I share part of his sentiment, there was a different culture with lego before. Now, afaik, LEGO cannot make enough money this way so they pivot into marketable sets with higher profits or sales figures. But this still causes a brand perception shift.
It bugged me 20 years ago as a kid. I just wanted more stuff like Rock Raiders.
"They're miners... in space! They mine green Energy Crystals!" That's all you need. There was a K'nex mining set about the same time. Good stuff.
Then I realized that most of the catalog was like, Lego Harry Potter. Yeah, I really am complaining about what everyone else buys. I was up to my nose in Harry Potter merch already, I owned all 7 books. I wanted more Rock Raiders and Insectoids.
Same, except I wanted more m-tron. Put space rocks in a box, lift it up with a magnet, fly off. Great fun!
Heck, my kindergarten daughter likes that formula. I'm pretty sure there is a marketable business somewhere in there, but maybe not at sufficient scale
The patents for their core IP expired. You can legally sell generic compatible lego blocks now. So to maintain mindshare they have to do licensed movie tie-ins, their own movies and other such stuff.
I get why but it feels less timeless than it used to, perhaps with less emphasis on creativity-led play. But what do I know - I'm a grownup.
In the age of Megabloks, Lego still had the moat of their pieces actually being fit for purpose. Megabloks were ass, and even a kid could instantly tell.
And their directions were always a ton better, for sets—though they used to be more like spot-the-difference puzzles than they are now, which I credit with my burying the needle on a spatial reasoning test in high school, so I’m kinda sad they lost that perhaps-accidental pedagogical value in the shift to the you-can-follow-them-in-your-sleep, modern style of directions.
But maybe the knockoff competitors aren’t as obviously-shit as they were in the earlier days?
The knock-offs I’ve handled recently are still terrible. They don’t fit well. No satisfying click. The colors feel off..
I wanted to like the cheaper brands but none of them have the same Lego engineering quality. We dusted off some of my old lego and the bricks still fit perfectly with the new bricks 30+ years later!
Even today the LEGO-compatible knock-offs are complete junk, my kids occasionally end up picking up a loose bag for £1 from the local charity shop. Pieces don't stick together properly (with each other, let alone LEGO pieces); legs, arms, and hands come off the minifigs; etc. You can instantly tell — even ignoring the assault rifles that would never make it in a LEGO box.
