The existence of specialty sets doesn’t subtract from creating building.

My kids get some of the specialty sets, build them, then hours later they’re either taken apart or heavily modified.

The specialty sets can provide some interesting unique pieces too. My kids have a photographic memory of each of those special pieces and which set they came from. They’ll remember them and search until they find that exact piece.

> Sets become collectible, perishable, trends can form, secondary markets exists, etc. It's simply about the baseline, not the principle. Sorry.

I don’t know what this is supposed to mean, but you can completely ignore secondary markets and collector sets if you want.

There are more sets and pieces than ever. You don’t have to collect anything.

You can still buy basic brick sets. With lot of nice color nowadays. Like the CLassics or Creator lines: https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/classic

And for $100 you get a lot of bricks to play with and let your imagination go wild. Just don't buy sets aimed at adults and IP fansumers.

Lego sets aimed at children are still good! They work as standalone toys, and can also be reassembled, modified and combined. Very few toys are like this.

Adults collect them, true, but there are whole lines dedicated to them.

It was kinda funny to see the Lego Movie, which puts a bunch of emphasis on breaking the rules and mixing and matching everything, and then seeing them release the sets for the movie. I mean, it makes perfect sense. But it was still kinda lowkey humorous. But imo they're still a great toy; very fun to go to conventions and the like, where people just have giant piles of loose pieces you can buy by weight.

They still sell the sets of generic bricks. At that point it is up to the individual customer to buy them if he prefers that. I could see your point if they stopped selling the more free form product, but they haven't.

These collectible (read: branded) sets are what saved them from bankruptcy, though.

Look at it from the corporation's viewpoint:

- they have a finite production capacity

- they have a finite warehousing capacity

- there is a certain number of sets which will be bought

- crates of bricks without an established design have a limited appeal and while a consistent SKU, don't have the baked in demand a new set will have

There's nothing stopping you from buying the basic sets and only the basic sets. They didn't stop making basic sets, unless you're objecting to the new colors that go beyond blue red yellow and black?

Lego is still amazing and you don't have to buy expensive sets for your kids to enjoy them. My son loves Legos and if he gets a set for his birthday it doesn't last long before he takes it apart and starts building other stuff with it.

This is one of those instances where it feels like people are terminally online. Or like the meme of the guy standing in the corner while everyone else is having fun at the party. You can find Legos being given away in a local buy-nothing group. It's still just as magical for kids as it ever was. These complaints are only from an adult who doesn't play with Legos. Who cares if sets become collectibles? Get other sets and have fun with Legos. These are toys that are meant to be played with. Play with them.

You can still buy “generic” lego sets if you want. Look for “Lego Classic” sets.

You can also only get so creative with lego. At the end of the day roblox/minecraft and video games trains kids to build more "relevant" things. Apart from tactility, I don't see what technic/mindstorm offers over digital.