Blocks is discussing whether the LEGO Group should offer expansion packs – should you be able to buy a box of extra minifigures for 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine? or an extra carriage for 21344 The Orient Express Train?
21358 Minifigure Vending Machine sparked a discussion between Graham E. Hancock (Editor of Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine for fans) and Daniel Konstanski (author of The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks). Should the LEGO Group release expansion packs? Is the company making the most of the System?
The new LEGO Ideas set, 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine, is packed with desirable minifigures. But if you want to display the minifigures inside the set and on the shelf next to it, you need to buy two copies of the same model. Should the LEGO Group be offering an extra box with the Space, Castle and Pirates minifigures so that fans have a way of getting extras?
Graham and Daniel reflect on different sets that would have benefited from expansions, such as 21344 The Orient Express Train and 10182 Café Corner.
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“If you want enough of a particular piece or a particular character or a whole section of a set, it’s difficult to pull that off to varying degrees,” says Daniel.
“When we met with Jordan Scott, who is the Creative Lead on LEGO Ideas, about 21344 The Orient Express Train, he was talking about the difficulty of knowing how many carriages do you put into the box, how big do you make this set to make sure that it’s a satisfying display model, especially as it’s a passenger train,” Graham explains.
“So I was asking them about the idea of well, because LEGO Ideas is the fan driven platform, the experimental part of things, is there no way you could release the carriages separate to the train?
“But the way he put it to me is that LEGO Ideas has a certain number of boxes each year that they can deliver and they can’t just turn up one day and say to the decision makers in the logistics side of the LEGO Group ‘oh by the way that one product we were going to make it going to be two different boxes.’”
Undeterred, the duo have a conversation about whether such an approach would be helpful to fans, which products would benefit from it and why the LEGO Group might not choose to go down that particular route.
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