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Lego was always expensive, you can compare prices adjusted for inflation. For example, the 1979 Galaxy Explorer <https://brickset.com/sets/497-1 https://brickse
by mmustapic 6mo ago
Lego was always expensive, you can compare prices adjusted for inflation. For example, the 1979 Galaxy Explorer <https://brickset.com/sets/497-1 https://brickset.com/sets/497-1> was around $32, that's $144 today. The reimagined set from 2023 <https://brickset.com/sets/10497-1 https://brickset.com/sets/10497-1> was sold at $99, $106 today. Not only it is cheaper, but much larger and with many more pieces.
- brazzy 6mo agoIt has almost 4 times the number of pieces, but is only about 50% longer and wider - there's just way more smaller pieces. Price per piece is very misleading when comparing older and newer sets. The newer ones have more details, look slicker, but have a lot less "meat". Which is not that great for creative play.
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoI bought a set recently which was definitely padding its piece counts. The interior structure of a solid shape was constructed out of dozens of small 1x2s and could easily have been a handful of much larger pieces with no downside. I didn't consider the "more pieces = more perceived value" logic until this comment.
- nkrisc 6mo agoI always charitably assumed that they designed models to utilize surplus pieces for the internal structures, pieces that might be hard to use elsewhere.
- bombcar 6mo agoThey may do that (designers have a "part budget" they can spend in various ways) but the real reason for weird colors inside models is to make it easier to build; especially since many of the models consist entirely of various shades of grey and black. Various piece size also makes it easier to see if you got the wrong piece.
- ijk 6mo agoFor a while the complaint was that Lego was making too many big, specialized pieces, so I'm amused that the current complaint seems to be that they're using too many small generic ones.
- cwillu 6mo agoThey're not saying that they should be using big specialized pieces, they're saying that they should be using bigger boring standard pieces.
- gmueckl 6mo agoI had a weird build recently with the Luxo Jr model. There are a couple of cavities in the model that are partially filled in with very small parts. These parts don't connect in a way that makes then structural. I'm still puzzled why these parts are there.
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoThat's the one I was building too!
- kalleboo 6mo agoAre they the pieces that are colored like Pixar characters? https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/review-lego-21357-disney-pixar-luxo-jr/ https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/review-lego-21357-disney-p...
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoIt was this: https://jaysbrickblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/21357-Disney-Pixar-Luxo-Jr.-Easter-Eggs-The-Incredibles-Ball-Core-1400x1149.jpg https://jaysbrickblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/21357-D... The symbolism was entirely lost on me. It's too subtle as a reference, and annoying to build when you can obviously see it's just a big square.
- gmueckl 6mo agoAlright. Now I feel extremely dumb amd embarrassed for not picking up on ANY of this!
- mmustapic 6mo agoIt is a set for nostalgic adults. In fact, it is 50% larger so a grown up can hold it in their hands and feel it massive, like kids did in the 80s.
- etrvic 6mo agoA 50% increase in dimensions doesn't directly transform in a 50% increase in volume. >The newer ones have more details, look slicker, but have a lot less "meat" I presume that the 2022 model has as target audience nostalgic adults, but otherwise I agree, the new sets seem far more fragile then the ones released a decade ago. I think this is due to a recent focus towards adults from LEGO.
- bombcar 6mo agoIt's the other way around - because pieces cost roughly based on their size (amount of material) modern Lego sets are "denser" and heavier on average than similar sized sets of the past, because as piece count (and detail) goes up, piece size has been going down.
- brazzy 6mo agoThe discussion is about price, not cost. Lego is keeping the price per piece somewhat stable because they know people look at that, but as pieces get smaller (and thus cost less to make), their margins go up, and sets get smaller for the same price. The set that started this subthread is very much an outlier in that regard. Usually it looks like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/legostarwars/comments/1lpuz4d/lego_turbo_tank_and_mtt_size_comparison/ https://www.reddit.com/r/legostarwars/comments/1lpuz4d/lego_...
- jdwithit 6mo agoDefinitely agree on the reduced usefulness for creative play. My kids got a lot of Lego sets as gifts when they were younger. Which is great, I love them playing with Legos. But once they're done with the instructions that's just kinda it. A Star Wars or Frozen or Minecraft themed kit ends up being all weird one-off specialty pieces. They are necessary to make an extremely detailed replica of the Millenium Falcon. But they have no place if you just want to grab a handful of bricks and start building whatever your imagination comes up with. We have a tub full of thousands of pieces and it never gets used. I think it's a bummer that they've pivoted to pushing these intricate $120 kits to adults rather than designs featuring more reusable components. You need to go out of your way to buy tranches of generic bricks if you want to have free play.
- crooked-v 6mo agoThe Creator 3-in-1 sets are basically what you're looking for, they just don't get advertised much. A lot of them are more generified and rebuildable, sometimes even more refined versions of more expensive sets or parts of more expensive sets. Maybe the most obvious are the 3-in-1 dragon and dinosaur sets, which to me feel obviously like more generic reworks of D&D and Jurassic Park builds respectively, and have a lot more in the way of generic tiles and bricks than the licensed sets they're derived from.
- onlypassingthru 6mo agoWow, childhood memory unlocked. I had set 497. And, yes, it was a very expensive toy in its day.
- serallak 6mo agoI still got it. Has been in storage for a long time. My child did build it some years ago, now it's in his room.
- dclowd9901 6mo agoI have the re-release secondhand unopened and I think I paid about that much, so even in a collector's market, not terrible at all. An expensive toy to be sure but a deeply satisfying experience if you like that kind of thing.
- Xerox9213 6mo agoBuying buckets of used bricks is pretty cheap, too. I bought an adult's old lifetime collection for $30 CAD. My 2 year old son and I are still sorting them.
- tylerflick 6mo agoNot to mention you can 3D print Duplo compatible bricks.
- cruffle_duffle 6mo agoSorting Lego is such a pain in the ass. I have like a huge stash from when I was a kid. Back then we just had it all in a few tubs and dug to find a part. But somehow now I feel I must sort them… but the “right way” is ill defined and kind of sucks the joy out of playing (especially disassembling) And there is no “right way” that I’ve even found. Sort by color and now the little pieces fall to the bottom and are hard to dig for. The best I can see is part type and size… maybe… even then it sucks out the fun. I want to build cool shit with my daughter not spend every moment of Lego time sorting. There is no joy in sorting… Maybe I just revert back to the “big tub” approach. I dunno. Thanks for listening to my TED talk I guess.
- kroolik 6mo agoBuild with what pieces you can find, rather than plan the perfect structure ahead. Improvising keeps the creativity going! Wheres fun if sorting legos sucks all the Joy from it
- ssl-3 6mo ago> Build with what pieces you can find, rather than plan the perfect structure ahead. Improvising keeps the creativity going! That's a valid perspective. It can be a lot of fun to dig through the bricks and build freely, letting things take shape. But it's also valid to have a design phase, where designs are crafted (perhaps even very precisely) and to enjoy that part -- perhaps even using some manner of LEGO-oriented CAD. (Or SolidWorks; I won't judge.) And then: It's OK to find pleasure in following a plan to build a tangible thing in reality. This concept is strongly reinforced by the fact that LEGO sets come with instructions that are organized into simple steps. One of the joys of LEGO is that it's very inclusively all fine.
- seqastian 6mo agoThere are so many better alternatives these days it’s mostly fanboys and people who don’t care who are still buying original Lego.
- mmustapic 6mo agoLego is some kind of cultural icon now, and many people want to participate. That's why they have tons of sets aimed at adults over many themes, like plastic flowers, formula 1 helmets, old video game consoles. Many of them are a really bad and expensive purchase if you only care about the theme itself, like the latest Death Star (or almost any Lego Star Wars set). You can usually buy a similar and cheaper non-lego model. Or the Titanic set too.
- esafak 6mo agoLike what?
- CapricornNoble 6mo agoThe value proposition of the Chinese knockoffs is off the charts IMO. For what I spent buying JUST ( https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/60229-1/lego-city-space-rocket-assembly-transport https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/60229-1/lego-city-space-roc... ) last year for my daughter, I've since bought her a 3-floor hospital, a firehouse, a pink villa with pool, and about 2 dozen doctor and engineer minifigs for the same ~$120 outlay. Only disappointment is the legs on the Chinese minifigs, they are difficult to seat properly on studs because the legs are at a slight angle (almost like manspreading). I have to stop myself from going on a spending spree on AliExpress, I might order an entire Age of Sail LEGO navy.
- tokai 6mo agoYou trust the Chinese knockoffs not to leach out poison?
- CapricornNoble 6mo ago
- potatototoo99 6mo agoYes, they have kept up with inflation, and that is the problem. Manufactured goods like Lego bricks should fall in price through innovation in processes, scale, etc. What does raise higher than the average inflation should be be labor-intensive products/services. In other words, it feels much stranger today how expensive Legos are compared to 47 years ago.
- atomicnumber3 6mo agoLego is branding, curation and quality bar, though. They're the Apple of bricks (weird sentence). There's tons of lego-knockoffs and of not even such lesser quality that the difference can be perceived by casual inspection. The set-to-set quality bar is really where it is, especially among their set lines not targeted at children or low-end of market. But none of those sets have any kind of staying power. There's Expert/Creator/Modular sets from 20 years ago that sell for $500-1000 _opened and pre-built/re-disassembled_. That's all brand power. So they're less about $/brick (though i know people scrutinize it) and more about price point and brand. Phrased differently, having your brick company race to the bottom sounds like a losing strategy.
- AdamN 6mo agoYeah I don't know what this person is on about. Lego is obviously premium and ... charges premium prices because ... they're a business. People (consumers) who want premium products ... pay the premium. I would be much more frustrated if they became cheaper and reduced the quality of the product.
- pibaker 6mo agoThere is a prevalent view of economy that insists businesses sell their products at the minimum price they can still make a profit at (but not lower or you are dumping.) A Marxist view of economy, if I must. Whenever I meet one of these people, I ask if they are willing to negotiate a wage reduction with his HR. My logic is simple. If you think it is wrong for a business to sell a product at the maximum price they can demonstrably get away with like Lego does, then why is it right for you, a professional worker selling your labor, to sell your labor at a price higher than what is necessary for subsistence?
- detourdog 6mo agoI remember the Lego 404 set being $40 in 1980. I actually can’t believe my Mom bought it for me.
- sbcorvus 6mo agoThanks for this reminder about the cost variable.
- Spooky23 6mo agoYes! We were never bougie enough to get Lego, I played with Sears bricks growing up.