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Is there any provision to buy just LEGO minifigs? There are a bunch that I want, but they come in a large expensive set that I DON'T want.

bricklink.com will most likely be your only hope.
I wish the lego shop site had something like that.
But they wouldn't make much money off their $3000 sets.

As I understand it there's also licensing issues in many cases, but Cliffy is really your guy for a definitive answer I reckon.

Yeh, from what I understand with the licenced properties it's a bit of a tricky one - Lego own construction set licences, other companies tend to have action figure rights, and it can be a clash.

There are occasional Minifig sets (including, the past few years, an interesting - if realitvely expensive - advent calendar set), but they're usually relatively bland, very similar to those in basic kits (Town ones tend to be bloke, girl, policeman, fireman, doctor, builder, all using fairly common parts). From what I understand, though, aside from taking away from the appeal of big kits, they just aren't big sellers - the kids who buy 99% of Lego aren't interested in building up a realistic town/castle/space station population, it's enough for them to have a figure or so in each set. It's only manchildren like me who want a load of pedestrians or whatever wandering around the place.

Why they don't do Booster Packs like Trading Card Games, I'll never know.

secretcode wrote:Why they don't do Booster Packs like Trading Card Games, I'll never know.

Because it's a totally different field than Trading Card Games?

Sigh...

Let me try that again.

Booster Packs like the now defunct as of a few days ago HeroClix (Goodbye WizKids, I'll miss you so- Mainly for the loss of MechWarrior) where a few minifigs are packed in $8 box randomly selected from a theme.

Yeah, not sure why you're of the opinion anyone didn't get it, but if you actually try again and read cliffy's earlier post you'll see why its a different field and booster packs aren't worth their time and money.

Cliffjumper wrote:Yeh, from what I understand with the licenced properties it's a bit of a tricky one - Lego own construction set licences, other companies tend to have action figure rights, and it can be a clash.

As the story goes, Hasbro threatened to lawyer them to death around 2000 when they started to release Star Wars minifig sets.

There are occasional Minifig sets (including, the past few years, an interesting - if realitvely expensive - advent calendar set), but they're usually relatively bland, very similar to those in basic kits (Town ones tend to be bloke, girl, policeman, fireman, doctor, builder, all using fairly common parts). From what I understand, though, aside from taking away from the appeal of big kits, they just aren't big sellers - the kids who buy 99% of Lego aren't interested in building up a realistic town/castle/space station population, it's enough for them to have a figure or so in each set.

The recent Castle minifig sets are really nice, but they're pretty pricey for what you get -- $12.99 for five minifigs. At any given time there are three or four sets in your chosen theme out for that price or less. Each of those come with one or two figures of their own and would have a lot more play value than a pack with just minifigs, so it doesn't surprise me that the minifig packs don't sell well.

The minifig sets weren't as proportionately expensive (compared to small sets) back in the 80s/90s, were they?

It's only manchildren like me who want a load of pedestrians or whatever wandering around the place.

Something like this?

secretcode wrote:Booster Packs like the now defunct as of a few days ago HeroClix (Goodbye WizKids, I'll miss you so- Mainly for the loss of MechWarrior) where a few minifigs are packed in $8 box randomly selected from a theme.

Because these sets would mainly have to sell to, what, 6-12 year olds who'd rather have a digger/moon buggy or whatever. Random packed stuff only works for stuff that's cheaper than half a dozen minifigs, or aimed at an older audience. Kids like to see what they're getting, and are more interested in building models - as long as there's someone to drive/pilot/whatever, they're easy.

Warcry wrote:As the story goes, Hasbro threatened to lawyer them to death around 2000 when they started to release Star Wars minifig sets.

Yeh, I think it was you who said to me about that.

The recent Castle minifig sets are really nice, but they're pretty pricey for what you get -- $12.99 for five minifigs. At any given time there are three or four sets in your chosen theme out for that price or less. Each of those come with one or two figures of their own and would have a lot more play value than a pack with just minifigs, so it doesn't surprise me that the minifig packs don't sell well.

Yup - I've never bothered buying more recent sets because they're pricey, especially once you factor in that half the figures tend to be very bland.

The minifig sets weren't as proportionately expensive (compared to small sets) back in the 80s/90s, were they?

http://peeron.com/inv/sets/6314-1 @ $7.25 is about twice the price of, say, http://peeron.com/inv/sets/6512-1, and onyl fractionally lower than something a lot larger like http://peeron.com/inv/sets/6668-1, assuming those RRPs are accurate.

I seem to remember they were pretty pricey at the time, though the biggest problem was finding somewhere to stock them - I lost my postman figure (either that or the tapograph completely rubbed off, I forget) and the Town set for 2-3 years had one in it. Never, ever saw the thing. I can remember 'new theme' ones being avaliable briefly - the Pirates set, and the Futuron/Blacktron set. Both were Hell to get my parents to spring for, on the grounds I had plenty of people and why didn't I get a model instead... I suspect the same problem would be there for a lot of kids even now.

The adult market for Lego is present, but even moreso than Transformers it's the kids that control sales. Lego also know adult collectors will pay for a vehicle in order to get a certain minifig - a lot of people probably sprung for a medium-sized Batman/Indiana Jones kit to get the minifigs, ignoring the parts (I know I did), so that's working for them as well.

Something like this?

Knew I'd seen another recent set - not sure if that's in the shops, though. After getting back into Lego and before discovering Bricklink, I went through all the online listings at the site to see what was out, and came close to buying that... However, it's just ludicrously expensive, and it suffers from the same problem any set of that type does - there are loads of policemen, firemen and the like to make it more exciting to kids, so it's of debatable use to a collector realistically populate a town.

secretcode wrote:Booster Packs like the now defunct as of a few days ago HeroClix (Goodbye WizKids, I'll miss you so- Mainly for the loss of MechWarrior) where a few minifigs are packed in $8 box randomly selected from a theme.

I twould have to be really cheap for anyone to consider it. Like, say, a dollar for 3-4 minifigs. And that basically defeats the purpose of selling it in the first place.

Mind, i'd love to see if someone actually had the guts to release that.

Maybe a promotion where a minifig was attached as an extra bonus item to every set would be better off. Unlikely, but slightly more feasible.