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Emperor James wrote:i made a perfectly valid point: the fact that one of the few people willing to buy this set wants it for the relatively obscure tiles it contains shows that the set has an extremely limited target audience. nobody cares about your countrys currency.

Lego designed this set for a purpose. And I was quite suprised somebody was interested in the tiles, but it shows that in any set of any size is interest. Marketing of Lego will definately have researched the market for this set and branding it "exclusive" is perfectly in line with this.

This set is meant for people that a) love chess b) love the current theme c) love armies d) love the tiles e) love...

For me, which is a personal opinion: the set looks awesome and although I could afford it, I wont buy it. And that is with everybody, you are entitled to buy or not to buy it, to dream of it or to get it and put it in a dusty corner of your house.

Selling figures will indicate if Lego marketing was right by bringing this set, but seeing most response for this "exclusive" set (where you dont expect high selling numbers, but to satisfy the true lovers of the theme) I think they are allright.

I love the theme, but can't afford it. Zooming in on the details though, it's amazing. Look at the Thrones! The towers! The dungeons! Each dwarf pawn is UNIQUE! It's AMAZING

$100.00 would be nice. they want $300.00.
i dont think that price is justified.

STARGAZER-01 wrote:$100.00 would be nice. they want $300.00.
i dont think that price is justified.

Well, they aren't giving it away...

STARGAZER-01 wrote:$100.00 would be nice. they want $300.00.
i dont think that price is justified.

*cough*

Remyth wrote:Ok, I put together a few statistics about this chess set verses the others:

Big Chess Set:
Price: $299.99 (USD)
Piece Count: 2481
Price per piece: $0.12 (USD)
Minifig count: 31 minifigs + 2 horses + 2 skelly horses + 2 trolls

2008 Chess Set:
Price: $49.99 (USD)
Piece Count: 252
Price per piece: $0.19 (USD)
Minifig count: 24

Viking Chess Set:
Price $49.99 (USD)
Piece Count: 157
Price per piece: $0.31 (USD)
Minifig Count: 24

Knight's Kingdom 2 Chess Set:
Price: $49.99 (USD)
Piece Count: 177
Price per piece: $0.28 (USD)
Minifig count: 24


As this information shows, it is, piece-wise, a much better deal that any of the previous chess sets. I believe that it is about the 10-cent rule because of the high figure count. Another random fact, there are 576 tiles on the board itself. Whew!

In Christ,

Welcome to CC, by the way.

Dr. J, the Giant Chess Set should be a much better deal per piece than the old chess sets. It's an order of magnitude larger! It would be absolutely ridiculous to charge the same amount per piece in a set that was so much larger - you almost can't even compare the two. The fact that the price per piece is a bit lower might show that LEGO hasn't gone totally insane, but the set could still overpriced.

Comparing the Giant Chess Set to similarly large sets, it doesn't hold up as well. I mentioned earlier that the Eiffel Tower has around a thousand more pieces and is one hundred dollars less. I know we can nitpick until the cows come home about how the Chess Set has more minifigs or whatever (to that I would point out that the Eiffel Tower contains not one big baseplate, but four), but still. 1,000 more pieces. $100 dollars less. Basically, 40% more pieces for 33% less money.

And it's not like the Eiffel Tower is some sort of anomaly in the LEGO world, like it's drastically cheaper because it's all one color or something. Green Grocer includes nearly as many pieces as the Giant Chess Set (including an assortment of minifigs) and it's half the price. I could go on, but I really don't feel like I need to.

I agree that $100 for the Giant Chess Set is a bit optimistic. Most of us were pegging the price at about $150-200, and that's actually more in line with LEGO's recent US pricing. $300 is definitely quite high for a set like this, even if the price per piece is still technically lower than past Chess sets (that were one tenth the size).

You know, factored into that $300 tag is the multi-color printed box, reforced with a minifigure tray (likely), a lid, leather straps and a handle if it is anything like the last chess sets.

Emperor James wrote:

smegged wrote:

Emperor James wrote: whats dum is that you contradict my statement, but completely agree that few people will buy the set.

No, I said it may or may not sell well and only Lego will know. What I was contradicting was the ludicrous statement that is made again and again about "the exception that proves the rule".

The fact of the matter is that for $300 I could buy two King's Castle Siege or one of these giant chess sets (remember I live in a country with a currently non-deflating dollar).

i made a perfectly valid point: the fact that one of the few people willing to buy this set wants it for the relatively obscure tiles it contains shows that the set has an extremely limited target audience. nobody cares about your countrys currency.

Well fortunately for Lego, the forums on the various websites are not indicitive of actual buying patterns or they would have gone under when they released new grey. Based on recent buying patterns this set will probably be popular.

The fact of the matter is that it really is only Americans who are questioning the price, and that is partly because their currency has dropped so dramatically and partly because people believe (wrongly) that a set with a ton of highly specialised parts should be as cheap as sets which contain generic parts (which was priced when the value of the US dollar was higher).

Nobody may care about my countries currency, but you certainly care about yours, otherwise you wouldn't be crying so hard about the price.

smegged wrote:
Nobody may care about my countries currency, but you certainly care about yours, otherwise you wouldn't be crying so hard about the price.

Now that may be true, but it lies more along the lines of lack of money I think. If I had the money, I would buy it. No question about that. But I don't have the money, so I will sit back, lament...and buy 10 dwarf mine defenders for 1/3 the price and just as many if not more figs!!

smegged is right though. I heard someone mention in this thread that this chess set is twice the price of the Green Grocer, but here in Europe it's not. Green Grocer is €149.95, this big chess set is €199.95.
This makes a very nice change for us, since in the past we've been paying in € what you guys in the US of A paid in US$, even though the euro is a dollar and a half. Now we still pay a bit more than you, €200 is roughly US$330, but for us the difference between this and other big sets isn't quite so extreme.

He also has a good point about the parts selection. Green Grocer, Café Corner and Market Street are all kept cheap because they're built up out of what's called active parts, parts that are in the production rotation anyway from other sets from other themes. It's been established many times that minifigs are much more expensive to produce than bricks.

I don't think the price is that bad for us Europeans, it's the Americans that feel ripped off because they used to get everything at a much lower price.

As an American, I say the price is fair, our dollar has been dropping due to poor decisions by management *cough* and people in Europe shouldn't have to suffer for it.

You know, factored into that $300 tag is the multi-color printed box, reforced with a minifigure tray (likely), a lid, leather straps and a handle if it is anything like the last chess sets.

Yes, but I am a lego enthusiast, not a fancy box enthusiast.

paleotaur wrote:

You know, factored into that $300 tag is the multi-color printed box, reforced with a minifigure tray (likely), a lid, leather straps and a handle if it is anything like the last chess sets.

Yes, but I am a lego enthusiast, not a fancy box enthusiast.

True, but then many out there would disagree with that statement on a general scale. After all, have you seen what fancy boxes (automobiles) people insist on paying thousands of dollars more for that work just as well as the less fancy boxes? It's like peacock feathers, everybody displays something sometimes, and LEGO is on the bandwagon too.

I just hope more Castle elements get into the Factory/PAB assortment so I can make my own plain box sets soon... but sometimes those fancy boxes are worth a little lust.

Aliencat wrote:I don't think the price is that bad for us Europeans, it's the Americans that feel ripped off because they used to get everything at a much lower price.

As a Canadian I feel ripped off because the set costs me $400+tax. Being asked to fork over over $100 more than my counterparts in Europe, the US or even Australia and New Zealand doesn't exactly make me smile. I guess the only real consolation is that I can pick up minifigs from bricklink at a better price.

I had a look at the prices on SAH for different countries, another way to look at this and reflect on the castle lego 2008 vs 2007 big castle set release still available on SAH is:

The exclusive chess set costs:

New Zealand/Switzerland - 1.9 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges
Austria/Aust/Uk/Germany/Ireland/Italy - 2 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges
Denmark - 2.1 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges
Sweden – 2.2 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges
Canada - 2.8 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges
USA - 3 x 7094 Kings Castle Sieges

My reasons for purchase:

1. The relativity in pricing (i.e. 7094).
2. The free shipping. - As a misb collector, the associated box packaging that comes with SAH purchases is good for long term storage and ensures the set will be misb as opposed to bricklink/ebay.
4. Having no Legolands or Lego outlets in Aust, SAH exclusive means SAH exclusive in Aust.
5. Unlike the exclusive large castle set from 2006 - 10176 Royal King's Castle, I am not sure that there will end up being a huge number on bricklink/ebay at ridiculously low prices.

Mario