Does It Feel Like Lego Bricks Just Keep Getting More Expensive?

13 thoughts on “Does It Feel Like Lego Bricks Just Keep Getting More Expensive?”

1. I’m glad you brought this up, because this is what i have been feeling, that the price vs. value of LEGO sets hasn’t really gone up. I think what people see is that some price points have risen. LEGO designs the sets in each theme so that they hit certain price points. That’s why you usually see themes starting around $10, then $25, $50, $70, $100. With certain sets LEGO has found that the market has a place for even some high-end price points, thus you get the $400 Super Star Destroyer or Death Star sets. They either weren’t tapping that high end collectible market before or there were just no consumers in the past that would pay that price for the brick, but there are now. Parents couldn’t walk into a store in the 80s and see a set on the shelf with a $150 price.

   The price/piece ratio has still averaged around the same over time across all themes, even the licensed ones, so it has been getting annoying that people attribute perceived expensiveness of Star Wars or Batman or Harry Potter to them being licensed themes.

   Even if the cost of sets we’re increasing, the quality of the sets has shot up greatly. We’re getting incredible detail on minifigs these days. Bodies with front and back printing, double-sided faces, accessories and piece molds like you wouldn’t believe. Designs are getting better. And so many retailers sell LEGO now that if price is an issue you can always wait for a sale and never pay MSRP for any particular set. These past several years have been a spectacular time to be into LEGO, IMO.

2. I wonder how much of the perception is based on the size and the type of the pieces. I grew up with the basic sets where pretty much everything was cuboid block, or possibly a door or window – a lot the sets now seem to have a lot of small or specifically shaped pieces – making them feel less reusable outside the actual pattern supplied.

   1. I was going to make this exact comment. The size of the bricks you get these days make it seem you’re getting a lot less for your money.

      Try making a house for your GI Joe with the deathstar kit!

      1. Maybe a better/different comparison to make would be the cost vs weight of plastic in a set. That might not show the same curve.

3. So you’re saying I’m actually *saving* money by buying all this LEGO now as opposed to a decade or two ago?

   Cool. My wife (and son) will be glad to hear it.

4. IIRC, there was an interview with one of their designers in the back of the guide to Star Wars kits, and he said that when they were prototyping a new model, the overall weight of a kit was the best indication as to whether they were hitting the price-point requested by the head office. One thing you might try doing (although you’d have to actually have one of the old kits for this) is weighing the bricks in old and new kits, and then determining the cost per oz (or whatever unit you prefer). I think this would probably be a better scale, since the cost per brick could be skewed depending on the average size of the brick in each kit evaluated…

5. That’s amazing data – and surprising. LEGO star wars has always ‘seemed’ more expensive than other themes but the data clearly shows otherwise.

   I guess the problem is that the big sets are just so darn…awesome….i mean come on, who doesn’t want a Super StarDestroyer?

6. Agree with Simon. Modern themed Lego sets with a high proportion of custom bricks seem to encourage a lot less creativity than the big sets of generic bricks that came with a book full of ideas for things to build.

   1. This is exactly my issue with Lego, though I love them – and I’m glad that the “Lego Recipe Book” whose title I can’t recall is helping with that. I was frustrated, however, at how difficult it is to get a “just bricks” freeplay set. As a 6th grade teacher, I see my students freak out when I ask them to do pretty much anything creative; they don’t want to draw; they want to use clip art or (marginally better) a light box for tracing (taping clip art to the window works in a pinch). They don’t want to build a freeform structure; they want specific instructions on how to get a particular result. I can imagine the heck my science teaching colleagues go through if their school does science fairs… most kids want projects-in-a-box, at least in my sphere of experience. Sigh. Our kids may be getting smarter, but they’re a darned sight less creative.

      Very disheartening.

      Cashwise, I had to really think long and hard about Legos and Christmas – due to budget issues, Santa will be bringing my five year old son one present only this year: the Ninjago Fire Temple he’s been wanting. At over a hundred dollars, I really had to think: would he rather have a bunch of smaller sets (and keep longing for that big toy), or will (I hope) the plethora of toys my family will be getting him balance things out?

      I’m waist-deep in buyer’s remorse, but at this point, there’s no turning back. And as my husband HATES Legos, the plus side is that my son and I will be getting lots of quality time in the near future!

      Santa guilt.

7. I remember Lego being very expensive as a kid. It a was precious thing! Every once in a while my mother would buy me another tiny set. The Surface Explorer or something, and it would get added to my big box o’ lego.

8. Hmmm… after reading this again, I’m envisioning a microeconomy based on Lego blocks. Those highly specialized pieces wouldn’t be worth much in my book – but a nice bucket of 2×6 in rainbow colors would be grand!

9. It would be cool to see a regression analysis between lego prices against various economic indicators to see what has the strongest explanatory power.

   It’s possible that Lego is making more profit margins by providing more pieces at cheaper $/piece price point in things like Star Wars kits due to improvements in manufacturing. Leveraging the popularity of the movies and people’s belief that bigger is better.

10. Beyond cool. I ran this through my Econ 101 blender: I’d bet that demand rose through 86 (Boomers having kids) and fell thereafter (Boomers mostly done, curse of video games as substitutes). Anyway, this may show up as an exam problem. LOL

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