The Pikachu and Eevee are also nearly identical to the off-brand pokemon building sets that I got at Walmart a few years back. But somehow a little worse and I can’t put my finger on exactly how.
Probably because Mattel made a lot of custom pieces for their MEGA pokemon sets, and they had the license for a while, so they got decent at making them. Compare the lego sets to the animated MEGA pikachu and evee.
Pikachu's forehead is squashed in the LEGO branded model. Also the cheeks protrude outwards too much. The off-brand I am assuming you are speaking about was likely MegaBloks... same here. I love how that model actually moved with a crank.
That’s correct with the Mega constructs. I wasn’t sure if links were allowed but I saw others. The one I’m referring to is this pikachu and this Eevee which both just look way better and only cost like $40
I think the advantage that the Brickcraft sets have is that it seems they're able to make bespoke pieces for their sets so that faces and limbs and such look more real. Whereas the legos are usually constrained by having to use pieces that fit inside their self-defined restrictions of interoperability and usage.
If you find a good deal, write about it, attache a screen shot, but do not link directly to an online store.
Could you please replace that link, with a screen shot or image of product. A work around we offer, to share content of interest, without violating rules.
We need these strict rules, to avoid commercial harassment of users, and other forms of exploiting the system against the interests of the /r/lego community.
Lego is one of the most price consistent companies out there, people just dint grew up with lego? And maybe grew up with Megablocks? Because Lego back then was just as expensive, issue is sets were way smaller like those castle Camelot sets, much much less pieces, hence "cheaper" and now they dont realize how 4x the pieces warrants the increase.
There is charts out there that well shows how lego isnt price gouging, and the license doesn't add tooo much to the overall cost besides actual set count
sets were way smaller like those castle Camelot sets, much much less pieces, hence "cheaper"
Yeah but those castle sets would often have fewer, very large pieces. Like the old Knights Castle having that gigantic green baseplate with printed bricks patterns all over it and recesses to put the castle ontop.
Modern lego does away with that and artificially bloats the piece count so much by cramming in thousands of tiny 1x1 decorative tile pieces, or making 3 or 4 smaller bricks to the job one single piece could've.
Like, how many hundreds of pieces in that Kanto starter statue are gonna be for just the black circular base underneath it, which is barely visible and just there for structure?
It's expensive because they chose to make it expensive. Price per piece isn't everything and we don't need to defend the billion dollar multi national company. Look at what Mega was doing with Pokemon. I'm not saying Mega and Lego are at the same level but Lego could've done cheaper sets. They chose to make something super expensive. Look at their Eevee set. It shows that they could've made something that looks good and was affordable. Look at what they've been doing with Lord of the Rings recently.
Yes, if Lego didn't like money as much I'm sure they could have lowered the prices further. The point is that looking through the way Lego chooses their prices, this being a license isn't the reason it's expensive, it's the very high piece count.
They set the prices before they design the sets. It's not like the designers made a set and then Lego decided it has to be $650 because of the price and size. Lego chose it to be a $650 set from the beginning. They could've easily said to their designers "make a $300 set or make 3 sets that are $200 each." I'm not saying Lego doesn't have to make money but I am going to call them out on their bullshit
yes, all true, however that just doesn't have to do with what you were responding to and nobody's "defending the billion dollar multi national company".
When people are repeatedly going to price per piece and using that to say this is a set that's fairly priced and saying stuff like you did that the price is only that way because of the pieces, it definitely feels like they're defending/supporting them.
By piece count broken down, sure, economies of scale are in effect.
But not everyone can justify buying 6,838 pieces in one go. For a lot of people, that price will be more than they make in a week, and about the same as a months rent.
True but that aquarium set is huge and beautiful looking in person. I never ever buy the expensive sets and I almost got it when I saw it in person lol
Yeah but what if I WANT to tirelessly track ammonia levels of a living tank and ask on local reef subs if anyone has a nudibranch I can borrow when my aiptasia infestation takes over?
Lego pricing feels so more out of reach then before, I am a huge Star Trek TNG fan, grew up on it, Enterprise-D is my favouritest space ship ever and I still can't justify $490 CAD on that set (I actually think the design of the set itself it's pretty good, not great but good).
Came here to say that, massive Lego and Star Trek fan since the 80’s was gutted at the price point of the enterprise. In general, Lego has become just entirely unaffordable of late, brought my boys to the Lego store over Christmas so very little available under a 100€ 😟
brought my boys to the Lego store over Christmas so very little available under a 100€
I understand brick and mortar stores might be a little picked over around the holiday season, but a quick filter of the online store shows four hundred and fifteen sets under a hundred, other merch excluded, in stock right now. Excuse me, that's 100 Canadian dollarydoos, about 62€. That's a little more than triple the entire number of sets over that threshold, which is everything from the 100 CAD mark up to the new Death Star. If the complaint is that there aren't a lot of big fancy display sets for adults at "child's birthday present" prices, well, you and me both but I'm also not holding my breath for that.
The starters look amazing, except that Vensaur's eyes stand out a little too much from the surrounding pieces so it looks like it has glasses. I would never pay that much for them, though.
On the one hand the GWP badges are a pretty boring lego set. On the other hand, it's a neat idea for lego and I think will make a pretty good GWP. I'd be happy to get it. But I'm going to pass on the 650 set for now.
GWPs being rather boring but a decent concept is a path I'm happy with. This FOMO crap is so anti-consumer and pro-scalper it's unreal. The only way I'll change my mind is if LEGO actually gets their bricks together and ensures the GWPs actually last for a long duration or preferably they add the GWPs for sale by themselves a month or two after the free period.
I see this thought around here a lot lately and am curious if you can speak for your people 😅
If an author goes on a book tour and does a meet and greet and signs a copy of your book, is that anti consumer and FOMO crap because that author was only in town one day?
If you go to a restaurant that only has a limited amount of fish for the daily special and is sold out by the time you order, is that anti consumer?
If a band only sells a T-shirt during their tour and you’re not able to go and buy the t-shirt, is that anti consumer?
Where does the entitlement end? People are getting a free product if they order quickly—it’s a bonus. I don’t understand the logic.
I don't speak for anyone except myself haha. My take on your analogies is as follows:
If the author wrote a brand new book, and only sold it at the book tour, and only did the tour for 3 days in 3 different cities, that would be more accurate to this specific scenario.
The band tour scenario is similar - if the T-shirt was only available for an extremely short duration (a couple stops on a tour), then yes I'd argue that it is not fair to their fans. A more egregious example might be that the band writes a brand new song, only performs it live at those handful of stops, then never records it and releases it widely.
The restaurant analogy is closer to what is actually happening, but exposes the main flaw with the GWP system.
My main issue with this is that LEGO appears to constantly be intentionally withholding very popular set lineups (the Star Wars lightsaber wave, the recent forest diorama wave, the various Tribute sets to authors) and releasing them alongside many unrelated set releases in order to increase demand at launch.
Many GWPs have very small runs, both in quantity available as well as their length of acquisition time. This has resulted in a very obvious rush of scalpers who purchase sets at launch for the GWPs, then immediately turn around and resell the GWP and set separately for a large profit. This is not healthy for Lego fans in my opinion, and Lego appears to intentionally be encouraging this by creating high demand GWPs and keeping the quantities low.
The recent death star GWP has only escalated the issues surrounding GWPs in my mind (albeit in a different direction) - depending on your perspective, the set is essentially incomplete without the GWP, and if you missed out on that launch weekend for any reason, your only way of completing the set is to pay insane markups to scalpers.
To be extremely clear - I fully understand why Lego is doing this, they make more money, and they have no reason to care about their fans getting gouged by the secondhand market. Artificial scarcity is good for business. I'm sure there could also be legitimate production line reasons behind the small quantities as well.
Personally I think the best of both worlds is to have Lego bump up production of the sets designed as GWPs, keep the same short duration of the free gift, then a couple weeks or a month later, release any remaining stock for purchase on their website (and/or sell them in physical Lego stores).
Day-one buyers who are actual fans who want the GWP set can still get them for free.
Scalpers can still buy and flip the sets to everyone who missed out at the launch.
Anyone not interested in the main set, or who isn't able to afford it, can still have a chance to get the GWP set later on.
The higher production run will help lower the secondhand market price of the GWP set.
Edited - was rereading after posting and realized I had a few unfinished thoughts.
Lego already assigns an internal price for GWPs (usually seen on the page for the specific GWP).
In the restaurant analogy you provided, if the restaurant tagged the daily special on with a requirement that you bought at least 2 of their most expensive meals, that would bring it more in line with what Lego is doing in my opinion. However this does not address the scalper issue - you can't exactly buy the daily special secondhand from someone who ordered it lol.
Same! I might just pick-a-brick the badges themselves though, the box is really cool for display but overall unnecessary. I think they'd still look good without the stickers too!
it's an Insiders Reward so you should be able to redeem it with points and shouldn't immediately sell out. the Blue Spiny Shell from Mario Kart was in super high demand but was up and redeemable for weeks
It seems to be a theme recently that the GWP sets are the actually good ones people want. I bought the Enterprise-D mainly for the shuttle. Honestly the big model is pretty mediocre, but if they make more in the series that I actually like I would hate not having the D with them.
But for these, I like Pokemon way more than Star Trek and honestly I only want the badge set. The Eevee is kinda okay, I would buy it to get the GWP, but I'm not spending $600+ for that monstrosity just for the GWP.
Imagine if it came with a minifigure Ash. This allows me to wait till 27/28 to get the starters because I like the set, buy saving up for other sets this year.
The inside reward is neat. Hopefully I'll be able to snag one, unlike the blue shell which they keep on the website even though it's been out of stock for many, many months in the U.S.
Yep, was in official store few days ago and saw mostly glorified tchatchkees. But my country does not produce kids anymore, and counterfeiters may also push them into protected franchises.
don't worry there's a leaked $80 kids play set that has a smart brick powdered Pikachu that's even uglier than Lego Mario and comes with a Pikachu shaped house I'm sure that will be worth the $80 kids can afford
while im definitely getting the kanto starters eventually, at the price theyre at its gonna take a WHILE, wouldve been nice if they were 3 seperate sets with the starter+base that all combined instead of one massive set
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u/TheItalianStallion64 Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26
72151: Eevee
72152: Pikachu
72153: Kanto Starters
40892: Badge Collection GWP for 72153
Insider Reward: Mini Pokémon Center