Yesterday a whopping 35 LEGO Ideas projects were announced for qualification review. Earlier this year, 26 sets were shortlisted for also achieving the 10,000 votes required for a submission to be reviewed. Achieving 10,000 votes is no easy feat as we’ve seen in the past, but with the recent support of projects skyrocketing, there has been chatter amongst the community if the rules should be tweaked or changed to bring it back down to more palatable numbers.
This has prompted Hasan Jansen, Engagement Manager from the LEGO Ideas Team to share the official insights on what the decision point may be. The short answer is that things will remain status quo, and the sudden increase in the number of submissions and votes was assumed to be largely due to the current pandemic, which kept builders and audiences indoors, giving the opportunity to focus on creations and a wider reach for those that interacted online. As always, the longer-term plans are always being kept within sight, and changes may come.
The official statement from Hasan Jensen is shared below and can be found the official LEGO blog
Over the past six months, we have read a growing number of comments from the fan community related to the significant growth of product ideas reaching 10,000 supporters. A lot of those comments ask the same thing. Is it time for change on LEGO Ideas? Should we increase the supporter threshold, decrease the timeframe, or change something else altogether?
The last two review periods have shown an invigorated interest in LEGO Ideas product idea submissions. We’ve gone from averaging about 10-12 product ideas in each review phase to seeing 26 and 35 product ideas, respectively, in the last review phases — a significant leap.
We want to let you know that we’re aware that this increase is occurring. We’re also aware that this significant increase has coincided with global lockdowns related to COVID-19. The effects of this global pandemic have driven people to spend more time at home and online, as well as finding LEGO.
Ideas as an outlet for all that extra time and creative energy. An outlet that has not only driven an increase in supporters but also submissions.
It’s too early to determine whether the trend will continue, and we don’t want to make any snap decisions based solely on the effects of this global situation that we face. Therefore, you shouldn’t expect any fundamental changes to the way LEGO Ideas Product Ideas works in the near future.
In the longer term, we are exploring several potential changes, not only to address the current situation but also to continue our mission of realizing more AFOL designs. When exploring these options, we are, of course, mindful of the decade-long journey and heritage of design collaboration with the LEGO Ideas community.
Importantly, we will always to strive to make LEGO Ideas the best possible experience for our members and community.
What do you think? Is having a wider selection of choices a good thing for LEGO? Will that dilute the chances of excited builders with more competition each round? Share with us your viewpoints in the comments below.
When I first saw the Blog post, I panicked a tiny bit since my project is still gathering support. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/269d96b9-0699-40d4-8fdc-c1a70a306635
I say 10,000 is still a hard number to reach for most sets. There’s thousands of worthy projects on Lego Ideas, and only a handful ever come up for review.
Lego has also proven very strict in their review process, and AFAIK, nothing they have greenlit has gone on to be a total sales bomb. I doubt that just because we have 35 projects up for review that we’re suddenly going to see 10 sets get approved. Only the best and most feasible sets will continue to be made.
Lego is the ultimate editor of this, and regardless of how many projects they have to review, their standards don’t seem anymore relaxed than they were.
I would say that they should let the VIP members vote on the sets.
10,000 gets a review.
VIP members vote on the approved sets.
Top 5 go to second review.
This should separate the good ideas from the good idea people actually want to buy.
Exxos, I don’t think that would actually be a good idea, given that a substantial portion of Ideas members are underaged and therefore are not permitted to have VIP status. I think the results you would get out of such an intermediate voting round would be highly skewed to older collectors.
@WenWen, I think that lego set #21308 Adventure Time did not got so well. In fact, it was the only kids oriented set, and i do not think we will see any other soon,
Irrespective of that, I think that Lego gains by not changing the criteria, it still gives them a fair idea of the themes that are in high demand and it gives them more flexibility in their selection.
I don’t have a problem or concern with more submissions, I’d rather see less $200+ Ideas sets though