The BrikWars Forums

Clone brands shall be captured and horribly, horribly dissected.
CLOANZ! PREPARE FOR SCIENCE!

Actually, I support crappy ripoffs, just so Lego has more competition. I wish more people would do this, so it at least made more of a difference.
The extra crap-blocks are good for cheap terrain as well, since they come apart easier.

I need to make a rule that solvess and runswithlegos aren't allowed to argue with, insult, or correct each other. It's like having two boneriffic kids yelling "no YOU'RE boneriffic!" at each other. Well two boneriffic kids and Silva, who shows up and starts yelling it too to egg them on. You two should only argue with non-n00bs.

You want to know why Lego gets more expensive? It's because ABS is a petroleum byproduct. Take a look at the price of oil over the same period of time, and then the economics will make a little more sense.

The increase in cost may be a reflection of the increase of petroleum, but only so Lego can protect the vast profits they make, not for any other reason. There are no altruistic corporations. At least clone briks give people alternatives, even if they are shitty ones.

solvess wrote:I think your right aoffan my IQ does drop when ever he posts.

It should be a rule that solvess and masterfmdskalfj can't post until they learn basic sentence structure. I think my IQ drops 10 points every time I read their posts.

But on topic, stubby and Warhead are right. I forget about the oil factor all the time, but it's the biggest factor in the price. And it's not just the plastic itself that uses oil, it's fuel for the vehicles they use to ship it, and depending on what kind of power Lego uses at their factories, they might need it to run the plants too. Plus they use plastic bags in the packaging, so all this adds up to a pretty hefty price. Clone brands are no doubt getting more expensive too, but it's just that not many people here buy them enough to notice.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, during the years they were producing those cheaper sets, Lego as a company was losing a quarter of a billion dollars a year. So those prices may have been slightly unrealistic.

The new CEO who changed everything around after that came from an accounting background, so it's not surprising that one of his big changes was to suggest that Lego should think about selling products in such a way that they'd make a profit. Well I mean it's kind of surprising in that not losing money hadn't been a priority before he showed up, but that's the Danish for you.

Huh, didn't know that. Just one of the advantages of having someone with inside knowledge.

Silent-sigfig wrote:6. Dilanski--You're on the line here.

It's not my posts that are boneriffic, it's that I enjoy arguing even if I come out worse.

Edit: I'd like to know more about Lego's financial status, because adding a third to the price of each set doesn't sound like it'd make up for the nuclear bomb that's going off in Lego's budget.

Edit: From Lego's 2009 report-

Annual Report 2009 wrote:The LEGO Group’s profit for the year amounted to DKK 2,204
million in 2009 against DKK 1,352 million in 2008.

There's a nice table at the start of the document showing various net profits and expenses from 2005 onwards, it shows a nice increase and a big jump in 2009, 2005 looked horrible with a Net profit off 214, against 2006's profit of 1,290.

Rayhawk next time you see someone in accounting ask them to put a graph somewhere in the 2010 report as I could kill for a nice line chart.

dilanski wrote:Edit: I'd like to know more about Lego's financial status, because adding a third to the price of each set doesn't sound like it'd make up for the nuclear bomb that's going off in Lego's budget.

Actually it turns out that's just about precisely how much they needed to become profitable; according to the profile on strategy-business.com, the profit margin was at -30%:

But the Lego Group's financial performance told another story. Despite its extraordinary hold on the imagination of children around the world, the Billund, Denmark, company was in trouble. The Lego Group had lost money four out of the seven years from 1998 through 2004. Sales dropped 30 percent in 2003 and 10 percent more in 2004, when profit margins stood at -30 percent. Lego Group executives estimated that the company was destroying ?250,000 ($337,000) in value every day.

Fortunately they got better.

The TIME article is one of the better summaries, for those who haven't seen it before: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 79,00.html

RunsWithLegos wrote:why am I a n00b exactly?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18

Old Spice Commercial Bruce Campbell with epic sailing ship, comment section:


"Look at your comment, now back to mine. Now back at your comment now back to mine. Sadly it isn't mine, but if you stopped trolling and started posting legitimate comments it could look like mine. Look down, back up, where are you? You're scrolling through comments, writing the comment your comment could look like. What did you post? Back at mine, it's a reply saying something you want to hear. Look again the reply is now diamonds. Anything is possible when you think before you post."

I am unsure how I missed the Bruce Campbell ad before now, but that is just great. A real classic.

Everyone shut up and follow this link. http://www.reasonablyclever.com/boots/index.html

Keldoclock wrote:Clone brands shall be captured and horribly, horribly dissected.
CLOANZ! PREPARE FOR SCIENCE!

This is an amazing picture. It will be featured in the wiki.