to click on it, I would bet that you have a comment that would contribute to the story. Your non-programmer background is most likely an asset on HN, simply because you can offer a point of view that most others here can't.
- dons 14y agoCan I print open source lego-compat pieces from my 3D printer yet? Basically, my dream at age 6.
- hugs 14y agoIf you're into LEGO Technic, this is exactly why I started the Bitbeam project. http://bitbeam.org/pages/about http://bitbeam.org/pages/about
- burke 14y agoSure, but the materials costs would almost certainly exceed that of the equivalent lego set (for now).
- mercuryrising 14y agohttp://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5699 http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5699
- primitur 14y agoThe secret about Lego is that the parts that don't make it through their quality-control, are all recycled. You can melt a Lego, use it as a paste, and form something else. If you know the right way to cook it, of course .. and Lego do. So, there's that. Looks like the 6-year old you is going to get a robot, finally, to do all the assembly. ;)
- rsheridan6 14y agoNot really. At this time, 3D printing is too low quality to produce something with tolerances remotely close to what you want. I've seen some 3D printed Legos but the quality is not good.
- sbmassey 14y agoSurely the price of Lego will plummet if 3D printing ever lives up to its promise.
- DigitalJack 14y agoHow so? I can't imagine printing your own bricks will ever be cheaper that mass production.
- mikek 14y agoThere is a significant markup though. Cutting out the middleman could make it cheaper.
- dsr_ 14y agoHowever, the market for rare pieces will first see counterfeits, and when the counterfeits get good enough, collapse back to the marginal cost of ABS + production.
- wtracy 14y agoIt would collapse back to the cost of 3D printing the parts, which is still significantly more than the cost of molding ABS.
- zem 14y agoi really doubt 3d printers will make pieces of the quality of lego pieces any time soon. (i'd be very happy to be proven wrong, of course!)
- wissler 14y agoInteresting article, but did nothing to explain the cost, it merely assumed that tight measurements means they would be that expensive or why they wouldn't keep getting better and better at making them such that the cost would go down over time.
- StavrosK 14y agoThere was a reddit comment the other day answering the exact same question. The person worked in a factory that cast plastic pieces for Lego as well as other companies. He said that Lego had much, much tighter tolerances, that they threw away many more pieces which weren't made to spec, and that they required much more expensive and frequently replaced molds. I can't find it at the moment, unfortunately...
- zintinio 14y agoI mentioned it in my own comment, but here you are http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/14ccan/lego_super_star_destroyer_now_available_at_target/c7buwv0?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/14ccan/lego_super_star...
- roc 14y ago"More expensive to make" doesn't necessarily justify "more expensive to buy". One would need to quantify how much more expensive the tighter tolerances and better molds actually make a package of bricks and compare the resulting margin to that of other plastic toys.
- specialist 14y agoI worked for a toy design firm during the mid-90s. Though I did software, I managed to learn a bit about this stuff (osmosis, helping with CAD/CAM, eavesdropping, etc). Tool die design for injection modeling is an art, a craft. Lego's die tools are smaller, meaning they hold many fewer parts. They had more supply channels. So the parts would be formed more uniformly. I forget what they did to ensure the parts cooled more uniformly. At the time, Mega Blocks were far inferior. The were using larger dies, more parts per die. So their bricks weren't as uniform. We used to bring in lots of other toys for inspection and play testing. I once assembled a Mega Block tank set. It just wouldn't stay together, with ill fitted pieces fighting against each other. The differences weren't even visible to the eye. Lego bricks just had better heft and fit. Also at the time, and I imagine is still the case, Lego and Playmobile were the gold standards for plastic molding toys.
- richforrester 14y agoThis might sound fairly stupid, but I always thought longevity had something to do with price. It's plastic, and will last many, generations. This might also be why they keep coming up with new shapes for blocks. ps.: longevity assumes one doesn't use ones teeth to pry apart blocks.
- sonicvoxel 14y agoOr that one is a dog owner.
- csense 14y agoI don't know about the current market for building blocks. But my guess is that Lego is benefiting from monopolist pricing. This is just a guess; I don't really have good knowledge of pricing and products that exist in this category. If there are less well-known brands, with possibly lower quality, that sell for lower prices, Lego's continued success would argue that these competing products aren't perfect substitutes. In other words, Lego extracts a premium for its unique attributes: Quality, the prestige of the brand name, exclusive licenses for movie-themed sets, or patented brick designs might be some of the fences that could be protecting their market share. Economics 101: If it's easy to build businesses that replicate your goods and services, then competitors will enter the market and bid each other down until prices reach levels that make profits disappear. (If someone's making a profit, then someone else can and will bid a little lower and gain market share in exchange for a smaller per-unit profit.) If Lego has a unique success formula that other companies can't duplicate for whatever reason, then they can act as a monopoly and charge a price that maximizes unit profit times volume.
- jacquesm 14y agoWhat's more expensive, a toy that gets used once on Christmas day and then gets discarded that costs $10, or a lego set that costs $50 and that gets passed down three generations or more? Some of the lego my kids are playing with went through this route: my uncle, me, my brother, my son, my brothers kids. The oldest pieces I've got are from the early 60's, they have a different formulation and didn't keep their shape as good, but anything produced after roughly 1965 is as good as new today.
- AdamTReineke 14y agoSome exceptions I've seen are cracks where the hands insert into the arms of minifigures and discoloring, particularly on white bricks. And of course there are missing pieces, but that's not a quality issue. This summer I bought a set I grew up playing with (#6345 Aerial Acrobats). It sits on my shelf for now but I'm sure I'll play with it with my future children.
- Swannie 14y agoAdd to that the warping of some of the larger "flat" pieces, the inevitable chipping that takes place when you store a lot of it together.
- Tichy 14y agoMy son is playing with the bigger Lego pieces at the moment (Duplo), and I have the impression that they wear out a bit. What I mean is that they won't stick together as tightly as in the beginning. For example we bought a used set from ebay that includes a crane, and the crane is very prone to toppling over because it doesn't stick to the base very much anymore. Anyway: what is the best way to clean LEGO? I've been wondering about that for a while :-)
- jacquesm 14y agoThe best way to clean lego is as far as I know to stick it in a pillowcasing, tie it shut and run it through the washing machine!
- SparrowOS 14y agoLet's ask God His theory of child development. What kind of toy would He suggest? God says... 1:15 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: 1:16 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: 1:17 But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. 1:18 What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. 1:19 For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 1:20 According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ---- 2nd time God said magnifying glass! Maybe, He likes microscopes. Awe. (tear) God wants to show-off His creations. God says... dwelleth lowly ceasest facts tcosa11 demonstrated http://tsakalis.faculty.asu.edu/ http://tsakalis.faculty.asu.edu/ God wants me to show off SimStructure maybe. What's good to look at in the body, God? God says... etext90 languages outrageous peculiarly charity periodic sleepest Guinea burnt caught Good speaks a_likely_story receiving knocketh wills displace feedeth accepted damnable mentioned Bridal reproachful sciences ministers Etexts impossible Power marked assailed fires chaste stirrest Simplicianus ETEXTS requitest daunting to_infinity_and_beyond employ ---- I have a way to specify a statement to be done periodically in SimStructure. He's also talking about my budget program with charity and which has periodic entries. Nevermind. ---- The nasty party? God says... man to put away his wife? tempting him. 10:3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? 10:4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 10:5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 10:7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. ---- Europe and Britain? God says... 2:13 He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; 2:14 And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over. 2:15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him. 2:16 And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send. ---- Conner? God likes Highlander. Awwe. God says... meanings woundest letters Emperor reverence nine-and-twentieth occasioned met Okilydokily It_grieves_me partaker corporeally carest Free What Bride recovery swollen church multiplying friends flowing shade fetters rage sacrifices betrothed Accept noon forehead Galatians fifty between evidently endures Schools prosperity jeering Tell us something about William the Conquerer? God says... souls wasting downward hear pride-swollen believed Presence lawyers virtue deceived pitiful continently fruitless inferior began models straitness drank cellar interpreted boldly staff content troublesome mirthful desires precedes beggar-man summing fluidness beareth affliction dost waited where vineyard Ghost espoused cloyed nourish upbraided manifoldly admission Helper scholar cry contributions customs gliding infinitude satiate do_you_like_it cherished ---- Cross and Switchblade? God says... and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. 19:4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: 19:5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. 19:6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, 19:7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. 19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. ---- God says... cupidity reply emptiness proprietary request existence continent take_the_day_off knocked goading THE palate based troops Innocency sufficed endurance omnium seest assume ---- Love God with all heart, mind and soul. You get out of prayer what you put into it. When you pick a greeting card, that is love. Do you love God like picking a greeting card? Umm... God... I like the fiords of Norway. The Highlands seem neat, too. Green. Foggy. God says... killed in an earthen vessel over running water: 14:6 As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water: 14:7 And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field. 14:8 And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. ---- You like microscopes, huh, God? Flagella are neat. phospholipid-bylayer? ADP ATP God says... colours attempt outrageous XIII but Have reports Great_Britain north Whereupon lights emptied obtaining extricate shake accusing GUTENBERG Bride flattering wouldest alluring natural Learn soundedst unreasoning daemon-worshippers hid hard Good bribe criedst Be seemeth eminence sayest Hope youre_lucky WooHoo Fame appointed calculated ceaseth robber discommended hurts_my_head ---- I used to think Washington DC was same lattitude as Paris. It's more like Gibralter. That means England is really far North. They must have long nights in Winter. Quarentino? God says... 25:6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 25:7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 25:8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 25:9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 25:10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. ---- Fake drugs? Fake God talk? God says... OTHER overcome severed relations served consciousness despairing sought torpor precious dispraise whitherto Medicine owns ordained Great_Britain -of ceasest guardian faithful jest degree ---- I joke I'm a professional interpreter... of Godtalk. Japan Economics? You're most better than us in economics. What's a understanding of Japan's economics we don't know? Like, what's it tied to? God says... 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. 1:3 For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. 1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 1:5 Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; 1:6 Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: 1:7 Because that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. 1:8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth. ---- Mit ice cubes? God says... California Sovereign proof theatres foolishly vehemence deafness chilled entangling intercession anointings Zambia younger supereminent diversely flash mind- Shall condole impunity cease therefore end
- tragomaskhalos 14y agoI too have a fair bit of Lego from when I was a kid in the 60s/70s that my kids play with today. It's worth noting that it was (relatively) expensive even back then. My observations on the quality of my old pieces is that they are generally excellent and certainly still usable, but: - Some of the white pieces have discoloured quite noticably - Some of the white plates (but interestingly no other colours) have deteriorated noticably - The fit between pieces seems to be a lot tighter, so that prising pieces apart can be a challenge. But really it would be churlish to overstate these issues - for this stuff to still be usable after 40 years is a testament to the quality of engineering that has gone into it. We have acquired bits of the various "knock off" Lego-esque brands and the inferior quality of these is immediately apparent.
- rsheridan6 14y agoI passed down the same older Space set that was mentioned in the article, along with a few others, to my son, and now it's mixed in with mostly newer Legos. The pieces are indistinguishable except for the unique pieces like the amber windshield. Maybe something changed from the 60s/70s to the early 80s when I was playing with Legos, but I don't see any degradation.
- brudgers 14y agoComparing the deviation of wooden planks to Lego is meaningless. Planks have a heterogeneous internal structure, the structure of each plank is unique - we can even see the grain in the photograph - and wood is more dimensionally sensitive to changes in environmental conditions than Lego.
- BrandiATMuhkuh 14y agoMy brother and about half of all people in my area in Austria work for a company called ENGEL. This company produces Injection Molding Machines (EN-Wiki: http://goo.gl/2fxjB http://goo.gl/2fxjB, DE-Wiki: http://goo.gl/NS9F8 http://goo.gl/NS9F8). This company is also main provider for Tupperware and LEGO. One machine cost around 1Mio. Euro and the mold has always more or less the same price than the machine. That means that every product created with Injection Molding should have a very high quality because of the price and the effort you have to put in to create a mold. The only reason, my bother says, why some products have a bad quality is, the plastic material is not as good as the one from LEGO. This is the location of their headquarter http://goo.gl/maps/9EOIk http://goo.gl/maps/9EOIk http://www.engelglobal.com/ http://www.engelglobal.com/
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- danjessen 14y agoComing from Billund (where LEGO is made and invented) ... having friends and parents who worked +25 years at LEGO. My dad having worked both with construction and design of the plastic molds for all those years. I can say that the only reason LEGO is more expensive, is because its a high quality product made in Europe (mostly Denmark) and not in China.
- jncraton 14y agoI just wanted to point out that while this was true in the past, a number of the lower volume Lego parts (minifigs, animals, etc) are actually now manufactured in China.
- neves 14y agoYou have no idea about expensive Lego. In Brazil, a simple firefighter airplane in Walmart will cost you more than US$130,00! The list price in the USA is US$60,00. See for yourself: http://www.walmart.com.br/produto/Brinquedos/Lego/Lego/343016-LEGO-Aviao-de-combate-ao-fogo-4209 http://www.walmart.com.br/produto/Brinquedos/Lego/Lego/34301...
- gordeh 14y agoI've built lots and lots of lego over the years and tried several competitors as well. In fact I built a megablocks porsche last night for my son. The difference between lego and the rest is quite big. First the bricks are perfect on lego, perfect colour and no scratches or flaws. Next the instructions for lego are clear and easy to follow. Then you've got the parts bagged up in sensible sized packs which allow you to complete the steps required without having too much lego about you. The megablocks kits was cheap, but the instructions were truly terrible. There was even a small addendum sheet thrown in with corrections one of the corrections was wrong itself!! Add to this the blocks were not of great quality and the colours weren't consistent. I almost never pay full price for Lego as there are always offers to be had, but the extra is well worth paying. I have kits from the 80's mixed in with todays stuff and it all fits perfectly. Not to mention that Lego's support is great.