Lego Goes Back to the Basics: Building Blocks

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "Slashdot recently covered Lego's plan to stop producing its Mindstorms line in response to the Danish company's worst financial loss in history. While the original article linked focused primarily on Lego's plans to cease production on various toy lines, Yahoo News now has a follow-up article that looks in greater detail at Lego's plan for the future. 'We are returning to Lego's former concept,' says Lego owner and president Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. 'We're going to focus on building bricks as our main product, concentrating on little kids' eagerness to assemble.' Kristiansen goes on to blame the company's financial woes on its attempt to follow trends rather than focusing on its more traditional products. In turn, the company's plan for 2004 will include a renewed marketing push for Lego bricks as opposed to licensed products like the Harry Potter and Star Wars lines. Toy researcher Joern Martin Steenhold also notes the following in the article: 'All research, including my own, shows that computer games and other electronic games take up only 20 to 30 percent of children's play time. Boys play with traditional toys up until the age of eight or 10, and it is in the zero to seven age range that Lego has its niche.' Zero to seven? What about the Slashdot crowd?"

Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen

[p4ul13]

He is soon to be a guest on Krusty's Komedy Klassic.

What about the Slashdot crowd?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sharp edges of my Lego RealDoll are a real health hazard. Perhaps Legos with rounded edges might appeal to the adult crowd.

Lego's real problem!

[Peldor]

What's LEGO's problem? Their products don't have a limited lifespan. Twenty year old Legos (Legos, that's right I called them Legos! One Lego, Two Legos, Red Legos, Blue Legos) are just as good as new ones. My own Legos have already been recycled to newer generations a couple of times.

Now if they'd switch to some sort of fast-degrading plastic or better still, edible, they'd have a huge demand without end.

Have a kid!

[l0wland]

If you don't dare to play with Lego anymore, make sure to have a kid!! You'll have a good excuse!

Oh wait.. Slashdot... women...

Re:I still play with my Lego :)

[bconway]

Zero to seven? What about the Slashdot crowd?

I'd say that pretty much covers the maturity level of the posters here.

*Real* fun with Legos

[Anonymous Coward]

Lego Death [blockdeath.com]

ROFLMAOPIMP

Re:Great news for parents and children

[Geek of Tech]

>> I'm beginning to have faith that I may be able to buy new Lego for my future children

Slashdot translation:
I'm beginning to have faith that I may be able to buy Legos for my future children so that I can play with them.

Reminds me of an old joke

[ThinWhiteDuke]

Do you know the difference between a clitoris and a Lego brick?

If you don't, keep playing with Lego.

Legos + PC parts = The next HP home machine

[earplug]

Legos is going the wrong way! They shouldn't be simplifying their available projects, they should just be changing them to target the future...

Imagine tech support calls:

Tech: Tech support how may I help you?
Caller: Yeah I'm having a problem plugging in the processor to the motherboard
Tech: Were you following the directions? What step are you on?
Caller: Instructions? Hell I've just been stacking parts on top of each other like I did when I was a kid!

Lego bequest & a funny coincidence

[blackdefiance]

When I was in college I decided to give all my old Lego to some young cousins who would have more time to appreciate them than I did. So I packed them all up in a big suitcase and flew out to visit. En route, the suitcase was affixed with a big luggage tag.

When I got there, my cousin, who was probably about five, looked at the suitcase and said "Hey! It says LEGO on it!!". Sure enough -- the routing code printed on the tag in big letters was 0637 -- "LEGO" upside down.

I love it when randomness works in interesting ways.

Re:"What about the Slashdot Crowd?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Proposed new Slashdot moderation:
+1, Likes Lego

Re:Walgreens overpopulation

[pantycrickets]

You could throw a rock from any one of the drugstores and hit any of the other ones. I am sure there is some reason for this, but I have yet to be told what it is.

Americans are drug addicts?

Re:"What about the Slashdot Crowd?"

[digitalsushi]

LEGO are definitely expensive, but you do have to admit they last forever. Some of my LEGO men have been through the dog on countless adventures, and besides a dynamic ethnicity, have always been there at the end. A good bath and they're always back to their cheery Danish Yellow selves.

Re:Reminds me of an old joke

[Cpt_Kirks]

Uhh, you don't lick a lego?

Re:"What about the Slashdot Crowd?"

[ShadyG]

Should have previewed before posting. It's the meter-long Star Destroyer, of course. Hmm...which dimension of the Death Star is the long one again?

Zero to Seven

[Ray Radlein]

What do you mean, "What about the Slashdot crowd?" -- they're zero-indexing their age range, aren't they? Isn't that enough?

Re:Nth Post

[Afrosheen]

Not to mention your parents 'finding' the lost Legos in the middle of the night walking through your house. You'd definitely hear about it in the morning.

It's surprising how painful a little brick of plastic can be when it's jamming into your foot at 3am.

Re:Walgreens overpopulation

[los furtive]

I am sure there is some reason for this, but I have yet to be told what it is.

Ever notice how often you'll find a gas station right across the street from another gas station? Even if they both have the same price? It's because there's enough traffic to justify their existence. You are describing the same trend when it comes to America's increasingly aged population.

The older you get the more pills you pop, and those pills keep costing more and more (and generating more and more profit no doubt), and when you're 75 with a cane, a stone's throw is from your bladder to the bowl, making an intersection, let alone a city block seem like a great distance.

It's about time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I played with legos when I was a kid in the late 60's/early 70's, and remember a lot of time spent being creative, building all kinds of stuff. I was limited only by my imagination, blah blah blah.

At various times during the past 7 years, I've shopped for new Lego sets for my son. It has become increasingly difficult to find "general" Lego sets that a kid can be creative with. Instead, I see lots of "themed" sets, where you get 5 or 6 really elaborate pieces only useful for one thing. Mixing and matching stuff from different sets is less than satisfying: "My life-like pteradoctyl is riding a fully-functional dune buggy to Hogwarts school to fight Anakin Skywalker". Unless you want to build exactly what is shown on the cover of the box, you're out of business. As a result, my son finds Legos in general to be kind of a bore, and he's right. I'm glad to hear that Lego Inc. is getting back to what made them successful in the first place. I was dreading a LoTR themed set with the character "Legolas" made out of actual Lego's.

Supremacy Blocks?

[Just Some Guy]

So, Legos are made by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen? A guy named KKK made something called "Mindstorm"? I'm honestly surprised that my mother-in-law hasn't forwarded an email to me yet warning that Legos are a tool of white supremacists to convert our kids into little racist robots.

Come to think of it, that would make for one of the saner forwards from her.

Re:Reminds me of an old joke

[Bertie]

Is the answer "you can find Lego bricks" - invariably by standing on the fuckers barefoot?

Is there any pain that compares?

Re:what I would like to see

[Migrant Programmer]

I hear there's parts of Amsterdam where you can pay by cup size, too.

Re:I still play with my Lego :)

[MullerMn]

much to the wife's annoyance (that I'm taking up closet space)

Perhaps it's time to come out the closet? I'm sure your wife will understand.

Ahw man, I was hoping that...

[Peterus7]

I'd see something to the effect of...
A: Lego Army men
B: Lego Star trek (yeah, ok, they'd need copyright stuff, but I know that there'd be a proliferation of lego comic things... And I'd buy them just to take pictures of the red shirted ensign pieces getting killed in various ways.)
C: Lego Warhammer 40k (finally, a cheap and fun way to play warhammer! Of course this would be directed at the younger crowd...)
D: Lego D&D (Miniatures take too damn long to paint.)
E: Lego Half life
F: Lego programming department (so the /. people are appeased.)

Too bad they'd never get the copyright stuff...

Can't resist.

[adun]

"Zero to seven? What about the Slashdot crowd?"

You mean they're not synonymous with each other?

great news, no poo indeed!

[spoonyfork]

I was shopping for gifts for the younger tikes in my family at Toys R Us and I was lamenting that they didn't have the legos I grew up with. I played with those things for hours and hours until I hit the 'teens. Like many people here, I attribute some of my exercised creativity and engineering acumen to that toy. I want the same for my family's offspring. I couldn't see how a star wars or harry potter set would give a kid enough generic stuff to build what they wanted to build.

I'm so happy lego made this decision that I went to their website to write them a thank you note. Having to register, I used my ubiquitous spoonyfork handle and it wouldn't let me because Username cannot contain 'poo'.. Right. :/