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Comment by dmoy | Hacker News Reader

Lego is pure IP (both from LEGO itself, and then e.g. Disney or whoever is behind the theme of a given set). If you get sets designed in China and made at the same factories that make Lego bricks, they're like 1/3 the cost. If you get sets designed in not-China but obviously ripped off ("Star World" sets that are 1:1 copies of Star Wars legos), also in the same factories, it's like 1/10 the cost.

The manufacturing isn't easy, sure, but it's more or less a solved problem and not at all reflected in the cost.

So when GP says priced like Lego, they just mean that - priced based on something completely different from the cost of materials, manufacturing, etc.

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False. Lego is some of the most precise injection molding in the world. The tolerances are insane and they nail them every time. Compare with offbrand building blocks and you'll feel the difference.

Micromolding is very hard, and Lego is the best at it.

10-20 years ago, sure. Nowadays you can get basically the same product from LEGO compatible competitors for way cheaper. Dunno how many modern sets of the variety of competitor stuff you've assembled recently, there's huge variance. Some of it definitely has crap QC. Some of it is really, really good now. My wife put together some knockoff 8000+ piece set the other year and the pieces were basically flawless.

Where I've seen the difference is in the quality of the instructions (which matters) and the packaging (which arguably doesn't). The bricks themselves are, as you say, basically flawless.

Exactly. I bought 3 or 4 China Lego clones to try and the parts were slightly different in size and in color. Some blocks way too big, so building was not good experience. For original Lego you don’t need sanding paper on the table.

> If you get sets designed in China and made at the same factories that make Lego bricks, they're like 1/3 the cost.

Lego does not outsource brick making. They tried it out back in 2005 with Flextronics in Hungary and got a painful lesson. Lego runs all their factories themselves now.

Lego may run the factories, but the factory will run extra and sell the excess off books. Maybe less so nowadays that (1) they can charge a 20-30% premium over US Lego prices in China, and (2) competitor off-brand Lego have caught up in quality

I don't think the official Lego China factory products get sold to the US, only Asia?

they own their factories. Contrary to what you're thinking, they actually only have 3-4 factories across the world.

Right and I'm talking about the one in China (that opened like 10 years ago), selling stuff to people in China (and presumably elsewhere in Asia).

Nowadays it's kinda irrelevant to the greater point anyways, because some of the knock off factories make parts that are just as good. (Some knock off factories push out terrible QC)

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