J.A.F. Team

Aww. I'm not familiar with the series it's from, but that was still one awesome set idea. Shame.

 

~B~

I feel like the lack of any target audience appeal is another factor. The movie came out years ago, and the TV show was canceled even before that. I'd be surprised if the target audience even heard of the show/movie.

I'm surprised LEGO went with the Minecraft LEGO set. IMO Cuusoo shouldn't be for licensed stuff, because that costs more, and should be about finding the inner talent of the AFOLs for original stuff. That EVE ship could easily be a generic space ship if they didn't make it look like EVE's (or admit it)--like they could do space stuff like the Space Skulls were, or like those western things you mentioned.

 

We need more black female heads (and male). Or at least simply black smiley faces.

 

We also need more X-Men sets and figs. Pleeeaaaase.

 

-CF

One thing people need to consider is that even if the content of the set is OK, making a licensed set involves TLG making ties with the property the license is based on. I can't tell you how many movie and television franchises I mostly ignored until a LEGO set based on them appeared. And if kids are getting exposed to content their parents consider inappropriate through LEGO licensed products, things won't turn out too well for TLG.

 

I think eliminating licensed products from Cuusoo would be a bad move. For starters, those are some of the things drawing outside attention to Cuusoo. I'm sure there are even AFOLs who are more passionate about the licensed proposals there than many of the non-licensed ones.

 

Additionally, a proposal being based on a license doesn't make it non-creative. A lot of AFOLs are heavily inspired by the other fandoms they are a part of. Hence some of the support for licensed proposals coming from AFOLs. It's a lot easier to build and propose something people will feel strongly about if it's something they will be familiar with.

 

Finally, note that while only one of the Cuusoo proposals to have become a set is "licensed" in the strictest sense of the word (the Minecraft set), none of them have been "original creations"-- the other two successful projects were based rather strictly on two real-world exploration craft. Eliminating licenses doesn't guarantee "original" creations, because there are hundreds of things people can be familiar with and passionate about from real life.

And licensing isn't always the expensive route. Or Minecraft's the exception. Because Mojang just gave their permission - so no extra money for licensing - and opted to give the 1% Cuusoo profits to charity. Really was a nonissue.