The NYT has a story on Lego’s success and gradual change from build-your-own bricks to franchise toys. That’s something this nostalgic curmudgeon has a darn strong opinion on. Choice bits from the story:
In recent years, Lego has increasingly focused on toys that many parents wouldn’t recognize from their own childhood. Hollywood themes are commanding more shelf space, a far cry from the idealistic, purely imagination-oriented play that drove Lego for years (…)
Amid a 5 percent drop in total United States toy sales last year and the industry’s worst holiday season in three decades, according to Sean McGowan, an analyst at Needham & Company, Lego’s sales surged 18.7 percent in 2008. And despite a worsening global recession, Lego powered through the first half of 2009, with a 23 percent sales increase over the period a year earlier.
This bit on the subject of weapons and other violent elements in Lego’s new sets made me wince:
“We’ve opened up slightly,” Mr. Holm says. After all, he adds, “when you give boys a bunch of bricks, they build a gun.”
I don’t remember ever building a Lego gun or seeing another kid do the same. Sure, boys love guns, but the thing is, toy guns already exist. I’d be more glad to see Lego prosper as a company if they still provided a welcome break from such animal-instinct-pandering products. As things are now, they’re moving to become indistinguishable from other toys.
What I mean is, sure there’s educational and entertainment value in the storytelling aspect of Star Wars Legos and Indiana Jones Legos. The sets are flashier and they come with a narrative, and kids will perhaps relate to them quicker. But that’s always been true with all franchise toys; that’s always been the game of Mattel and Hasbro. Lego, of course, brings parts of its aesthetic to Hollywood-themed play; however, it leaves behind a huge legacy of not just letting kids play with other people’s worlds, but letting them create their own.
I’ll be surprised if twenty years from now, 20somethings reminisce about their childhood Legos the way people my age do. It seems to me they’ll remember the franchise, not the toy.
