Can the Prevalence of Bionicle Fans at LEGO result in Bionicle's Return?

LEGO BIONICLE
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I don’t know how many people here have heard the news, but recently Ben Cossy, a youtuber who for the last 15 years has been pretty much the face of the Bionicle MOC Building community, has announced that he will be quitting Youtube and work for LEGO as a designer. While I was a bit sad that a person who had been such a great inspiration and encouragement to me would be no longer doing Youtube, I also couldn’t help but be excited by the fact that a person who has spent half of his own life keeping Bionicle MOC building alive will himself be working as a designer at LEGO.

With him, there are now I think close to 10, if not more, designers currently working at LEGO who are Bionicle fans. I have asked this questions as part of different topics before but never made a topic dedciated to it, so I will do it now: Do you guys think that the increasing prevelence of Bionicle fans working as LEGO designers will eventually result in some kind of Bionicle revival?
If the Bionicle fans were just a small minority within the company, one would be fair in thinking that their influence would probably not be that great… but if at any given point, they became a sizable minority or even the majority within a particualr department at LEGO, wouldn’t that eventually force LEGO to give Bionicle another shot?

I know that there are a lot of things that I am probably missing when it comes to this, so I would love to hear all of you guys’ thoughts on this.

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Even if they can’t convince Lego to bring back fully-Constraction themes, they will definitely be a good influence on any mecha and creature sets.

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Yeah, that is something already can be seen, especially in themes like Ninjago, which for the past few years have almost consistently introduced another new Bionicle-like blade element almost every year… And I can’t help but think that this is probably the intentional influence of Bionicle fans working on Ninjago sets.
A while ago, Pohaturon, who is a Bionicle fan, posted on Instagram that the new Ball joint tied to a plate element that came out in some of the new Ninjago sets was created at his request… which is very encouraging to hear, that at the very least, the designers have the power to create at least some new molds.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYfwGb-DZao/?img_index=1
Here is a link to his instagram post where he discusses the entire story behind the creation of the element.

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I don’t think the increased presence of Bionicle-favoring LEGO designers will eventually result in some kind of Bionicle revival. I think it already has.

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Unless we’re supposed to believe LEGO organically created all this Bionicle eye candy out of the goodness of its heart (it didn’t).

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Obviously, we all know those things are the result of Bionicle fans. What I am asking and interested in discussing is whether those designers could actually be realistically the cause of Bionicle actually returning as a fully fledged theme.

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The Bionicle fans are breaking into the LEGO infrastructure. We will conquer from the inside. Bionicle will live. UNITY DUTY DESTINY! YAHHHHHHHHHH!

On a serious note, we will definitely get more Bionicle from LEGO. At this point, it is garenteed we will be seeing more easter eggs. Maybe we will get a Gali cosplayer next!

And about Bionicle returning: It really is not too hard for them to reintroduce Bionicle into the market. They just have to not screw it up, and that is it! It definitely will not be the same, but making it the same would be impossible anyway.

The Bionicle fans are taking over. The Bionicle fans rule.

Unity

Duty

Destiny

This is the way of the Bionicle. :dizzy:

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They have influence for sure, but Bionicle has come back and died before it completed the customary three year run. LEGO may be privy to the whims of its design team, but not as much as they are to their shareholders and executive committees.

So we’ll see. If Bionicle comes back as a proper theme, I’m sure the designers would have some part of credit for it, however small. But they wouldn’t be the only factor or even the deciding one.

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Personally, I feel that, if the designers had enough influence to bring back BIONICLE, it would already be back. All the BIONICLE references in recent sets are likely LEGO humoring these designers, not a hint towards something larger, and, if we do see a BIONICLE revival in the near future, it’ll probably be some $300+ black box 18+ display nonsense aimed at nostalgia and little more.

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Does LEGO have shareholders? They’re a private company, so this basically means the Christiansen family is the shareholders unless the staff have stock internally.

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It’s incredibly likely that Jørgen would possess some stock in the company, if there’s any stock to trade at all, thanks to his longstanding presence and his efforts to save the business. If the stock is for some reason not traded internally at all, and the company resides solely within the Kirk Christiansen’s ownership… dang they really got no excuse if the only people they have to please are themselves :cold_face:

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That’s probably why they aren’t taking risks right now. Lego’s currently making millions by mooching off licensing deals, they don’t really have anyone telling them that taking a risky investment or two in original IPs would increase that significantly. (Also, I’m pretty sure Lego outright doesn’t issue stock internally or externally, as that would involve them filing for some kind of IPO on a European stock market, which could be found via a bunch of stock market sites.)

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From a business standpoint, I can see why LEGO are hesitant. The short life of Bionicle G2 and other unique themes since (like Dreamzzz, though I’m not too educated on its history) probably scared LEGO too much to branch out into something new and unique, even if the company are also to blame for many of these failures.

Said failures are something LEGO hasn’t exactly learned from particularly well, judging by how they’re going now.

That said, I can’t help but think Bionicle wouldn’t really do so successfully nowadays. I’m not a money expert, but saying an original IP WOULD increase profits is assuming a lot. A lot is held in the balance, from the market, to the audience, to the way LEGO approach their products, making things very easy to go wrong. Bionicle G1 worked (for a time, at least) as it managed to capture all three incredibly well, but if there was to be another Bionicle-scale original theme, so much stuff can go wrong, something LEGO is likely very aware of.

And it’s not like LEGO can’t afford to take a few risks here and there when they obviously have the money to do so. This is not to defend the billion-dollar company, but the question is whether they can justify those risks when there’s no guarantee that an original theme will actually pay off, when I just don’t see them capable of doing so in their current state.

The existence of these small figures and nods nowadays is appreciated beyond being simply nostalgia bait. There still clearly is an audience for this type of stuff, but that doesn’t necessarily mean stuff like full-on revivals would be successful.

It could work someway, somehow, but not with the current way LEGO is choosing to experiment. It’s not as simple as just throwing money and hoping things work.

I could be thinking the wrong way about all of this, but these are just my (somewhat winded) two-cents.

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You say that like “not screwing it up” is automatically easy.

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LEGO is good at screwing up

Well, I mean, if you put the right minds behind it and not cold businessmen (like they did in G1), then it is going to succeed.

Also, this is off-topic, but I love your profile picture. LEGO Dreamzzz!

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Lego is a privately owned company, there are no shareholders to answer to. I’ve talked about this with older AFOLs on Eurobricks that work in and around Billund, Denmark itself, and they all confirm that this is true.
The only entity they answer to with their investments are themselves.

They can’t justify taking risks on new original themes , but somehow they can fully justify doing that for new original experimental play experiences like the Smart Bricks, which are themselves a much more costly investment that took much more time and resources to develop, and is way more riskier gamble because this kind of product really has NO track record of being profitable even in the past, unlike something like Bionicle, on top of being also available to buy only in a very limited number of select countries, which reduces the potential for success even more!
To me this proves that it was never about them not being able to take risks with bold new experimental ideas… Rather, they want to do that, but they take risks and invest in the completely wrong ideas because they would rather just follow the current trends rather then themselves be the trend setters.
It’s almost as if LEGO are oblivious to the amount of influence in the market they themselves are capable of having, and instead they always opt for just following the market instead of shaping it, even though they are currently the most popular and successful toy brand in the entire world! Yet at the same time, they completely forget the fact that it was themselves who made Ninjas popular in the first place with Ninjago, and robot action figures popular with Bionicle, inspiring dozens of knock-off brands to follow them and even other rival toy companies, like Mega Blocks’ Neo Shifters, which was created directly as an answer to Bionicle’ popularity!
They really have no excuse in my opinion, the real problem is that the company is currently ruled by cold, greedy businesses men that couldn’t actually care less about innovation or creativity.

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Smart Bricks can be used in more than just one theme, can be carried by the insanely popular Pokemon IP, will last for fifty years, and are way easier to convince an entire company to invest time and effort into than the one action figure line using a system they don’t produce anymore that died hard the last time they tried it.

Even excluding LEGO’s perpetual tunnel vision when it comes to cheap tech gimmicks in their sets, there is no realistic argument for why LEGO should choose Bionicle over literally anything else. It requires hundreds of specialized pieces usually appearing only once per year, a building system they barely touch nowadays, an IP that failed, and would generate direct competition for the Ninjexo-fonicle cash cow.

It’s true LEGO doesn’t really innovate anymore, but the 2000s were simply a different beast. What worked then has absolutely no guarantee of working now, and after the scare that was the early 2000s and the later financial struggle after the LEGO Movie 2, there is no incentive for LEGO to take any risks. Just stick to what works and only gamble on things your tunnel vision tells you will be worth it.

But more importantly, telling LEGO “you’re so stupid!” is not exactly a motivator for them to listen to any Bionicle-related ideas. It’s true Bionicle dominated an entire decade, but that doesn’t translate into an available market for a theme resurgence. That only means there’s a few nostalgic adults out there with oversized wallets groaning about the good old days you can target with a couple niche references to John Bionicle (the red one) and call it a day.

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Pushing for an original IP is not as clear-cut less risky than investing in the use of this new technology that is carried by high-selling themes like Pokemon. They’re not as comparable as you make it out to be.

The Smart Brick is a modular piece of technology which (while still really silly and very much imperfect) can be applied to any number of themes. It attempts to compliment LEGO’s current style of marketing and selling, as opposed to a new theme/IP like Bionicle which is a branch-off into something completely different.

There are a lot of factors when it comes to building an IP, which, like I said, can be very easy to mess up.

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That’s like saying that a prevalence of Jazz fans in Nicki Minaj’s tour crew will lead to her doing jazz music.

Set designers have an influence on how sets are designed, maybe even what peices are made, but they don’t decide what sets/themes get made. Ghid does, we’ve been over this. Unless some old bionicle fan becomes a lego ceo or something, it probably won’t make much difference.

Now if bionicle does return (which if it does it will be system), then i imagine set designers like Ben Cossy, Sokoda, Droconis, will know how to make it feel like g1, even with a different building system.

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…

guys I have a request :pleading_face:

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Probably, yeah.

Well, for the most part, I agree with this too.
However, while System is a more likely & feasible option for Lego to make a Gen3, IMO, a Technic-based reboot would be better in the long run for multiple reasons:

A) The sets would require more specialized & new parts, but their piece count would be smaller, making them a bit more affordable.

B) A Technic centric line would be more eye-catching and “exciting” for new potential buyers.

C) Technic is a lot sturdier in build integrity and thus more suited for action-based play. (kinda obvious, but still…)

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