Lego is so popular, it can’t keep up with demand | Hacker News Reader

Lego is so popular, it can’t keep up with demand

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35 pointsdavidbarker38 comments

Companies that quickly expand to meet sudden demand find themselves over capitalized when the demand inevitably drops, and often bankrupt soon afterwards.

Lego has always been managed for the long term and I assume they will grow production capacity only to the extent that they believe the demand growth is structural and not cyclical.

They could raise prices if they didn't mind the negative PR.

But why?

The glory of privately held companies is that they can say "Enough. There are things more important to me than another dollar."

And when I say "they" I literally mean a small group of humans, able to project non-monetary desire onto corporate behavior. The abstraction of public ownership does away with this, leaving only "more".

These owners, with perspective and wisdom, are few and far between.

And that's the difference between conservative but revolutionary, in it for the long haul private Nintendo and trend-chasing, Super Mario Run, "we have shareholders to appease, let's throw anything at the wall and see what sticks but in the meantime here are a few tentpole franchise remakes/rehashes" public Nintendo.

But the prices are already ridiculous for plastic blocks.

IIRC Lego are made with incredibly precise tolerances, in part because that really is important to getting such small bricks to lock together, and in part because the family that owns the company has a cultural fixation with it.

This post reminds me: History repeats itself.

Once upon a time, we moved from 16-bit graphics to 32-bit and more. Everything seemed so lively and real. Windows XP icons suddenly became so lovely.

Now, it looks like we're bored with these great graphics again, and want to go back to the 80s and 90s. So we build games and animations that resemble that 16-bit graphics.

Odd thing is, now we watch 16-bit, pixelified faces on 32-bit Full HD screens.

A few years later, all this hype about "flat design" will subside, and we'll miss XP icons again.

And so it goes on and on...

Just like fashion, just like music, just like everything involving aesthetics, no? It's cyclic.

Yeah, exactly like fashion.

Grown-ups can play with Lego too! Here's a GBC (Great Ball Contraption); looks like lots of fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUtS52lqL5w

Thanks for the link. I've been to Lego Land in San Diego and seen Lego exhibits before, but I've never seen anything like the GBC!

It does, but for some of us Legomaniacs it explains why some things are hard to find.

But you need to wonder, do people throw Lego away? Hopefully they get handed down from generation to generation.

Apparently there's quite a market for used Lego.

http://embedded.fm/episodes/157

http://www.bricklink.com/catalog.asp

You can find almost anything.

Pretty cool. And far cry from the hole they were into a few years ago:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/innovation-almost...

Seems to me the biggest takeaway from the article was that it was Lego's partnerships that saved the company. Without those deals with Star Wars (for example), the company would have not needed to meet demands in the first place. This seems like a big lesson to learn from.

Somewhat related, but how is K'nex doing these days? I was never a Lego child growing up, I loved K'nex. The roller coaster sets, and everything else. It just was easier to build really tall and elaborate structures without having to have as many pieces.

Also interesting that the trademark for Lego bricks has expired. Does not seem to hurt them too much though: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/09/15/eu.lego.trademark...

That's trademarking an image of a red brick, LEGO still has has a trademark on the word LEGO and probably many other things, which I assume effectively means that LEGO can't sue Mega for using pictures of red bricks on their packaging.

All they need is the word LEGO, because _everyone_ knows that non-LEGO products are inferior. Non-LEGO bricks are up there in infamy with "the player 2 controller" that wasn't made by the console maker.

Note about trademark law: Trademarks don't expire; they can really only be ruled abandoned or unenforceable. It was an interesting and perhaps unorthodox use of trademark in the first place, and the kind of thing you would normally file a design patent for – though of course, Lego has been around far longer than any country's patents last (thus the existence of Mega Bloks).

If you've ever had the misfortune to try any of the clones, you'd understand why - they're crap.

There's a level of quality to Lego bricks and how well they stick together. That and the quality of the designs. Those things are missing in the clones I've tried. (Presents to my kids from well-meaning people.)

Agreed - Lego uses better plastics (ABS) and has much tighter tolerances than the imitators. I expect their designers also benefit from having a huge library of parts to draw on.

Weird though, isn't it? If the design is not protected, you'd figure somebody would make bricks of the same quality for a lower price.

Business opportunity...?

i think you are confusing trademarks and patents

It's all about the manufacturing process - the precision, tolerances, and quality control.

Unlikely. Lego has spent a lifetime learning how to make the bricks really well. Plus the only reason they are still around are their partnership - and you can't make a star wars lego brick, no matter how good your tolerances are.

Mega Bloks (which seems to be the biggest compatible competitor) also has a surprising range of licensed franchises, targeting both kids (e.g. Despicable Me, Spongebob) and adults (e.g. Halo). Still nowhere near the market power of Lego of course.

It's nice to see that there are companies making quality products. It's worth paying a little bit more for something that is of better quality. Meanwhile most companies are trying to make the cheapest items so people will buy them regardless of quality.

Yes, for the most part the lego from my childhood (40 years ago) is still playable.

Reads like advertisement/PR-placement.

It absolutely is, I don't know how someone wouldn't notice.

Why are Legos popular? Is it because they're like containers?

My nephew likes them because they're one of the few toys he has where he's encouraged to take them apart and put them back together. He can play with them as roughly as he wants. If they break, it's no big deal, just put it back together.

It seems to be related to how retro things are being popular again. Also you see a lot of people making lego raspberry pi cases and the like.

So much plastic... they should release compostable Lego.

The absolute volume of Lego is pretty small, and it's far more likely to be resold than discarded because it has high resale value.

Lego that rotted would destroy the brand.

Those bricks last forever anyway, and they're almost indestructible. As a kid I played with Legos that belonged to my parents growing up. Compostable Legos is a terrible idea.

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