Profitable Elves?

Maedhros · Post by **Maedhros** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:20 am

Oh geez, guys, the grumpy olde Tolkienist will give this all a rest and let you speculate in peace. My love to you all

Count Blacktron · Post by **Count Blacktron** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 2:13 pm

To me the next logical step in the Castle line would be a farm to harm, a village to pillage, a coast to accost, and a graveyard with a bard. Yet that is I and what I'd like to spy.

Post by **Bluesecrets** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:03 pm

I have watched this thread for days now, sitting back and wondering why.

If we are going to talk about profitability, I'm sorry but I just don't see how LEGO can think 8-12 year old boys would want a bunch of elves to play with. Elves tend to be a female toy. Yes, Tolkien and all of the current fantasy trends would be an exception.

But what you fail to think about when it comes to profitability is this: AFOL's are not the primary market. I have an 8 year old nephew. He doesn't want anything to do with elves. He says "Elves are girl's toys." He wasn't even all that excited about the fantasy castle line. Whether it makes sense to an adult or not, LEGO is a TOY company. Its what the kids want and will buy that they will produce.

All this speculation and discussion over one little sketch of an elf made ever so long ago. Even after LEGO has spoken, the discussion and speculation won't die...

Heir of Black Falcon · Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:17 pm

Bluesecrets,

Elves are female toys? Never heard that before.

While it is a funny response I am not sure how representative that is of this age group of boys. I have almost the exact opposite reactions on a fairly common basis with the target age group for castle theme (8-14?). Part of my old job included doing presentations of historic arms and armour for kids K-12. I also went out to schools do similar demonstrations for many, many years which was also fun. I’d say that 8 out of 10 boys equated most of my weapons with LoTRish fantasy. I had very young boys very often refer to a weapon ‘like that one the elf had in the movie’, when it was a 18th century sabre. I am not sure I have ever heard a boy equate elves with wimpy or girly so that is rather interesting response. When I was 8-12, yeah this is a long time ago but I can somewhat remember, I and most of my buddies wanted an elf faction from Lego…. And dwarves, orcs, trolls etc. If they know what dwarves, orcs and trolls etc. are they I’d think they’d not think of elves as ‘girly’. That said it would be interesting to see with some real polls what boys that age group respond. Some of the questions and answers you get from that age group are priceless….

Heir

Tower of Iron Will · Post by **Tower of Iron Will** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:18 am

Bluesecrets,

To add to Heir's comments I would like to add my own experience back at that age (or a little bit older) from a gaming perspective. Although back then video games were at the Space Invaders-Missile Command,etc level what was prevelant at that time was Dungeons & Dragons. None of my group of friends shied away from playing Elves. Perhaps this view was reinforced by LOTR, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion.

I can also remember the first time the Forestmen coming out and how happy it was to have an elf-like faction.
-Tower

Mog · Post by **Mog** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:15 am

Bluesecrets wrote:I have watched this thread for days now, sitting back and wondering why.

If we are going to talk about profitability, I'm sorry but I just don't see how LEGO can think 8-12 year old boys would want a bunch of elves to play with. Elves tend to be a female toy. Yes, Tolkien and all of the current fantasy trends would be an exception.

I think you sort of kill your own point there.

If elves are hot right now, because of Lord of the Rings/World of Warcraft/Legend of Zelda/whatever, then why on Earth would LEGO not make them, simply because people used to not like them/think they were girly/whatever? Surely they've got more marketing savvy than that, no?

I think we'll see elves. Probably not this year, because LEGO's sort of dialing back on the number of Castle sets this year, after releasing like nine thousand in 2008 - but I think we'll see them next year. And maybe we'll see them by the holidays, as an early Target exclusive (sorry, Europe!).

Post by **Bluesecrets** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:49 am

I think you sort of kill your own point there.

No, I really didn't. I gave an exception. Find yourself a boy in the target age range, heck find yourself multiple kids and ask them if they truly want elves. Conduct a survey of every child you see. They want the toys that are on their cartoons and tv shows. And even that begins to fail over time.

I really think that we are forgetting who the target audience for LEGO is in this thread. I really think we need to remember that AFOL's are a small minority. And I really think that it needs to be remembered that what we want does not necessarily reflect what sells to children.

What you as a child liked, watched and bought is not what the children of today like, watch and buy.

Heir of Black Falcon · Wed Feb 18, 2009 1:11 pm

Nor is one 8 year old every 8 year old.... sample size is everything in such research.

I think if TLC did a survey of this, which I am sure they have our would if they had it planned, there would be little difference between dwarves, trolls, orcs, goblins and elves to this age group. If they know what the one is they will know the other. If they felt confident with trolls and dwarves I doubt the market is a problem.

Heir

KingDavid · Post by **KingDavid** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:16 pm

I'm just as much for elves as any other AFOL. I don't know if it's going to happen or not, but if so, great. If not, then there's always some nice BrickForge accessories to make my own. I just hope that Medieval Market Village wasn't the only bone that LEGO is going to throw us. After all, the recommended age on that set clearly states that it was made with no regard whatsoever to what 8-year olds want.

RichardAM · Post by **RichardAM** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:29 pm

KingDavid wrote:I just hope that Medieval Market Village wasn't the only bone that LEGO is going to throw us..

So, Elves for 2020 confirmed?

I'm not bothered by the premise one way or another. The way a lot of the comments in this post stand it's already going to be difficult making an "elf" figure, it could go either way in terms of success on that alone.

Besides the minifigs, is there any more relevance to the dream? I'd love more forestry sets and foliage, but i'd far rather TLG do that with a revisit to Forestmen than some AFOL's insisting we need a few elf minifigs to justify such a setting.

Post by **architect** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 7:12 pm

RichardAM wrote:Besides the minifigs, is there any more relevance to the dream? I'd love more forestry sets and foliage, but i'd far rather TLG do that with a revisit to Forestmen than some AFOL's insisting we need a few elf minifigs to justify such a setting.

I completely agree with you. Either forest faction (elf or forestmen) would be a nice addition to the Castle lineup. But I also prefer Forestmen/Robin Hood as I believe they are more recognizable to the overall general public than elves. In fact, the only elves I wouldn't mind seeing in Lego form are ones in a Santa's Workshop theme set

We know that the castle afol community has members who prefer fantasy castle over realistic castle and vice versa. Aren't the fantasy castle fans happy that they have the undead, dragons, trolls/orcs/goblins, a wizard, and dwarves? All the realistic fans have are the knights and civilians.

Ben

Lcuan82 · Post by **Lcuan82** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 7:56 pm

architect wrote:
RichardAM wrote:Besides the minifigs, is there any more relevance to the dream? I'd love more forestry sets and foliage, but i'd far rather TLG do that with a revisit to Forestmen than some AFOL's insisting we need a few elf minifigs to justify such a setting.
I completely agree with you. Either forest faction (elf or forestmen) would be a nice addition to the Castle lineup. But I also prefer Forestmen/Robin Hood as I believe they are more recognizable to the overall general public than elves. In fact, the only elves I wouldn't mind seeing in Lego form are ones in a Santa's Workshop theme set

We know that the castle afol community has members who prefer fantasy castle over realistic castle and vice versa. Aren't the fantasy castle fans happy that they have the undead, dragons, trolls/orcs/goblins, a wizard, and dwarves? All the realistic fans have are the knights and civilians.

Ben

But how realistic is it that Lego will come out with another Forestmen theme? There are already two of them (original and dark forest), and Lego probably does not want to repeat itself.

I am not a fantasy fan, but I think elves will bring a welcoming change.

natelite · Post by **natelite** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:32 pm

The way around this is simple. Simply name them forest dwellers and leave it to the fans to either use them as forestmen or elves.

eg. background story can be like so,

"a mysterious group of ppl live in the forest. Ancient folklore told the tales of these wonderful beings who rob from the wicked and give to the poor. The legends told was that these are not your ordinary folks.

Some called them elves, others call them forestfolks. The rich nobles who oppressed the poor refer to them as bandits, but the poor welcome their help call them heroes.

you control the action. what will they be? elves or forestpeople? good or bad? heroes or villains?"

i went with forest folks or people rather than the sexist forestmen.

i also agree that the castle theme desperately need a new non-fantasy human faction. crownies are getting very lonely having no one else to play with besides the trolls, skeletons and dwarves.

RichardAM · Post by **RichardAM** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:36 pm

Lcuan82 wrote:But how realistic is it that Lego will come out with another Forestmen theme? There are already two of them (original and dark forest), and Lego probably does not want to repeat itself.

Well, any other time I would agree with you, but as this is the year that Lego releases Space Police III, i'm not sure your argument is too convincing.

outcast · Post by **outcast** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:11 am

plus as far as I can see forestmen were really popular