by Sarah Herman
Expand the Brand
Through the Internet, television, advertising, food packaging, and even in their learning environments, children’s lives are saturated by products and the brands behind them more than ever before. While the simplicity of LEGO is what makes it sell, and has been the key element to its early success and the recent turnaround of the company, bringing in revenue is the main objective of any business, even the LEGO Group. To compete with emerging licensed markets, where children are prompted to desire toys based on their favorite TV show, and bombarded with advertising, LEGO has diversified, producing items often completely unrelated to the construction principles of the toy. This brand, which over the years has included books, apparel, video games, and even advent calendars, seeks to create brand awareness and loyalty. If a child loves LEGO toys, it makes good business sense to make LEGO watches, LEGO clothes, and LEGO bedside lamps so that parents needn’t look elsewhere when they want to buy something that isn’t a LEGO set for their child’s birthday. Here we explore some of these varied products, and take an in-depth look at the emergence of LEGO video games, one of the company’s biggest spin-off success stories.
Books
From as early as the 1960s, the LEGO Group was producing non-toy products for fans to spend their extra pocket money on. The earliest Idea Books were a cheap way for the company to advertise its products, promote the LEGO brand, and generate extra revenue. Since those days, various books have been produced by the LEGO Group and its licensed publishing partners (Dorling Kindersley, Scholastic, and Ameet) to help bring the LEGO world and its characters to consumers in different ways. This has resulted in a variety of publications including large hardcover photographic history books and sticker collections (e.g., LEGO Star Wars The Visual Dictionary, The LEGO Book, Minifigure Ultimate Sticker Collection), LEGO Atlantis activity books with minifigures, the BIONICLE Chronicles and Adventures series, annuals, a collector’s guide, and Scholastic Readers set in LEGO City. For BIONICLE, the books were an integral part of the play theme, similar to Hasbro’s Transformers and the comics associated with them. Obviously, one can be enjoyed without the other, but for children who wanted to fully understand the mythology and world surrounding the toys they were playing with, these books provided an accessible way to achieve that.
More than a just a minifigure, these keychain minifigures also double as torches. © Ruben Saldana
LEGO watches, made up of special link elements, usually include a LEGO minifigure, such as this Space Police watch. © Sarah Herman
Apparel
While various LEGO clothing items have appeared over the years, children’s clothes are now produced almost exclusively by long-standing licensed partner Kabooki (some T-shirts are made by other companies). LEGO Wear is a clothing line for children aged up to twelve years, sold across Europe with sales offices in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal. While the clothes do not all feature LEGO characters or theme references (there are, of course, LEGO Star Wars–themed clothes for boys ages three to twelve), they all say LEGO Wear on them, and many items include the LEGO logo. There is an emphasis on clothes “made for play” and Kabooki even produces LEGO ski pants and jackets. LEGO shoes are available from Swiss manufacturer Ross Company who makes LEGO, DUPLO, BIONICLE, and CLIKITS shoes. Unfortunately, the “studs” on the rubber components of the shoes are not compatible with real LEGO bricks. TLG has also manufactured watches associated with different themes such as Star Wars, Space Police, and Power Miners made up from LEGO links elements and a few studs to add your own finishing touches. With backpacks, sunglasses, and even fancy-dress costumes, it’s now possible for kids to be dressed in LEGO products from head to toe.
Household Items
Various licensed partners work with the LEGO Group to produce gadgets, gizmos, and gifts that reflect LEGO’s values, which stand out as unique products not always on toyshop shelves. From giant LEGO brick storage boxes to salt and pepper shakers, ice cube trays, MP3 players, digital cameras, lamps, and pens built from minifigure heads, TLG has invited innovative ideas from manufacturers all over the world. But as with its own toys, the company doesn’t want a regular bedside lamp with the LEGO logo stuck on the side—it wants a unique product that is obviously a part of the LEGO portfolio—the result? A giant minifigure hanging from a swing (which doubles as a handle), with lights inside its chest that illuminate its white torso. TLG wants its licensed partners to understand the brick, its abilities, and how the functional and play values of LEGO toys can be incorporated into different items.
A LEGO Star Wars Jango Fett minifigure makes up the midsection of this pen. © Christopher Doyle
They say you shouldn’t play with your food, but it’s hard not to when you have these minifigure-head salt and pepper shakers. © ruben Saldana
Some spend years meeting with TLG, discussing different ideas, and perfecting designs and measurements before products are manufactured.
Board Games
Long before the first LEGO bricks were molded in Billund, Ole Kirk Christiansen’s toy company produced a board game called Monypoli (not to be confused with the family staple, Monopoly). Christiansen’s 1947 game had a road safety theme—an important education issue for the company which they would later hope to encourage with the Town Plan system, and a popular motif that was offered by many European toy manufacturers. After the popularity of LEGO bricks took off, the LEGO Group did not choose to focus on producing its own games (although one noticeable exception is the inclusion of a board game with the sets for 2003 theme Orient Expedition); instead, it has licensed out the rights to produce LEGO board games to other publishers who produced a diverse range including:
Lego Creator— This popular game, released in 1999 and published by Rose Art Industries, stuck to the fundamental principle of what LEGO play is all about. The game saw players select a model card and then move around a board collecting LEGO pieces to build the model it dictated. The first player to build their model correctly was the winner. This game even went on to win an Årets Spil (Danish Game of the Year Award) for Best Children’s Game in 2001.
Lego Dominoes—University Games’ 2006 offering took a fairly traditional approach to the use of LEGO bricks in a board game format. Containing 56 bricks and 28 plates, players matched and stacked the colored bricks to move across the board, choosing whether to try and block their opponent’s route or race to the finish line.
But something changed for the LEGO Group when they decided that board games were a market they wanted to re-enter in 2009. It’s likely this was related to the rise in sales of board games during the recession. In a U.K. Times article published in December 2008, market researcher Mintel said that retailers had reported stronger sales of more traditional toys over “must-have” craze items, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Popular board games such as Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Operation saw a noticeable increase in sales, with John Lewis’s department stores revealing they had sold 23 times more games of Scrabble than the previous year. The LEGO Group had long been considered a traditional, quality toy, and while moving into the board game market could be seen as a risky move for a toy retailer during a global recession, TLG recognized that a family-friendly group game that incorporated LEGO toys’ building principles, branded with the LEGO name, had the potential to be a big seller.
Unlike earlier LEGO board games that had revolved around traditional game play with a LEGO element, these new games were referred to as the world’s first collection of games that were meant to be built, played, and changed. The “building” required players to put together a unique LEGO die, playing pieces, and even build the board itself. The initial ten games released in 2009 included Monster 4, a four-in-a-row game set in a spooky LEGO graveyard; Race 3000, where players move racing car pieces around the LEGO track, dodging obstacles to try and reach the finish line first; maze game Minotaurus and Creationary—a twist on family favorite Pictionary where players draw clues to elicit guesses from their team. Similar to
the 1999 Warren Company LEGO game Constructionary, in Creationary players must choose a card from one of four categories: vehicles, buildings, nature, or things, and then build the object written on the card while the other players guess what they are building. Almost all of the games were recommended for children age eight and up, with some games suitable for those as young as six. These ages are not unusual in terms of the board game market—Monopoly is sold at the 8+ market and Operation to 6+. But given the appeal of LEGO toys to adults, and the older age recommendations of some of its toys, TLG’s initial approach was more heavily targeted toward younger fans. Julie Stern, the assistant brand relations manager for the LEGO Group, explained to BoardgameNews.com that this approach was intentional and that while TLG was introducing its line to its strongest audience, more complex games could be on the horizon. In spite of this, the eight games released in 2010 were still appealing to this younger market. The charmingly named Shave a Sheep game, which sees players trying to rid their LEGO sheep of its wool before the other players, while steering clear of a LEGO wolf, is considered suitable for children as young as two.
Initially the new games were only available in the U.K. and in German-speaking European countries, but with sales figures higher than expected (LEGO achieved a 10 percent share of the board games market in both countries), the decision was made to launch the games in the United States and Canada in 2010. The U.K.’s LEGO-buying market, being similar to that of the United States but on a much smaller scale, provided the ideal testing ground to see how LEGO games would go down with buyers.
Video Games: LEGO Play Reinvented
While computer games and consoles had featured on wish lists for some years, especially since the release of Nintendo’s Game Boy in 1990, the end of the century saw a move toward technologically enhanced toys that provided more interactive play. In 1997 Bandai’s Tamagotchi—hand-held electronic devices that hatch as pets in need of attention and care—received the Innovative Toy of the Year Award from the British Association of Toy Retailers, and in 1999, Tiger Electronics took the Toy of the Year Award for the second year running with the hugely successful Furby. First-generation Furbies were furry, owl-like sensory robots, which, through infrared ports and electric motors, were able to communicate with each other, develop their English, communication skills, and move various parts of their bodies.
With children expecting more and more from their toys and with their young minds developing computer literacy levels unseen in previous generations, the LEGO Group made the decision to put its name on a number of video games, beginning in 1997 with LEGO Island. Created and published by Mindscape in an agreement with TLG, LEGO Island was an action-adventure game for PCs. Set on a small island, there were a number of playable characters each with customizable abilities. Although there was no ultimate objective to the game—it was possible to explore the environment and customize the island—there were a number of missions that could be completed, the central one being returning the Brickster (a known LEGO criminal) to prison after the events of the game led to his escape. The various locales that featured in the game such as the police station, the Octan gas station, the bank, and the race track were modeled on LEGO sets that were available at that time.
Despite this being the LEGO Group’s first foray into the world of video games, LEGO Island was a huge success. It was the only game targeting children to appear in PC Data’s top ten best-selling software games of the year in 1997. On top of impressive sales figures, LEGO Island was honored by the critical gaming community when the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awarded it the Interactive Achievement Award for Family Game of 1997—this award has since been won by gaming blockbusters Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and LittleBigPlanet. Critics commented that the game managed to retain the quirky style and humor of LEGO toys while providing a stimulating, customizable environment that was easy for younger children to use. Arguably it was the success of LEGO Island (a game not based on any existing range of LEGO products, or a licensed brand), that paved the way for the future of video games at the company, including two Island sequels, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. The Island games even spawned their own LEGO building theme— Island Xtreme Stunts (released 2002–2003), featuring characters and scenarios from the games.
Between 1997 and 2009, TLG released thirty-five original LEGO games, making the name a recognized staple in child-friendly software. While the company did develop some games themselves, such as LEGO Stunt Rally and LEGO Rock Raiders, it became apparent that greater success would be achieved through the outsourcing of game development to experienced established production houses. The LEGO Group put its ideas and characters in the hands of companies such as British developer Silicon Dreams Studios, known largely for their football games; Traveller’s Tales (owned by Warner Bros. since 2007), who are responsible for the majority of recent LEGO video game successes; and NetDevil—the Colorado-based company who took on the mammoth task of creating a massive multi-player online game for the LEGO Group.
LEGO Island’s success was followed by a number of popular games. Here are just some of the more memorable ones.
LEGO Racers
Although not as successful in terms of sales and critical reception as Island, 1999’s Racers was the first LEGO game to be available for both the PC and games consoles such as Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, and PlayStation. Racing games series such as Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo were some of the most popular console games of the 1990s, so the LEGO Group’s venture into racing games (there was also a Racers 2 released in 2001) was very reflective of the popular market at the time. Racers saw players drive around a circuit in a series of rounds—scoring high led to a new race circuit being “unlocked.” With twenty-four race tracks in total and a number of power weapons and shortcuts available, Racers matched up to other similar gokart games, but was lacking in terms of multi-player capabilities. Popular features of the game that made it particularly LEGO-esque were its sense of humor (before racing, players had to obtain a driver’s license with the obligatory bad photograph) and creativity (gamers customized their own drivers and built their own race cars from various LEGO-themed pieces). The game preceded the launch of the new-look LEGO car racing toys, which also became known as LEGO Racers in 2001, with the same branding as the game.
Rock Raiders, Alpha Team, and BIONICLE
While LEGO Racers was a game first and a toy second (incidentally, the LEGO Racers line has continued long after the game’s availability), a number of games that followed it were produced as part of a supporting media package created to help sell a new line of LEGO toys. Unfortunately, the originality and gaming nuance evident in the production of LEGO Island was clearly lacking from some of these new releases, and as a result they failed to have much impact on the gaming community beyond LEGO fans. These included mining theme Rock Raiders’ tie-in—a mission-based real-time strategy game that saw players completing missions such as searching for equipment or rescuing fellow Raiders to obtain energy crystals. Alpha Team was also one of the primary outlets for its toy theme’s storyline. Developed by Oscar-winning special effects company Digital Domain, it saw the player take on the role of Agent Dash who must save the other members of the team and stop the evil Ogel from using his mind-controlling orbs. Another theme that received the video game treatment a number of times is Technic spin-off BIONICLE. With its built-in storyline and complex mythology, BIONICLE was ripe material for game developers, but the 2000s’ offerings of LEGO BIONICLE (also known as Tales of the Tohunga), Matoran Adventures, and BIONICLE: The Game were not particularly well-received either. Many gaming reviews pointed to the fact that unless you were a hard-core BIONICLE fan, the game wasn’t that enjoyable. The latest BIONICLE game BIONICLE Heroes released in 2006/2007 fared slightly better, its release overshadowed by the long-awaited arrival of PlayStation 3 and Wii consoles the same week. The game was the first of the BIONICLE series to be developed by LEGO Star Wars developer Traveller’s Tales (see below) and thus many comparison
s were drawn between the two games, BIONICLE seen as the lesser of the two for its lack of originality and LEGO qualities, as well as its repetitiveness.
LEGO Star Wars
By 2005 the LEGO Group had had varied success with different game releases. It wasn’t until 2005, with the release of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game that the true potential in this medium was realized. PR Newswire reported total worldwide sales figures for the game at 6.7 million copies in 2009, and this figure was overtaken by the game’s sequel LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy (2006) with 8.2 million units sold. With Star Wars’ enormous fan presence and the LEGO toys’ unmatched success as a licensed product, the marriage of LEGO, Star Wars, and games consoles was one that all involved had good reason to feel confident in, but it was the execution of the development and the unique feel of the overall product that caused a buzz in the gaming world. Despite being targeted toward children, its combination of accessible puzzles, challenges, destructible scenery, and the well-loved Star Wars mythology, characters, familiar locales, and music made it a popular game with adults, too, who could also appreciate the comical spin put on such an iconic movie series, especially in the cut-scenes created especially for the game.