While many LEGO pricing decisions are egregious, this one is surprisingly fair. Build quality is also much better. Looks more like what it’s supposed to be, colors are more uniform, and the treasure chest isn’t just a brown crate
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Lego is just a big ripoff. They create artificial monopolies by taking exclusive licenses for IPs like Star wars and stuff. And then they can set the price almost arbitrarily. Or they hold onto the IP without ever releasing more than one or two sets, just to prevent other companies to be successful, such as with Star Trek.
Well, how they get these non- licensed sets sold is beyond me. Guess there are no alternatives from less expensive brands yet.
Non-licensed lego pricing has always seemed very fair to me. Licensed sets are fukkin wild tho.
MOCs based on licensed sets using only standard bricks is how we win here
The company is obviously still recovering from the COVID supply-chain shortage of plastic.
Especially considering inflation, this seems pretty reasonable to me.
edit: I assume these are USD?
Yeah it’s USD
Based on the US dollar sign, I guess so
Other countries (Canada, Australia) use that symbol too, fyi
Sorry, my bad, I thought they used different symbols.
That’s almost $15 above inflation-adjusted dollars.
Highway robbery.
Not when you consider the quality of builds and part count
- I missed the brick count. Thank you for correcting me.
- It’s still a 6% increase over inflation.
It’s still a 6% increase over inflation.
As you are apparently in the US, could it be a tariff thing because of tariffs?
Well, that’s why we judge based on standards. Same reason there are episodes of Gravity Falls that are considered bad, even though by non-Gravity Falls standards they’re still great episodes
What’s the brick count for each set? Bottom looks like a larger build.
- 230 for the top
- 379 for the bottom
It literally says on the boxes in the image, and whoever made this added a cost per piece. Please do a tiny bit of work before asking others to spoon feed you.
the brick price takes into account the brick count.
It’s plastic brick produced by a machine. It probably costs Lego $1.25 to manufacture. The main expense is paying the designers who come up with these things.
If I had kids, I’d probably buy used sets, or just the “bucket of bricks”, or wait until something went on sale. When I was a kid I got a suitcase of used legos at a garage sale one time and was in heaven. I don’t think kids really care about “sets” as much until they reach the Technics age and are using them to learn about how gear movements work. Little kids like to just mix and match to make stuff from their imagination.
As an adult, I visited a Lego store recently and saw some neat stuff. But I’m not paying for these extravagant sets that cost a small fortune. I might consider buying something used if wasn’t a “collectible” that increased in value.
Lego is
polypropylenemade from petroleum. It would make sense if the prices are impacted by a global oil stoppage due to war.Most LEGO elements are ABS, not polypropylene. According to this article, PP is used mostly for parts that require some flexibility, like living hinges:
https://bricknerd.com/home/every-type-of-plastic-used-by-lego-2026-edition-3-12-26
Good to know, thanks for the correction, Although according to the Lego website, they use PP for Lego swords too, PP is normally not too flexible, especially compared to polyethylene and TPU.
ABS is still a petroleum product, so my above point still stands.
Over half of their plastic is now renewable or recycled, so not that dependant on petroleum as they were
My PP does not have a hinge!
I do sometimes wonder if we calculate the prices of sets wrong, like, realistically we should allocate a portion of the cost for the design and research thst goes into a LEGO staff member (or more likely team) making the set, and then the actual cost
But maybe that’s me getting myself twisted up with how small sets seem reasonable but the large sets feel insane until you factor in Dev time
That absolutely does count for something, and with the first set you can tell that there just wasn’t as much thought put into the animals. The crab looks more like a red dot with legs holding scissors, and same for the shark’s underdesigned fins and splotchy coloring in some portions like the tail
The newer one feels less like a cartoonish playset, and more like it could have been designed by a genuine marine biology enthusiast with an affinity for sleek shaping techniques
Neither sets are bad for their prices
I’m still pissed that neither of these come with the real chest.
My rule of thumb is pay no more than 10 cents per brick, so this ain’t bad. Wait until you get into licenced sets lol.
The manta is cooler than the shark
