“Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?

http://pando.com/2014/03/21/netflix-for-legos-is-an-awesome-idea-but-can-it-scale/

by Steveism • 12 years ago

27 43 12 years ago

Steveism• 12 years ago

Being able to "lose" 15 pieces out of each set without incurring any penalty sounds like a great way to grow the home lego collection. The Pley membership cost isn't cheap but neither are new lego sets.

dav-• 12 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. I wonder if Pley will track how many pieces each customer claims to "lose" and will eventually start penalizing them somehow?

If there was a 6-day round trip for receiving sets and sending them back, you could get around 3-4 sets a month. That's 45-60 free pieces.

You could perhaps realistically steal a 32x32 baseplate ($4.99), 4 2x8 bricks ($0.50/ea), and 10 2x4 bricks ($0.30/ea). That's up to $39.96/month worth of legos.

If you just stole 2x8s and 2x4s, that would be anywhere from $18 to $30/month. Their lowest tier starts at just $15/month.

Prices from http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Pick-A-Brick-ByTheme

csbrooks• 12 years ago

I told my kids about this. They were like "how is that like Netflix?" I realized to them, Netflix is a company that streams video to you. They don't remember a time we used Netflix to get DVDs in the mail.

plorg• 12 years ago

Right, but your kids aren't thinking like buzz marketers: 1.) Do X 2.) Pitch as "Netflix for X" 3.) ... 4.) Profit

AlexMuir• 12 years ago

Being lego, this actually solves a lot of my immediate worries:

Sets can be weighed back in. Missing pieces are held in stock and can easily be replaced.

Lego can go into a washing machine/steriliser.

It is light and virtually impossible to damage in transit (assuming they devise good packaging)

There is minimal depreciation, and demand for new sets won't be absurd. (vs textbooks and general toys)

You have to work hard to hurt yourself with faulty lego.

The only problem I see is (for my family at least) Lego was faddish. We didn't touch it for months, then couldn't get enough of it for three weeks. This is a difficulty for a subscription model.

Overall this is an excellent idea.

gkoberger• 12 years ago

I feel this takes away a lot of the fun. There won't be mixing and matching of sets and peices; no experimenting nor creating new things. Partially because it won't be allowed (what parent will want to re-sort the sets), but mostly because it's impossible (you only get one set at a time).

Legos were awesome because you could experiment and build and create new things. Now, they're just a paint-by-numbers, follow the instructions, build something Hollywood designed type toy.

hayksaakian• 12 years ago

You can still buy a 'bucket' of random bricks. For various reasons, those probably generate less revenue than sponsored sets. ex: marvel, starwars themed legos

thwarted• 12 years ago

[random buckets of bricks] probably generate less revenue than sponsored sets. ex: marvel, starwars themed legos

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2014/02/infoporn-legos/

e12e• 12 years ago

Are they sponsored? I thought they were licensed?

wvenable• 12 years ago

Nothing has changed. I had so many cool Lego sets as a kid with all kinds of cool pieces. I'd build those sets once, play with them, and then that mass of pieces would join the rest. I always build different and crazy things.

Now my son has a bunch of mixed up Lego sets and occasionally gets a new Star Wars set. As much as he loves playing with the pre-built stuff, Luke Skywalker also spends a considerable amount of time down on the ranch hanging out with cowboys.

rhubarbquid• 12 years ago

I feel this takes a way a lot of the fun.

Agreed. Building the kit by the instructions was only about 1/10th of the fun. The real fun was building new stuff out of the pieces from all the sets you have.

BIair• 12 years ago

I'm not surprised this is the top comment on a hacker site. But having watched my 5-year old son assemble a 300 piece set while following a 40+ page manual, gave me a new appreciation. He was obviously creating a new thing, even if not experienting. Not only did he have great pride in his creation, but he leaned a lot about 3D visualization and spacial awareness. Sign me up!

nashadelic• 12 years ago

I have a 3 year old and he's too young to make lego city sets from the instructions but he loves playing with them and watching me make a set and helping. However, when I leave him with the bricks, he plays on his own, makes funky looking cars and planes. I've seen him spent a lot of time figuring a brick out by keep trying it with different bricks. It's very cool to see the learning process in real time.

I think children learn more by mixing, matching and making their own creations not just following the instructions. It was nice to see that the Lego movie was about this too.

malkia2• 12 years ago

Same here. But occasionally he'll diverge and change the design a bit, or he'll try to build it just by looking at the cover, or not finish the third rail wagon, because he has the main engine, and a second one.

henrikschroder• 12 years ago

Now, they're just a paint-by-numbers

No, they're both. The sets we loved as kids still exist, they just don't advertise them as much as the licensed properties, but they sure as hell haven't discontinued them:

http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator/products/all-models http://www.lego.com/en-us/city/products http://www.lego.com/en-us/castle http://galaxysquad.lego.com/en-us

cbhl• 12 years ago

I wonder if parents still buy the sets we loved as kids; the last time I looked I had a hard time finding one in the local Toys R' Us or Sears.

(For that matter, do kids still ask their parents to buy these sets?)

mbreese3• 12 years ago

CITY is actually the world-wide best selling theme (or at least it was a few years ago)[1]. So while there are lots of other themes, just plain old Lego sets are still going strong.

[1] http://lego.gizmodo.com/5019797/everything-you-always-wanted...

agumonkey• 12 years ago

The space category seems "thin" now.

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/qi_tah/13303087844/ a little evolution shot

cheeyoonlee• 12 years ago

Not sure if this was mentioned but upon signing up, there are "Creative Crates" which are sets with randomly assorted pieces (up to 600). I think that pretty much covers your need.

stormbrew2• 12 years ago

This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think.

I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough.

I've long had a theory that Lego is vulnerable to 3d printers in exactly the same way as Polaroid was to digital cameras. Polaroid also seemed on top of the world for a while, but they clung to their model too long and it was too late.

Gracana• 12 years ago

Sure you can print interlocking bricks with a 3D printer, but there are some problems to solve if you want to even approach the quality of legos. The lego interlocking bump mechanism alone is a precision interface which requires tight tolerances and a controlled surface finish, both of which are currently impossible to match with 3D printing technology. The outside dimensions of the parts are quite important as well, particularly the vertical dimension: deviations run-to-run and-part-to-part will give you trouble with accumulating height offset errors in stacks of bricks. Where bricks should match up, they may not.

stormbrew2• 12 years ago

You may note I did not say it's possible now, but it would be absurd to think that it won't at some point in the future. You could have said the same about early digital cameras, which produced incredibly shitty pictures compared to even a polaroid. And that even when polaroid began to get utterly destroyed by digital cameras they still weren't really up to snuff, other factors overrode their low quality.

And if Lego wants to survive it when it does come, imo they should be thinking about this now.

malkia2• 12 years ago

And my kid can spot the difference between LEGO and some other brands, even if the pieces are compatible - it's something about the texture, the coloring, and how they stick together that makes LEGO unique.

Recently he got some cheap "no-name" chinese produced "lego-clone" - just a tractor and a character to drive it. It was so bad, the pieces were not sticking together properly. The character's head kept falling off, and the hair piece too.

But eventually he used some real lego "replacement" pieces and did it.

We must have like 10,000+ pieces now... If only there was a sorting LEGO machine!

primitivesuave• 12 years ago

Laser sintering can supposedly achieve the resolution of the Lego molds, but the technology is very expensive and much slower than Lego's injection molding process. Chances are we won't see this in the hands of consumers for another 5 - 10 years, but I totally agree with you that it will eventually happen.

arb99• 12 years ago

It is a kids toy. They see it in a kids toy shop and want to buy it. There are already non lego bricks but every kid knows they're not as good, never work properly.

Plus no matter how great 3d printers become, the bricks would still need designing, and making sure they have the exact fit on each other like lego bricks always do.

lego won't be killed off by 3d printing.

drakaal3• 12 years ago

1. The plural of Lego is Lego.

2. You get a set with 1273 pieces. You find out there are only 1265 pieces. There is great sadness.

3. When you combine Yellow Tiger and Red Tiger and all their friends you get Voltron. You can play with friends and share, at the end of the day you uncombine and you each have a tiger. Much fun is had. With Lego if you combine Lord of the Rings and Spiderman much fun is had. When you try to uncombine you end up with a lot more red and blue in middle earth than there used to be.

DanAndersen• 12 years ago

Addressing #1:

"Photoshop" is not a verb (and should be replaced with the equally-easy-to-say verb "enhance using Adobe® Photoshop® software") [1], but that doesn't stop people from using it as such anyway. The presence of an extra 's' doesn't impair meaning and focusing on it tends to be a distraction.

[1] http://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html#photo...

drakaal3• 12 years ago

If you are doing a pitch, "Netflix for Octopusses" would make you look stupid. Grammar does matter, especially when you are trying to convince the world you aren't an idiot.

bostonpete• 12 years ago

Any story about Legos on the internet is required to include comments pointing out three facts:

1. Plural of Lego is Lego or Lego bricks

2. Kids in this day and age are lacking creativity because they never combine their Legos into a big box when they're done building the initial design

3. The makers of Legos demean girls by marketing girly sets to them.

MarkTee• 12 years ago

LEGO used to have a large notice on their site, similar to that one:

“The word LEGO is a brand name, and is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely like your help in keeping it special. Please always refer to our products as “LEGO bricks or toys” and not “LEGOS.” By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand of which we are very proud, and that stands for quality the world over. Thank you!”

mintone• 12 years ago

Lego. I spoke to my parents about 6 months ago whilst they were having a clear out of family toys from yesteryear - their main question: "What do you want us to keep for your (potential) children?"

My answer was quite simple: "My Lego and my Brio - that's about it"

Lego is made to last a lifetime and more, specified to an extreme degree and made with tolerances far and beyond most consumer electronics; it is something that can be inherited. The important part here is that I wouldn't want my children to inherit a set - I would want them to inherit the bricks - that is the fun of Lego. I want to give them 2 30 gallon boxes of bricks and boards and men and all sorts because creativity is not born of following instructions - it comes from deciding to create an aeroplane from the odd bits and pieces that you have at hand.

There is a very good reason that these[1] adverts aren't for sets - Lego is amazing because you can create whatever you can imagine with it and for that reason this doesn't sit very well with me. But then I have 60 gallons of lego waiting for me when I eventually procreate so what do I care...

[1] http://speckyboy.com/2009/03/16/39-creative-lego-advertiseme...

mbreese3• 12 years ago

My son inherited my old Legos (mid-late 80s) when my dad moved somewhat recently. He actually lost a somewhat rare piece from one of the newer Star Wars sets and we found a replacement in the big bin of Lego from my childhood. That then led to a long building session of putting together one of the classic airport sets. It was awesome. And because it's Lego - they all still fit. I also had about a dozen 1980-something space guys, which was a great tie in for the movie.

So yes - keep the Lego, ditch everything else. You can download almost all of the old instructions online, which makes it that much better.

samstave• 12 years ago

If I can check out the best of Lego ever; Space Lego: then I am a customer.

Lego's worst mistake was discontinuing that. Mine was not keeping what I had over the decades. Same Mistake...

e28eta• 12 years ago

I've been a subscriber for months.

Their selection of the larger sets is limited, which is understandable. They've been getting better, but there have been times when it took days or weeks to ship the next set because I only wanted a 1000+ piece set, and they didn't have enough of them.

The sets I've received have either been brand new (still in original plastic bags), or missing several minor pieces. You can log in and tell them which exact pieces are missing and they'll ship them to you (or supposedly add them to the set for the next person), but it's only after you've tried to build the full thing that you know all the pieces that are missing.

Unlike Netlix DVDs, it's hard to turn around a set quickly. I end up holding onto each one for a week or three.

I enjoyed the Lego Movie, it touched on the idea of following the instructions vs building something unique. Pley/Pleygo is trying to encourage inventiveness, with photo contests.

Still, I'm happy with the service, and have recommended it to friends.

watwut• 12 years ago

"LEGOs are crazy-expensive. If you want to buy a Star Wars set bigger than your fist you’re likely to drop $50 or more. "

Not really. When you are buying Star Wars set, you are paying for IP. Of course it is incredibly expensive. It is different when you are buying non ip packs of bricks and less popular sets. Brick price measured by volume or number is cheaper then ever been.

Here is someone who calculated it: http://therealityprose.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/what_happene...

deletes• 12 years ago

The phrase Netflix for Legos, gave me absolutely no idea what was their service, until I visited Pley website, where it clearly said, Rent LEGO. Sometimes you just can't apply software analogy to hardware.

“Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?

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