Brainstorm Opportunity for LEGO Creator 2017

[Black Six]

Kevin Hinkle may have moved on from his roll as Community Manager, but it's already clear that we'll still be seeing a lot of him. For example, earlier today he shared the following message with the LEGO Ambassadors:

Hello & Good Afternoon RLUG Ambassadors,

 

I hope this message finds you each well! Our department is currently in dialog with the LEGO Creator Marketing Teams to explore ways in which we can work together in 2017. We, specifically referring to the LEGO Community Engagement (LCE) Department, the global 13+ LEGO User Community and global / local LEGO marketing units.

 

One area we wish to focus on is the LEGO building experience itself. Many children today are primarily attracted to storytelling such as depicted in LEGO play themes like LEGO Ninjago & LEGO Star Wars. LEGO Creator on the other hand focuses on the brick and the timeless concept of open ending building & creativity. What better audience, than the AFOL community, to speak to about championing and amplifying the LEGO building experience?

 

On behalf of my colleagues, I’d like to launch a month long LAN Workgroup to gather your ideas and suggestions on activities, initiatives, and/or projects we could execute together to help market the LEGO Creator core message “Joy of Building.”

 

If you are interested, please feel free to participate! There is no limit to the number of ideas we can collect (nor number of RLUG Ambassadors that can be in the Workgroup). Resource conversations aside- what ideas do you and your RLUG members have that you’d like to share with us for exploration? How do you message the “Joy of Building” in your RLUG? Are there activities already taking place in the AFOL community that we should tap into and/or amplify? Something we’ve done in the past that should be revisited? Something never before seen? Hopefully we can build something awesome together for 2017!

 

Thank you for your time and continued support of the LEGO Brand & Hobby.

 

Sincerely,

 

Kevin Hinkle

Market Integration Manager

Marketing & Open Innovation

If you have any ideas to share, please post them here by September 12th! I'll collect them all and pass them on to Kevin and the team.

[Ghidora131]

Well, not much I can add here...

 

What I've heard from a lot of LUG members is that LEGO isn't putting enough interesting parts into Creator sets, and that they missed the good ol' days where creator sets had eight possibly combinations, not just two or three. I definitely agree on the latter; Creator sets need more creative function to them, more alternate builds.

 

I remember when I got a bix set that let you build several little robots. The robots were meh-quality, you could only build a few at a time, but it was wonderful because you could tell how much love was put into it. That had 10+ instructions in it, and was one of my favorite sets.

 

Nowadays you often get two mediocre models that don't really capture your attention, and only one of them looks reasonable, not really warranting a 20$-30$ price. The one thing LEGO did better than anyone else ever was to make their sets incredibly opportune, and I think every theme - especially Creator - can benefit heavily by returning to this standard.

 

That's just my two cents, after all; Take it with a bucket of salt.

[Toa Imrukii]

Less Licensed themes, and more Original and Completely unique IPs. More Pieces with unique Colors would be good to.

 

 

I don't use Bricks very much if at all, so I wouldn't really know. These just seem like the most pressing matters to attend with in order to make LEGO enjoyable for what it's core concept is, and stands for.

[Pohaturon]

I used to like Creator when I was smaller, but had a few gripes with the sets that seem to still be around. They just weren't unique or interesting, but bland and generic. A Creator bird wasn't a cool bird, it was just any odd bird. A Creator house wasn't some awesome modern house or medieval house, it was just a stereotypical boring house. The robot/mech Creator sets were the best, as well as those little pod-things, but even those were hit and miss.

 

What Creator needs to bring back the "joy of building" boils down to two things: parts and function. Creator has pretty much never been the go-to theme for acquiring special parts, as these sets have the absolute highest concentration of generic pieces. Obviously this is tied into the "build what you want" mentality as specialised parts limit what they can be used for, but that doesn't mean that more unique elements can't be included. Some of the special and unique parts out there also happen to be the most versatile, so please, put more unique parts into Creator sets.

 

As for functions, hear me out. With the joy of building being the focus, obviously there is more emphasis on the actual process of construction than there is on the final finished set. However, implementing functions of varying complexity into sets without damaging their design in the end is what leads to some of the most interesting building experiences Lego has to offer. The techniques used to conceal mechanisms without taking up too much space, the ways of blending functions into the overall design - these are what truly give a build its bite.

 

Bonus: do some constraction Creator sets. Most official constraction sets are humanoid, but MOCists out there have proven time and again that there is much more potential in CCBS. You can even mix System and constraction and make some truly unique Creator sets.

 

Those are my two cents, at the very least.

 

[TuragaTahu]

Kids like story? What if Creator made models based on themes not being made at the current time? I'm sure a detailed Castle with 2-3 alternate builds would be rather popular.