In 1998 the Lego Group entered into a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm, the company founded by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas. It allowed Lego to manufacture sets based on the movies, with instructions showing builders how to turn 2,000 tiny plastic bricks into the Death Star. Fourteen years later the Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion, with the licensing deal still very much in place. Countless Lego products tied in with the franchise followed, and the Lego Group went on to manufacture sets based on other popular movie franchises, such as "Harry Potter" and "The Avengers." Licensing is part of an overall strategy that's made the Lego Group wildly successful. According to its 2015 annual report, Lego Group made $1.4 billion in net profit, more than double what it made just four years earlier. But while this is good news for Lego, it's created a tough situation for some consumers. The Lego Group still creates sets priced well within the modest reach of a child's allowance, but parents who have taken their kids to the toy store know perfectly well that there is no appetite for a 30-piece set that can be built in five minutes.
Kids want one of the high-end sets with thousands of pieces, and those can retail for hundreds of dollars. If that were a one-time expense, parents might be willing to make an exception, but it rarely is. Often, the child will just want another set seconds after finishing the last one and putting it on the shelf to be forever ignored. If the parent relents and buys another such set in the same month, the expense can become equal to that of a car lease payment. Luckily, parents of Lego-obsessed youngsters can breathe a sigh of relief. Netbricks, a company based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, offers the opportunity to rent Lego sets for a monthly fee. There are several tiers, such as the Master plan, which allows 60-day rentals of $400 worth of Lego sets for $49 a month. At the end of the 60-day period, the sets are shipped back free of charge and new sets are shipped to the subscriber. Company president Rick Weil founded it after experiencing the same thing that so many other parents do.
In other words, he was hemorrhaging money on Legos for his kids and wondered if there was a way to slow the bleeding. "It seemed like a problem that a lot of people had," he said. "I figured if there's a big enough problem, then there's probably a market there. Licensing adds a fair amount to the price of a set, and the expense of the product lent itself to the rental business." Netbricks started selling to the public in 2015 and at launch a Groupon promotion led to an initial enroll of 5,000 people, far outpacing expectations. He said that requests for the now-discontinued Death Star set accounted for fully 12 percent of his initial customer requests, with the $240 Tower Bridge set taking second place. "These are people who buy at a lower price point," he said. "Something like the Death Star is a once-a-year purchase for these families." (Pictured: The world-famous Tower Bridge features iconic towers, working drawbridge and a red double-decker bus. It also includes 4,295 pieces and costs $240.)
Netbricks currently employs eight people, including Weil. Each employee has a dedicated job, right down to the person who does the all-important cleaning of the returned sets, using a medical-grade technique that's absolutely necessary for anyone who considers the term "used Legos." Weil said that parents are actually far less concerned about cooties than they are about penalty fees for lost pieces. Netbricks assesses no charge for those. "Part of our service is no charge for normal piece loss," Weil said, citing a range of 15 to 20 lost pieces for regular sets or 20 to 30 for larger ones. He added that the company's real concern is the malicious actor who "harvests" Lego sets with the intention of selling rare pieces to desperate builders who need that special brick to finish their creation. Weil would not disclose his company's financial information, but he said that it's profitable on a gross margin basis, and he expects it to be cash-flow positive in six months' time.
He added that he's in no rush to see the company get ahead of itself by expanding too quickly. "We made a decision early on that although there's more demand out there that we can get, we didn't want to take on a huge volume of customers until operations are ready to scale," he said. "If you don't have customer service and structure where you can field all calls, that's not a great way to grow a business." Netbricks currently boasts 215 "fully active" members, which it defines as members who have rented and returned sets for more than one cycle. The current total is well below the 5,000 customers who signed up at launch, but Weil said that was to be expected because of the one-time impact of the Groupon promotion. The lower number of repeat customers is a more accurate reflection of Lego diehards. And Weil said that Netbricks has been successful in retaining repeat customers, so they must be doing something right. , because Lego is trying to discourage resellers. Netbricks buys its entire inventory from retailers (Walmart, Target, Toys-R-Us, etc.).
"Lego is aware of what we're doing and we've had a handful of communications with them," Weil said. "It was nothing atypical of how a top five worldwide brand would work to protect their brand and trademark. Anytime anybody pops up and is using the word 'Lego' in a commercial sense, the Lego company sends out information and notification as to how they would like you to use their trademarks, and that's been the extent of our business to business communication with Lego." Lego Group could not provide a comment by press time. "We're focused on providing an experience for big-time Lego fans. We have a lot of respect for the Lego company and their retail model," Weil said.LEGO Dimensions is the latest game in the growing toys-to-life genre. Like Disney Infinity, Skylanders and Amiibo, LEGO Dimensions is a rather complicated beast with different release dates and prices. This article intends to clear up some of the confusion so you can decide if this is the right toy-to-life game for you.
LEGO Dimensions, as stated above, is a toy-to-life game. As such, you can expect some similarities with other games in the genre. The main difference here is that LEGO Dimensions makes use of the popular LEGO brand for all its characters and levels. When you first pick up LEGO Dimensions you’ll get a copy of the game, three character figures (Wyldstyle, Batman, and Gandalf), a vehicle (Batmobile) and the Lego Gateway, the portal that brings your toys to life. LEGO Dimensions is also unique in that it has its own story, which doesn’t require the purchase of other characters. On the planet of Vorton, the evil Lord Vortech plots to acquire the Foundational Elements, which would grant him power over the LEGO multiverse. To do this, Vortech opens numerous portals across the multiverse, recruiting different villains to help in his scheme. After the portals accidentally suck up their friends, Batman, Wyldstyle and Gandalf team up to travel the multiverse and put a stop to Vortech’s plans.
Yes, LEGO Dimensions is in fact a LEGO game. You still press Square to attack, Triangle to swap between characters and each character has their own unique ability. Studs are still the main source of currency and can easily be found by smashing LEGO objects. If you love the LEGO games than most likely you’re going to love LEGO Dimensions. Of course, there are some differences. While previous LEGO games have had a menagerie of different characters to choose from, you will be limited in LEGO Dimensions to what you’re willing to buy. You’ll start out with Wyldstyle, Gandalf and Batman and will only be able to play with other characters if you shell out extra cash. Now you won’t need these other characters to play through the story, but there is extra content available if you happen to purchase Level Packs. The big difference between Dimensions and past LEGO games is the LEGO Gateway. This portal allows for up to seven characters and vehicles to be placed on it and thus playable.
The Gateway is also instrumental in solving many of the puzzles. For example, one type of puzzle involves painting the world in red, blue and yellow. Characters on the left side of portal are blue, right side characters are red and the character place in the center is yellow. Another changes the size of the characters depending on where they’re placed on the portal. They’re fun and kooky, but maybe a little too complex for younger children. There are a lot of characters and worlds in LEGO Dimensions, though not nearly as many as Disney Infinity. Here’s a breakdown of every franchise represented in-game: The Lord of the Rings (Warner Bros.) The LEGO Movie (Warner Bros.) The Wizard of Oz (Warner Bros.) The Simpsons (20th Century Fox) LEGO Ninjago (Warner Bros.) Back to the Future (Universal Studios) Midway Arcade (Warner Bros.) Scooby Doo (Warner Bros.) LEGO Chima (Warner Bros.) Jurassic World (Universal Studios) These are the just the beginning franchises and more are likely to arrive over time.
Speaking with Warner Bros. at E3, the publisher confirmed that they are actively speaking with other film and game companies about getting more characters and levels in the future. If you have a favorite franchise, Warner Bros. is committed to bringing it to LEGO Dimensions. Now, there are a few properties that are off-limits. Though Warner Bros. has released LEGO games for Star Wars and Marvel, it is unlikely that either of those properties will make it into LEGO Dimensions. Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions are direct competitors making it unlikely that we’ll see any crossover. We also won’t see any film properties with an R rating, or any games with an M rating. What we might see are platform exclusive characters. Warner Bros. aren’t opposed to working with Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo on bringing exclusive characters to each platform. It would be cool to see Sackboy on PlayStation, Banjo Kazooie on Xbox and Mario on Nintendo, for instancce. The different packs will launch in a series of five waves between now and spring 2016.
The Starter Pack, which is the most important piece of LEGO Dimensions, launches September 29 on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360. A series of Level, Team and Character packs will launch the same day. Wave 5, which launches May 10, 2016, will be the end of current LEGO Dimensions support, at least until the inevitable sequel arrives next fall. Click here for a breakdown of the five different waves. As you can expect, LEGO Dimensions is not going to be cheap. Just getting your hands on the Starter Pack is going to make a serious dent in your wallet. Here’s a breakdown of the different costs for each packs: So yeah, it’s going to be quite a bit of money. For comparison’s sake, here’s a breakdown of Disney Infinity’s cost: Neither are cheap and the mileage you get out of LEGO Dimensions might hinge entirely on how much money you’re willing to put in. These games are fun, but they’re not cheap. Now that is the million dollar question and it’s going to be difficult to answer.
This game is going to appeal to little kids because it’s LEGO and the fact that it is essentially a LEGO game on steroids means it’s going to be easy to pick up and play for anyone who has enjoyed a LEGO game released in the past few years. Traveller’s Tales has crafted a cohesive storyline that can be played without having to pay for extra characters, which means that this could potentially be the cheapest toy-to-life game available, as long as you don’t buy more characters. Cost is still going to be a huge problem, especially since the extra characters will add to the overall experience. Finally, we don’t know what LEGO Dimension’s endgame content is going to look like. Disney Infinity has the robust Toy Box to play with once the Play Set campaigns are complete. As far as we know, LEGO Dimensions doesn’t have any mode like this. For now, LEGO Dimensions looks promising and small children are going to love it. Everyone else may want to wait and see how it compares to Disney Infinity and Skylanders.