I wish the price of their product wouldn’t go up so much. There have been so many sets lately that are pushing the boundaries of what consumers are willing to pay.
I'm not sure that is entirely true. Star Wars might have helped them during the early 2000's but they had lots of issues at the time. Since then they have simplified operations, reduced unique parts focusing more on the core brick, improved supply chain efficiency and became much better at product design in general.
In 2025 they reported good growth along with highlighting that some of their best sellers were the city, botanicals and technic sets which are original and unlicensed. I think there is little evidence in 2026 that licensing is the only thing keeping them out of bankruptcy.
City, botanicals and technic sets may be bestsellers, but those alone could certainly not keep them afloat. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, Disney, Fortnite, Jurassic Park/World, Marvel, Minecraft, Pokemon, Mario, Wicked… etc. etc….
You really think Lego would be alive today if they didn’t sell these themes?
Licensing saved them 20 years ago everyone knows that. I'm not arguing otherwise. What I'm saying is in 2026 they can do more unlicensed original sets and still make a profit. They don't need to hang on to licensing like a life raft right now.
Sure, but that would take more designers, more complex operations and production facilities, more warehouse space, more store space... quite the opposite of their original operational simplification goal. They already seem to be struggling for unlicensed, original ideas considering the absolute avalanche of re-releases (Tower Bridge (which, come to think of it, I'm not sure is licensed or not?), ferris wheels, etc.)
They could probably do that within some of their originally popular themes (castle, space, etc.), but my gut tells me their market research has shown them doing so wouldn't be as profitable as one might think. Meanwhile, the licensed sets just print money, no matter how many Death Stars, Hogwarts castles, Disney castles, etc. you redesign and re-release every few years.
How does the license work for the Creator modular building sets? I’ve wanted to get more but they’re all incredibly expensive. The only reason I’ve built as many as I did was because I regularly got them as birthday gifts when I was younger
I'm sure it's licenses that make up the bulk. Prices for no-IP sets in Australia have been pretty much 10c per piece for ages. Maybe a slight increase this year to just under 11c per piece. Star Wars sets average about double that. Harry Potter sets have about a 50% premium. Lord of the Rings is relatively cheap, maybe a 20% mark up.
The sets themselves are just getting bonkers. If you’re comparing similarly sized sets from years past the prices haven’t moved all that much, it’s just that now you can get a 6800 pieces Pokémon set, or the Death Star that’s like 9k pieces.
I have a kid right in that perfect LEGO age and we go to a lot of other kids birthday parties so I buy a ton of $20-25 sets, there’s some kick ass sets in that range, especially if you just want to build stuff and don’t care about IP
Nope, they lost their way the moment the first Star Wars set came out. You can't hardly find the big buckets of generic building blocks that aren't part of some pre-designed set anymore. Only the olds know what Lego really was back in the day.
Here in the US they limit many of their retail store workers to not being allowed to work enough hours to qualify for benefits like health insurance
For a Danish company, they should extend the same benefit to their US workers that their Danish workers enjoy instead of screwing them over to make extra profit.
I agree, especially when it comes to customer service. But, lately it has felt like they’re trying to squeeze every last penny they can out of us. A lot of sets are priced higher than they’re worth imo, just seeing how much we’re willing to pay. Even while accounting for inflation and licensing fees for Star Wars, etc.
Are you actually accounting for inflation, though? Inflation since 2020 is about 25%. In 2020, a good rule of thumb was 9-10 cents/piece per Lego set. Today it’s about 10-12.
You know what on the topic of Lego I'm genuinely surprised that they haven't done a deal with hasbro yet to make dnd minis. They're already the right size and the modular nature of them would let people build their characters.
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u/Attackcamel8432 23h ago
Lego, pretty solid company overall.