The unstructured play aspect of Lego was what made it great. I can’t count the hours spent as a child playing with Lego, building cars and boats and trains etc.

My childhood friend Matthias from Germany had the most amazing collection of Lego I’d seen as a kid. Most of the stuff he had was not available in North America at that time.

I agree about the Technic sets. They are actually VERY complex and require a lot of patience to put together and then what? After all that effort, it’s a shame to take them apart.
Maybe they have higher appeal in Europe or Asia.

The Bionicles are similar. Although much simpler than Technic, they are not easy to put together. My son got one a couple of years back at a party and I found it hard to make it exactly as illustrated. Lots of small pieces etc.

Lego Mindstorms is a different story. My kids are in Lego League at school and that set totally rocks. Too bad it’s soooo expensive.

I’m not as dogmatic about brand extension, as there are many cases where companies have had very good success when they extended their brands. The Lego Star Wars line was VERY successful for Lego (and I’m assuming Mr. Lucas as well).

But extension does have limits, and I think in this case, Lego is completely out of tune (sorry, couldn’t resist) with their audience.

Agreed it is a “Kids Rock Band” game.

But the Lego tie in makes no sense at all to me.

Lego has NEVER had any relationship to music. The Lego branded video games (e.g. Lego Star Wars) are a stretch in my opinion but at least tie into the success of the Lego Star Wars toys, but in the games have no relationship to the Lego experience at all. i.e. creating, building etc.

As for the appropriateness of the songs, most of them are pretty tame, though it’s hard to understand which young kids would be listening to Iggy Pop or Spinal Tap.

And while it seems they tried to pick safe songs, both Hendrix’s Fire and Spinal Tap’s Short and Sweet have some lyrics with very obvious innuendo, that would be rather inappropriate for kids to sing.

Lego discovered that their sets where purchased by parents, rather than kids, aka economic buyer, rather than users.

I’ve never bought a branded set and never will. I did buy Technics for myself, let my son inherit them, bought him some of his own. I don’t know that I can support buying them for his son, as they are too far removed now from unstructured play.

Launching a new brand is quite an expensive undertaking. In the short run, it’s a lot easier to leverage the power of an existing brand. In the long run, it dilutes the brand, in many cases to an extent that outweighs the cost savings.

Brand extension is evil.

All of the songs in Lego Rock Band have been selected to be appropriate for younger kids. There’s nothing like encouraging your 6-year old to sing the line “nature is a whore” while playing the original rock band.

In addition to the appropriateness-filter for songs (including downloadable songs and songs imported from other Rock Band games) here’s a few different easy modes (e.g. a no kick-drum mode for kids who can’t reach the pedals)