Was it HF's or constraction's fault that HF ended?

[Lenny7092]

Hi, guys! It's been 5 years since HF ended in 2014, and we don't have a G2 that could replace Bionicle G2 when Bionicle G2 ended in 2016 for some reason.  Well, I see that there are some people that are pessimistic about HF for how it was sold and performed. I get that it had a lot of mistakes, silly things, unfinished content, bad handling of promotions, and budget issues. People can blame HF for its poor performance, which some say that it may have led to its unannounced cancellation in 2014. HF had been doing well in 2010-2012, but went downhill in 2013-2014. Well, I don't blame HF for its poor performance. I would say that constraction in general was having problems. Look at Bionicle G2. It got worse before it got mysteriously ended in 2016. So, I think this decade is terrible for constraction in general, so we never had HF G2 to replace Bionicle G2 yet and constraction is gone from this year. Even Bionicle G1 ended in 2010. This decade is cursed, I say, because constraction went downhill before it disappeared. Bionicle G1 was successful in the last decade and never ended in 2-5 years, so yeah. Plus, if HF had existed in the last decade, it would do the same as Bionicle. 

So, would you blame HF or contraction's bad business in this decade for HF's horrible end? Just asking.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Lenny7092

[Mukaukau Nuva]

I don't think HF was a bad business decision. Most LEGO themes do not run continuously for 9 years. Most run for 3 years. That HF ran for 4 years implies a lot about it; that it was a better-than-average but not exceptional theme. Which is pretty much what it was (once you disregard the stigma it gets for not being Bionicle). HF has more in common with your run-of-the-mill LEGO theme than it does with Bionicle when it comes to branding. This means that the story doesn't really matter. 

If anything, I'd say G2 was a worse business decision. It ran for only 2 years, which indicates to me that the company had little investment in it; that later came to show when poor advertising and weak branding led to substandard sales. Personally, I think constraction is on a downturn ATM because the development team had no plan for G2 failing, and thus had no ideas prepared to replace it when it ended prematurely. Developing LEGO themes can take a long time; I wouldn't be surprised if G2 was implicitly expected to last for 4-5 years. Thus, G2's replacement was planned to begin development now, with the expectation that G2 would currently be running at the time. However, G2 isn't running ATM, and the replacement theme hasn't caught up yet.

That's just my opinion tho. It could be original constraction brands were put on hold after G2; in this case, G2 was a test to see if the market was still hungry for constraction; given that the test failed, we might not see any more of it.

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by Mukaukau Nuva
spelling

[Sir Keksalot]

HF wasn't made to last, just as a stand-in, and it never really did worse than Bionicle at its own worst. It simply wasn't essential for Lego to keep it around when they could reboot Bionicle (which, ironically, only did about as well as HF), and short of introducing the stronger joints of CCBS, it didn't really have much going for it.

Bear in mind, G2 fell short for most of the same reasons as HF; namely, shoddy stories and characters and lousy marketing (though this owed at least partially to Lego having to un-cancel Ninjago, which sucked money out of other stuff). The only difference was that most HF sets were middle-of-the-pack in terms of quality, whereas G2 wildly fluctuated between really good and really bad sets. Both were also hugely overshadowed by Ninjago, which sold to the same audience.

Really, HF and G2 both failed to take off like G1 did because of a variety of internal and external factors. Constraction isn't unviable, it's just that it doesn't have what it needs right now to succeed. If Ninjago bites it--and it eventually must--then it'll be constraction's time to rise.