I just had a thought.
So Lego added Castle to the list. Of their own volition.
They also said that the winner could be any entry from the second poll. Meaning they could pick Castle.
Now, I’m not saying this happened - but hypothetically, Lego could have known all along that they were making a Castle set and this is just a dressed-up survey, of sorts. I doubt that’'s the case, but if it was, we’d be none the wiser.
Food for thought, I guess.
Entirely possible, but I doubt it, because there’d be absolutely no reason for them to do this.
What I think is more likely is that at this point in the polls, they’ve already decided it’ll be Castle.
I got into BIONICLE after G1’s death, with the reboot Kopaka being my first set.
Well, they do have plenty of reasons to do this. Do remember that Lego is a corporation and that a poll like this is, more likely than not, just set dressing. Nothing more than an extension of marketing to build up hype and get their more dedicated fanbase excited, to spread the word.
Sure, they could just release a set in the following year for 90 years and throw a party. Or they could build up excitement, have fans guessing what the set will be, having their opinions seemingly matter with a poll, and have such a flurry of fan generated marketing and PR that the most Lego would have to do is sit back and relax. Very good PR, especially to those less involved in the Lego communities, as people would say, “Look what Lego has done! They listened to us for what the 90 anniversary set would be! And look how cool it is!” And any disappointed fans for their theme not “winning” are just washed away with time to the consumers.
Just leverage to prop them up even higher. Like any good business, they’ve got to leverage their assets and fans are just another asset. Or perhaps I’ve been to evil business school too much.
I’ve seen way too many conspiracies on these polls.
What if LEGO makes a Ta-Koro set but calls it Castle to keep the system fans happy?
A man can dream, right?
If it is a marketing strategy, they gravely miscalculated including Bionicle.
Companies are known to do this, but when the outcome is something the company never expected to genuinely win, they’re in for trouble.
If anyone has seen this episode of Food Theory, this happened in a pre-decided “election” campaign between Chocolate and Green Onion Chex cereal.
Basically, Chex had already decided they were going to make Chocolate Chex. They assumed only children would be voting in their fake election, and so didn’t even consider the fact that Green Onion Chex might win.
Internet trolls managed to push Green Onion Chex through, and Chex was left in an awkward situation. In the end, the Chocolate Chex were made, but not without the Green Onion Chex fans being enraged that the election was rigged.
The problem was that the voting was open to everyone. Chex assumed only a certain demographic would vote, and so there was no restrictions on the voting for people outside that demographic.
If this anniversary vote is a similar situation, where LEGO already has a set in mind and simply wanted free advertising, they severely miscalculated including Bionicle, and gravely underestimated the community. It would be a very bad PR move on their part from a large sect of the LEGO community.
It is interesting to note that, after years of being asked for it, Chex did eventually produce a run of Green Onion Chex. We can only hope, should Bionicle not win this vote, that our Ideas attempts will be chosen one day.
I am aware, this sort of thing happens all the time in internet polls like this. Yet it should be noted that, despite it being a common occurrence, not a single company has learned from it. There’s a reason why dozens of these stories exist.
Plenty obviously saw the poll as confusing or strange how the themes were chosen and/or split up, yet Lego overlooked it. And I would say that even the dedicated fans being confused as to why Lego split apart all the subthemes as they did, with Lego admitting it as a mistake, that Lego did not put much thought into this poll. Nor would it be the first time that Lego underestimated their fanbases.
However, even in their failure, Lego still did something to cover for their expected incompetency. The last poll will still be unknown, Lego gets a free pick. As stated previously, the bad PR will be lessened by this unknown.
Indeed, they did give themselves an out in this way.
But Bionicle does have a strong chance. As @Toa-of-Snow said earlier, introducing Castle into the final vote splits the System votes even more.
If people prefer a System theme to win, they have 3 options to pick from. Considering Bionicle beat out even the top voted System theme by nearly 6000 votes, it would require a large number of System fans to collectively vote for a single theme to overtake it.
Considering the vast popularity of all three original themes, I find it highly unlikely for a fan of one particular theme to vote for another one just to beat out Bionicle. I think it’s more likely people will still vote for their favorite System theme, splitting the votes 3 ways. Not to mention any Castle fans who had their mind set on voting Pirates or Space are now lessening the chances of a System theme winning because they can vote for Castle.
Ironically, Bionicle’s key to victory is indeed in Unity.
And in the the strategic advantages of first-pass-the-post voting.
What’s wrong with Brick Tsar?
He seems to be a guy who doesn’t particularly like it, but still appreciates it for what it is.
https://youtu.be/4--ssFXngYw?t=679 (whoops, had the wrong link at first)
Thought he took a dig at it with that Yoda video from a while back.
If he doesn’t like BIONICLE, that’s fine. While I’m annoyed that BIONICLE is a black sheep in the wider LEGO community, I can’t fault someone for not being into it or even constraction in general.
I wonder if that “why did you pick the theme” question was specifically to determine who is trolling with their vote or not.
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Man this whole thing is getting to me. Not to say that I wasn’t aware of people who disliked bionicle before. But now if I search bionicle on YouTube the first videos you see are a bunch of nobody YouTuber channels trash talking bionicle. So it’s just hard to take the high road and not feel some negative feelings towards those people when it’s right in front of my face more than ever.
Honestly, the bionicle fans have been more upsetting to me in the last few weeks. Most of us are fine, but some of us, in my opinion have been extremely rude and indecent.
I have no problem with people trying to convince others of why bionicle deserves another chance, and how it’s important to lego’s history and whatnot, but in my opinion, there’s no good reason for the toxicity and hatred that I’ve seen.
Brother From Another Brick’s video about bionicle comes to mind. It’s not a well researched video, and I understand why it made some people frustrated, but it’s not a valid excuse to question BFAB’s worth as a human, to ridicule/belittle him. All over lego. Lego should be something that brings joy and unity, not something that sparks division and harassment.
Some have justified their comments by saying they were jokes. Maybe I’m just being too overly offended/sensitive, but it just doesn’t feel right; I feel as though people are just using the anonymity of the internet to get away with saying awful things, y’know?
In my opinion bionicle fans have a right to defend our favourite theme that we grew up with. And if standing up to some bully who makes fun of your favourite thing that you grew up with your whole life makes you a toxic person then so be it I guess.
Well, there’s a difference between saying “your opinion is wrong, here’s why.” And “you’re an idiot, here’s why.” Unfortunately, theres too many people reacting to difference of opinion with the latter.
Saying “your opinion is wrong here is why’’ is fine if you’re having a disagreement with someone reasonable . But these videos are just plane making fun of the bionicle community . And these people don’t respond to reasonable facts or augments
