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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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..
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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 🍄
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 spent hours of feeling the contents of the foil bags 😅 Now it’s actually super easy to know what’s inside by checking the QR Code, but obviously a lot of people don’t know that or don’t care, because it’s very easy to open the boxes one close them again. Last time I got me some Space CMFs I found several emptied boxes and reported it. Sad thing is that in consequence they are either stoping selling them or put them in closed cabinets, which will make scanning them complicated. 😢
weird lamo fondling everyone's bags, thats what they wanted to stop!!!!! why do that its so weird. just admit ur gambling or dont buy loot boxes geeeez
@@Ro11oTomasi Bro, you’re talking 💩 1. This was before Corona, so no one cared about you touching the bags. 2. Everyone had fun trying to guess the right one. 3. If you think Lego changed it for any other reason then to better their ecological footprint you’re delusional.
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.
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:)
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.
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.
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).
i mean, the whole point of these was always that they were blind bags right? and the only downside of the new boxes that i can see is that everyone can have a chance at getting any of the figures? instead of having one guy that just comes and takes all the bags with the figure that everyone wants.
The whole point is that nobody wants blind bags, nor do they want useless minifigures they will not use. Use clear packaging and offer stores the option to order specific minifigures individually. This problem is completely gone and they can just print to demand whatever is popular. If only people that have a few braincells were in charge of these massive companies, we can at least have these small issues out of our world.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
Before as you could feel the bags/had feel guides i think it was fair as you could feel around for what you wanted now with the box style it definitely has taken that aspect away and has now promoted people breaking the boxes out of pure frustration or just to steal/create carnage possible in an attempt to force LEGO to go back. I've kinda of always been against CMFs anyway as of how random they are the likelihood you'd het duplicates and i can't get behind the price increase they used to he £2 now £5 just seems crazy and i don't like/hate buying LEGO solely for Mini Figures. I just brought the Storm, Beast and Wolverine through Amazon/ebay paying a bit more for the guaranteed fig i wanted it is crummy but I'm not risking it.
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.
I bough half of a case of series 25. I got 3x Train costume fan, Harpie, E sports Champion and Goatherd. 2x Vampire Knight & Noir Classic Detective, follwed by 1 Weighlifter and Feirce Warrior. Happy to get 3 Goatherds.
Got the Goat & Man, and Basil on first three boxes lol. 😂 It's been 10 years since i touched a series, and tada! The best consumer restraint for some is just 6 or less, and not the whole deck. Heck, i just get 3, and will do for the next one. There's also a digit code to abuse below the boxes to identify each pack individually.
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.
If Randomness allow them to keep the price down then I am for it. Secondly, I found bags like that torn open at the stores as well. What they want is all of them for the cheapest price they can get. Even just going to ebay to pick those they did not have is too high for them.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
You can use the app to scan. Yet, you haven't thought about people who werr unable to feel the content of the bag. Lego could simply sell the minifigures openly so that you know what you're buying. That would be the best. I find no fun in neither the bag nor the box.
I can tell my story to collect the entire 25th set ..my first as im mainly a total lego noob ...well last time was childhood ITS DIRTY TACTICS. so i played dirty to ..BUT ..main thing is basically the way to ensure a complete set quickly is to buy a entire case an do whatever with the rest . I founnd these late but a full case CVS ..at marked up $7 each.....yeah but these are gone everywhere...so i can deal with the markup .....first ...wont lie hid them in store to go back day after day to RETURN DUPLICATES...an get a few more . Honestly i took them home cut them open insanely precise l,,, ooked in ... TOOK NOTHING out .. an reglued them an brought them back did it like 6 times . I told them i was scanning QR codes which is possible but not for me a the time . So lego your telling me... So when im at 11 figures an need 1 MORE.....i have to just buy 8,9,10 more duplicates till you get that last one at a 2 dollar markup ..oh no . I returned complete items ..basically all i needed was too LOOK ...thats why people say the bags were fun ...i missed the entire bag era ...so i never experienced it once ......oh an i did end up keeping a few of the cooler duplicates wont lie ....who dosent want two evil knigts an a extra goat ....so yeah look at what i had to spend .an go through ..for 12 figures .
I'm pretty sure what you did is not exactly according to the rules. This does give more credence to my point that Lego should not be selling random packs but simply print each individual figure to demand and sell them in open packaging.
cmfs were always in blind bags, yes you could feel the fig but you were never 100% sure if you got the right one but now with boxes you can scan them and you will always know which fig will get. The package opening issue has been fixed ever since the big qr codes were added with S25 now that the space line was produced without any small qr codes i havent seen a single opened box
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.
Yes, it is greenwashing. Shameful that Lego can't simply use an eco-friendly bag. And their implication that fans throw away plastic is unfair: i still have every one of my Pick a Brick buckets.
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)
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.
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.
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.
A friend of mine bought one of these (sealed mind you) and somehow got a Friends mini-doll that wasn't in the series. So there's that to be worried about.
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.
Perhaps LEGO could put a QR code on the outside packaging, which will reveal the silhouette of a component inside. That would keep people from breaking open the boxes or weighing them to determine which minifigure is inside. However, I doubt they would do this.
The boxes level the playing field and give more people the opportunity to get the better figures. For the muppets wave, I bought five figures and they were all the same lessor character
The blind boxes screw over the people not using a QR code, or being late after a restock. There is no leveling the playing field with a random box, it should be NON-randomized if you want to truly level the playing field. Simply buying the figures that you want for 4 dollars is an easy ask and an easy solution.
I've been lucky this series, walmart by me just put out a new case of mf 2 days ago. I bought 19 and have 3 goats and 3 bat loards, and I only need the amputee guy for all. The whole case is on a discount, paid 3.75 after tax per mini fig
I don’t think this is a CMF issue, going back and looking at each series I see on average around 6 figures I would/do want from each series. I think this is a Basil issue, a Rare issue we’re just that one individual CMF is just so desirable because of how unique it is. It’s been what almost 20 years since the Fright Knight Castle sets came out, and haven’t been touched since. The Fright Knights are one of if not the most popular Castle Faction, and have only gotten two CMF’s in almost 20 years. This is just a case of people yearning for more Fright Knights. I think if in 2025 they released some Fright Knight sets that had a different but still similar Basil people would get over it and his Mini figure would drop in price over night, along with the Fright Knights prices. Just like how we got Viking CMF mini’s in the past but now that we have the Viking village I get their prices dropped off. also at the same time if you look at the Greek/Roman and Ninja/Samurai CMF mini’s their prices are still high, but if they released some Greek/Roman and Ninja/Samurai sets with similar Mini’s their prices would drop too.
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.
I think you are over thinking it, Lego don't care about after market prices or damage or shoplifting. Once the store has paid and they are in the shipping container lego's job is done. Blind bags are a shitty business practice but thats been the case since day one. From what I found most figures are worth a stupid amount once they are a couple of series old anyway.
If they don’t care then why did they buy out BrickLink? They get a percentage of the sales, so I most definitely think they care. Also if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t purposefully inflate the collectors market by only making so many of a certain character, ex: Percival Graves in the HP and Fantastic Beasts CMF line.
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
Adding lesser interesting mf’s to the lineup might be a cost thing too. Some mf’s cost more to make, so they might offset it by making cheaper ones. Series 36 imo doesn’t have any that suck. But some are much cooler than others
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
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.
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?
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.
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...
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.
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..
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mystery boxes aren't consumer friendly? 😳
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
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.
They did back lollipop with plastic container in it in 2000s which was early collectable minifigures
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
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 🍄
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
Basil leaves! *Kicking basil* That was a good one :-)
You got that one! 😆
I spent hours of feeling the contents of the foil bags 😅 Now it’s actually super easy to know what’s inside by checking the QR Code, but obviously a lot of people don’t know that or don’t care, because it’s very easy to open the boxes one close them again. Last time I got me some Space CMFs I found several emptied boxes and reported it. Sad thing is that in consequence they are either stoping selling them or put them in closed cabinets, which will make scanning them complicated. 😢
weird lamo fondling everyone's bags, thats what they wanted to stop!!!!! why do that its so weird. just admit ur gambling or dont buy loot boxes geeeez
@@Ro11oTomasi Bro, you’re talking 💩
1. This was before Corona, so no one cared about you touching the bags.
2. Everyone had fun trying to guess the right one.
3. If you think Lego changed it for any other reason then to better their ecological footprint you’re delusional.
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
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:)
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.
The QR codes scanners have been online since right after the marvel minifigs. I prefered the old foil packs but boxes are environmentally friendlier
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.
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).
They actually have scan codes now so you can actually find the exact character you want😊
Hopefully this problem now is solved with the QRcodes in series 26, I hope LEGO will keep making them readable going forward.
i mean, the whole point of these was always that they were blind bags right? and the only downside of the new boxes that i can see is that everyone can have a chance at getting any of the figures? instead of having one guy that just comes and takes all the bags with the figure that everyone wants.
Finally someone with some sense
I’m a collector, easily have $10K+ in legos, and I agree.
The whole point is that nobody wants blind bags, nor do they want useless minifigures they will not use. Use clear packaging and offer stores the option to order specific minifigures individually. This problem is completely gone and they can just print to demand whatever is popular.
If only people that have a few braincells were in charge of these massive companies, we can at least have these small issues out of our world.
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 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.
5:17 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
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.
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.
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
Before as you could feel the bags/had feel guides i think it was fair as you could feel around for what you wanted now with the box style it definitely has taken that aspect away and has now promoted people breaking the boxes out of pure frustration or just to steal/create carnage possible in an attempt to force LEGO to go back.
I've kinda of always been against CMFs anyway as of how random they are the likelihood you'd het duplicates and i can't get behind the price increase they used to he £2 now £5 just seems crazy and i don't like/hate buying LEGO solely for Mini Figures.
I just brought the Storm, Beast and Wolverine through Amazon/ebay paying a bit more for the guaranteed fig i wanted it is crummy but I'm not risking it.
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.
On the bright side at least now there’s a QR code you can scan in an app to know exactly what’s in em
Not as fun as feeling the bag but still nifty
I bough half of a case of series 25. I got 3x Train costume fan, Harpie, E sports Champion and Goatherd. 2x Vampire Knight & Noir Classic Detective, follwed by 1 Weighlifter and Feirce Warrior. Happy to get 3 Goatherds.
Got the Goat & Man, and Basil on first three boxes lol. 😂 It's been 10 years since i touched a series, and tada! The best consumer restraint for some is just 6 or less, and not the whole deck. Heck, i just get 3, and will do for the next one. There's also a digit code to abuse below the boxes to identify each pack individually.
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.
You’re so lucky. The only figure i wanted out of that series was the vampire knight and i still haven’t gotten a single one.
If Randomness allow them to keep the price down then I am for it.
Secondly, I found bags like that torn open at the stores as well. What they want is all of them for the cheapest price they can get. Even just going to ebay to pick those they did not have is too high for them.
Kids will just open and steal them. Having opaque boxes just means they will open more of them before they find the ones they were after
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
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.
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 wish they went back to the original bags. I bought 2 Marvel CMFs and I got an Echo and another Echo. (I already had an Echo).
ECHO! echo! ᵉᶜʰᵒᵎ
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.
Just tell people which figure is in each package and end the gambling bullshit.
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.
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 use ur phone to see what model it is
Cardboard boxes are more quiet to rip open in store than the old bag model! Thanks Lego! Now I can collect for free!
I wanted to buy a couple DnD minifigueres but the site was out the second they came out
I ordered two 6 packs while Target had a sale and got all 12 of them.
I'd like to see Lego make a foil package with bubble wrap lining.
You can use the app to scan. Yet, you haven't thought about people who werr unable to feel the content of the bag. Lego could simply sell the minifigures openly so that you know what you're buying. That would be the best. I find no fun in neither the bag nor the box.
5:13 which website is that from?
3:54 basil leaves???
I can tell my story to collect the entire 25th set ..my first as im mainly a total lego noob ...well last time was childhood
ITS DIRTY TACTICS. so i played dirty to ..BUT ..main thing is basically the way to ensure a complete set quickly is to buy a entire case an do whatever with the rest .
I founnd these late but a full case CVS ..at marked up $7 each.....yeah but these are gone everywhere...so i can deal with the markup .....first ...wont lie hid them in store to go back day after day to RETURN DUPLICATES...an get a few more .
Honestly i took them home cut them open insanely precise l,,,
ooked in ...
TOOK NOTHING out ..
an reglued them an brought them back did it like 6 times .
I told them i was scanning QR codes which is possible but not for me a the time .
So lego your telling me...
So when im at 11 figures an need 1 MORE.....i have to just buy 8,9,10 more duplicates till you get that last one at a 2 dollar markup ..oh no .
I returned complete items ..basically all i needed was too LOOK ...thats why people say the bags were fun ...i missed the entire bag era ...so i never experienced it once ......oh an i did end up keeping a few of the cooler duplicates wont lie ....who dosent want two evil knigts an a extra goat ....so yeah look at what i had to spend .an go through
..for 12 figures .
I'm pretty sure what you did is not exactly according to the rules. This does give more credence to my point that Lego should not be selling random packs but simply print each individual figure to demand and sell them in open packaging.
cmfs were always in blind bags, yes you could feel the fig but you were never 100% sure if you got the right one but now with boxes you can scan them and you will always know which fig will get.
The package opening issue has been fixed ever since the big qr codes were added with S25 now that the space line was produced without any small qr codes i havent seen a single opened box
My local Walmarts have put all Lego behind lock and key. It’s tragic.
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.
Well there is an app for that now
Yes, it is greenwashing. Shameful that Lego can't simply use an eco-friendly bag. And their implication that fans throw away plastic is unfair: i still have every one of my Pick a Brick buckets.
Even more direct eco washing as they are using these tactics to sell more plastic that customers don’t even want.
I think they should just make the blind bags the same papery material as the new bags they use for sets
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)
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.
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.
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.
A friend of mine bought one of these (sealed mind you) and somehow got a Friends mini-doll that wasn't in the series. So there's that to be worried about.
Well I just ask the Lego shop vendor to have the one I want. They don't seems to care that much.
Personally i haven't been able to get the total of 15 for the vampire knight yet i only have 7 of them so far
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.
Perhaps LEGO could put a QR code on the outside packaging, which will reveal the silhouette of a component inside. That would keep people from breaking open the boxes or weighing them to determine which minifigure is inside. However, I doubt they would do this.
There's already a qr code on the box that people use to get the ones they want, that's how I gets mine to my collection
Lego could make bags ecofriendly so we can still fell them and it is good for the environment
Just scan the qr code and see which one it is, yeah its alittle finnicky but now its easier then ever to get the minifigure you want!
The boxes level the playing field and give more people the opportunity to get the better figures. For the muppets wave, I bought five figures and they were all the same lessor character
The blind boxes screw over the people not using a QR code, or being late after a restock. There is no leveling the playing field with a random box, it should be NON-randomized if you want to truly level the playing field. Simply buying the figures that you want for 4 dollars is an easy ask and an easy solution.
Good thing I only wanted the Lego Fitness Instructor and I managed to get that one on my first purchase.
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
There's an app for that, just scan the QR code.
It's even easier to find the desired minifigure than before...
I've been lucky this series, walmart by me just put out a new case of mf 2 days ago. I bought 19 and have 3 goats and 3 bat loards, and I only need the amputee guy for all. The whole case is on a discount, paid 3.75 after tax per mini fig
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...
Talking about how hard it is to get certain figures due to the move to boxes while displaying an outsized number of goat herders and basil figs.
Glad I got my 1 goat and Basil. But I am buying all the Beetlezoids in my town.
I don’t think this is a CMF issue, going back and looking at each series I see on average around 6 figures I would/do want from each series. I think this is a Basil issue, a Rare issue we’re just that one individual CMF is just so desirable because of how unique it is. It’s been what almost 20 years since the Fright Knight Castle sets came out, and haven’t been touched since. The Fright Knights are one of if not the most popular Castle Faction, and have only gotten two CMF’s in almost 20 years. This is just a case of people yearning for more Fright Knights. I think if in 2025 they released some Fright Knight sets that had a different but still similar Basil people would get over it and his Mini figure would drop in price over night, along with the Fright Knights prices. Just like how we got Viking CMF mini’s in the past but now that we have the Viking village I get their prices dropped off. also at the same time if you look at the Greek/Roman and Ninja/Samurai CMF mini’s their prices are still high, but if they released some Greek/Roman and Ninja/Samurai sets with similar Mini’s their prices would drop too.
There are phone apps to battle this.
@@kook1201 pinned comment. I made this video before the apps existed
@@BrickFleet you certainly did. My bad.
They should lable what it is or sell in a set of about 5 minifigures or sell the complete colecrion in 1 box
They literally have a QR code on the bottom that can be read by free apps.
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.
I think you are over thinking it, Lego don't care about after market prices or damage or shoplifting. Once the store has paid and they are in the shipping container lego's job is done. Blind bags are a shitty business practice but thats been the case since day one. From what I found most figures are worth a stupid amount once they are a couple of series old anyway.
If they don’t care then why did they buy out BrickLink? They get a percentage of the sales, so I most definitely think they care. Also if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t purposefully inflate the collectors market by only making so many of a certain character, ex: Percival Graves in the HP and Fantastic Beasts CMF line.
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.
Adding lesser interesting mf’s to the lineup might be a cost thing too. Some mf’s cost more to make, so they might offset it by making cheaper ones. Series 36 imo doesn’t have any that suck. But some are much cooler than others