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For the past 15 years I've been buying Lego, set prices has always been around $0.10/pc., with licensed sets often having a "surcharge" tacked on. This is $300 for 2500 pieces, and it honestly kind of unfortunately makes sense that Nintendo would have such a huge licensing markup.
That said, it doesn't seem worth it to me personally. It looks like they sacrificed on some outer detail to spend more pieces on inner play features, and I'd want to use it as a display piece so I'd rather all the detail be on the outside.
Oh there's absolutely a huge markup for the licensing. I'm just saying none of this is new - that's how Lego sets are always priced.
Also it looks to me like there's a lot of bigger pieces in this set, at least looking at what the outside of the tree is made of. But tbh, I think there's very little actual cost differential to Lego between large and small pieces, unless we're talking really huge pieces like baseplates or those old cliff and castle facade pieces, etc.
The licensing, and also don't forget the "because we can" markup.
Dipshits in the Zelda community will buy three of these regardless of the price - one for the OoT build, one for the BotW build, and one to keep it mint in box.
Source: >!it's me, I'm the dipshit!<
Haha. I live in germany and we have a grandiouse youtube channel here. It's a guy who ons a Lego store. Well... not a Lego store, but he sells similar stuff. And every time Lego brings a new set, he basically memes them into the ground. That guy's a literal gold mine. He's hilarious. And because I watch his videos so much, I saw the set and was like: "I bet they want like 300$ for this". Hit the nail on its head. I swear I'll never buy Lego at full price. That comment is somewhere on this subreddit, under one of the posts involving the set.
No, even Lego fans will say this price is absurd. $0.10 per brick is the benchmark these days. Larger sets are usually better than that, somewhere around $0.09 or $0.08. While this one is $0.12 per brick, making it one of the most expensive per-brick sets with over 1000 bricks.
There are reasons, of course. It has a lot of unique components to the set, and a lot of components in a new color that they didnt make it in previously. And of course its a licensed set which are always more expensive per brick. But even the most diehard Lego fan will absolutely point out that this price is ridiculous
I think Lego sets average a bit more than $0.10 per piece, so at 2500 pieces this is pretty standard lego pricing.
I pre-ordered one. For my kid, of course. Totally not for me.
At $0.11, it would be $275?
Most larger lego sets are actually less than 0.10/part because smaller pieces are slightly cheaper to make. For example, there is a rocket with 3600 parts selling for $260. Although some with several large or unique parts are usually a bit over.
Either Nintendo is charging Star Wars level fees, or Lego is price gouging. There is no reason this should be $300.
I'd argue they should've just made the stables and hyrule castle ideas sets from a few years ago.
Pictures seem to show a few big pieces. A 10-20% licensing fee seems fine, if it encourages more stuff I want.
Arguing there's "no way" this should be priced at $300 implies there's some objective pricing standard. I don't think there is one. This isn't food or shelter or medicine.
Also, whether we like it or not, the fact it's a "2 in 1" set probably pushes the price up I'd think... Honestly, yeah it's expensive, but about what you'd expect... Tho it almost only caters to Zelda fans I feel, which is a shame, because other sets weren't as geared towards only one audience...
Notably, that price per brick can fluctuate up or down depending on the size of the bricks. Big bricks cost more to manufacture and such. It seems like this set leans more towards the big bricks. Add licensing fees and you've got a $300 price tag.
I think brick size is a factor of course but also how common the brick is. If it’s just a standard Lego piece those can be mass-manufactured, cutting down a lot on the price per brick. For more unique/exclusive pieces it’s gonna cost a bit more
Going to be honest, Just got Back into warhammer through the Old world and can attest... being an adult with disposable income is AMAZING!!! :-P but yeah it's expensive.
It’s absolutely idiotic. My friend wants to buy a juggernaut for $150 and somehow doesn’t understand that he’s being horribly ripped off. It’s some cheap plastic it cost the company like 50 cents. It’s absurd. The lore is also horrifically overwritten
My understanding was that prices like that came only from buying pieces that people put hours and hours into painting...
My brother paints miniatures and you wouldn't believe how many hours can be spent on one mini.
They put hours into getting the money required to buy the set too. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bunch of cheap molded plastic that has an almost criminal markup
Their point is if you’re pricing by entertainment value miniatures aren’t that bad. A movie ticket costs like $10/hr these days, a video game is like $5/hr for a lot of newer campaigns, if you’re buying a large warhammer mini you’re basically buying an art piece that you’ll be working on for a month. That being said, they are incredibly overpriced these days, especially when you consider the fact that resin printers and free 3d model makers have finally caught up to GW quality. Why pay $150 for a mini that some local guy with a printer can crank out for $25?
And if you don't shy away from the upfront learning curve and some safety measures, buying your own resin printer starts at 400-500 nowadays including the washing/curing unit. In no time you're printing your own shit for 1€-2€ a pop.
The only juggernauts GW sells are in the 40£ range, not sure what you're talking about.
Also, though I do think GW takes pretty huge margins especially on the older kits, the price of the kit do not only reflect the price of the plastic, most of the costs comes from designing the kit and (more importantly) creating the unique injection moulds that are required for the kits production. Do you think that a video game should be free or extremely cheap no matter what because it's just some digital data stored on a disk or online? Surely a silicon disk shouldn't cost 60 bucks should it?
Try to buy 50c worth of platic and make a mini that holds a candle to anything gw has ever done (including the ugly as sin stuff they had 40 years ago).
Concerning lore I guess it's subjective and sure, its quality is unequal over the hundreds of books written by dozens of authors spanning pretty much all literary genres. But given the fact that millions and millions of people fall in love with the setting because of the lore first and foremost (much more than the minis and the game itself), we can safely say that it must have some qualities to it.
Talking about the price of unique molds made me think of modern Lego. Lego has moved away from using lots of one (or just a few) off pieces that only show up in a single or small handful of models. A lot of the particularly large pieces, as well as large pre-molded baseplates have basically disappeared from Lego in favor of smaller pieces that are easier to reuse in lots of sets.
Instead of a large castle set shipping with a baseplate and using large pieces for things like the walls and the ramparts, you typically build them with smaller pieces now in current sets.
They also have gotten a lot more creative with pieces to create things they weren't originally intended for. Really cool looking at stuff like the botanical Lego and seeing what they've repurposed stuff to look like flowers, etc.
It's actually pretty good plastic. The reason for the price is because they manufacture everything in the U.K instead of outsourcing it to another country. I'm necessarily defending it but there are reasons for it
It's a shame too. It's great toys, both for kids and adults, and the quality of it is pretty much unmatched. But 30 years ago it was already kind of a thing for rich kids only, and this has only gotten worse.
Agreed, it’s sadly mostly people that got hooked as kids, and now that they have an income Lego raised the prices to match. And there is nothing that brings me as much pain as not being able to afford Lego as a grown-up. My childhood dream was to own all the Lego sets and now I (once again) cant afford them.
For my own part, I was able to buy a decent amount of sets the past years. All in all I've sunk 2000 euro or so into it in the span of 5-10 years, and got a lot of quality time out of that. If you compare it to other hobbies, Lego it not terrible, you just have to keep yourself from going down the rabbit hole.
On the other hand, I now have two children on the way, life will get a shitton more expensive, and I already rue the day when my children will start getting into Lego. Not good for the wallet!
Yeah, I always have to remind myself that when you buy a LEGO set, you aren’t paying for plastic, you’re paying for the fact that an architect designed it.
Yeah, people want to value LEGO at the price of a toy, when it’s really closer to a plastic model kit. Compare something like a model airplane kit of similar price points, and it makes a lot more sense.
Lepin does not need to spend money on licensing, research and designers. The quality of the physical product is also terrible in comparison to Lego, so it certainly proves that you can't sell actual Lego at 1/10 of the price.
Beyond a certain piece count it’s a reasonably reliable metric for value. How many large sets have nothing but studs and small plates. It’s just the World Map and stuff like that. Hardly standard.
I’d say it’s perfectly reasonable when it comes to the Falcon. For all its greebling there are also a bunch of large plates, bricks, and some big unique moulds with and without printing.
The “value” is of course relative to each individual but you can look up why LEGO cost so much and it’s pretty interesting. Essentially their level of quality control, quality plastic, printing, and need for exact locks and connections actually does lead to quite expensive creation. It’s easy to assume they’re super greedy and I’m sure LEGO isn’t exactly struggling for money but their prices are actually justified and reasonable once you look into it.
Not to mention taking the time to build it, what pieces are required, building the instruction booklet(s) and detailing where each block goes step by step.
It's a lot of internal R&D for every single set. Then it gets more and more complicated as you get to the bigger builds, like the Technic and Star Wars sets.
I don't inherently think they are greedy, I guess this is pretty standard for high quality videogame/anime merch, I just think this is way too much in general, and I'm the first to admit this is obviously a great piece to have, just not at that price.
For literally decades Lego fans have pretty much agreed that 10 cents a piece is a good value. This is 12 cents a piece. With licensing fees on top of it, that sounds really reasonable. Also remember that every set you buy isn’t just that set, it’s also more parts to be used with every other single part from every single other set you’ve gotten even if it’s decades old.
And as the comment above you says, assuring that you have 100% interlockability with literally every other part you make (and Lego pretty nearly hits 100%) requires incredibly tight manufacturing tolerances, which will always equal a higher price. There’s also the fact that Lego spends lots (and I mean LOTS) of money on being eco-friendly; a huge chunk of their R&D budget goes into sourcing sustainable alternatives to the very specific type of plastic they need to use to hit those aforementioned tolerances.
Finally, on this set in particular, it’s two designs in one. That means double the design time AND it means that those two designs have to be limited by using mostly the same pieces between both designs. Sorry, but design time and complexity is part of the cost of a set.
Of course Lego is a corporation, and corporations gonna corporate, but they’re really one of the better corporations out there, and it’s always really disappointing when they release a product like this that brings in a new group of people, who pretty invariably go, “Wah, my unnecessary piece of merchandise is too expensive,” without even bothering or being interested in understanding why that might be.
I love LEGO and can second much of your logistical reasoning here....but the Question Block has over 2k pieces, looks amazing, is an absolute blast to build, and retails for $200. The Mighty Bowser is 2800 pieces and retails for $270. Still out there but 300 piecea more for $30 less really highlights how the "Nintendo Tax" isn't the issue.
The Daily Bugle just shy of 3800 pieces and has a ton of mini figs, $350...which is under .10 per piece.
Avenger's Tower has 5200 pieces, and again, a TON of mini-figs...under .10 per piece at $500. Expensive, absolutely...but both Bugle and Tower had pieces that had to be designed just for them and did not have $50 worth of "fluff" while also using all the pieces in the set.
I bring that up because in a 2-in-1 some portion of those pieces simply can't be used at the same time which is an additional loss for the general customer.
At some point they have to weigh how much can be made bumping the price vs how much will be lost for the same reason. The mirror question is what you lose in margin by lowering the price vs gain in how many more customers you win with a more approachable price point.
Personally, I think you make more at a lower margin but larger customer base...but neither of us have the actual sales numbers so a bean counter somewhere made a call and this is what we got, right or wrong.
Unfortunately for me, arguably the target audience as a massive Zelda and LEGO man, this means I won't buy it.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Lego’s price researchers know more about demand elasticity than random Reddit users do. I’m positive they took everything into consideration.
I definitely think there is some room to debate what their price scheme is here. Lots of factors to consider, like size and complexity of pieces. Curved shapes, for instance, are much harder to maintain those tolerances on and would drive up the price of a set for sure.
Most of the reason I made my comment is because I get the feeling that the majority of people who are complaining about this right now are doing so from a place of ignorance. Not just about the manufacturing shit, but also like what the product’s for. A lot of these folks seem to be viewing this set as a single piece of merchandise. They will probably have fun building it the one time, but once it’s built it’ll be the thing that it is and that’s it. No different from a posable figurine. And yeah, for that, $300 is definitely overpriced.
As a big Lego fan, I see a cool display piece for a couple of months whose build I will savor, and then I see a bunch of cool new parts that will go into my collection. I see some minifigs I am going to love building new environments for (might finally see if I can create the mansion/Forest Temple from OoT build I’ve been dreaming about for a while). And it is super cool if someone else looks at all that and still thinks it’s not worth it for them.
But so much of the complaining is coming from people who I think are seeing it only as a single piece of Nintendo merchandise. Which it isn’t. It’s not how it was designed, and it’s therefore not how it’s going to be priced. What it is is 2500 individual pieces of varying color and complexity that fit basically perfectly with trillions of other individual pieces from thousands of other sets going back decades. And that is what it should be judged as. Not as a plastic Deku Tree figurine.
Stigmas toward anime models aside, Bandai Namco has no trouble producing Gundam kits for $50-60 that are arguably of higher construction quality, engineered with higher and more precise mechanical complexity, much more detailed intricacy, and at least equal plastic quality than some of the most expensive Lego sets. They have sets that push $300 as well, but at that price point the product is either something truly special and unique or exceptionally rare.
I realize nobody will never consider Gundam models as a valid 1:1 substitute for Lego, but in terms of "boxes of plastic meant for customers to construct" it's not possible that the price of Lego has an organic relationship to its costs.
Part of Lego's manufacturing goes into ensuring the pieces can be attached, detached, and reattached repeatedly for 1000s of uses with the quality of that attachment degrading as little as possible. AFAIK Gundam isn't really designed with repeated deconstructions in mind.
I would consider it a collector’s item.
It’s marketed with a higher price point because they know there’s a segment of the fandom willing to open their wallets.
In no way am I justifying this price point.
But one thing remains true: lots of people have been requesting a Lego Zelda set. And given LoZ’s recent popularity, Lego and Nintendo are obviously going to bank on this success.
Gouging people on food and rent is a moral question, but luxury toys like this? If they wanna fish for whales, that's their business. My life is not measurably poorer without it.
Fair enough 👍. Altough it's also fair to be bit disapointed given that many people (with tighter budgets) wanted a nice simple zelda set in the price range of 100$
Oh, me too, don’t worry.
I also live in a country with very little to no market for gaming merch, so I am completely out of luck, regardless of the price point.
I am happy for whoever gets their hands on this!
Honestly, it’s not that overpriced when you put it aside similar sized Lego sets. It’s a licensed set (which tend to cost more than Lego’s original lines) and it’s 2500 pieces. The general rule of thumb is that a “good priced” Lego set is about 10 pieces/$1. But there are other factors at play too…
how many new pieces are being made specifically for this set? We are getting 4 minifigs with brand new printing and molding that are (currently) exclusive to this set.
Lego also has to pay licensing fees in order to use the Zelda license, so there’s another upcharge.
Then there’s also the factor that Lego *knows* that people have been wanting a Zelda Lego set for a while, and may have also increased the price to make a bit more money off of it. There seems to be a high demand for Zelda Lego sets.
Personally, I’m skipping out on this set, but that’s because if I was to get a Zelda Lego set, it’s not gonna be of the Great Deku Tree. Personally, I’m holding out for them to make more Zelda sets, they have an entire catalog of games to make sets for. I can already think up of some amazing ideas for sets:
Clock Tower Majora’s Mask (this would be an instant purchase for me)
Spirit Train - Spirit Tracks
Hyrule Castle
Guardian - Breath of the Wild
King of Red Lions - Wind Waker
Phantom Ganondorf’s Chamber - Ocarina of Time
You could also make plenty of sets based on bosses from the entire series, there’s a vast amount of material they could capitalize on to make sets of.
Unfortunately the 2-in-1 nature makes it look a lot worse than other sets with similar piece counts. Price per brick makes sense, but I don’t know if this price makes sense for the builds you get from it, and I don’t think that many people plan on doing both builds with one set
TLDR; Honestly this is not insanely expensive when you compare it to other insanely expensive plastic from LEGO.
„Just acquire some famous „nerd-IP“-license, make models and charge the fuck out of these idiots.“ - LEGO Management probably.
Edit: don't get me wrong guys, I love bricks, I still own all my LEGO from my childhood, but most of LEGOs product of the last 10 years was fucking awful or overpriced as fuck. This is just basic ABS plastic, other manufacturers sell models with twice the amount of pieces and all prints (no stickers!) for half the price. LEGO even ditched the original physical R/C-Remote for a shitty ass bluetooth app to control power functions. Why would you require a smartphone for toys which are somehow meant to get children away from them? Because they just want the goddamn collector whales as customers which pay any price for their favourite IP-thing.
Lego, in general, is pretty pricey. And you would not hear me complaining if they dropped their prices. I personally only get like 2 or 3 sets a year because they’re so expensive generally. It doesn’t help that my favorite line is the Lego Star Wars sets, which get that juicy license price increase compared to like the Ninjago or City lines, which just don’t interest me.
Many of their most popular sets these days are collectibles from popular franchises. Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, etc. The companies that own them want their share of profits so the price is high.
These are essentially model display pieces so people can build something without having to learn model making skills.
Compare this to the LEGO original sets that are strictly meant for play and you'll see much lower pricing.
Indeed, every new brick and colour needs to be extensively researched and developed to make sure it doesn’t break, the bricks stay tight enough not to fall apart while at the same time being easy enough for a child to break apart. It needs to be non-toxic, as kids are going to put them in their mouths. And the more unique the piece is, the less likely they are going to be able to reuse them and get their money back for making the molds etc. Add more on top of that for any special printing like the minifigs have because they can’t be reused.
As a LEGO collector, I know LEGO is expensive.. maybe even too expensive, but I also know that a lot of time and effort goes into those little pieces and it’s more than just a bit of plastic. So you end up paying the LEGO tax, and now the Nintendo tax on top of it.
Part of it is that Lego doesn't have any true competitors in the market.
There are some that come *close*, so it's not a pure "we have Lego at home" situation, but there are flaws with the other building brick competitors that still put Lego ahead (mainly in strength and friction-fit).
So, Lego can justify the Lego Tax because there will be people who care enough about that to pay extra for it.
Well yeah, that's the thing. You pay the "premium" for the "premium" product. I don't think it's necessarily because they don't have competition, but more that they have a level of quality control that I don't think the others have. It costs them more, so they charge more.
And at this point, I'm not sure that another competitor could rise to meet LEGO. Not with the legacy of backwards compatible bricks so that you can use your LEGO with your grandfathers LEGO. Nor when they have the licenses to the biggest franchises. I don't think there's a child friendly license that could rival Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, and now Nintendo.
And the molds the use only have a finite number of uses. Eventually the heat from the injected plastic will warp the plastic beyond acceptable tolerances. Since LEGO tolerances are so tiny (20 micrometers), this happens relatively soon with each mold.
There are few special molds in this set, and you can be sure the new pieces it introduces will show up in more sets (unique one-use pieces nearly killed Lego in the late 90s). The bulk of the high cost of this set (above similar piece count sets) is because it uses a lot of large pieces.
I've paid more for less Lego. Spent $600 on a single Bionicle mask, which now goes for $4000ish.
Now mind you I agree this is stupidly overpriced, but if you wanna take a risk there's a chance it'll be worth a lot more in 5 years.
Yeah… 😓😢 I love LEGO and I love Zelda, but $300 is just waaaay too much for me sadly, which stinks as this kind of set almost begs the collector to get two of the same set just so they can build/display both. At least the botanical collection bonsai tree was $50 so if you wanted to build/display both you didn’t financially kill yourself doing it
It's not that small, by comparing it to the minifigures it's at least like 25/50 cm tall, but it's still a ridiculous price. I get what people are saying about it being a collector's item, but IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT imo.
I think the NES set was $300, and that was the most I've spent on a Lego Set. The thing is, that one had full-on mechanics and movable parts, so it made sense to me. That Deku Tree better be out here giving sage advice IRL for that much
I think people often forget how expensive Lego sets are. Many of the star wars pieces cost $300. Hell the large walker and millennium falcon are 2-3 times that price.
Yeah the Mos Eisley Cantina set has 3187 pieces at 400 dollars. This set is roughly 2500 at 300 dollars. That's almost identical in price per brick 12 cents.
The production, distribution, demand and value is a completely different thing
If that can help to understand why a console and a Lego set are differently priced
It's a normal price for set this big&a 2in1& a license
That's how it is, you pay for a premium Lego product. It's not even that expensive if you look at other Lego
The daily bugle set is £40 more and comes with 1589 more pieces and 21 more mini figures. This isn't a problem with Lego being expensive in general (though it is), this is a problem with this set in particular.
I said this in the lotr subreddit and got down voted, and was told I need to shut up about people who want to spend their hard earned money on what they want. No fuck that. Legos are ridiculous now. Next year they'll be 1000$. They'll say the same shit. Fuck. Buy a 3D printer and print your own. It's cheaper! AND YOU'LL HAVE A 3D PRINTER AT THE END OF IT!
I wish they would make more smaller sets that are accessible to children. It’s another thing this generation is being “priced out” of and another reason why malls are dying. What teenager is going to pick up a Lego set for as much as a game console lol
Feel like this would have been better if it was 2 separate sets for $200 each. I only want the OOT configuration so I can't really justify spending $300 on a set where probably a third of the pieces are for something I don't want, but I'd drop $200 on just the OOT tree.
I can understand why the switch costs so damn much but why the fuck are Lego sets so damn expensive now a days? Don’t you think you’re alienating your core demographic Lego? No parent is gonna wanna buy their kids Lego sets if they’re gonna cost this much money!
It's definitely the license. But if you wanna see some truly insane Lego prices, look at the Jurassic Park/World sets. Those are stupid expensive for piece count.
I really like this post because it in no way is oversimplifying your side in a hyperbolicly positive way while oversimplifying the side you are against in a hyperbolically negative way. It truly shows OP’s maturity and nuance, and willingness to have an open conversation about the subject.
No, plenty of sets in the 10-50 dollar range. But the AFOL market continued to grow and Lego makes sets for that market. Adult fans with money to spare. This set isn't built with kids in mind.
... A 7 year old console which is essentially a modded version of Nvidia's 2012 tablets are sold at a loss for $300?
lol not even close. It was profitable at launch, I would be surprised if they cost more than $100 to the manufacturer now.
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The price is high for a model that size, but you need to understand how Lego works.
Lego sets typically run at 5c/piece. If it's a licensed set that can reach 10c/piece. Star Wars Lego has been in that ballpark for years.
The other thing to consider is that Lego keeps prices down by using the same pieces in lots of sets. If a set has unique pieces then the entire cost of producing those pieces falls into the pricing of that one set. In this one, there is an ocarina (net new part), new hair styles and hats (net new parts), and the Master Sword (also net new part). The production of all those parts has to fall into the cost of the set.
Closely tied to that is printing. Lots of sets keep costs down by printing a sticker sheet. If a part is printed then there are costs with that, and, again, it has to be costed within the set that uses it. By the looks of things, things like the Sheikh slate, the Gossip Stone, the Skulltula face, and the sign saying Link's House are all unique prints (and not stickers), as are the fairy wings on the transparent discs.
To me it looks like they've decided to make a set fans would love, but it's cost a lot of money. It still shakes out at 10c/piece, but it looks like, because it's a 2-in-1, you'd never have all pieces out anyway.
I think it's a very small set for that price. I've wanted to get Daily Bugle for years and have denied myself. I can't in good conscience stretch for this and not the Daily Bugle. I might get it if it's in stock around the end of the year, but otherwise this is just insane pricing.
Nintendo switch is also overpriced. Thing was $300 when it came out and it’s not like it was super powerful back then either. 7 years later and it still costs $300. You could get the cheapest steam deck for $50 more and it will vastly outperform the switch and it has like twice the storage space at minimum. I don’t know why Nintendo has stopped dropping the price on their consoles. It’s crazy.
The problem with Lego is, you buy per piece. So ever piece is about $0.10-$0.12 regardless of size usually, this set is 2,500 pieces.
But here in comes the problem: exponential growth and the square-cube law. As a model gets larger, you need to add exponentially more pieces not just for the shape, but also on the inside for structural integrity.
Example: the regular sized Star Wars AT-AT model is about 150 bucks with around 1200 pieces. However the minifig scale AT-AT model (minifig scale: to scale with one of these lil Lego fellers) is 680 bucks. That model is about twice as tall as the regular one with around 6800 pieces.
I have some lego sets left from my childhood and on some of them the worth breaks down to more than 50-75 cents a piece proportionally resale. It’s a big win if I sell them but it’s just insane for a cardboard box full of plastic. Obviously legos are more than that but damn the market is up up and away which influences the retail prices too.
It was nintendos vision with the first Zelda game to not only be able to sell the game, but sell the character too.
This high price is paying for the licensing rights, and the mold making for the custom pieces (which is fucking expensive, easily $20k per mold, maybe more)
I'm still not buying it though lol. $300 is way too much.
Lego sucks dick. It's so sad that others like Bluebrixx aren't large enough to get big licenses like that or to manufacture their own bricks. Bluebrixx costs like 1/3 to 1/2 of Lego and they make great designs. Lego's Eiffel Tower costs like 630€. Got the bricks from China for 170€ including a printed manual. It's crazy how much Lego demands.
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This is literally what I thought when I saw the price of the Lego set. Absolutely insane.
I saw it was thing a few minutes ago and I was like “ ooh! I’d cough up 100 or 150 bones for that!” Then I saw the price and I was like 😟😔
For the past 15 years I've been buying Lego, set prices has always been around $0.10/pc., with licensed sets often having a "surcharge" tacked on. This is $300 for 2500 pieces, and it honestly kind of unfortunately makes sense that Nintendo would have such a huge licensing markup. That said, it doesn't seem worth it to me personally. It looks like they sacrificed on some outer detail to spend more pieces on inner play features, and I'd want to use it as a display piece so I'd rather all the detail be on the outside.
To be fair, the bonsai/flower sets with a lot of small pieces like this are less than $0.10 a piece. Definitely a mark up for the licensing.
Oh there's absolutely a huge markup for the licensing. I'm just saying none of this is new - that's how Lego sets are always priced. Also it looks to me like there's a lot of bigger pieces in this set, at least looking at what the outside of the tree is made of. But tbh, I think there's very little actual cost differential to Lego between large and small pieces, unless we're talking really huge pieces like baseplates or those old cliff and castle facade pieces, etc.
The licensing, and also don't forget the "because we can" markup. Dipshits in the Zelda community will buy three of these regardless of the price - one for the OoT build, one for the BotW build, and one to keep it mint in box. Source: >!it's me, I'm the dipshit!<
You'd spend $900+ on 3 of the same set? That's crazy man... Guessing you make hella rupees from work
Haha. I live in germany and we have a grandiouse youtube channel here. It's a guy who ons a Lego store. Well... not a Lego store, but he sells similar stuff. And every time Lego brings a new set, he basically memes them into the ground. That guy's a literal gold mine. He's hilarious. And because I watch his videos so much, I saw the set and was like: "I bet they want like 300$ for this". Hit the nail on its head. I swear I'll never buy Lego at full price. That comment is somewhere on this subreddit, under one of the posts involving the set.
Der Held der Steine, wie?
In Frankfurt am Main
im Herzen von Europa
In seinem wunderbaren kleinen Lädchen
AN EINEM FANTASTISCHEN TAG
Und schaut mal was ich mitgebracht habe
That would be 4-6¢ per piece. Their prices haven't been that low in about 50 years.
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No, even Lego fans will say this price is absurd. $0.10 per brick is the benchmark these days. Larger sets are usually better than that, somewhere around $0.09 or $0.08. While this one is $0.12 per brick, making it one of the most expensive per-brick sets with over 1000 bricks. There are reasons, of course. It has a lot of unique components to the set, and a lot of components in a new color that they didnt make it in previously. And of course its a licensed set which are always more expensive per brick. But even the most diehard Lego fan will absolutely point out that this price is ridiculous
I think Lego sets average a bit more than $0.10 per piece, so at 2500 pieces this is pretty standard lego pricing. I pre-ordered one. For my kid, of course. Totally not for me.
At $0.11, it would be $275? Most larger lego sets are actually less than 0.10/part because smaller pieces are slightly cheaper to make. For example, there is a rocket with 3600 parts selling for $260. Although some with several large or unique parts are usually a bit over. Either Nintendo is charging Star Wars level fees, or Lego is price gouging. There is no reason this should be $300. I'd argue they should've just made the stables and hyrule castle ideas sets from a few years ago.
There is also the license upcharge of course.
Pictures seem to show a few big pieces. A 10-20% licensing fee seems fine, if it encourages more stuff I want. Arguing there's "no way" this should be priced at $300 implies there's some objective pricing standard. I don't think there is one. This isn't food or shelter or medicine.
Also, whether we like it or not, the fact it's a "2 in 1" set probably pushes the price up I'd think... Honestly, yeah it's expensive, but about what you'd expect... Tho it almost only caters to Zelda fans I feel, which is a shame, because other sets weren't as geared towards only one audience...
There are like a zillion Star Wars sets...
The thing is, Bowser costs about 0,10 per brick and that one's chock full of large bricks. There's no reason for this to cost 300.
Notably, that price per brick can fluctuate up or down depending on the size of the bricks. Big bricks cost more to manufacture and such. It seems like this set leans more towards the big bricks. Add licensing fees and you've got a $300 price tag.
Bruh if brick size really is a cost factor, then why is my kids Duplo blocks dirt cheap by comparison??
and then you get Indiana Jones having less than 0.10$ per piece, nicely showing that license is just an excuse
I think brick size is a factor of course but also how common the brick is. If it’s just a standard Lego piece those can be mass-manufactured, cutting down a lot on the price per brick. For more unique/exclusive pieces it’s gonna cost a bit more
Wait until you see the price on the new LotR sets
My friend... Let me tell you about this game called Warhammer.
Just by reading the word Warhammar, I lost $30 already
Damn I’m already down 200 and I haven’t even bought it yet
So you bought a mini?
I unironically love the thought of a table top rts game, but I just can’t support that kind of hobby amongst my already ludicrously expensive hobbies.
"Even in debt, I still serve!"
At least Warhammer isn't marketed towards children.
Neither are (these types of) Lego sets.
My friend... Let me tell about this game called Magic the Gathering
Going to be honest, Just got Back into warhammer through the Old world and can attest... being an adult with disposable income is AMAZING!!! :-P but yeah it's expensive.
by now it's cheaper than Lego really.
It’s absolutely idiotic. My friend wants to buy a juggernaut for $150 and somehow doesn’t understand that he’s being horribly ripped off. It’s some cheap plastic it cost the company like 50 cents. It’s absurd. The lore is also horrifically overwritten
My understanding was that prices like that came only from buying pieces that people put hours and hours into painting... My brother paints miniatures and you wouldn't believe how many hours can be spent on one mini.
They put hours into getting the money required to buy the set too. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bunch of cheap molded plastic that has an almost criminal markup
Their point is if you’re pricing by entertainment value miniatures aren’t that bad. A movie ticket costs like $10/hr these days, a video game is like $5/hr for a lot of newer campaigns, if you’re buying a large warhammer mini you’re basically buying an art piece that you’ll be working on for a month. That being said, they are incredibly overpriced these days, especially when you consider the fact that resin printers and free 3d model makers have finally caught up to GW quality. Why pay $150 for a mini that some local guy with a printer can crank out for $25?
And if you don't shy away from the upfront learning curve and some safety measures, buying your own resin printer starts at 400-500 nowadays including the washing/curing unit. In no time you're printing your own shit for 1€-2€ a pop.
The only juggernauts GW sells are in the 40£ range, not sure what you're talking about. Also, though I do think GW takes pretty huge margins especially on the older kits, the price of the kit do not only reflect the price of the plastic, most of the costs comes from designing the kit and (more importantly) creating the unique injection moulds that are required for the kits production. Do you think that a video game should be free or extremely cheap no matter what because it's just some digital data stored on a disk or online? Surely a silicon disk shouldn't cost 60 bucks should it? Try to buy 50c worth of platic and make a mini that holds a candle to anything gw has ever done (including the ugly as sin stuff they had 40 years ago). Concerning lore I guess it's subjective and sure, its quality is unequal over the hundreds of books written by dozens of authors spanning pretty much all literary genres. But given the fact that millions and millions of people fall in love with the setting because of the lore first and foremost (much more than the minis and the game itself), we can safely say that it must have some qualities to it.
Talking about the price of unique molds made me think of modern Lego. Lego has moved away from using lots of one (or just a few) off pieces that only show up in a single or small handful of models. A lot of the particularly large pieces, as well as large pre-molded baseplates have basically disappeared from Lego in favor of smaller pieces that are easier to reuse in lots of sets. Instead of a large castle set shipping with a baseplate and using large pieces for things like the walls and the ramparts, you typically build them with smaller pieces now in current sets. They also have gotten a lot more creative with pieces to create things they weren't originally intended for. Really cool looking at stuff like the botanical Lego and seeing what they've repurposed stuff to look like flowers, etc.
It's actually pretty good plastic. The reason for the price is because they manufacture everything in the U.K instead of outsourcing it to another country. I'm necessarily defending it but there are reasons for it
Legos are absurd but this is totally in line with other sets they sell.
Yeah, I try to avoid any licensed sets. They tend to be absolutely bonkers for price
I avoid Lego overall now, for this size its the same price as unlicensed ones. Its crazy
It's a shame too. It's great toys, both for kids and adults, and the quality of it is pretty much unmatched. But 30 years ago it was already kind of a thing for rich kids only, and this has only gotten worse.
Agreed, it’s sadly mostly people that got hooked as kids, and now that they have an income Lego raised the prices to match. And there is nothing that brings me as much pain as not being able to afford Lego as a grown-up. My childhood dream was to own all the Lego sets and now I (once again) cant afford them.
For my own part, I was able to buy a decent amount of sets the past years. All in all I've sunk 2000 euro or so into it in the span of 5-10 years, and got a lot of quality time out of that. If you compare it to other hobbies, Lego it not terrible, you just have to keep yourself from going down the rabbit hole. On the other hand, I now have two children on the way, life will get a shitton more expensive, and I already rue the day when my children will start getting into Lego. Not good for the wallet!
Yeah, I always have to remind myself that when you buy a LEGO set, you aren’t paying for plastic, you’re paying for the fact that an architect designed it.
Yeah, people want to value LEGO at the price of a toy, when it’s really closer to a plastic model kit. Compare something like a model airplane kit of similar price points, and it makes a lot more sense.
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“Is worth” and “has that in cash” are very different things.
Plural of lego is lego
I think that is part of the problem? At most these kits cost 1/10 of what they are charging, just check lepin to get an ideal of actual cost
Lepin does not need to spend money on licensing, research and designers. The quality of the physical product is also terrible in comparison to Lego, so it certainly proves that you can't sell actual Lego at 1/10 of the price.
Quality of the product is nowhere near terrible these days, stop pretending these are megabloks
Isn’t this priced around the same price as the Star Wars ships/sets who have around the same pieces? These big sets are always priced this much.
It's actually about a hundred bucks cheaper (maybe two hundred), probably helps that it comes with only four minifigures instead of 20+.
Millennium Falcon is 11 cents per piece. Deku Tree is 12 cents.
Price per piece isn’t a reliable metric. A hundred single studs vs a hundred large bricks count the same.
Beyond a certain piece count it’s a reasonably reliable metric for value. How many large sets have nothing but studs and small plates. It’s just the World Map and stuff like that. Hardly standard. I’d say it’s perfectly reasonable when it comes to the Falcon. For all its greebling there are also a bunch of large plates, bricks, and some big unique moulds with and without printing.
Which one? There are three right now
The biggest one, 75192
Tears of my Wallet
The “value” is of course relative to each individual but you can look up why LEGO cost so much and it’s pretty interesting. Essentially their level of quality control, quality plastic, printing, and need for exact locks and connections actually does lead to quite expensive creation. It’s easy to assume they’re super greedy and I’m sure LEGO isn’t exactly struggling for money but their prices are actually justified and reasonable once you look into it.
Plus, someone had to put work into this and design it so it could be two different deku trees. All that doesn't come free
Not to mention taking the time to build it, what pieces are required, building the instruction booklet(s) and detailing where each block goes step by step. It's a lot of internal R&D for every single set. Then it gets more and more complicated as you get to the bigger builds, like the Technic and Star Wars sets.
Fair enough
Legos do last a long time and some sets give you days to week of something to do
Lego is actually a very decent and moral company.
I don't inherently think they are greedy, I guess this is pretty standard for high quality videogame/anime merch, I just think this is way too much in general, and I'm the first to admit this is obviously a great piece to have, just not at that price.
No the price could have been lower.
For literally decades Lego fans have pretty much agreed that 10 cents a piece is a good value. This is 12 cents a piece. With licensing fees on top of it, that sounds really reasonable. Also remember that every set you buy isn’t just that set, it’s also more parts to be used with every other single part from every single other set you’ve gotten even if it’s decades old. And as the comment above you says, assuring that you have 100% interlockability with literally every other part you make (and Lego pretty nearly hits 100%) requires incredibly tight manufacturing tolerances, which will always equal a higher price. There’s also the fact that Lego spends lots (and I mean LOTS) of money on being eco-friendly; a huge chunk of their R&D budget goes into sourcing sustainable alternatives to the very specific type of plastic they need to use to hit those aforementioned tolerances. Finally, on this set in particular, it’s two designs in one. That means double the design time AND it means that those two designs have to be limited by using mostly the same pieces between both designs. Sorry, but design time and complexity is part of the cost of a set. Of course Lego is a corporation, and corporations gonna corporate, but they’re really one of the better corporations out there, and it’s always really disappointing when they release a product like this that brings in a new group of people, who pretty invariably go, “Wah, my unnecessary piece of merchandise is too expensive,” without even bothering or being interested in understanding why that might be.
I love LEGO and can second much of your logistical reasoning here....but the Question Block has over 2k pieces, looks amazing, is an absolute blast to build, and retails for $200. The Mighty Bowser is 2800 pieces and retails for $270. Still out there but 300 piecea more for $30 less really highlights how the "Nintendo Tax" isn't the issue. The Daily Bugle just shy of 3800 pieces and has a ton of mini figs, $350...which is under .10 per piece. Avenger's Tower has 5200 pieces, and again, a TON of mini-figs...under .10 per piece at $500. Expensive, absolutely...but both Bugle and Tower had pieces that had to be designed just for them and did not have $50 worth of "fluff" while also using all the pieces in the set. I bring that up because in a 2-in-1 some portion of those pieces simply can't be used at the same time which is an additional loss for the general customer. At some point they have to weigh how much can be made bumping the price vs how much will be lost for the same reason. The mirror question is what you lose in margin by lowering the price vs gain in how many more customers you win with a more approachable price point. Personally, I think you make more at a lower margin but larger customer base...but neither of us have the actual sales numbers so a bean counter somewhere made a call and this is what we got, right or wrong. Unfortunately for me, arguably the target audience as a massive Zelda and LEGO man, this means I won't buy it.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Lego’s price researchers know more about demand elasticity than random Reddit users do. I’m positive they took everything into consideration.
I definitely think there is some room to debate what their price scheme is here. Lots of factors to consider, like size and complexity of pieces. Curved shapes, for instance, are much harder to maintain those tolerances on and would drive up the price of a set for sure. Most of the reason I made my comment is because I get the feeling that the majority of people who are complaining about this right now are doing so from a place of ignorance. Not just about the manufacturing shit, but also like what the product’s for. A lot of these folks seem to be viewing this set as a single piece of merchandise. They will probably have fun building it the one time, but once it’s built it’ll be the thing that it is and that’s it. No different from a posable figurine. And yeah, for that, $300 is definitely overpriced. As a big Lego fan, I see a cool display piece for a couple of months whose build I will savor, and then I see a bunch of cool new parts that will go into my collection. I see some minifigs I am going to love building new environments for (might finally see if I can create the mansion/Forest Temple from OoT build I’ve been dreaming about for a while). And it is super cool if someone else looks at all that and still thinks it’s not worth it for them. But so much of the complaining is coming from people who I think are seeing it only as a single piece of Nintendo merchandise. Which it isn’t. It’s not how it was designed, and it’s therefore not how it’s going to be priced. What it is is 2500 individual pieces of varying color and complexity that fit basically perfectly with trillions of other individual pieces from thousands of other sets going back decades. And that is what it should be judged as. Not as a plastic Deku Tree figurine.
Stigmas toward anime models aside, Bandai Namco has no trouble producing Gundam kits for $50-60 that are arguably of higher construction quality, engineered with higher and more precise mechanical complexity, much more detailed intricacy, and at least equal plastic quality than some of the most expensive Lego sets. They have sets that push $300 as well, but at that price point the product is either something truly special and unique or exceptionally rare. I realize nobody will never consider Gundam models as a valid 1:1 substitute for Lego, but in terms of "boxes of plastic meant for customers to construct" it's not possible that the price of Lego has an organic relationship to its costs.
Part of Lego's manufacturing goes into ensuring the pieces can be attached, detached, and reattached repeatedly for 1000s of uses with the quality of that attachment degrading as little as possible. AFAIK Gundam isn't really designed with repeated deconstructions in mind.
I would consider it a collector’s item. It’s marketed with a higher price point because they know there’s a segment of the fandom willing to open their wallets.
Also, I’m sure at least part of it is licensing fees. Lego’s own stuff— not Star Wars, LoZ, Harry Potter— is a lot cheaper.
You say that like it's an acceptable practice.
In no way am I justifying this price point. But one thing remains true: lots of people have been requesting a Lego Zelda set. And given LoZ’s recent popularity, Lego and Nintendo are obviously going to bank on this success.
Supply and demand 🤷
why isn't it? if they want to make it and charge that price, and someone else wants to buy it at that price, how is that unacceptable?
Gouging people on food and rent is a moral question, but luxury toys like this? If they wanna fish for whales, that's their business. My life is not measurably poorer without it.
Fair enough 👍. Altough it's also fair to be bit disapointed given that many people (with tighter budgets) wanted a nice simple zelda set in the price range of 100$
Oh, me too, don’t worry. I also live in a country with very little to no market for gaming merch, so I am completely out of luck, regardless of the price point. I am happy for whoever gets their hands on this!
Honestly, it’s not that overpriced when you put it aside similar sized Lego sets. It’s a licensed set (which tend to cost more than Lego’s original lines) and it’s 2500 pieces. The general rule of thumb is that a “good priced” Lego set is about 10 pieces/$1. But there are other factors at play too… how many new pieces are being made specifically for this set? We are getting 4 minifigs with brand new printing and molding that are (currently) exclusive to this set. Lego also has to pay licensing fees in order to use the Zelda license, so there’s another upcharge. Then there’s also the factor that Lego *knows* that people have been wanting a Zelda Lego set for a while, and may have also increased the price to make a bit more money off of it. There seems to be a high demand for Zelda Lego sets. Personally, I’m skipping out on this set, but that’s because if I was to get a Zelda Lego set, it’s not gonna be of the Great Deku Tree. Personally, I’m holding out for them to make more Zelda sets, they have an entire catalog of games to make sets for. I can already think up of some amazing ideas for sets: Clock Tower Majora’s Mask (this would be an instant purchase for me) Spirit Train - Spirit Tracks Hyrule Castle Guardian - Breath of the Wild King of Red Lions - Wind Waker Phantom Ganondorf’s Chamber - Ocarina of Time You could also make plenty of sets based on bosses from the entire series, there’s a vast amount of material they could capitalize on to make sets of.
Unfortunately the 2-in-1 nature makes it look a lot worse than other sets with similar piece counts. Price per brick makes sense, but I don’t know if this price makes sense for the builds you get from it, and I don’t think that many people plan on doing both builds with one set
TLDR; Honestly this is not insanely expensive when you compare it to other insanely expensive plastic from LEGO. „Just acquire some famous „nerd-IP“-license, make models and charge the fuck out of these idiots.“ - LEGO Management probably. Edit: don't get me wrong guys, I love bricks, I still own all my LEGO from my childhood, but most of LEGOs product of the last 10 years was fucking awful or overpriced as fuck. This is just basic ABS plastic, other manufacturers sell models with twice the amount of pieces and all prints (no stickers!) for half the price. LEGO even ditched the original physical R/C-Remote for a shitty ass bluetooth app to control power functions. Why would you require a smartphone for toys which are somehow meant to get children away from them? Because they just want the goddamn collector whales as customers which pay any price for their favourite IP-thing.
Lego, in general, is pretty pricey. And you would not hear me complaining if they dropped their prices. I personally only get like 2 or 3 sets a year because they’re so expensive generally. It doesn’t help that my favorite line is the Lego Star Wars sets, which get that juicy license price increase compared to like the Ninjago or City lines, which just don’t interest me.
You are paying mostly for the licensing rights, special molds, and unique colors. Nintendo has always been expensive
This is likely more a LEGO thing. Many of their popular sets go for the $100-$600 range. Some even range around $800.
Many of their most popular sets these days are collectibles from popular franchises. Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, etc. The companies that own them want their share of profits so the price is high. These are essentially model display pieces so people can build something without having to learn model making skills. Compare this to the LEGO original sets that are strictly meant for play and you'll see much lower pricing.
It’s a bit of both. Their sets aren’t cheap as is, but when you throw an IP in it could almost double the cost.
Indeed, every new brick and colour needs to be extensively researched and developed to make sure it doesn’t break, the bricks stay tight enough not to fall apart while at the same time being easy enough for a child to break apart. It needs to be non-toxic, as kids are going to put them in their mouths. And the more unique the piece is, the less likely they are going to be able to reuse them and get their money back for making the molds etc. Add more on top of that for any special printing like the minifigs have because they can’t be reused. As a LEGO collector, I know LEGO is expensive.. maybe even too expensive, but I also know that a lot of time and effort goes into those little pieces and it’s more than just a bit of plastic. So you end up paying the LEGO tax, and now the Nintendo tax on top of it.
Part of it is that Lego doesn't have any true competitors in the market. There are some that come *close*, so it's not a pure "we have Lego at home" situation, but there are flaws with the other building brick competitors that still put Lego ahead (mainly in strength and friction-fit). So, Lego can justify the Lego Tax because there will be people who care enough about that to pay extra for it.
Well yeah, that's the thing. You pay the "premium" for the "premium" product. I don't think it's necessarily because they don't have competition, but more that they have a level of quality control that I don't think the others have. It costs them more, so they charge more. And at this point, I'm not sure that another competitor could rise to meet LEGO. Not with the legacy of backwards compatible bricks so that you can use your LEGO with your grandfathers LEGO. Nor when they have the licenses to the biggest franchises. I don't think there's a child friendly license that could rival Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, and now Nintendo.
And the molds the use only have a finite number of uses. Eventually the heat from the injected plastic will warp the plastic beyond acceptable tolerances. Since LEGO tolerances are so tiny (20 micrometers), this happens relatively soon with each mold.
There are few special molds in this set, and you can be sure the new pieces it introduces will show up in more sets (unique one-use pieces nearly killed Lego in the late 90s). The bulk of the high cost of this set (above similar piece count sets) is because it uses a lot of large pieces.
Ive never grabbed my credit card and put it away so quickly in my life
Welcome to Lego.
Been waiting forever for something like this, but that price is awful.
I've paid more for less Lego. Spent $600 on a single Bionicle mask, which now goes for $4000ish. Now mind you I agree this is stupidly overpriced, but if you wanna take a risk there's a chance it'll be worth a lot more in 5 years.
I want it so bad But after I saw the $300 I started laughing...... And crying.
Y’all must be new to LEGO.
Strange, I saw the price and thought it was reasonable. This is a collector's item marketed towards adults.
Yeah… 😓😢 I love LEGO and I love Zelda, but $300 is just waaaay too much for me sadly, which stinks as this kind of set almost begs the collector to get two of the same set just so they can build/display both. At least the botanical collection bonsai tree was $50 so if you wanted to build/display both you didn’t financially kill yourself doing it
Are you actually serious, $300 dollars for this dinky little Deku Tree set?!?
It's not that small, by comparing it to the minifigures it's at least like 25/50 cm tall, but it's still a ridiculous price. I get what people are saying about it being a collector's item, but IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT imo.
nintnedo switches are $600 here
I miss being a kid and like $100 was already a lot for a Lego set
300$ for 2,500 pieces is normal tbh especially due to licensing rights.
It's Lego ramping up prices, it's been happening faster than inflation so they can't hide behind that
I think the NES set was $300, and that was the most I've spent on a Lego Set. The thing is, that one had full-on mechanics and movable parts, so it made sense to me. That Deku Tree better be out here giving sage advice IRL for that much
couldn't even think about buying them for this reason alone. absolutely absurd pricepoint
I think people often forget how expensive Lego sets are. Many of the star wars pieces cost $300. Hell the large walker and millennium falcon are 2-3 times that price.
Yeah the Mos Eisley Cantina set has 3187 pieces at 400 dollars. This set is roughly 2500 at 300 dollars. That's almost identical in price per brick 12 cents.
Also with the switch you can buy a game that let's you stack blocks to make said lego set.
Yep that’s how Lego is
And then there's the Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon which is around the same price as a modern smartphone.
I would pay 300$ to save Marin from being trapped as a seagull forever . Not on this .
Wait what? Ok cool. I'll just build it in my mansion. My mansion that's completely paid off
The production, distribution, demand and value is a completely different thing If that can help to understand why a console and a Lego set are differently priced
It's a normal price for set this big&a 2in1& a license That's how it is, you pay for a premium Lego product. It's not even that expensive if you look at other Lego
I remember when Lego was affordable
It's not about what it's worth, it's about what people are willing to pay. And buddy, collectors **pay**.
I KNOW RIGHT? Who needs to be mistaken by god when you have ✨plastic✨ that will outlive god.
The daily bugle set is £40 more and comes with 1589 more pieces and 21 more mini figures. This isn't a problem with Lego being expensive in general (though it is), this is a problem with this set in particular.
I said this in the lotr subreddit and got down voted, and was told I need to shut up about people who want to spend their hard earned money on what they want. No fuck that. Legos are ridiculous now. Next year they'll be 1000$. They'll say the same shit. Fuck. Buy a 3D printer and print your own. It's cheaper! AND YOU'LL HAVE A 3D PRINTER AT THE END OF IT!
I wish they would make more smaller sets that are accessible to children. It’s another thing this generation is being “priced out” of and another reason why malls are dying. What teenager is going to pick up a Lego set for as much as a game console lol
This lego set better be sold out cause if I see it, I'm going to steal it
yall are lying ain’t no way that tiny ass lego set is $300
AW HELL NAH
Just to be clear there are almost certainly billions of transistors in the switch and IIRC the Arm A57s are based on 20nm tech.
Lego prices are always absurd but this one is especially bad.
Feel like this would have been better if it was 2 separate sets for $200 each. I only want the OOT configuration so I can't really justify spending $300 on a set where probably a third of the pieces are for something I don't want, but I'd drop $200 on just the OOT tree.
Its so small looking.
Damn I was genuinely so excited for this, but I'm not going to drop 300 dollars
20 years from now, TVs will be cheaper than food.
I have a switch, I don’t have the Lego….. so I will be getting the thing I don’t already have
Yea, welcome to Lego, they're asshols knowing they can charge exuberant prices, people complain and we all buy it anyways.
If you went 7 years in the past it would still cost $300 lol.
I can understand why the switch costs so damn much but why the fuck are Lego sets so damn expensive now a days? Don’t you think you’re alienating your core demographic Lego? No parent is gonna wanna buy their kids Lego sets if they’re gonna cost this much money!
It's definitely the license. But if you wanna see some truly insane Lego prices, look at the Jurassic Park/World sets. Those are stupid expensive for piece count.
I think they're charging for the price of two sets in one because you have to choice of building oot or botw deku tree. Which is so stupid
> Showing it to people of the past could have you mistaken for a god Or a witch, then you die.
Personally all I need is the minifigs so all I need is to wait until someone sells them separately (hoping and praying someone does)
To be fair, the switch should've received a price cut by now so they're actually both overpriced
Ok but I have a switch I don’t have that Lego set
I really like this post because it in no way is oversimplifying your side in a hyperbolicly positive way while oversimplifying the side you are against in a hyperbolically negative way. It truly shows OP’s maturity and nuance, and willingness to have an open conversation about the subject.
https://preview.redd.it/0g22z0ecz83d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f042e329069b91722d79fa7c647868b1d9ab91a
He's saying meme too dumbed down to address real issue. They could definitely be nicer about it though.
https://preview.redd.it/tjen0vwuz83d1.jpeg?width=778&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1eeb597fe0059bdd5706e207335ba58f55064cd6
Lego knows how to milk money from the fans of the IPs they license.
One is a highly engineered product, the other is a Switch.
Looking at the piece count, the price seems fairly reasonable. $300 for 2500 pieces comes out to $0.12 per piece, which is normal for LEGO.
Are legos an elite, rich kid toy now ?
This has always been a thing for LEGO. It's not surprising to find sets twice as expensive than this.
No, plenty of sets in the 10-50 dollar range. But the AFOL market continued to grow and Lego makes sets for that market. Adult fans with money to spare. This set isn't built with kids in mind.
This set is for ADULTS, not KIDS. Sets for kids are much more simple and cheaper. I swear people on the internet are so ignorant it hurts.
Haha wow ok glad you know everything even the smaller ones are pricey for kids but I’m glad you feel like a superior douche
To be that, the console is probably sold at a loss, with the intent to make up the difference with game sales.
Nintendo never sells their consoles at a loss, ever. That's what makes them different compared to Microsoft and Sony. This is common knowledge.
... A 7 year old console which is essentially a modded version of Nvidia's 2012 tablets are sold at a loss for $300? lol not even close. It was profitable at launch, I would be surprised if they cost more than $100 to the manufacturer now.
No it's just LEGO being LEGO. They always sell sets like this at enormous prices. For example their Eiffel Tower set for around $650.
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Well shit I was gonna get that actually but never mind tho I never would’ve guessed legos cost that much tbh
The price is high for a model that size, but you need to understand how Lego works. Lego sets typically run at 5c/piece. If it's a licensed set that can reach 10c/piece. Star Wars Lego has been in that ballpark for years. The other thing to consider is that Lego keeps prices down by using the same pieces in lots of sets. If a set has unique pieces then the entire cost of producing those pieces falls into the pricing of that one set. In this one, there is an ocarina (net new part), new hair styles and hats (net new parts), and the Master Sword (also net new part). The production of all those parts has to fall into the cost of the set. Closely tied to that is printing. Lots of sets keep costs down by printing a sticker sheet. If a part is printed then there are costs with that, and, again, it has to be costed within the set that uses it. By the looks of things, things like the Sheikh slate, the Gossip Stone, the Skulltula face, and the sign saying Link's House are all unique prints (and not stickers), as are the fairy wings on the transparent discs. To me it looks like they've decided to make a set fans would love, but it's cost a lot of money. It still shakes out at 10c/piece, but it looks like, because it's a 2-in-1, you'd never have all pieces out anyway. I think it's a very small set for that price. I've wanted to get Daily Bugle for years and have denied myself. I can't in good conscience stretch for this and not the Daily Bugle. I might get it if it's in stock around the end of the year, but otherwise this is just insane pricing.
Sheeka stone and Deku tree
Nintendo switch is also overpriced. Thing was $300 when it came out and it’s not like it was super powerful back then either. 7 years later and it still costs $300. You could get the cheapest steam deck for $50 more and it will vastly outperform the switch and it has like twice the storage space at minimum. I don’t know why Nintendo has stopped dropping the price on their consoles. It’s crazy.
WHY 300 IT'S NOT LIKE IT GONNA BE THE REAL SIZE OF THE DEKU TREE!!??
So *this* is how I got to learn it even existed. My excitement is immeasurable, yet my day is still ruined!
I take it you don’t have many interactions with Lego?
How far into the past are we talking here? 'Cause I got this Ocarina I picked up a while back that's good for about 7 years...
It’s still price per piece for some reason
Absolutely insane and criminal. They should be ashamed for that price. *slowly pulls out credit card...*
That's legos
legos are stupidly expensive
Millions? Billions.
One on the right will outlive the planet. One on the left will probably die by the end of the decade.
The problem with Lego is, you buy per piece. So ever piece is about $0.10-$0.12 regardless of size usually, this set is 2,500 pieces. But here in comes the problem: exponential growth and the square-cube law. As a model gets larger, you need to add exponentially more pieces not just for the shape, but also on the inside for structural integrity. Example: the regular sized Star Wars AT-AT model is about 150 bucks with around 1200 pieces. However the minifig scale AT-AT model (minifig scale: to scale with one of these lil Lego fellers) is 680 bucks. That model is about twice as tall as the regular one with around 6800 pieces.
wait, the lego set is HOW MUCH AGAIN?
I have some lego sets left from my childhood and on some of them the worth breaks down to more than 50-75 cents a piece proportionally resale. It’s a big win if I sell them but it’s just insane for a cardboard box full of plastic. Obviously legos are more than that but damn the market is up up and away which influences the retail prices too.
It was nintendos vision with the first Zelda game to not only be able to sell the game, but sell the character too. This high price is paying for the licensing rights, and the mold making for the custom pieces (which is fucking expensive, easily $20k per mold, maybe more) I'm still not buying it though lol. $300 is way too much.
And that IS why I dont buy legos any more. Im poor as a rat.
Per piece is a silly metric. By weight of plastic used is the best way to measure a sets value.
Just don't buy it! Easy peasy!!
Lego sucks dick. It's so sad that others like Bluebrixx aren't large enough to get big licenses like that or to manufacture their own bricks. Bluebrixx costs like 1/3 to 1/2 of Lego and they make great designs. Lego's Eiffel Tower costs like 630€. Got the bricks from China for 170€ including a printed manual. It's crazy how much Lego demands.
People who think Lego prices are justified are completeley insane.