The Decline of Lego Castle?

Discussion of official LEGO Castle Theme sets and products
davee123
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Re: The Decline of Lego Castle?

Post by davee123 »

tiberium_blue wrote:People who are nostalgic tend to idealize.
The point is that KIDS idealize. They go bonkers for these sets because they see the advertising and drool over them in the stores and catalogs. They put the sets up on a pedestal, because they don't have anything else to compare to. And the result is that when they become adults, that deep-seated, yet not-necessarily-logical desire is still there, resulting in nostalgia. The point is that I think kids are NOT bored by these sets. AFOLs are. And older kids are.

From what I can see, there are 4 different types of "flagship" sets for the castle lineup:

A) Big Castle With One Faction
B) Big Castle With One Faction And Prisoner/Small Contingent
C) Big Castle With Besieging Army
D) Other

By my count:

1978 - (A) - 375/6075
1979 - (n/a)
1980 - (n/a)
1981 - (n/a)
1982 - (n/a)
1983 - (n/a)
1984 - (A) - 6080
1985 - (n/a)
1986 - (A) - 6074
1987 - (n/a)
1988 - (A) - 6085
1989 - (B) - 6077
1990 - (A) - 6081
1991 - (n/a)
1992 - (A) - 6086
1993 - (A) - 6082
1994 - (n/a)
1995 - (A) - 6090
1996 - (B) - 6079
1997 - (B) - 6097
1998 - (B) - 6093
1999 - (?) - 3053?
2000 - (C) - 6091/6098
2001 - (n/a)
2002 - (n/a)
2003 - (n/a)
2004 - (C) - 8781
2005 - (C) - 8877
2006 - (C) - 8823
2007 - (C) - 7094
2008 - (D) - 7029
2009 - (B) - 7097
2010 - (C) - 7946
2011 - (D) - 7189

So, actually, it would appear that LEGO's been making an effort to get some diversity-- but they still are making sure that there's always a tried-and-true "Standard Castle Under Siege" set still available on the market.

DaveE
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Re: The Decline of Lego Castle?

Post by Lobberuno »

davee123 wrote:The point is that I think kids are NOT bored by these sets. AFOLs are. And older kids are.
When I was a child (15 years ago), I was more interested in how many weapons or minifigs (bosses,knights and rares) were included in the sets. When I really wanted a lot of bricks, I always looked for medium and big sets/castles with a lot of minifigs, trying to get rare weapons, specials bricks, items or stuff not included easily in other sets.

Surely, If I were a child in these moments, Kingdoms would be a good theme for play. :wink:
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Re: The Decline of Lego Castle?

Post by tiberium_blue »

davee123 wrote:The point is that KIDS idealize. They go bonkers for these sets because they see the advertising and drool over them in the stores and catalogs. They put the sets up on a pedestal, because they don't have anything else to compare to. And the result is that when they become adults, that deep-seated, yet not-necessarily-logical desire is still there, resulting in nostalgia. The point is that I think kids are NOT bored by these sets. AFOLs are. And older kids are.
I don't know how it is in the US but they're simply not on shelves here. If you want to buy kingdoms you have to go online to Amazon or buy direct from Lego and we have a fair amount of toy retailers. If you ask the staff in the stores why they don't carry lego castle they'll tell you it's because they don't sell well. That tells me at least here, kids aren't interested in them.

I guess the only real way to tell would be to see some sales figures or whether or not we get a third wave of sets next year. Looking at the last annual report, kingdoms isn't even mentioned among the classic lines which are doing well.
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davee123
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Re: The Decline of Lego Castle?

Post by davee123 »

tiberium_blue wrote:I guess the only real way to tell would be to see some sales figures or whether or not we get a third wave of sets next year. Looking at the last annual report, kingdoms isn't even mentioned among the classic lines which are doing well.
I think we probably won't know unless someone explicitly asks the question to the group that test-marketed Kingdoms to kids.

Even if the "Kingdoms" lineup DID do poorly, I don't think it tells us that the standard castle-and-siege style sets are what's boring kids. Honestly, I think if we find out that Kingdoms didn't do well in 2010 (the year the castle came out), it would probably be due to a lack of originality in the theme. It didn't really tell a story with characters, and didn't have a unique spin on the "universe" of Kingdoms-- it's effectively "good knights vs bad knights".

But that's jumping the gun-- I don't know how well Kingdoms is doing, or how well the 2010 lineup did (in particular that set). Usually, the annual report notes themes that are hugely successful, or are outliers from their expected performance (IE, did far better or far worse than expected). So, my guess is that Kingdoms pretty much did on par with what they anticipated, and didn't do overly well or overly badly. But that's just a guess in lieu of any information from LEGO.

To address the question, though, I think we'd have to see what types of sets were test marketed to kids, and how they reacted to each one. If the flagship set were instead (as you suggest) a dungeon, or a dragon's lair, or a town, or a battlefield, in lieu of the standard castle/siege, would kids accept the lineup? My guess is that kids really WANT a "base" for their factions. From my childhood, and from watching other kids play, I find that that's really an important factor, regardless of whether it's castle, space, pirates, etc. And for a medieval theme, the "base" is a castle (or a "palace" if it's geared towards girls).

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Re: The Decline of Lego Castle?

Post by Cryptic^Writings »

Yes, here in Indonesia its definetely on declined... proof? if you go to most toy store, you wont even find kingdom themes, only city, star wars and all those boring franchise thing.

The kingdom theme was hugely popular here back in 80's and 90's and still popular till the fright knight era (ninja's too, if its included). But the kingdom I & II kills it (generals in rainbow colour?!) and the fact Lego is rebooting the castle theme again proof it just trying going back to basic hoping perhaps the older fans will like it

Now everytime I go to Toy fair event, I only sees big City theme in display and Star wars... which is sad :(

and to be honest I really like Royal knight castle, Batlord castle and Fire breathing fortress cause they looks very different from each other, not just a square shaped symmetrical 4 walls castle.
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