Just a reminder this video was posted 1. Before QR codes were scannable or accurate 2. Not all QR codes (only 25 percent of codes in distro were accurate/scannable) Please check the date the video was posted.
Scan them and get a dozen. It is just utterly pointless for those that discuss the issue. You can just get the figure you want if you put a fraction of effort into getting an app that helps you.
While I completely understand the people that scan the boxes and get what they want, this does leave the store with a lot of boxes of 9 figures that nobody wants .. or will burden the poor souls that don't know about this app and will buy them with no chance to get the most desired figures. This is a problem created by Lego that is completely unnecessary. They should just use clear boxes, where you can see which figure is in it and allow stores to order specific ones, so they do not overprint all the worthless plastic and focus on the stuff that people really want. Supply and demand, which is how the world really works.
Lego should 100% sell all 12 of them in one box. I’ve bought dozens and dozens before and still not gotta certain minifigs and I’ll have 5 each of 3-4 of them.
Maybe just smaller sets of minifigs/more of a willingness to do one off silly army builder sets, too. Imagine how well they could do if, instead of a single army builder CMF per wave, they'd do like 'fright knights battlepack'--they could even price them up and make them in the format of those scummy minifigure packs where you pay 15 for 3 guys and boring sidebuilds.
The only real solution is to sell them individually online, let people buy 20+ or whatever what they want and let them skip over the ones they dont want
That's a cool idea, but then lego will make less money re-selling the figures on bricklink, the same reason they keep making super rare UCS figures they're double dipping on profits with bricklink they're *scamming* us i'm so disgusted by lego this souless corporation upsets me so much I used to love lego but now with these greedy decisions, bad printing, awful giant 400$+ sets that don't do anything, just sit there, horrible quality control and being way too expensive. They're creating false scarcity to increase their bricklink profits and it's BS lego is exploiting it's fans i'm so done
@@legomurderbears I actually love this, as humans we follow the pack - if they did that it would totally change what people want given there wouldn't be differing values and popularity bias.
Let's pretend I am not The Nightlord for a second and I have absolutely no interest in collecting 2,000 Vampire Knights, goat herders and barbarians. Why would I ever need more than 1 dog groomer, a train kid, a disabled athlete, a detective, a dinosaur guy, etc. Even if those figures were incredibly popular I couldn't picture myself needing more than 1 of them. It's not the fans fault we only want the castle figures, it's lego's fault for putting lackluster figures next to decked out castle figures. Unlike the DnD set which is essentially a castle theme I didn't mind getting figures I didn't want because they were castle related
Its frustrating for me because I live in an area that doesn't have a large lego retail store. I have a Kroger and a Walmart close by and neither sell very much. And when I go to try and snag a minifig from one of those boxes, Basil and the Goat Herder are nowhere to be seen. I'm not the only one who's looking for that figure and I'm punished for not having the free time to lurk around when a new box is opened.
I don’t know if it’s a common take at this point, but scalping is so much worse due the box design BECAUSE of the scan and QR codes. It is SO EASY to get every scalpable minifig in a box of 36. I am losing my mind trying to find a fresh box with a Dragon Paladin at the tail end of the DnD series.
Yeah, this trend has gotten much worse with the Dragon Paladin and now the new Wolfpack minifigure. The scarcity of those figures makes the Basil scarcity seem like child's play.
It's obvious that Basil the favorite. But people opening boxes before they buy them is just plain wrong. There is no excuse for people acting like 2-year-olds. Lego fans must realize it was always meant to be a mystery box. If you don't like it, go on the aftermarket, weigh them, or don't buy them. It's not optimal, but oh well. I do agree with most of what you said, and I do believe that Basil should have come in a set not as a CMF, but Womp Womp I guess.
if there wasnt a bunch of fully grown adults feeling out the best minifigs and buying them all to resell then we wouldnt have boxes. personally i prefer the boxes. gives me a chance to get something decent and much more exciting in general opening it up for a surprise rather than knowing before you even buy it. you were never meant to know before purchasing in the first place.
With good reason. Not only is the first set that offers many medieval themed parts, they are also nearly all good minifigures. Especially if you're also interested in fantasy style minifigures, these are just amazing. I was never a fan of the series 25 lineup, as it has a little bit of everything but only 3 figures that are massively popular. They should just have made all of them in the medieval style, so people actually wanted all of them. Even if they wanted to have city or modern style figures, the set should be all in that style .. not a few in a massively popular theme and a bunch of random nonsense.
@@Maddenhawkexactly!! Thank you we need to spread the word that lego bought bricklink amd have been getting worse ever since, notice all the new super expensive exclusive UCS figures that keep coming out? It's because lego wants more money from bricklink sales they know scalpers are gonna exploit people and lego wants a piece of that scalper pie.
@@Maddenhawk yeah - but if 1 popular figure is worth 15 and the rest are worth 5, lego profits off 70$ of resale...if all are worth $6, lego profits 72$ off resale...so it's actually a pretty complicated game they are playing and that's why they continuously change up how they do things like exclusives, etc..
I just went on Amazon and bought a $25 earwax camera that connects to my phone to peek inside. The hole it leaves behind is tiny and you can squeeze it back to together to make it look like the box wasn’t tampered with. I bought two boxes of 6 and the extras I had I took back to Lego and returned them. I plan on doing the same thing in May with the new space wave of CMF’s
@@GlowingTrashPanda99not all of them are scannable in series 25. Only less than half it seems like. There’s a difference between small and big matrix codes.
@@BrickFleet I know. I just specifically search out the ones with the scannable codes, even here in Tampa. Another group has put together a pretty reliable system for the small dot matrices too. I'll have to send myself the link to post it.
My feedback to Lego was for them to sell the figures with full transparancy on their website. If one wanted to buy 50 vampire knights then they could easily do so without having to pay tripple the cost to scalpers. I bought about 150 of the series 25 and managed to scan about 90% of them. I'm lucky enough to live in a rather big town which has around 10 toy stores to buy from. The new QR-codes is the only reason I bothered to get into CMF.
I understand that you did so, but still .. this leaves a lot of unwanted, useless boxes at those stores, which they will probably not restock if people do not buy them. Also, for the people that do buy them, who do not use this scanning method, they will be left with only boxes with the undesired figures. I don't intend to make you feel bad for doing so, but I do want to make the point that Lego should never sell blind boxes ever again, as that simply is just creating all sorts of issues that we do not want, nor Lego themselves want.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I went and did it again. Bought every Dragonborn Paladin I could get my hands on. Stood outside the store on September 1st just as it was about to open then went on a spree to every other toy store I knew of. Some people had the same idea as I did and they'd beat me to it. Essentially all the paladin in town were gone in a matter of days. The stores only get 1-2 boxes so there's not a lot to go around. I had to buy a lot of them online in order to fill up my army. I don't like it any more then you do. I had to visit the stores with high frequency. Sometimes going in before work and after. It's very stressful. Some stores didn't get them until a week or more after release. I spent easily over 50 hours just traveling around and I had to trade a week worth of vacation day in order to try and buy them all on the first week. Unfortunately we can't pace ourselves with the CMF because once they are gone they are gone. It's not fair or ideal. When it comes down to it, if I don't do it someone else will. I'm an AFOL and not a scalper trying to make a profit on the after market. It boils down to Lego creating a solution to appease their customers. As they say; don't hate the player, hate the game.
@@samkerr6029 Yea that was my point exactly. I can perfectly understand someone does it, if you're only interested in specific figures. Even if you want to have a complete set of every figure, at least there is an option now to not have to overspend on it. Still, the system is wrong and I really dislike how they implemented it. That said, my local unofficial Lego store (and I'm sure many others) simply offer a complete set of one of each for the normal price, so that's what I did. I would have loved a few extra's of the Paladin or even the Barbarian to use their pieces and would have probably skipped a few of the figures if I could. But at least I have every figure I want now, which is good enough for me.
I bought 12 minifigs at once, twice! 24 in total to gent only one Bat Lord and 2 Goats… here in Japan idk why the bar codes are different and don’t work. I use to enjoy buying CMF’s… now I’m just frustrated… In the end I just bought a second Bat Lord for almost 25$
These are the problems that we don't want. On a world scale .. it is an insignificant problem. Still, it is extremely unnecessary and completely preventable to have these issues by just offering clear boxes where you can see what you buy. Also, they should offer stores the option of buying specific figures so they are in stock at all times.
The main thing I don't get is why you act like they were lying about this being an environmental decision? Lego has been trying to be more eco-friendly before even Vidyo. I agree it's anti-consumer, but both can be true at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it was a little bit of both, but I feel completely denying the environmental aspect feels unfair. Anyways, I agree with the conclusion of making better CMFs beings solution, altho I guess it's up to the buyer what they'd consider "invaluable" in a CMF. Another way to curb the issue is to do what other companies have done and mark them with special codes, because they're pretty easy to ignore if you're looking to have the blind box experience.
I argue it’s pro consumer because now scrapers and collectors, im a collector, can’t just feel for a specific character then buy them all up. It gives everyone a more fair chance.
I have actually been flourishing in this new landscape. Thanks to the QR codes on the bottom of the boxes and some dedicated fans I have an app that let's me scan that to see what's inside. I have already gotten the minifigs I wanted from the two recent CMF series thanks to that. I was bad at feeling the bags and just couldn't figure out what I was feeling.
@@zafrastudios1392 Brick Search. I saw it recommended on Bonus Lego News. I got it from the app store and was even able to test it on the QR Michael had up on the screen. One piece of advice. Keep your thumb over the barcode when scanning. If it catches some of that it just sits there and won't tell you anything.
To play devil's advocate for a minute, If they keep up with putting the Qr codes on the boxes I'll be happy, it's a lot easier to scan a box (assuming you have a phone to do so) than fidget around a bunch of bags feeling for one part, I know they don't put the big Qr codes on every box but in my experience it's not usually too hard to find the one's that are scalable, and I don't think lego are intentionally making "higher quality" figs for a malicious purpose, they just want to have a diverse selection of characters to appeal to the most people, naturally this does also encourage the uninformed buyer to buy as many as is required to get the one they want which I don't approve of, but anyone that invested in collecting a specific character will likely turn to the internet and discover the Qr codes, I think characters like Basil and the Goat herder weren't made with the intent to persuade afol's to buy a bunch of figs they don't want, I think that's just how mystery packages are inherently designed, it was the same back when they were in bags, it's just now we're scanning instead of feeling, and I wouldn't even say the desirable fig are better than the others it's just that they have connections outside themselves that make people want them, basil as the fright knights leader and the goat herder for the long awaited goat reissue, my only complaint would be that they don't have the big codes on every box and doing a price hike at the same time as such a controversial change probably wasn't the smartest move on their end
There are still issues with the scanning, as many boxes are left that contain none of the desired figures. Stores will probably not order more until enough of those leftover boxes are sold. Also, uninformed buyers will be screwed by not having a chance to open those desired figures. Just offering the products in a clear packaging, so everyone will know what they will get is a simple and elegant solution. Then the stores can just order those individuals ones and Lego can print to demand the popular ones so no plastic gets wasted on the impopular minifigures.
4:45 I also like: - Cyborg runner - cool prosthetics and podium, great hair - Triceratops - believe me, he looks stunning but pics of him Lacks this. Great addition to Dino costumes collection - Train kid celebrating 25th series
I think its a good thing that it went to boxes. Now everyone with a smart phone can find out what is inside rather then having to spend ages feeling what is inside. I think its a lot fairer this way
Not true. Here in Australia you can not scan the QR code with your phone as our stock has the small codes which are not readable. Maybe if the next drop has the larger QR codes we can successfully identify the figures we want.
It is an L take for sure. Does nobody think about what the result will be when everyone scans every box for the few minifigures that they want? The result will be, it will be hard to find a barbarian female and it will be impossible to find a goat herder or a bat lord, as they will be completely non-existant at some point. And in no way the store is going to restock if the stand is still full with packages. Also, for uninformed people, they will no longer be able to open a desired figure, which is also not a fair thing in my eyes.
I have had pretty good success just gessing by weight in hand and how many pieces rattle... the train guy and goat are similar but slightly pressing on the box reveals the train. then basil is decently weighted but has a lot of pieces but is slightly muted due to the extra cardboard from the cape. Also there is the QR code which I have not used, and if you can find a fresh box, there is a distinct packing order.... I got a couple extra I do not want, but have found multiples of the ones I do want this way.
You know, back when the vidiyo figures were being released, it seemed impossible in my area at least, to find a box that WASNT tampered with. Even then it was bad, and I still see broken boxes with the newer figures as well. And I still haven’t found a goat herder yet because all the boxes I’ve found have had the non-scannable QR on the bottom
I've been to several stores in my rough vacinity and scanned every single box there I have only found one Barbarian, no vampire knights and no goat herders
Every type of loot box is unethical. Either you're telling me exactly what I'm buying or you have to declare it as a "lottery" of "gambling". And those boxes are clearly the latter.
As people stated in the comments before, there are those who would just feel the plastic bag for the minifig that they want, like basil the batlord, then just buy up all the bags that have basil the batlord. That doesn't leave anyone a chance to get them because someone decided to be a scalper and buy up all the minifig bags that had basil in it and resell them at a ridiculously high price. Personally, I think the boxes are a nice welcome as it prevents people from "cheating" the system. However... the QR codes being scannable does still present the fact that scalpers will just scan the QR for basil the batlord and walk away with all the basil the batlord minifigs.
A few years ago, a grocery chain out here had the exclusive Lego space minifigures you could only get them there. You never knew what you got but it was all in the same theme
It is typical for a product, the vast majority of them in fact, to lose value once opened. Presumably, you are buying your toys to play and display. A key reason for buying blind bags (or boxes) is that you don’t know what you are getting. Being able to use skill to mitigate chance is certainly fun though.
There has been like, two CMF series where i liked all, or even most of the figs. Usually i just want one or two, usually in multiple numbers. And let's be honest, Lego knows that some figures will sell in bulk, while others will sell poorer. No one needs three dog maintenance ladies, but a lot of people want multiple falconers or Basils.
What about the special QR codes which make it possible to choose exactly the minifig you want/need? It also seems those codes will also appear in the forthcoming space series too.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I know what you mean - it was disappointing but there were still a few good ones... depending on your tastes :) personally, I'm very much looking forward to the D&D one.
@@MutantProductions My tastes do not align with the series 26 Space minifigure CMF's. I was really looking forward to having cool space minifigures in the old, classic space style, but these are not my jam. That said, the D&D figures look totally amazing, with probably all of them being good and quite a few being amazingly good. I couldn't be more enthousiastic about a Lego product released this year, especially as it is something that everyone can afford.
my biggest problem is there are so many knighta that could be on pick a brick, but because they are cmfs, we will never see some of these factions brought back.
Came here to say that you can use an app to scan the barcode on the box and find out what's in it. Feels kinda lame, but I wouldn't buy them otherwise.
This is the 40th billionth comment I made that even the app doesn't completely solve the issues. When enough people do this, eventually the store will run out of Bat Lords and Goat herders, but they will still offer a lot of other random stuff. So nobody that uses scanning will get the Bat lords anymore, as will the people that do not know about it, they don't even have the chance of doing so. Clear packaging and ordering and printing to demand for the specific figures. Now I'm no longer going to say this, as I've done so for far too much.
@@pinobluevogel6458 Yeah, I think blind bags in general are very anti-consumer and Lego should just let us get the one we want. But part of the marketing is the artificial scarcity, and that sucks.
I just purchase the already open ones at a small mark-up from my local toy store. It's just ridiculous buying these for the current price when you can't even do basic things such as feeling. And that QR code box trick doesn't work in my country either.
And I happen to be 😂 in a weird silent majority, where I can use any minifigure I can get my hands on. Me and my mom & sister really love 😍 the Mushroom girl minifigure for example 🍄
I think if you read around these comments you will find many sad stories of people that have missed their chance of buying a specifc figure. If you scan the entire rack and find out that every single one of the batlord and goatherder figures is gone, what are you going to do? It is not a 1 dollar markup it is about 3 dollars for the Goatherder and 4-6 dollars for the Batlord. I agree it SHOULD be a non-problem if lego had just sold them in clear packaging and allowed stores to individually stock them, but that is not the case. Just because you don't have this issue, that doesn't mean others do not have this issue as well. Clearly people from Japan cannot use these same QR code scannings and clearly most of the retail stores have massive amounts of boxes with no Batlords and Goatherders left in them.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I'm not an expert but the QR-code scanner takes at least 3 different regions into account. In my experience resellers sell for basically the same price with a slight upcharge. Maybe more desirable figures go higher. Certainly over time prices go up, but thats Lego scalping in general, not unique to CMF. (Believe it or not used sets on the secondary market used to sell UNDER MSRP before the hobby got super mainstream) The goat thing I will never understand. Goats are not interesting animals. There are a ton of discontinued Lego elements/animals but for some reason goats are what people go bananas over. I will say that QR codes is way faster and more convenient then feeling up bags.
@@armoredplacoderm These figures are so insanely popular because of the insane popularity of castle based lego. The goat itself is an iconic farm animal that can be used in both medieval builds and modern builds alike, while the figure itself has great civilian clothing that fits with the medieval theme. The Batlord is also a remake of a popular figure that people want to use for armybuilding, or using quite a few of the pieces in larger mocs, so many are needed as well. These issues stem from both the insane lack of medieval (castle) themed lego sets and the desirability of these absolutely not matching the ones of the other figures. You could say there is one average figure (the Barbarian) and 2 very desirable ones (the herder and batlord) while all the rest are low popularity.
I'd be ok with blind boxes if they were set up by themes. One year castle. One year city. One year super hero. I only want one of those themes. So...not gambling hundreds of dollars randomly buying boxes to get what I want.
There's also cause and effect, though. When a TH-cam channel buys tons of goats and opens them on their video, that leaves an imbalanced number of other minifigs for the rest of us. I can't deny I was a little upset watching the video and seeing all those multiples of Basil and the goat, and wondering what was left for the other people who were going to buy from that shop. It's like going to KFC and asking for 3 thighs in your dinner plate. But at least in that case there may be others who prefer the breast.
The solution to this is to give people the choice to buy the minifigure they want instead of blind bags. How many figures are sat in a draw unwanted . Not really eco friendly.
I have to say, I immediately felt the sting of what you said: 'We live in a time where a lot of essentials are unnecessarily expensive', where I would place a massive explanation mark on the word 'unnecessarily'. We are made poor by massive overprinting of now near worthless currency by banks and governments. There is no sound reason and legitimacy behind this and it probably is one of the worst crimes against humanity of this century. Now if this isn't bad enough on it's own, having Lego as a company come in and use anti-consumer practices like this one is probably at the worst possible time, especially for a product that is one of the few that is actually affordable to everyone, in a massive sea ... or rather an ocean of products that are not. It seems like a very small matter when compared to the massive inflation that is the largest danger to western countries right now and it most certainly is, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is also, as you might have guessed: unnecessary. I would go back to a form of selling CMF's with clear packaging so you can always see what you get, or use box art to hype up the product a little more if necessary. This would not only give the customers a chance to pick up the ones that they want, but it would also be an easy signal to Lego which figures are impopular and should get less attention. Clearly Lego is underproducing castle based themes by in extroardinary amount, as those will sell out immediately. Having this knowledge will allow them to react to the trend and produce castle based sets which we so long have clamored for and will make them a ton of money as a result. It is a win-win-win situation, as both consumers will be happy, Lego will earn lots of money and there will be a ton less wasted plastic and packaging on worthless and undesidered minifigures.
Those two figures are made rarer too. In Europe they only come in giant boxes, there are several of each figure. For most of the part. I asked a store if I was allowed to scan them and I found the goat and bat lord, but the vast majority were the gamer chick and train kids and such. The box was pretty much full. Even with scan, most people don't know so I see stores with all boxes ripped open. lol
My local unofficial Lego store just has a pretty good policy of just opening the packs for people that want specific figures. You can still buy them at the regular price and they will just open only the ones requested. You can also buy a complete set, which is something that some costumers do. For series 25, the issue has been keeping Bat Lords and Goat Herders in stock, as they cannot order them seperately. They are left with massive amounts of random useless plastic junk which they will probably never sell. For a company like Lego that prides itself on being progressive and environmentally friendly, this is for sure one of the worst possible offenses they have ever done. Just print to demand and screw this randomized nonsense.
@@timrhodes8039 Bro, what are you talking about? Every single CMF goes to clearance and still Lego keeps producing them. Why would they still make CMFs if they are a failure? Lego make millions of them, it's common that thousands of them stay in the stores until they decide to put them on clearance, specially with the QR codes, people buy the "best" minifigures and let the less atractive ones, that's also why most of the CMFs you see in clearance are the less liked.
true. if lego just did the plastic boxes like they do on the magazines. some sets i would just buy the whole set. now it's a guessing game and i just buy 2.
Why is no one talking about the little cardboard shavings that all the figures are dusted with by the time they're opened? Plastic didn't do that, but every single boxed figure I've opened has required meticulous cleaning to get rid of all those tiny brown particles. Incredibly annoying!
why does it require "meticulous cleaning" to get rid of cardboard dust? and isn't paper particles better than plastic particles? lol silly people don't read or learn
@@Ro11oTomasi Sure, I'll bite. Yeah, plastic particles exist. But polybags left no visible trace on the figures, while the cardboard leaves little brown flecks all over. Gets between parts and hangs on via static electricity. Can be a challenge to get figures with white or black pieces looking presentable. Do you like paper straws, too? You know, the ones they wrap in plastic... Vibes...
@@Tim.Hammer No, he’s right. This is not a problem compared to the amount of waste there’d be if lego still used foil bags. But also fuck paper straws.
Not a collector but I thought Mushroom Sprite was cute so I checked Reddit for assistance with the non-scannable small QR codes as that’s all my local store had in this series. Took a while studying the numbers but I only bought one and it was the Mushroom Sprite 😊
Sadly there are people who still now just rip open all the CMF packages but its become less frequent. The DND CMF are all the big QR codes so all should scan (unless the code is smeared or your phone is a turd) but the one everyone wants this series is the dragonborn paladin just to resell the armor/shield for dragon knights (I assume). Some minifigs I dont mind having duplicates of
They did this for a couple reasons. 1: to get more customers to buy more products and 2: to stop people from searching for certain figures and then reselling them for more money online. For example when they created the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts CMF line, they only put 1 Percival Greaves into an entire box of CMFs. They did this on purpose to drive up collector value because collectors are who make Lego the most $. However in doing this they cause consumers to feel the bags and search for specific characters, which in turn means that either only those characters get bought and the others go on discount eventually or people buy entire boxes of CMFs in order to find that one character. This means that a lot of people are missing out unless they buy from collectors and Lego is trying to be more consumer friendly by using boxes instead of bags, which negates the collectors ability to feel for a specific character. I’m a collector and idc that they’re making the switch, in fact I welcome it, plastic is bad.
there's an app. You just scan the bottom of the box and it tells you which figure is inside. It's been a 100% correct so far. There was the first variation with the smaller code, but they moved to the bigger one which is scannable.
A very simple way of telling what’s inside is to get the app that lets you scan the code at the bottom of the boxes, telling you what’s inside. It works really well for me, i don’t know if it’s not up for download in some countries (i live in Europe).
Kind of jumping the gun when you said the D&D line was "done right" and that none of the minifigs were "undesirable." While you might have been technically right, it ended up having the same problem as Series 25; it had one fig in it that's miles ahead of all the others in popularity and arguably quality (the Dragonborn Paladin). Now it's consistently sold out everywhere, frustratingly difficult to get, and expensive on the secondhand market because it's the one fig that everyone wants, especially the army builders. And it's already looking like the same thing's going to happen with the Wolfpack Beastmaster in the upcoming Series 27. Thing is, none of this is new. The most popular minifigures end up being related to Castle, and knights in particular double-down on that for their army-building potential. Remakes of old characters also add to desirability, as do new animal molds. Combine all these factors together, and the new Wolfpack guy might end up being Mr. Gold 2.0.
There's an obvious answer people are not seeing here, just trade them with other LEGO fans. If you do that LEGO loses and everyone ends up with the figures they want.
I'm pretty sure that was always the point! Inevitably some figures still end up in demand but you can swap two or more figures with somebody who has a spare rare or desirable figure. That's how we did it with pokemon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh and all kinds of trading cards throughout the ages.
If they really only made this changed for their climate impact, they would have used paper bags. It is without a doubt to make it harder to find the figure you want
Seeing all those ripped open packages explains why Lego put the scannable code on the new boxes. Definitely they were trying to make some quick bucks by selling people product they don't want, using a "collectible" model that the consumer was not actually consenting to, merely being forced into. But Lego isn't Magic the Gathering, it is a consumer unfriendly practice.
It is as consumer unfriendly as buying MTG packages for sure. There is a reason nearly every seasoned MTG veteran only buys singles. It is way more expensive buying random packs, but you also don't have room for all the 'chaff' that you do not want. For me, this is similar for CMF's, I would never consider buying a random pack, unless I wanted all of the possible figures. (like with the upcoming D&D series)
This kind of stuff is what made me give up on Lego. I want those minifigures so bad but cant afford to buy a 100 of them. Now that ive finally got money to spend they make it so much more difficult
They're toys, man. They're always worth slightly less than you paid for them. If it wasn't that way they wouldn't stay in business. They shouldn't be an investment. Have you never heard of beanie babies, or pokemon cards, or baseball cards?
Cardboard box? Yes, this is more eco friendly! But it would be way more simple to sell them with a printed picture of the minifigures you are buying. So everyone pay for what they want and less plastic is wasted on minifigures you don’t want! That would be more ecological! If some minifigures cost more to produce… well charge accordingly! I don’t see why Lego use this gambling path to sell just some minifigures! People want more vampires… just make more of them instead and sell them! Love Lego, but i never understood why they do this.
This is the first comment besides my million comments that actually makes sense and thinks a bit further than: 'There is an app to scan the codes, there is no problem.' Thank you for keeping my hope for the human race alive by being smart and looking at a larger perspective.
Scanning is easy. You can be either very dumb or very lazy to avoid it. And blind bags is GAMBLING, deceiving children from their goal, which, in its basic form, is illegal in many, many countries. Don't be that person.
If they were fair they would put minifigs in paper bags like figures in magazines. Company which gains millions dollars every year should not be that greedy
All I wanted was the goat, even with the app I couldn't find it. Part of the fun was feeling for the accessories so I could find which I wanted. The boxes took the fun out of it, so I don't collect the figures anymore
I admit I am not a big fan of mystery bags or boxes. I usually buy the figures I really want on Bricklink. there are also actually stores here who sell the boxes opened or offer a complete Set so you know what you get and it seems to work. Regarding the Dungeons and Dragons Minifigures, you are absolutely right. They are all killer, no filler and it't the first time for me that I buy a whole box wich contains 3 complete sets. By the way there is one thing that's even worse than blind bags/boxes and that's making individual figures more rare that others. We actually had that with some series where a complete box did no contain x complete sets but fewer of the good ones and more of the fillers. I think that's an utter dick move.
Personally, I've had a problem with cmfs for a while pre box era. But you make a great argument for why the community is pissed about this decision. I also applaud you for pointing out the real reason behind the decision as well. Hopefully Lego will see the large outcry over this and change this sometime soon.
Yes and no, people buy multiple castle/historical minifigures for army building. Its fault of lego group for packing some girly childish costume worthless minifigure next to castle/pirate/historical minifigure, If lego made a 12minifigures of ancient rome soldiers/citizens/barbarians people would not worry about getting duplicates.
I went to Barnes and noble back when the marvel CMFs came out. There were all sorts of people using mini scales. Everyone looked at me weird when I just grabbed one. I got Wolverine. Really good mini fig.
I bought a few of the series 25 and must have been lucky since it looks like I now have one valued over $16 that people want. I agree that some in a series are different/unique and people would want them, and others just seem blah and there is no need to have them.
I think the QR code is better. However, the fact that they produce a limited amount of things I want 100 of - and then have to sift through a lot of useless CMF packs .... that is a crime. Also kids don't really know what they are doing. A boy was luck that I was around when he asked his mother to get a CMF to get the vampire lord (he bought 10 so far and no goats and no vampires - because people took them as they released). I got him both the vampire and goat man, however, he could have searched for them in vain forever if he came a few minutes later.
This is my issue with the QR code scanning. While it is perfectly understandable and reasonable to do it, as you wouldn't want to spend money on stuff you do not want, it will screw over other people .. most often children, that do not know about this way of deciphering the packages. At some point, there aren't any Bat Lords left to find, so even careful scanning doesn't help and I've heard (and read here) about several people that ran into that issue. I think I've typed the words: "clear packaging', 'order to demand' and 'print to demand' about 15 times by now, but that is what Lego should have done and should do starting from now on. The solution is easy, get rid of the randomness and print whatever is most desirable as much as is needed.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I agree. I don't even see why they are not doing this. They are losing money, they would have sold so much more if I could order batlords and goat herders by the bucketload ... and the people who wanted to buy as an investment wouldn't have hurt the rest (not sure reselling them would have been that great of an investment without the scarcity, but I am sure nobody here gives 2 cents on their opinion).
The fact that you feel like you should know what's inside a randomize product is kind of crazy. Saying part of the fun is to feel the bags to figure out what's inside and all they've done is taken away that ability. Well yeah you're buying a gambling product.
Its meant to be random so boxes are better so everyone gets an equal chance to get their fig they want. Its lego its meant to be played with not to resell on the after market
I'd argue it's now easier then ever to get the exact minifigs you search for. The qr code on the underside of the boxes, when scanned, reveals what minifigure is inside. It's obscure and the codes differ between EU and USA releases, but it's a 100% guarantee.
Yes, this is a bandaid solution. This still leaves massive amounts of boxes with undesirable minifigs at the stores that will not order new stock and is not a solution for the uninformed customer that will try to buy these and can never hope to open a batlord or a goatherder as everyone has taken them. The only solution is NOT selling blind boxes but clear ones and printing to demand. It makes sense for Lego too, as they will know what is popular and what is not.
My only gripe with it is that I bought a 6 minifig set from Lego themselves and got 2 of the same minifigs, the gamer girl one 🙄 and I didn’t get any of the ones I actually wanted
I agree with everything said. Also, as a really long time AFOL, I was there from series 1 - and we had a lot of extra issues - minifigs were cheap chinese plastic, no film on neck, really bad quality - this was fixed after several series, but it was truly hartbrokenly bad at that moment, especially with all the new molds and prints (elf, zombie:)
Ik it’s not nearly as fun but honestly it’s better to just but the figures second hand you’ll likely spend less in the end 1: because how much less most the figures are worth once they’ve been opened kinda makes up for the overpriced ones and 2: you’re not buying duplicates not to mention a lot of the stores mark them up a dollar or two again I think it sucks a lot of the fun out of it but idk that’s my solution I can’t even remember the last time I bought from retail bc price skew and prices in general just being kind of ridiculous for the past few years
The problem is that many kids generations were raisedonon LEGO castle and pirates and these big kids (including me) are now have enough money to buy childhood so they buy anything castle related. Unfortunately for them (us) nowaday kids have different prefernces so Lego do not continue castle and pirates sets. They release expensive sets only. For us adults colletors LEGO became hobby same as model-making and I think it could be nice to release some sets and battle packs for us.
I’m pretty sure there is some sorta film that makes it so you can only see the silhouette of an object, perhaps they could incorporate that into the boxes
I didnt know about the QR codd trick until last week. But now the Spsce/Series 26 series has been out for a while and nobody was buying them in my local supermarket, I decided to scan the ones left over and found 10 out of 12. Probably looked like a weirdo, but with a 100% success rate why not take the time to be thorough?
The space series is wildly impopular by comparison. However, the only reason series 25 was so popular was precisely because of these 3 (or rather 2) medieval themed figures that were in it. It sends a massive signal to Lego that medieval themed stuff is sorely wanted. As someone that actually likes space themes too, I do think the series 26 series is extremely lackluster. There isn't a single one figure that I actually desire. This is in stark contrast with the upcoming D&D series, where I want nearly all of the figures, they are so incredibly good.
Just a reminder this video was posted
1. Before QR codes were scannable or accurate
2. Not all QR codes (only 25 percent of codes in distro were accurate/scannable)
Please check the date the video was posted.
Todoay my friend and I have scanned some of the new series and we got a hit in all of them... 3 Figures scanned corectly
Maybe we were lucky
@@plagensucher6676 its not luck, i was at lego store sep 1st, buying dnd cmfs, bought 7, and all 100% match
@plagensucher6676 now they are accurate, earlier on the QR-codes weren't usable
So happy about the barcode scanning app!
lego fans discovering that gambling is unfair
Not really.
The Qr Codes work well.
The small Codes are a pain but a large bulk of the large codes where avible.
So you admit lego is selling gambling to kids, which is really really illegal (personally I think blind bags should be illegal)
@@dannybrezelhorner2715 literally everyone knows they do lol
Blind bags are just family friendly gambling
@@dannybrezelhorner2715there’s arcades that’s gambling are you saying they should be illegal
@@dannybrezelhorner2715so are cards like Pokémon and sports
I guess I should go to Vegas because I grabbed two random CMF boxes off the shelf and both of them came with Basil 😂
Scan them and get a dozen. It is just utterly pointless for those that discuss the issue. You can just get the figure you want if you put a fraction of effort into getting an app that helps you.
@@dgray3771 there was no app when I posted this comment originally :(
@@dgray3771What app?
While I completely understand the people that scan the boxes and get what they want, this does leave the store with a lot of boxes of 9 figures that nobody wants .. or will burden the poor souls that don't know about this app and will buy them with no chance to get the most desired figures.
This is a problem created by Lego that is completely unnecessary. They should just use clear boxes, where you can see which figure is in it and allow stores to order specific ones, so they do not overprint all the worthless plastic and focus on the stuff that people really want. Supply and demand, which is how the world really works.
@@pinobluevogel6458 Might be. But then its also up to lego to think of a solution. And to be fair why would a QR exist if not to be used?
Lego should 100% sell all 12 of them in one box. I’ve bought dozens and dozens before and still not gotta certain minifigs and I’ll have 5 each of 3-4 of them.
Maybe just smaller sets of minifigs/more of a willingness to do one off silly army builder sets, too. Imagine how well they could do if, instead of a single army builder CMF per wave, they'd do like 'fright knights battlepack'--they could even price them up and make them in the format of those scummy minifigure packs where you pay 15 for 3 guys and boring sidebuilds.
I scanned mine with a matrix code or barcode and got what I wanted
The only real solution is to sell them individually online, let people buy 20+ or whatever what they want and let them skip over the ones they dont want
That's a cool idea, but then lego will make less money re-selling the figures on bricklink, the same reason they keep making super rare UCS figures they're double dipping on profits with bricklink they're *scamming* us i'm so disgusted by lego this souless corporation upsets me so much I used to love lego but now with these greedy decisions, bad printing, awful giant 400$+ sets that don't do anything, just sit there, horrible quality control and being way too expensive. They're creating false scarcity to increase their bricklink profits and it's BS lego is exploiting it's fans i'm so done
@@legomurderbears I actually love this, as humans we follow the pack - if they did that it would totally change what people want given there wouldn't be differing values and popularity bias.
People hoarding medieval figures so that the rest of us can't find or have to pay ridiculous prices just to have one...
Yeah scalpers ruining everything for everyone
Hoarding or Arming building.
Lego should put the Goat hearder and Vampire knights in to pick a brick.
@@josephmarkese8563yes please it would be The awesome to buy Them in Pick a brick
$200 for that new Sauron 😅. Glad I’ve got the money to buy what I want whenever I want.
@black_hand78 Why would anyone spend 200$ on that figure when for an additional 200$ you can get the whole set...
Let's pretend I am not The Nightlord for a second and I have absolutely no interest in collecting 2,000 Vampire Knights, goat herders and barbarians.
Why would I ever need more than 1 dog groomer, a train kid, a disabled athlete, a detective, a dinosaur guy, etc.
Even if those figures were incredibly popular I couldn't picture myself needing more than 1 of them.
It's not the fans fault we only want the castle figures, it's lego's fault for putting lackluster figures next to decked out castle figures. Unlike the DnD set which is essentially a castle theme I didn't mind getting figures I didn't want because they were castle related
@@Nightlordbuilds couldn’t agree more
You can scan the barcodes into an app and it tells you what minifigs are inside what box
Not here in Japan
What app ?
@@malcolmr8348 it's called Fig Scanner
Not in Ireland either
If the QR code is the big one, yes, otherwise it doesn't work.
Its frustrating for me because I live in an area that doesn't have a large lego retail store. I have a Kroger and a Walmart close by and neither sell very much. And when I go to try and snag a minifig from one of those boxes, Basil and the Goat Herder are nowhere to be seen. I'm not the only one who's looking for that figure and I'm punished for not having the free time to lurk around when a new box is opened.
I don’t know if it’s a common take at this point, but scalping is so much worse due the box design BECAUSE of the scan and QR codes.
It is SO EASY to get every scalpable minifig in a box of 36.
I am losing my mind trying to find a fresh box with a Dragon Paladin at the tail end of the DnD series.
Yeah, this trend has gotten much worse with the Dragon Paladin and now the new Wolfpack minifigure. The scarcity of those figures makes the Basil scarcity seem like child's play.
It's obvious that Basil the favorite. But people opening boxes before they buy them is just plain wrong. There is no excuse for people acting like 2-year-olds. Lego fans must realize it was always meant to be a mystery box. If you don't like it, go on the aftermarket, weigh them, or don't buy them. It's not optimal, but oh well. I do agree with most of what you said, and I do believe that Basil should have come in a set not as a CMF, but Womp Womp I guess.
if there wasnt a bunch of fully grown adults feeling out the best minifigs and buying them all to resell then we wouldnt have boxes. personally i prefer the boxes. gives me a chance to get something decent and much more exciting in general opening it up for a surprise rather than knowing before you even buy it. you were never meant to know before purchasing in the first place.
People are going to crazy over the D&D CMF, considering how "medieval" they are
With good reason. Not only is the first set that offers many medieval themed parts, they are also nearly all good minifigures. Especially if you're also interested in fantasy style minifigures, these are just amazing.
I was never a fan of the series 25 lineup, as it has a little bit of everything but only 3 figures that are massively popular. They should just have made all of them in the medieval style, so people actually wanted all of them. Even if they wanted to have city or modern style figures, the set should be all in that style .. not a few in a massively popular theme and a bunch of random nonsense.
Maybe they are trying to get rid of the hoarders who only buy to resell ✌️
😂
You do realize Lego owns BrickLink? They profit from resellers...
@@Maddenhawkexactly!! Thank you we need to spread the word that lego bought bricklink amd have been getting worse ever since, notice all the new super expensive exclusive UCS figures that keep coming out? It's because lego wants more money from bricklink sales they know scalpers are gonna exploit people and lego wants a piece of that scalper pie.
You realize this just gave scalpers more profit right?
@@Maddenhawk yeah - but if 1 popular figure is worth 15 and the rest are worth 5, lego profits off 70$ of resale...if all are worth $6, lego profits 72$ off resale...so it's actually a pretty complicated game they are playing and that's why they continuously change up how they do things like exclusives, etc..
I just went on Amazon and bought a $25 earwax camera that connects to my phone to peek inside. The hole it leaves behind is tiny and you can squeeze it back to together to make it look like the box wasn’t tampered with. I bought two boxes of 6 and the extras I had I took back to Lego and returned them. I plan on doing the same thing in May with the new space wave of CMF’s
You know they have scannable QR codes that tell you what's inside, right?
@@GlowingTrashPanda99 I’m aware but the boxes I got had the little QR code that isn’t readable so I had to go camera route lol
@@GlowingTrashPanda99not all of them are scannable in series 25. Only less than half it seems like. There’s a difference between small and big matrix codes.
@@BrickFleet I know. I just specifically search out the ones with the scannable codes, even here in Tampa. Another group has put together a pretty reliable system for the small dot matrices too. I'll have to send myself the link to post it.
My feedback to Lego was for them to sell the figures with full transparancy on their website. If one wanted to buy 50 vampire knights then they could easily do so without having to pay tripple the cost to scalpers.
I bought about 150 of the series 25 and managed to scan about 90% of them. I'm lucky enough to live in a rather big town which has around 10 toy stores to buy from. The new QR-codes is the only reason I bothered to get into CMF.
I understand that you did so, but still .. this leaves a lot of unwanted, useless boxes at those stores, which they will probably not restock if people do not buy them. Also, for the people that do buy them, who do not use this scanning method, they will be left with only boxes with the undesired figures.
I don't intend to make you feel bad for doing so, but I do want to make the point that Lego should never sell blind boxes ever again, as that simply is just creating all sorts of issues that we do not want, nor Lego themselves want.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I went and did it again. Bought every Dragonborn Paladin I could get my hands on. Stood outside the store on September 1st just as it was about to open then went on a spree to every other toy store I knew of. Some people had the same idea as I did and they'd beat me to it. Essentially all the paladin in town were gone in a matter of days. The stores only get 1-2 boxes so there's not a lot to go around. I had to buy a lot of them online in order to fill up my army.
I don't like it any more then you do. I had to visit the stores with high frequency. Sometimes going in before work and after. It's very stressful. Some stores didn't get them until a week or more after release. I spent easily over 50 hours just traveling around and I had to trade a week worth of vacation day in order to try and buy them all on the first week.
Unfortunately we can't pace ourselves with the CMF because once they are gone they are gone. It's not fair or ideal. When it comes down to it, if I don't do it someone else will. I'm an AFOL and not a scalper trying to make a profit on the after market. It boils down to Lego creating a solution to appease their customers. As they say; don't hate the player, hate the game.
@@samkerr6029 Yea that was my point exactly. I can perfectly understand someone does it, if you're only interested in specific figures. Even if you want to have a complete set of every figure, at least there is an option now to not have to overspend on it. Still, the system is wrong and I really dislike how they implemented it.
That said, my local unofficial Lego store (and I'm sure many others) simply offer a complete set of one of each for the normal price, so that's what I did. I would have loved a few extra's of the Paladin or even the Barbarian to use their pieces and would have probably skipped a few of the figures if I could. But at least I have every figure I want now, which is good enough for me.
For the amount of cmf 25 boxes I bought the fact I didn’t pull any bat lords is insane. I bit the bullet and bought it on eBay
brickscan
I bought 12 minifigs at once, twice! 24 in total to gent only one Bat Lord and 2 Goats… here in Japan idk why the bar codes are different and don’t work.
I use to enjoy buying CMF’s… now I’m just frustrated…
In the end I just bought a second Bat Lord for almost 25$
@@SamieCarvalho The app didn’t work for me and I didn’t pull a single vampire lord during my attempts until I bit the bullet and resorted to eBay
These are the problems that we don't want. On a world scale .. it is an insignificant problem. Still, it is extremely unnecessary and completely preventable to have these issues by just offering clear boxes where you can see what you buy. Also, they should offer stores the option of buying specific figures so they are in stock at all times.
The main thing I don't get is why you act like they were lying about this being an environmental decision? Lego has been trying to be more eco-friendly before even Vidyo. I agree it's anti-consumer, but both can be true at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it was a little bit of both, but I feel completely denying the environmental aspect feels unfair.
Anyways, I agree with the conclusion of making better CMFs beings solution, altho I guess it's up to the buyer what they'd consider "invaluable" in a CMF. Another way to curb the issue is to do what other companies have done and mark them with special codes, because they're pretty easy to ignore if you're looking to have the blind box experience.
I argue it’s pro consumer because now scrapers and collectors, im a collector, can’t just feel for a specific character then buy them all up. It gives everyone a more fair chance.
@@black_hand78lol you know there are apps to scan now
Basil leaves! *Kicking basil* That was a good one :-)
You got that one! 😆
I have actually been flourishing in this new landscape. Thanks to the QR codes on the bottom of the boxes and some dedicated fans I have an app that let's me scan that to see what's inside. I have already gotten the minifigs I wanted from the two recent CMF series thanks to that. I was bad at feeling the bags and just couldn't figure out what I was feeling.
What app
@@zafrastudios1392 Brick Search. I saw it recommended on Bonus Lego News. I got it from the app store and was even able to test it on the QR Michael had up on the screen. One piece of advice. Keep your thumb over the barcode when scanning. If it catches some of that it just sits there and won't tell you anything.
To play devil's advocate for a minute, If they keep up with putting the Qr codes on the boxes I'll be happy, it's a lot easier to scan a box (assuming you have a phone to do so) than fidget around a bunch of bags feeling for one part, I know they don't put the big Qr codes on every box but in my experience it's not usually too hard to find the one's that are scalable, and I don't think lego are intentionally making "higher quality" figs for a malicious purpose, they just want to have a diverse selection of characters to appeal to the most people, naturally this does also encourage the uninformed buyer to buy as many as is required to get the one they want which I don't approve of, but anyone that invested in collecting a specific character will likely turn to the internet and discover the Qr codes, I think characters like Basil and the Goat herder weren't made with the intent to persuade afol's to buy a bunch of figs they don't want, I think that's just how mystery packages are inherently designed, it was the same back when they were in bags, it's just now we're scanning instead of feeling, and I wouldn't even say the desirable fig are better than the others it's just that they have connections outside themselves that make people want them, basil as the fright knights leader and the goat herder for the long awaited goat reissue, my only complaint would be that they don't have the big codes on every box and doing a price hike at the same time as such a controversial change probably wasn't the smartest move on their end
Idk why here in Japan the QR codes are complete different and scanning doesn’t work…
There are still issues with the scanning, as many boxes are left that contain none of the desired figures. Stores will probably not order more until enough of those leftover boxes are sold. Also, uninformed buyers will be screwed by not having a chance to open those desired figures.
Just offering the products in a clear packaging, so everyone will know what they will get is a simple and elegant solution. Then the stores can just order those individuals ones and Lego can print to demand the popular ones so no plastic gets wasted on the impopular minifigures.
Also the fact that feeling the bags can damage the bags and even the figure inside even if slightly
Mystery boxes aren't consumer friendly? 😳
4:45
I also like:
- Cyborg runner - cool prosthetics and podium, great hair
- Triceratops - believe me, he looks stunning but pics of him Lacks this. Great addition to Dino costumes collection
- Train kid celebrating 25th series
I think its a good thing that it went to boxes. Now everyone with a smart phone can find out what is inside rather then having to spend ages feeling what is inside. I think its a lot fairer this way
L take
Not true. Here in Australia you can not scan the QR code with your phone as our stock has the small codes which are not readable.
Maybe if the next drop has the larger QR codes we can successfully identify the figures we want.
@@neilworroll9278 The next drop will supposedly all have the larger codes.
@@TerryGXD no w take
It is an L take for sure. Does nobody think about what the result will be when everyone scans every box for the few minifigures that they want?
The result will be, it will be hard to find a barbarian female and it will be impossible to find a goat herder or a bat lord, as they will be completely non-existant at some point. And in no way the store is going to restock if the stand is still full with packages.
Also, for uninformed people, they will no longer be able to open a desired figure, which is also not a fair thing in my eyes.
I have had pretty good success just gessing by weight in hand and how many pieces rattle... the train guy and goat are similar but slightly pressing on the box reveals the train. then basil is decently weighted but has a lot of pieces but is slightly muted due to the extra cardboard from the cape. Also there is the QR code which I have not used, and if you can find a fresh box, there is a distinct packing order.... I got a couple extra I do not want, but have found multiples of the ones I do want this way.
They actually have scan codes now so you can actually find the exact character you want😊
You know, back when the vidiyo figures were being released, it seemed impossible in my area at least, to find a box that WASNT tampered with. Even then it was bad, and I still see broken boxes with the newer figures as well. And I still haven’t found a goat herder yet because all the boxes I’ve found have had the non-scannable QR on the bottom
I've been to several stores in my rough vacinity and scanned every single box there
I have only found one Barbarian, no vampire knights and no goat herders
@@deckie_scum
Every type of loot box is unethical. Either you're telling me exactly what I'm buying or you have to declare it as a "lottery" of "gambling". And those boxes are clearly the latter.
thank you for being the only logical one in here
As people stated in the comments before, there are those who would just feel the plastic bag for the minifig that they want, like basil the batlord, then just buy up all the bags that have basil the batlord. That doesn't leave anyone a chance to get them because someone decided to be a scalper and buy up all the minifig bags that had basil in it and resell them at a ridiculously high price. Personally, I think the boxes are a nice welcome as it prevents people from "cheating" the system. However... the QR codes being scannable does still present the fact that scalpers will just scan the QR for basil the batlord and walk away with all the basil the batlord minifigs.
There are phone apps to battle this.
@@kook1201 pinned comment. I made this video before the apps existed
@@BrickFleet you certainly did. My bad.
5:17 where did u manage to find the values of each minifig from?
I made that chart. I aggregated it from bricklink.com
@@BrickFleet woah that's cool thks
A few years ago, a grocery chain out here had the exclusive Lego space minifigures you could only get them there. You never knew what you got but it was all in the same theme
It is typical for a product, the vast majority of them in fact, to lose value once opened. Presumably, you are buying your toys to play and display.
A key reason for buying blind bags (or boxes) is that you don’t know what you are getting. Being able to use skill to mitigate chance is certainly fun though.
There has been like, two CMF series where i liked all, or even most of the figs.
Usually i just want one or two, usually in multiple numbers.
And let's be honest, Lego knows that some figures will sell in bulk, while others will sell poorer.
No one needs three dog maintenance ladies, but a lot of people want multiple falconers or Basils.
This collectible business plan model is as old as world itself
What about the special QR codes which make it possible to choose exactly the minifig you want/need?
It also seems those codes will also appear in the forthcoming space series too.
The space series has no desirable minifigures that truly stand out like with series 25.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I know what you mean - it was disappointing but there were still a few good ones... depending on your tastes :)
personally, I'm very much looking forward to the D&D one.
@@MutantProductions My tastes do not align with the series 26 Space minifigure CMF's. I was really looking forward to having cool space minifigures in the old, classic space style, but these are not my jam.
That said, the D&D figures look totally amazing, with probably all of them being good and quite a few being amazingly good. I couldn't be more enthousiastic about a Lego product released this year, especially as it is something that everyone can afford.
my biggest problem is there are so many knighta that could be on pick a brick, but because they are cmfs, we will never see some of these factions brought back.
Came here to say that you can use an app to scan the barcode on the box and find out what's in it.
Feels kinda lame, but I wouldn't buy them otherwise.
This is like the 40 billionth comment to say this but this video was made before apps found a solution
@@BrickFleet Fair enough!
This is the 40th billionth comment I made that even the app doesn't completely solve the issues. When enough people do this, eventually the store will run out of Bat Lords and Goat herders, but they will still offer a lot of other random stuff. So nobody that uses scanning will get the Bat lords anymore, as will the people that do not know about it, they don't even have the chance of doing so.
Clear packaging and ordering and printing to demand for the specific figures. Now I'm no longer going to say this, as I've done so for far too much.
@@pinobluevogel6458 Yeah, I think blind bags in general are very anti-consumer and Lego should just let us get the one we want. But part of the marketing is the artificial scarcity, and that sucks.
I just purchase the already open ones at a small mark-up from my local toy store. It's just ridiculous buying these for the current price when you can't even do basic things such as feeling. And that QR code box trick doesn't work in my country either.
And I happen to be 😂 in a weird silent majority, where I can use any minifigure I can get my hands on.
Me and my mom & sister really love 😍 the Mushroom girl minifigure for example 🍄
1) Scan QR code.
2) Buy from reseller with a $1 or so markup.
This is a non-problem.
I think if you read around these comments you will find many sad stories of people that have missed their chance of buying a specifc figure. If you scan the entire rack and find out that every single one of the batlord and goatherder figures is gone, what are you going to do?
It is not a 1 dollar markup it is about 3 dollars for the Goatherder and 4-6 dollars for the Batlord. I agree it SHOULD be a non-problem if lego had just sold them in clear packaging and allowed stores to individually stock them, but that is not the case.
Just because you don't have this issue, that doesn't mean others do not have this issue as well. Clearly people from Japan cannot use these same QR code scannings and clearly most of the retail stores have massive amounts of boxes with no Batlords and Goatherders left in them.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I'm not an expert but the QR-code scanner takes at least 3 different regions into account.
In my experience resellers sell for basically the same price with a slight upcharge. Maybe more desirable figures go higher. Certainly over time prices go up, but thats Lego scalping in general, not unique to CMF. (Believe it or not used sets on the secondary market used to sell UNDER MSRP before the hobby got super mainstream)
The goat thing I will never understand. Goats are not interesting animals. There are a ton of discontinued Lego elements/animals but for some reason goats are what people go bananas over.
I will say that QR codes is way faster and more convenient then feeling up bags.
@@armoredplacoderm These figures are so insanely popular because of the insane popularity of castle based lego. The goat itself is an iconic farm animal that can be used in both medieval builds and modern builds alike, while the figure itself has great civilian clothing that fits with the medieval theme. The Batlord is also a remake of a popular figure that people want to use for armybuilding, or using quite a few of the pieces in larger mocs, so many are needed as well.
These issues stem from both the insane lack of medieval (castle) themed lego sets and the desirability of these absolutely not matching the ones of the other figures. You could say there is one average figure (the Barbarian) and 2 very desirable ones (the herder and batlord) while all the rest are low popularity.
@@pinobluevogel6458 Yeah I'd be down for another Castle theme. Maybe with the Space experiment this year they will release Castle again soon.
I'd be ok with blind boxes if they were set up by themes. One year castle. One year city. One year super hero.
I only want one of those themes. So...not gambling hundreds of dollars randomly buying boxes to get what I want.
There's also cause and effect, though. When a TH-cam channel buys tons of goats and opens them on their video, that leaves an imbalanced number of other minifigs for the rest of us. I can't deny I was a little upset watching the video and seeing all those multiples of Basil and the goat, and wondering what was left for the other people who were going to buy from that shop.
It's like going to KFC and asking for 3 thighs in your dinner plate. But at least in that case there may be others who prefer the breast.
The solution to this is to give people the choice to buy the minifigure they want instead of blind bags. How many figures are sat in a draw unwanted . Not really eco friendly.
Hopefully this problem now is solved with the QRcodes in series 26, I hope LEGO will keep making them readable going forward.
I'm surprised that a computer programmer hasn't invented an X-ray machine app for cell phones to help with this or any other issue...
I have to say, I immediately felt the sting of what you said: 'We live in a time where a lot of essentials are unnecessarily expensive', where I would place a massive explanation mark on the word 'unnecessarily'. We are made poor by massive overprinting of now near worthless currency by banks and governments. There is no sound reason and legitimacy behind this and it probably is one of the worst crimes against humanity of this century.
Now if this isn't bad enough on it's own, having Lego as a company come in and use anti-consumer practices like this one is probably at the worst possible time, especially for a product that is one of the few that is actually affordable to everyone, in a massive sea ... or rather an ocean of products that are not.
It seems like a very small matter when compared to the massive inflation that is the largest danger to western countries right now and it most certainly is, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is also, as you might have guessed: unnecessary.
I would go back to a form of selling CMF's with clear packaging so you can always see what you get, or use box art to hype up the product a little more if necessary. This would not only give the customers a chance to pick up the ones that they want, but it would also be an easy signal to Lego which figures are impopular and should get less attention. Clearly Lego is underproducing castle based themes by in extroardinary amount, as those will sell out immediately.
Having this knowledge will allow them to react to the trend and produce castle based sets which we so long have clamored for and will make them a ton of money as a result. It is a win-win-win situation, as both consumers will be happy, Lego will earn lots of money and there will be a ton less wasted plastic and packaging on worthless and undesidered minifigures.
Just tell people which figure is in each package and end the gambling bullshit.
Those two figures are made rarer too. In Europe they only come in giant boxes, there are several of each figure. For most of the part. I asked a store if I was allowed to scan them and I found the goat and bat lord, but the vast majority were the gamer chick and train kids and such. The box was pretty much full. Even with scan, most people don't know so I see stores with all boxes ripped open. lol
My local unofficial Lego store just has a pretty good policy of just opening the packs for people that want specific figures. You can still buy them at the regular price and they will just open only the ones requested. You can also buy a complete set, which is something that some costumers do.
For series 25, the issue has been keeping Bat Lords and Goat Herders in stock, as they cannot order them seperately. They are left with massive amounts of random useless plastic junk which they will probably never sell.
For a company like Lego that prides itself on being progressive and environmentally friendly, this is for sure one of the worst possible offenses they have ever done. Just print to demand and screw this randomized nonsense.
In retrospect, they have QR code scanner. I got the dungeon and dragons packs, only bought 12 and got 12 using the app
The QR codes scanners have been online since right after the marvel minifigs. I prefered the old foil packs but boxes are environmentally friendlier
“Dungeons and dragons, example of a series done right”….this didn’t age well as I just saw four full boxes of them on clearence at Walmart.
So what? It was still one of the best CMFs and one of the most loved ones even by people who know nothing about D&D.
@ but clearly not a success for Lego as they haven’t sold well.
@@timrhodes8039 Bro, what are you talking about? Every single CMF goes to clearance and still Lego keeps producing them. Why would they still make CMFs if they are a failure? Lego make millions of them, it's common that thousands of them stay in the stores until they decide to put them on clearance, specially with the QR codes, people buy the "best" minifigures and let the less atractive ones, that's also why most of the CMFs you see in clearance are the less liked.
true.
if lego just did the plastic boxes like they do on the magazines.
some sets i would just buy the whole set.
now it's a guessing game and i just buy 2.
Why is no one talking about the little cardboard shavings that all the figures are dusted with by the time they're opened? Plastic didn't do that, but every single boxed figure I've opened has required meticulous cleaning to get rid of all those tiny brown particles. Incredibly annoying!
why does it require "meticulous cleaning" to get rid of cardboard dust? and isn't paper particles better than plastic particles? lol silly people don't read or learn
@@Ro11oTomasi Sure, I'll bite. Yeah, plastic particles exist. But polybags left no visible trace on the figures, while the cardboard leaves little brown flecks all over. Gets between parts and hangs on via static electricity. Can be a challenge to get figures with white or black pieces looking presentable. Do you like paper straws, too? You know, the ones they wrap in plastic... Vibes...
@@Tim.Hammer No, he’s right. This is not a problem compared to the amount of waste there’d be if lego still used foil bags.
But also fuck paper straws.
Not a collector but I thought Mushroom Sprite was cute so I checked Reddit for assistance with the non-scannable small QR codes as that’s all my local store had in this series. Took a while studying the numbers but I only bought one and it was the Mushroom Sprite 😊
Sadly there are people who still now just rip open all the CMF packages but its become less frequent. The DND CMF are all the big QR codes so all should scan (unless the code is smeared or your phone is a turd) but the one everyone wants this series is the dragonborn paladin just to resell the armor/shield for dragon knights (I assume). Some minifigs I dont mind having duplicates of
They did this for a couple reasons. 1: to get more customers to buy more products and 2: to stop people from searching for certain figures and then reselling them for more money online. For example when they created the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts CMF line, they only put 1 Percival Greaves into an entire box of CMFs. They did this on purpose to drive up collector value because collectors are who make Lego the most $. However in doing this they cause consumers to feel the bags and search for specific characters, which in turn means that either only those characters get bought and the others go on discount eventually or people buy entire boxes of CMFs in order to find that one character. This means that a lot of people are missing out unless they buy from collectors and Lego is trying to be more consumer friendly by using boxes instead of bags, which negates the collectors ability to feel for a specific character. I’m a collector and idc that they’re making the switch, in fact I welcome it, plastic is bad.
there's an app. You just scan the bottom of the box and it tells you which figure is inside. It's been a 100% correct so far. There was the first variation with the smaller code, but they moved to the bigger one which is scannable.
Well I just ask the Lego shop vendor to have the one I want. They don't seems to care that much.
A very simple way of telling what’s inside is to get the app that lets you scan the code at the bottom of the boxes, telling you what’s inside. It works really well for me, i don’t know if it’s not up for download in some countries (i live in Europe).
Kind of jumping the gun when you said the D&D line was "done right" and that none of the minifigs were "undesirable." While you might have been technically right, it ended up having the same problem as Series 25; it had one fig in it that's miles ahead of all the others in popularity and arguably quality (the Dragonborn Paladin). Now it's consistently sold out everywhere, frustratingly difficult to get, and expensive on the secondhand market because it's the one fig that everyone wants, especially the army builders. And it's already looking like the same thing's going to happen with the Wolfpack Beastmaster in the upcoming Series 27.
Thing is, none of this is new. The most popular minifigures end up being related to Castle, and knights in particular double-down on that for their army-building potential. Remakes of old characters also add to desirability, as do new animal molds. Combine all these factors together, and the new Wolfpack guy might end up being Mr. Gold 2.0.
There's an obvious answer people are not seeing here, just trade them with other LEGO fans. If you do that LEGO loses and everyone ends up with the figures they want.
I'm pretty sure that was always the point! Inevitably some figures still end up in demand but you can swap two or more figures with somebody who has a spare rare or desirable figure.
That's how we did it with pokemon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh and all kinds of trading cards throughout the ages.
Sure, Ill trade you 20 gamer girls for your 20 bat lords. Heck I'd give you 30 gamer girls for 10 bat lords if you want.
If they really only made this changed for their climate impact, they would have used paper bags. It is without a doubt to make it harder to find the figure you want
Seeing all those ripped open packages explains why Lego put the scannable code on the new boxes. Definitely they were trying to make some quick bucks by selling people product they don't want, using a "collectible" model that the consumer was not actually consenting to, merely being forced into. But Lego isn't Magic the Gathering, it is a consumer unfriendly practice.
It is as consumer unfriendly as buying MTG packages for sure. There is a reason nearly every seasoned MTG veteran only buys singles. It is way more expensive buying random packs, but you also don't have room for all the 'chaff' that you do not want. For me, this is similar for CMF's, I would never consider buying a random pack, unless I wanted all of the possible figures. (like with the upcoming D&D series)
They did back lollipop with plastic container in it in 2000s which was early collectable minifigures
I don't like the new boxes at all. I liked keeping the bag with the open mining. The box looks horrible and untidy when opened. Ripped cardboard.
This kind of stuff is what made me give up on Lego. I want those minifigures so bad but cant afford to buy a 100 of them. Now that ive finally got money to spend they make it so much more difficult
They're toys, man. They're always worth slightly less than you paid for them. If it wasn't that way they wouldn't stay in business. They shouldn't be an investment. Have you never heard of beanie babies, or pokemon cards, or baseball cards?
If only they could just let you, I don’t know, BUY THE ONES YOU WANT!!!
Cardboard box? Yes, this is more eco friendly! But it would be way more simple to sell them with a printed picture of the minifigures you are buying. So everyone pay for what they want and less plastic is wasted on minifigures you don’t want! That would be more ecological! If some minifigures cost more to produce… well charge accordingly! I don’t see why Lego use this gambling path to sell just some minifigures! People want more vampires… just make more of them instead and sell them! Love Lego, but i never understood why they do this.
This is the first comment besides my million comments that actually makes sense and thinks a bit further than: 'There is an app to scan the codes, there is no problem.'
Thank you for keeping my hope for the human race alive by being smart and looking at a larger perspective.
There's an app for that, just scan the QR code.
It's even easier to find the desired minifigure than before...
Scanning is easy. You can be either very dumb or very lazy to avoid it. And blind bags is GAMBLING, deceiving children from their goal, which, in its basic form, is illegal in many, many countries. Don't be that person.
If they were fair they would put minifigs in paper bags like figures in magazines.
Company which gains millions dollars every year should not be that greedy
This goes beyond greed, this is sheer stupidity and wastefulness.
just use ur phone to see what model it is
All I wanted was the goat, even with the app I couldn't find it. Part of the fun was feeling for the accessories so I could find which I wanted. The boxes took the fun out of it, so I don't collect the figures anymore
I admit I am not a big fan of mystery bags or boxes.
I usually buy the figures I really want on Bricklink.
there are also actually stores here who sell the boxes opened or offer a complete Set so you know what you get and it seems to work.
Regarding the Dungeons and Dragons Minifigures, you are absolutely right.
They are all killer, no filler and it't the first time for me that I buy a whole box wich contains 3 complete sets.
By the way there is one thing that's even worse than blind bags/boxes and that's making individual figures more rare that others.
We actually had that with some series where a complete box did no contain x complete sets but fewer of the good ones and more of the fillers.
I think that's an utter dick move.
You can scan the boxes since about 5/6 months so the unfair part is that kids have less chance of getting their favorite figure because it is sold out
Never has been fair.
Personally, I've had a problem with cmfs for a while pre box era. But you make a great argument for why the community is pissed about this decision. I also applaud you for pointing out the real reason behind the decision as well. Hopefully Lego will see the large outcry over this and change this sometime soon.
We can all blame resellers for this
Yes and no, people buy multiple castle/historical minifigures for army building. Its fault of lego group for packing some girly childish costume worthless minifigure next to castle/pirate/historical minifigure,
If lego made a 12minifigures of ancient rome soldiers/citizens/barbarians people would not worry about getting duplicates.
I went to Barnes and noble back when the marvel CMFs came out. There were all sorts of people using mini scales. Everyone looked at me weird when I just grabbed one. I got Wolverine. Really good mini fig.
5:13 which website is that from?
I bought a few of the series 25 and must have been lucky since it looks like I now have one valued over $16 that people want. I agree that some in a series are different/unique and people would want them, and others just seem blah and there is no need to have them.
I'd like to see Lego make a foil package with bubble wrap lining.
I think the QR code is better. However, the fact that they produce a limited amount of things I want 100 of - and then have to sift through a lot of useless CMF packs .... that is a crime.
Also kids don't really know what they are doing. A boy was luck that I was around when he asked his mother to get a CMF to get the vampire lord (he bought 10 so far and no goats and no vampires - because people took them as they released). I got him both the vampire and goat man, however, he could have searched for them in vain forever if he came a few minutes later.
This is my issue with the QR code scanning. While it is perfectly understandable and reasonable to do it, as you wouldn't want to spend money on stuff you do not want, it will screw over other people .. most often children, that do not know about this way of deciphering the packages. At some point, there aren't any Bat Lords left to find, so even careful scanning doesn't help and I've heard (and read here) about several people that ran into that issue.
I think I've typed the words: "clear packaging', 'order to demand' and 'print to demand' about 15 times by now, but that is what Lego should have done and should do starting from now on. The solution is easy, get rid of the randomness and print whatever is most desirable as much as is needed.
@@pinobluevogel6458 I agree. I don't even see why they are not doing this. They are losing money, they would have sold so much more if I could order batlords and goat herders by the bucketload ... and the people who wanted to buy as an investment wouldn't have hurt the rest (not sure reselling them would have been that great of an investment without the scarcity, but I am sure nobody here gives 2 cents on their opinion).
I ordered two 6 packs while Target had a sale and got all 12 of them.
The fact that you feel like you should know what's inside a randomize product is kind of crazy. Saying part of the fun is to feel the bags to figure out what's inside and all they've done is taken away that ability. Well yeah you're buying a gambling product.
Well there is an app for that now
Its meant to be random so boxes are better so everyone gets an equal chance to get their fig they want.
Its lego its meant to be played with not to resell on the after market
I'd argue it's now easier then ever to get the exact minifigs you search for.
The qr code on the underside of the boxes, when scanned, reveals what minifigure is inside.
It's obscure and the codes differ between EU and USA releases, but it's a 100% guarantee.
Yes, this is a bandaid solution. This still leaves massive amounts of boxes with undesirable minifigs at the stores that will not order new stock and is not a solution for the uninformed customer that will try to buy these and can never hope to open a batlord or a goatherder as everyone has taken them.
The only solution is NOT selling blind boxes but clear ones and printing to demand. It makes sense for Lego too, as they will know what is popular and what is not.
you can hust scan the qr-code though?
Barbarian Girl, Goat and Basil are the Mains
Isn't this community big enough to figure out groups to trade duplicates
My only gripe with it is that I bought a 6 minifig set from Lego themselves and got 2 of the same minifigs, the gamer girl one 🙄 and I didn’t get any of the ones I actually wanted
I agree with everything said. Also, as a really long time AFOL, I was there from series 1 - and we had a lot of extra issues - minifigs were cheap chinese plastic, no film on neck, really bad quality - this was fixed after several series, but it was truly hartbrokenly bad at that moment, especially with all the new molds and prints (elf, zombie:)
keep opening boxes in store
Ik it’s not nearly as fun but honestly it’s better to just but the figures second hand you’ll likely spend less in the end 1: because how much less most the figures are worth once they’ve been opened kinda makes up for the overpriced ones and 2: you’re not buying duplicates not to mention a lot of the stores mark them up a dollar or two again I think it sucks a lot of the fun out of it but idk that’s my solution I can’t even remember the last time I bought from retail bc price skew and prices in general just being kind of ridiculous for the past few years
I mean, bricklink exists. Idk, this just kinda feels like a non issue to me personally
The problem is that many kids generations were raisedonon LEGO castle and pirates and these big kids (including me) are now have enough money to buy childhood so they buy anything castle related. Unfortunately for them (us) nowaday kids have different prefernces so Lego do not continue castle and pirates sets. They release expensive sets only. For us adults colletors LEGO became hobby same as model-making and I think it could be nice to release some sets and battle packs for us.
Every time castle related cmfs are the ones w highest demand, and lego simply doesnt want to do anything about this. No $10 $20 $30 castle set.
I’m pretty sure there is some sorta film that makes it so you can only see the silhouette of an object, perhaps they could incorporate that into the boxes
I didnt know about the QR codd trick until last week.
But now the Spsce/Series 26 series has been out for a while and nobody was buying them in my local supermarket, I decided to scan the ones left over and found 10 out of 12.
Probably looked like a weirdo, but with a 100% success rate why not take the time to be thorough?
The space series is wildly impopular by comparison. However, the only reason series 25 was so popular was precisely because of these 3 (or rather 2) medieval themed figures that were in it. It sends a massive signal to Lego that medieval themed stuff is sorely wanted.
As someone that actually likes space themes too, I do think the series 26 series is extremely lackluster. There isn't a single one figure that I actually desire. This is in stark contrast with the upcoming D&D series, where I want nearly all of the figures, they are so incredibly good.