Dr. Who set a near inevitability (Cuusoo)
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:55 pm
Hey guys,
A couple of weeks ago LEGO announced that people could post Dr. Who proposals to Cuusoo. Apparently they had previously removed Dr. Who proposals since there was some licensing conflict. Anyway, in just 13 days GlenBricker and Fine Clonier's proposal hit 10,000.
As I said in my comment on Jared's Flickr, I think that this is a nearly inevitable set - I think LEGO's invitation to post Dr. Who sets was essentially a signal that they had already worked out the licensing, and as soon as something good hit 10,000 they'd convert it into a set.
This, BTW, gets at one of the concerns I've raised about Cuusoo before. Let me diverge for just a moment. Several years ago MTV had a 'concert by request' with Billy Joel. You could call in, request a song, and Billy Joel would play it. But IMO it was obviously rigged. Billy Joel had a set of songs he planned on playing, pretty much his greatest hits. Then people called in from all around the country and left recorded messages asking for different songs, and the producers just played the recordings of people asking for songs that he'd already planned on performing. You can easily predict that if you ask BJ fans all around the country for requests, at least one will request Piano Man or whatever. So why bother with the subterfuge? Just to make the fans feel involved, essentially a marketing gimmick. To me it seems that the same thing is going on here. LEGO already knows they're going to make a Dr. Who set - they've already worked out the deal, and they probably already know roughly what they'll include in the set. But by running this up the Cuusoo flagpole, they get some free press, and they can talk about how popular this is that it got 10,000 votes in such a short time.
I'm sure the set that will ultimately be produced will largely resemble the Cuusoo proposal, but, c'mon, how many ways can you really build a Tardis? Jared's decals are superb, and he could easily design figs for TLC, so I'm sure the figs will be pretty true to the ones he made.
I'm not faulting these two builders, who are both great and also very active in the community. Good for them that they will get recognized in the set. I'm just saying that some times Cuusoo is much more a marketing gimmick for LEGO rather than a way for truly original ideas to rise to the top (though not always, see Pete Reid's exoskelton for the counterexample).
Old grump,
Bruce
A couple of weeks ago LEGO announced that people could post Dr. Who proposals to Cuusoo. Apparently they had previously removed Dr. Who proposals since there was some licensing conflict. Anyway, in just 13 days GlenBricker and Fine Clonier's proposal hit 10,000.
As I said in my comment on Jared's Flickr, I think that this is a nearly inevitable set - I think LEGO's invitation to post Dr. Who sets was essentially a signal that they had already worked out the licensing, and as soon as something good hit 10,000 they'd convert it into a set.
This, BTW, gets at one of the concerns I've raised about Cuusoo before. Let me diverge for just a moment. Several years ago MTV had a 'concert by request' with Billy Joel. You could call in, request a song, and Billy Joel would play it. But IMO it was obviously rigged. Billy Joel had a set of songs he planned on playing, pretty much his greatest hits. Then people called in from all around the country and left recorded messages asking for different songs, and the producers just played the recordings of people asking for songs that he'd already planned on performing. You can easily predict that if you ask BJ fans all around the country for requests, at least one will request Piano Man or whatever. So why bother with the subterfuge? Just to make the fans feel involved, essentially a marketing gimmick. To me it seems that the same thing is going on here. LEGO already knows they're going to make a Dr. Who set - they've already worked out the deal, and they probably already know roughly what they'll include in the set. But by running this up the Cuusoo flagpole, they get some free press, and they can talk about how popular this is that it got 10,000 votes in such a short time.
I'm sure the set that will ultimately be produced will largely resemble the Cuusoo proposal, but, c'mon, how many ways can you really build a Tardis? Jared's decals are superb, and he could easily design figs for TLC, so I'm sure the figs will be pretty true to the ones he made.
I'm not faulting these two builders, who are both great and also very active in the community. Good for them that they will get recognized in the set. I'm just saying that some times Cuusoo is much more a marketing gimmick for LEGO rather than a way for truly original ideas to rise to the top (though not always, see Pete Reid's exoskelton for the counterexample).
Old grump,
Bruce
). These sets look good though, looking forward to them!