[legoisbest]

This does crop up all the time.

You should also mention though that Lego still make and sell a lot of universal building sets.

In Lego stores there are walls of bricks where you can select any bits you want.

Yes, there has been a big rise in themed and licensed sets, and yes, some of them have specialised building parts that you can only really use in the set.

But that's just part of the trend over the last few decades from generic products to branded products. Everything has to be branded... I even saw a "frozen" branded loom band set. I guess the loom bands are just colors associated with the movie? Even buying kids shoes these days they're mostly branded with superheroes, princesses, etc

You can enjoy building predefined models, and creating your own from buckets of bricks though. Both can co-exist nicely. The best thing is that Lego is still going strong.

[pavlov]

Sure. I wasn't exactly criticising Lego, just pointing out that the appeal of the ad is inextricably linked to the ideal behind the product.

Lego is a business, of course. Those ABS plastic blocks are practically indestructible, so they're not going to grow by selling replacements for universal blocks...

[legoisbest]

It's so impressive that I can take out a 30 year old Lego brick, and it "works" exactly the same as it did 30 years ago. Sure, the white ones have faded a little, but they still function just as they should.

Not to put the knife in too hard, but megablocks and other competitors don't even function properly when they're new out of the packet.

[hvidgaard]

If I remember correctly, LEGO was in a bit of a financial crisis not long ago, and as a way to deal with it was more focus on LEGO based on existing and popular franchises. That said, you just take pull the sets apart and children being children will build things, just as they always have.

[freshyill]

My stepson is 11 and we've bought many sets for him over the years. We have one of those 5x5 Ikea shelves just packed with sets that never get touched. They're more like models than toys. But some of them are also my old pirate lego sets from when I was his age, which I also never touched after putting them together (hence the fact that they're still intact today, though some have been disassembled and reassembled).

A few years ago, however, we decided to just buy him a few of the big bucket sets. So he's got buckets of bricks that get played with, and shelves full of models that collect dust.

We also have a pretty big collection of Duplo blocks, which my 2 1/2 year-old daughter has little interest in, although she loves the Lego.