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> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality.

I'm sure that doesn't hurt, but these days LEGO thrives because of their relentless promotional brand tie-ins. It's not just LEGO anymore. It's LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Disney's Frozen, LEGO Toy Story 4, and so on.

You aren't wrong, but the two are tightly related. LEGO's competitors are also selling many licensed products, but LEGO's position as the best quality brand in the market has allowed them to secure contracts for the most popular IP (Star Wars, Marvel, Minecraft, etc). Their competitors are left with less popular or less family-friendly IP such as Halo or Star Trek.

Its also worth noting that some of LEGO's competitors don't worry too much about IP laws. You can buy a clone brand X-wing for 50% of the cost of the genuine set, but the quality is significantly lower in my experience.

Part of that is that LEGO has a policy against making any models including guns.

I read this, believed it, and repeated it to a friend in a Lego store. My friend then pointed out that there are tons of models with guns and many other weapons. I think the actual policy is that their original nonlicensed models don't feature modern day guns or military vehicles, but they are totally fine making models with guns and weapons of war so long as they are from the fantasy world or they are not modern.

pfft. Built any “City” theme sets lately? All the police minifigs pack pretty realistic-looking semi-autos.

Do you have a reference to an official Lego City set with semi-autos? I find that hard to believe.

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?q=gun

try this

I still don't see it. There are sci-fi guns like blasters, historical guns like flintlocks, and there are guns used in superhero sets, but nothing for Lego City or any other set that claims to represent real life.

https://warehouse19.se/images/normal/1-1981-.jpg

Admittedly a revolver and not a semi-auto, and I don't know if it's from a current or recently discontinued set. But it's definitely from a modern set.

edit: link to the specific piece: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=1356...

In the first picture, is that from an actual Lego City set, or has someone added the revolver to the police officer from another set?

The BrickLink page lists the revolver as part of a bunch of western and cavalry sets, that is, historical sets. Click "Item Appears In: 7 Sets" to the right.

I was very convinced I'd seen guns in the Lego City sets. Upon further consideration I might have to concede that was, in fact, wrong.

I don’t think that’s true at all. I looked at every police set Lego is selling currently and not a single one of them included even a suggestion of a gun.

Typical police equipment are handcuffs, megaphones, walkie-talkies, traffic paddles and coffee cups. The criminals might carry gold, banknotes, dynamite or crowbars and other tools.

The most gun-like thing in current sets is the huge net shooter (larger than a minifig and not portable at all) that really isn’t very gun-like at all.

Not even the minifig prints include suggestions of guns.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have Playmobil's police sets which include sub machine guns, rifles with sniper-scopes and attack dogs eg [0]

0. https://www.amazon.com/PLAYMOBIL%C2%AE-6872-Police-Command-C...

What do you need guns for anyway? When I was a kid, I armed my Lego The A-Team with small, narrow plates or antennas with ring clips. Worked perfectly.

It is modern military and weapons that are not made. Not weapons per se

This is the best Quora answer I've ever seen. It has illustrations!

https://www.quora.com/When-did-LEGO-set-start-containing-con...

The introduction of weapons was gradual, and except for Batman, they are either historical or futuristic.

From my observations as a foreigner in Denmark, historical or fantasy weapons like swords, spears, shields, clubs acceptable and common. A 6 year old might have a wooden one, and be seen anywhere in the city. A 16 year old might have a foam and fibreglass one, and be seen LARPing in the woods at the weekend. A gun that isn't clearly a water pistol is a rare sight.

If you want an overview of minifigure weapons Lego has used over the years you can get a pretty complete picture here: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?v=2&pg=1&catString...

Even though Lego sets do sometimes include weapons, even very gun-like weapons, to me there is still a pretty clear line Lego draws. Their City sets don’t include guns and guns are the exception, not the rule, otherwise.

Look at Lego’s competitors if you want to get an idea of what Lego could be doing. Obviously those are looking for their niche, so that’s to be expected. They have modern and 20th century military equipment sets and I could never imagine Lego releasing sets like that.

> Their City sets don’t include guns and guns are the exception, not the rule, otherwise.

That line got me thinking. I think you are right and I've never seen a police minifig with a weapon.

I happen to own Lego sets of pirates, which also happen to be my favorites. They have cutlass, pistols, muskets, barrels of rum, jugs of moonshine and other piratey/armada things.

The Lego Western theme from 1996 had masked minifigs, rifles, revolvers, fired dynamite, wads of cash and bank robberies.

http://brickarms.com fills this niche.

> You can buy a clone brand X-wing for 50% of the cost of the genuine set, but the quality is significantly lower in my experience.

Often the knockoff sets are around 25% of the Lego price—I bought a Lepin Porsche for >$80 instead of $300. And the quality was 85%-90% of Lego. So slightly lower, but at a quarter of the price—and price is a feature.

I grew up with Lego in the 1980s; back then they had zero or few tie-ins with branding other than Shell IIRC. There were also fewer specialized pieces, meaning greater emphasis on kids' using their imagination.

This is an often stated criticism of modern Lego designs, but I wonder if anyone has tried to test this empirically?

E.g. if you gave a group of kids a "classic" set and another a themed set, with no further instructions, would the first group produce more "creative" designs?

I think the critics of the branded sets undervalue the Piagetian concept of scaffolding, basically that having the Harry Potter superstructure allows kids to riff on a variety of concepts that actually may be more "creative" than the random geometric blocks.

E.g. "What if we built a jail around Voldermort instead of killing him" seems like an equally valuable expression of creativity as "I made a vaguely car-shaped thing, but it has six wheels instead of four and has those little lever bricks instead of a steering wheel."

Let's do a direct comparison of [1] "70412-1: Soldiers Fort" (2015) to [2] "6263-1: Imperial Outpost" (1995):

- Older set has a big baseplate which enables a child to start building a new structure easily

- Older set has well-pronounced architectural elements like arcs and slopes and feels like a solid structure, newer set feels airy and ad-hoc

- Older set has minifigs with a simple paint, newer set has cartoon-like characters

- Older set has a more realistic colour scheme, newer set again feels cartoonish

- Older set has a specially designed backside for playing and putting minifigs

[1] https://brickset.com/sets/70412-1/Soldiers-Fort

[2] https://brickset.com/sets/6263-1/Imperial-Outpost

They look like different tiers of sets the first one is like a 20$ set while the second is a 10$ one

Yes, and also their shops are more like a DIY warehouse/hardware store, where you get inspired.

I was only about some plastic bricks, ecommerce would suffice. I really think it is the kind of fantasy/DIY/inspiration that you only get from direct experience.

LEGO is the new hardware store.

also it seems they thrive on their focus on price - I'm sure a fair part of that is in the licencing of the tie-ins - but you never see them in a race to the bottom

Thats not completely true, I know people at LEGO, and the best selling sets are Legos own Lego City and Lego Friends.

Best selling doesn't necessarily mean most profitable.

Profits are certainly higher with Friends and City than with Star Wars. Lego saves a lot on licensing there. And the Star Wars sets are a bit more pricey, but per piece the difference isn't that big.

It seems unlikely that they are making more profit per licensed set because they are likely having to pay a cut to a third party (for example, Disney gets a cut of each Star Wars set sold).

So if their license free sets sell better, then it would stand to reason they make more profit off of these.

And a licensed set often has to amortize the cost of tooling made specifically for it.

LEGO is very good at recycling shapes in different colors as special parts for sets. The biggest tooling costs are in the minifigs for special sets, those are almost always there because custom minifigs are an easy way to make a set unique. That way you drive sales because people can't make the set from loose parts.

Those are royalty free.

It should be easy to determine if they are more profitable assuming some kind of percentage going to the brands. If the mark-up is lower than a small percentage they are likely not more profitable, otherwise likely they are more profitable on a unit basis (per set).

I would have expected LEGO Ninjago to be as well. That's their own very distinct IP and the models that are included feature the best original LEGO models you can get. And that on a constant high level for several years now.

Funny that you mention LEGO Friends. In the German adult LEGO community lots of people don't understand LEGO's strategy with Friends and often shop owners on YT videos claim that they don't sell well enough for them.

But they seem to get sold more elsewhere than in the LEGO specific shops.

If LEGO can make sure that stepping on them wouldn't hurt, that's a product quality improvement to me

This is accurate, but the sense I get is that there's a deliberate effort to move from licensed IP to Lego-created brands.

E.g. there are vastly more "Friends" kits, the Lego house brand targeted at girls, than Disney princesses.

Ninjago has become a perennial answer to the sword fighting action that Star Wars only delivers intermittently.

Lego's new "Hidden Side" brand seems clearly targeted at being a Lego-owned alternative to Harry Potter with alternative schools, trains, buses, etc.

I also get the sense that the 3rd party licenses are actually more focused towards the "Adult Fan of Lego/AFOL" community, e.g. the $200 Stranger Things kit, the $399 Disney Castle, and the $799 Millenium Falcon seem priced well above even what generous parents will spend on birthday/holiday gifts.

It would be interesting to see the sales breakdown between in-house and licensed brands and how it's shifting over time.

As the parent of a Lego-consuming youngster I have to agree - but it's also interesting to watch Lego try to create lines that fail to thrive (compare Chima to Ninjago, both started at about the same time, only one remains...) Partly that seems to be about story-telling, maybe ninjas just easier to work with.

Lego Ninjago cartoon is actually quite good. Its on season 9 if i am not mistaken and the movie was pretty good too. Considering its an own brand - it's doing well.

> The phrase "det bedste ir ikke for godt" (roughly "only the best is good enough") has a long history in the company.

Just for the record, the phrase is »kun det bedste er godt nok«.

Your phrase would translate as 'the best is not too good', or in more natural English 'the best is bad' (which more accurately conveys the same meaning).

It's "kun det bedste er godt nok" alright and I would translate that to "Only the best is good enough". Just for the record.

I don't think success like this can be explained by company slogans. They do indeed have very impressive quality and creating parts with the required precision cannot be achieve with a random deep-drawing plastic process.

But I believe a large part of their success is due to being at the right place at the right time. They also had very good marketing. They keep themselves present with all their branded stuff, even if their standard palette is probably far more successful. And they seem to put a lot of effort in their models.

Curiously, some other hobby markets like miniature trains seem to allow for more competition, even if the market is so much smaller.

The quality of LEGO products has been constant across the period when they almost went bankrupt to the point where they are now. It’s not the quality that explains their ups and downs. A huge factors is their branding strategy. When they almost went bankrupt they where paying tons of money to make branded sets that just didn’t push them anywhere, now they have better deals and are doing both Marvel sets, DC sets and also have all the LEGO games, the movies and the LEGO animations putting them at the forefront of every child’s attention. They also have a meme division that’s watching social media full time, and trying to push LEGO variants of everything that goes viral. When the dress of indeterminate color was going around they had a LEGO version the same day. At the same time they’ve managed to create some extremely effective store fronts that sell their brand as much as just the products taking a hint from Apple/Disney.

Now don’t get me wrong injection molding with sub 50um precision is cool. But that’s not the core of their success, they where doing that way back before they struck gold, and 4 year olds playing with their LEGO-hulk wouldn’t notice. Geeks who value quality engineering might appreciate it, but the LEGO-architects was never a blockbuster success, and even their NXT Robot series while fun, aren’t what’s pushing profits.

Cf Mercedes-Benz: The best or nothing

> IMO LEGO thrives thanks to their relentless focus on product quality.

This makes no sense, otherwise only things that are high quality would survive. Everything proves otherwise.

Lego works because it is so versatile.

I'm not saying nothing else survives. Mega Bloks have been around for 30 years and are still filling their market niche well as far as I know. I'm simply saying that quality has been what sets LEGO apart from its competitors. They make great products and target wealthier populations. Their prices (and likely also margins) are higher than their competitors. They're basically the Apple of toys.

Check out Blox bricks for a scary good clone for regular bricks. I can tell every other clone from LEGO bricks with my eyes closed but that one is very good, even the color is fine and they age well too.

> best plastic and tightest tolerances

What all stories people tell themselves to shell out wads of dough on bullshit no one asked for. Apple and every other luxury brand in the world makes use of this story telling subset of the population as an external evangelizing church to keep the dogma flowing.

I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends. I never bought any of my sets with this bonus usecase in mind caring about plastic quality or lifespan . I bought them because I like building stuff.

And yet you didn't buy a competitive building toy other than LEGO.

It's almost like consumers aren't basing their decisions on random dogma.

You come off really, really salty in that opening paragraph.

> I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends

Surely even you have to admit that the engineering quality is what allows you to be able to hand down those bricks?

Well I am salty. And I can't stand what how consumerist LEGO has become. Plus I don't like evangelists. Instead of allowing kids to figure out the value of something themselves, they fill their heads with bullet points about what they are supposed to like about a product.

Kids may not care about product value. But the people who buy the stuff for them do. I know I prefer to buy LEGO over competitor products for my children because I know they won't ever have difficulties building due to parts not fitting well.

I had an opportunity to help a kid in the family put together lego-like model. Parts fitted so bad. One or two were not even fully shaped as if not enough plastic was injected into the mold.

> have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends.

I think that proves the grand-parents point about quality just fine, even if you didn't buy it with that bonus in mind. People today do know that LEGO lasts for decades and it may factor into their decisions. It may also factor into yours now if you buy a new toy for a kid.