Changes in Lego Toys Show Disturbing Trend, Say Researchers

This is not a new phenomenon. My glory days of Lego were in the early-mid 90s, and literally every set that my friends and I were interested in were either explicitly martial or violent in a GTA-esque, drive-fast-and-crash-into-stuff way. Catapults. Castles. Dragons. Knights. Space fighters. Giant robots. Drag racers and police cars, in realish life or in space. Factions of undersea divers with monstrous submersibles at war over glittering crystals. Pirate ships, with cannons and crocodiles and angry natives, etc. Every good Lego theme set up at least two factions which were at least implicitly at odds, if not explicitly at war.

This is the shit that sells to little boys - Legos are just better army men. Ironically, the pacifistic stuff tends to sell better with the AFOLs, as witnessed by the resurgence of the line of modular town buildings, and architecture sets explicitly marketed at adults.

The more disturbing trend with Lego is the continuing rise of licensed themes that has completely gutted their product lineup. Star Wars has been a cash cow for them, but has meant that that is it for space-themed Lego sets for around 15 years now. Likewise, two of the other of the four classic System themes, Pirates and Castle, have been on ice for years, due to overlap with Tolkien and Jack Sparrow-related licensed themes.

They seemed to be trying a little harder three or four years ago, but I've not seen anything really exciting the past few years.

The real bad trend is the use of more and more single use pieces instead of building stuff from the common set.

The pregnant implication is that if (a) we're entertaining ourselves with violent themes, then (b) we ourselves become more violent.

As to (a), engaging in martial play or entertainment is hardly a disturbing new trend. It's not just videogames or plastic army men, even most sports are an allegory for battlefield conflicts. Some of humanity's most classic and enduring literature, including pieces from various continents, are meditations on exactly this topic.

As to (b), if anything, the supposed renaissance of violent entertainment has actually accompanied one of the least violent centuries on record.

Let people play however they want. Teach kids values that benefit humanity. These two ideals are not inconsistent.

These sorts of pieces always remind me of something: When my nephew was around 2 or 3, his mother insisted that she'd never buy him any toy guns (LEGOs, pop guns, or anything). When he'd visit us, he always somehow dug out the old pop gun toys we had buried away. A year later, I visited her and she'd entirely caved. I asked her about it, and she said she gave up when she realized he was just using sticks or anything else he could think of simulate one while he continued playing cops and robbers and all the "violent" games little kids play.

Bigthink is not a credible source of information IMO

The price LEGO had to pay for going down the lucrative movie franchise / merchandise road... btw, is the main audience still kids?

tl;dr - researchers are a scared of increasing trend of 'violent' Lego toys mostly because of movie sets - Star Wars, Lord of the Ring, etc.