Theorectical Analysis: Bionicle's Aftermath

[fishers64]

At the end of Bionicle, the fans of Bionicle seemed to sort themselves out into the following three trends:

 

There were people who were into the sets (constraction figures) but didn't really want to try to figure out Bionicle's complex story.

 

There were people who were into the story and followed it, but didn't buy as many sets. (Or none at all!)

 

There were people (mostly young kids) who thought that the Technicish figures of Bionicle and the complex story of Bionicle were above their heads.

 

This above is something that I observed, although it does have a theorectical element. And there are exceptions to ALL of these rules. The point was that a lot of people tended to swing toward one of these trends.

 

I theorize that Lego's reaction to this was to create three separate lines in response to these three groups.

 

Hero Factory has constraction figures as its primary staple, and has a simple story, just enough for the creative roleplayer but eschewing the complications.

 

Ninjago has the complex story, capitalizing on fan loyalty so much that the large fan crowd convinced Lego to bring it back. But it has system sets, which aims off of what Bionicle was supposed to do - introduce kids to system.

 

Chima appeals to the little kids with it's markedly little kid and easy to get story, while doing system and simple constraction sets little kids will get.

 

That's my theory - knock it down.

Edited December 12, 2013 by fishers64

[Hitoshura]

It makes sense, but not really in my case, because the categories aren't really that broad, I guess. I think this is just a coincidence, partly because I doubt Ninjago wasn't made just because Bionicle ended. Just what I think, really.

[Lyichir]

At the end of Bionicle, the fans of Bionicle seemed to sort themselves out into the following three trends:

 

There were people who were into the sets (constraction figures) but didn't really want to try to figure out Bionicle's complex story.

 

There were people who were into the story and followed it, but didn't buy as many sets. (Or none at all!)

 

There were people (mostly young kids) who thought that the Technicish figures of Bionicle and the complex story of Bionicle were above their heads.

 

This above is something that I observed, although it does have a theorectical element. And there are exceptions to ALL of these rules. The point was that a lot of people tended to swing toward one of these trends.

 

I theorize that Lego's reaction to this was to create three separate lines in response to these three groups.

 

Hero Factory has constraction figures as its primary staple, and has a simple story, just enough for the creative roleplayer but eschewing the complications.

 

Ninjago has the complex story, capitalizing on fan loyalty so much that the large fan crowd convinced Lego to bring it back. But it has system sets, which aims off of what Bionicle was supposed to do - introduce kids to system.

 

Chima appeals to the little kids with it's markedly little kid and easy to get story, while doing system and simple constraction sets little kids will get.

 

That's my theory - knock it down.

The main problem with this theory is the lack of evidence for any sort of coordinated effort. There's no evidence that the designers of Hero Factory had Ninjago's future release in mind when they crafted the theme, nor is there evidence that Chima was planned alongside Ninjago (in fact, the evidence seems to point to Chima basically being intended to fill in for Ninjago once it ended, since Ninjago's continuation was a late-game decision on Lego's part).

 

It is true that the themes you listed are largely aimed at different audiences, and it's easy to see some parallels between those audiences and specific subsets of Bionicle fans. But this seems to be less of a planned design to satisfy the groups that once made up Bionicle's fanbase and more of an organic reaction to what sort of audiences Lego's other themes had yet to capture.

[Adventurer]

There may be some truth in it - but I suspect the inception of the idea behind each of those lines happened separately by different people at different times and were probably the result of market research. The research probably indicated a follow up to the visual style of Bionicle (HF) would be a smart idea (may not even be researched based this part) but that a more accesible storyline was needed to avoid what perhaps may have been seen at the time as a downfall of Bionicle. Later on or even simultanetously Ninjango could have been developed from separate but similar research indicating a more extensive, character and story based media franchise would suit the market. Obviously that's just my guess but I don't think they would have been created purely to complement each other (though obviously they would have been aware of their other projects and avoided overlap so that's where the compltementry nature of the themes comes from) - I think it's more likely desirable franchise attributes were researched and then lines would have been created around those attrubutes. All speculation really since we don't work there.

[Lenny7092]

Hmm... I can see that. How you said it sounds like that Bionicle had either made three children, which will take its place when it is ended, or had divided into three new parts of it. I think perhap Lego did this to make up and do what is best for Lego fans, who loved Bionicle a lot, when Lego ended Bionicle.