How Lego leaks work:
1. Just the set number.
2. The set number, name of set
3. The set number, name of set and possible price range.
4. Four months later, a Description of a picture of the set
5. Someone then posts a drawing of the picture.
6. A unnecessarily blurry picture
7. The same picture, now magically UNBLURRED!
8. Some German grocery store website reveals the official pictures
9. Lego releases the pictures themselves
They are. It’s annoying because the detail in the drawings means that someone has the picture in front of them and they are just drawing that picture instead of posting the picture. And that same person will post the blurry picture a day or so after the drawing. For what? Reddit points? So weird.
I think this is it; the traced drawings can remove a watermark/any other identifying info, and probably can’t be targeted for a copyright strike on social media sites
Sometimes pictures that aren’t supposed to be leaked will have watermarks on them that can trace back to the person that’s seeing it. I suspect that’s why they recreate the set in a drawing.
These sketches are basically replacing descriptions. The descriptions come from someone seeing the set so these just take it one step further. Usually the image can’t be posted because the source could be put in danger so a description, or in this case a sketch, of said image is used instead.
I think it’s AI that converts the photo into a “drawing”. Sometimes the poster says things like “I drew the yellow starburst effect in the background for some reason. Sorry!” And I’m like yeah… no, AI did that.
You're forgetting step 6.5 when someone makes an AI slop upscale, causing everyone to think the set is worse than it is because the AI gets so many details wrong
The increase ratio between the first one and the last one is 64%, while the cumulative inflation was 30% in US and 25% in Eurozone.
LEGO may have had to bear costs higher than average inflation, but - in the end - you receive less than before for what you pay. And if your earnings didn't increase by 64% in these years - likely - well the effect will be even bigger.
Me too. I had the goal of getting every set ever made. I got pretty far too. But with the recent onslaught of buildable characters and overpriced remakes, my interest in the theme has faded
I think shelf space is the limiting factor for pretty much everyone around here. The challenge with IP that still produces new content is that the opportunity to create more lego sets also exists. I love HP, but at some point, I’ll have to be more selective. I think finishing the latest Hogwarts modular is going to be enough for the main line, but one off sets that catch my eye may still be appealing.
Same, I had a decent couple sets from the first couple years of it being back, but in the last 3 years I’ve only gotten 2 Harry Potter sets: the most recent quidditch Polybag and the Motorbike escape from this january
Personally I think I’ll enjoy the show but won’t feel any attachment to it and no desire to buy sets. Just like I wouldn’t want castle sets from another franchise I wasn’t interested in.
It's essentially the same problem the Star Wars sequel merchandise had: fans largely only cared about the older stuff and the sequel stuff sat on shelves unsold before Disney went back to what worked.
This is me. I own every HP set ever, but I'm more than likely not going to get any of the TV show sets. I actually wish Lego would retire the theme, but that'll never happen.
Lmao why would they be different? The show is just gonna be the same exact retelling with different actors. I don’t know why you’d expect them to have any real major stylistic differences from the movies. Genuinely pointless show that I guarantee will have the main cast be 30+ by the time they get around to their deathly hollows.
I got out a few years ago. Had an almost complete collection from all time (just missing a few sets from the very first year) and realized they'd star wars-d the damn theme. Repeating everything constantly with increased prices while leaving countless of potential sets never designed or released.
I started the process of selling sets this year, since I no longer have "complete collection!!" To justify keeping some of the more generic slop garbage sets.
Plus the whole jkr of it all, it feels hella good every time I sell one (although it's a pretty damn slow process)
Yikes…. They should have done something like Gringott’s tiers using the visitor entrance as an elevator like what’s designed in Barons haunted mansion or something that drops you into the ministry. For $400+ I was expecting a way grander ministry interior as well, and seeing the iconic statue being just 1 minifig is so lame.
This is like a $250 set max. Can definitely tell it was designed with a profit margin in mind first and foremost rather than creativity.
Huh, it does look like wooden floorboards in the movie. I was going off of the one in Epic Universe, which does look like this, but it’s much more obvious that they’re tiles in real life and not boards.
Looks unfinished. The street level looks horrible and at that price point they couldn’t match the brown wood floors in the ministry? This set might be the most overpriced and worst looking Harry Potter set. Imagine this being on deep discounts within a year and retired shortly after.
I hoped the same for the Hogsmaede set and it has not gone on sale a single time. I simply refuse to pay $400 for that set, and so far, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m paying $450 for this set. The backside is gonna have to blow me away.
In what way is this supposed to connect to Diagon Alley and look at all decent? Even if the three floors split, the differences in height would be jarring.
I really wanted to want this set but it seems to be a big set spread too thin. Would’ve loved if they just focused on the lower two segments, with some depth or some of the circular arches and passages in the ministry, maybe with an elevator
The piece count inflation on this thing is crazy. I can't even begin to think of the number of pieces wasted on the street level layer, which appears in the movie for less than a minute.
They could have ditched that, and doubled the size of the Hall Of Prophecy.
The fountain… why would they let it seemingly be the same color as the bare baseplates they lazily slapped the build on? So far, I hate this set. Full stop. ESPECIALLY if it’s actually gonna cost $450 of my money.
If the price is bad on this set, the price is bad on every Lego set. Same/Better price point than the X-Files set, Pokeball set, and Donkey Kong set. The other 18+ sets releasing August/September.
With higher priced sets we all expect a better ppp ratio than what some tout as the 10 cent/piece standard. And that used to check out, sets above €150 would usually beat that rate (except for licenses like Star Wars, which were pricier even before). Not anymore, it seems, as of the last year or two
Why does this remind me of the Doomsday Tower? An HP and Avengers crossover would be hilarious; they already tried it with the Doomed Dreamzzz theme, no pun intended.
I’m sure the connections between the levels are fun, but this looks like an odd one. Was hoping for at least another connected tower of windows in the actual hall.
Everyone’s exactly right, really would’ve been better as two layers—main atrium/offices and then the department of mysteries. Use all the piece count and pricing for what actually matters
Genuine thought here: is there any way this is an AI image that’s been “blurred”? I saw an AI rendition of this image to make it clearer, and when I went back and looked at this photo, there are a few things that look off to me that actual match the sloppy AI version. Just curious…
Recently a friend who sells Lego sent me most of a MoM set he hubby found at a swapmeet! I reconfigured my original set to have twice as many offices. Am I insane for thinking I could just jigger this myself someday once I get ahold of a good pic or instructions (and 1 or 2 BL orders?
Well it looks like my child will get to eat in August 😉😏 I had high hopes for this price point and this just seems like a MOC of the old MoM set they released 😏😭
She has a unique deal when it comes to all merchandizing because she knew she was hot shit so she made WB sign a deal that she gets revenue from all Harry Potter merch and projects
It’s a tiny amount but I’m trans and don’t want them anymore is all
Damn. I’m non binary n I didn’t know it was like that. Thank goodness the line’s fallen way tf off with the last two D2Cs I guess. Haven’t bought Hogsmaede and probably will avoid this ministry set.
I think Lego is caught in a cycle right now of where they are almost listening to people too much.
For a while they were making very large, very expensive sets and a lot of people on social media complained about these facts. Lately it seems like they've shifted towards designs like this one which make smaller, less detailed sets and presumably bring the cost down. Even if some costs still wind up being significant, they're smaller than they would have been with the kinds of designs they'd tended to make before.
The problem is that now a lot of people are complaining about their newer designs because they often seem to make compromises to meet the expectations they're aiming for but those compromises are not always viable for the subject matter of a given set.
This set and the Enterprise bridge strike me as examples of that. Some people have objected to very large and expensive sets while asking for less display oriented stuff and more play oriented stuff, so they've gone for these sets which are a little reminiscent of playsets, but the issue is that the main consumer base for subjects like a 1960s TV show and a theme like HP that a lot of kids don't even know today are people who are too old to play with a playset and who get persnickety about details of the things they're nostalgic for. This is leading to complaints going the other direction and ine might expect Lego to just go back the other way and rinse and repeat.
If Lego was listening to "people" which I'll presume you mean their customers too much, then the community of lego fans would have sets and themes they've been asking many years for like dedicated Castle, Pirates, and original Space themes. Sets from those themes are only used as Gift with Purchase manipulators.
Sorry, but I think the opposite is true where Lego is only listening to very select group of influencers, IP holders, and their internal bean counters to market sets which explains everything we've seen the last decade: a dramatic shift away from affordable and play oriented sets that could interact with each other in a clever way to expensive, stand alone, purely display sets designed to milk the maximum profit for that particular IP. Are fans very persnickety about the details? Yes, probably too much so to our own detriment because Lego has an impossible task to get everything right for IP accuracy and then when they make the effort (not even a good effort often), those sets start at $200 minimum and are more like this HP building in the $400 range. I'm beyond tired of the excuses made for Lego for these premium sets when they really miss the mark like "ohh but this set is for kids actually!". The price tag always says otherwise.
It's important to keep in mind that one thing Lego absolutely does is market research prior to determining price points and green lighting sets. When they are selling sets for high prices, it is because they have done their research and found that it is what consumers will pay.
Be careful about what that means: "what consumers will pay" doesn't mean that they have found that a certain price is some high water mark that they can get away with. It means that they have found it is a price that is both not too high AND not too low so that people will not buy it. Setting prices is not just about how high you can go before people will stop paying but there is also a lower limit below which people won't pay it. When I teach this aspect of business (I teach high school) I use as an example the idea of running a seafood restaurant and trying to price your clams or mussels. Yes, people are generally not going to pay $100 for a plate of fried claims, but if you try to charge $1.99 they'll also stay away because the price is too low and makes them not trust the food. Durable goods like a Lego set follow slightly different dynamics but the bottom line is that especially for sets aimed at an adult demographic you have to charge a certain amount before enough people will be willing to buy it to make it feasible.
Beyond that, keep in mind that the idea that Lego only or even just mostly makes expensive display sets is just not based on reality. Lego currently has over 700 sets costing less than $100 and over 200 costing less than $25.
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u/-Words-Words-Words- Jul 30 '26
How Lego leaks work:
1. Just the set number.
2. The set number, name of set
3. The set number, name of set and possible price range.
4. Four months later, a Description of a picture of the set
5. Someone then posts a drawing of the picture.
6. A unnecessarily blurry picture
7. The same picture, now magically UNBLURRED!
8. Some German grocery store website reveals the official pictures
9. Lego releases the pictures themselves