Well, this puts things into perspective. Perhaps BIONICLE ended not because of poor sales, but factory restructuring and a mandatory breather. The line might have essentially been axed so factories would have less to produce, tying into demand being a big problem for the factories. The best way to stop demand and give yourself some time is to decrease the number of themes you produce.
BIONICLE would be a big target in that scenario because while it could have sold really well, it was never going to bring in the insane type of cash system does.
In fact… this counts as a business decision, and might be the ambiguous one LEGO wouldn’t tell us about.
I think you don’t realize that Mixels has one more year. If Lego was truly Axing lines to make room for more popular themes, we would have seen more themes get canceled in 2015 and 2016.
I went to the Salt Lake Comic Con recently.
While going through the booths, I was surprised to see some BIONICLE sets… The Lord of Skull Spiders, Skull Slicer, and Skull Scorpio.
Not a single Umarak, Creature, Uniter, or Beastie anywhere.
I happened by my local Barnes and Noble bookstore, and they of all places still had Bionicle sets. One of the last places I would have ever checked. I didn’t thoroughly investigate, but I saw Onua Uniter, some form of Lewa and Pohatu, and incredibly Lord of Skull Spiders.
On the bright side, wanting to reduce the work for the factories could be the best possible reason for cancelling BIONICLE. (It is certainly a possibility since CCBS pieces are used in fewer sets but still take up factory space that could be used for System…)
This way, it wouldn’t reflect badly on the IP or sales themselves. BIONICLE may be top of the list for themes to revive once the new factories are up and running, due to the pre-existing fanbase. (And LEGO may want to make it up to fans?)
Of course, the cutting back of advertising mentioned was only in North America so may be completely unrelated to BIONICLE’s cancellation if the same thing didn’t happen in other regions.
just goes to show that there are other reasons for a line to be canceld other than, “it sold badly”
i just hope that this explenation is true, or else Mr. Cup and Eurico Silva will just laugh at the Bionicle Community again and call them all desperate.
no, lets not stoop to their level. lets show them instead that we are better than that, and better than what they think the community is like.
I find a bit absurd that they pull the plug on Bionicle but the Star Wars constraction sets shelfwarm super hard since they were put on those for the first time and yet those sets are still going to get 3 more figures.
Thinking about it kids know star-wars they want star-wars, thy have no idea what a bonkle is. (Also the Force Friday Hype helped star-wars contraction)
Right…that’s why the constraction sets are still sitting there gathering dust huh? Bionicle sold like hotcakes as far as I’m aware of, don’t give me this “kids don’t know Bionicle” schlock.
Star Wars constraction sets are selling well at places where people can afford buying them. And yeah kids know Star Wars better than a line which predecessor saved Lego. Kids don’t know anything about Lego’s history and the lack of marketing didn’t help on that.
On the other hand, with the licenced themes, Lego sold themselves to Disney for bigger profit. People buy the sets mostly because it’s Star Wars and Not Lego on it own, it only uses Lego pieces and has the small Lego logo beside the huge Star Wars one. I’m not sure if Lego controls the production anymore or Disney forcing them.
