Introducing PleyWorld.com

I'm guessing I cannot add any of my existing LEGO Ideas projects.

I still can't get over the fact that there's a market for renting out LEGO bricks and/or sets. It's not for me though.

@Adzbadboy - I Din't know about Pley's ts&cs but you'd be violating LEGO Ideas' ts&cs if you did so if your projects reached review you would likely automatically forfeit.

@Shib Yeah, I'm not going to risk my Clockwork Robot on LEGO Ideas to be rejected. It has much potential as a LEGO product but it's rather slow at gathering supporters. I would hope I could get to 1000 before December to add another 200 days, its been stuck around 800 for quite a while.

@rickyclarke Actually I think it's a brilliant idea - there's been loads of times I've seen an expensive set and gone "I'd love to build that but I'm not sure if I actually want to own it".

@Adzbadboy Tell me about it, my Large Hadron Collider model got to 4000 votes in a couple of weeks and then just died, 1 or 2 votes a day now, I reckon it'll take about 8 years for me to hit 10,000. But I'm staggered your clockwork robot hasn't done better, it seems the perfect lego set.

I wonder how licensed characters will be dealt with.

@NathanR2015 I just supported your project, it looks really cool. I think it's a very odd that these large models or licensed sets do way better and get the press' attention more over the non licensed smaller stuff that would be great as LEGO sets. We all know those that mostly reach 10,000 would never be produced so why even bother having a options over $100? I have done as much as I can: Facebook page, detailed behind the scenes, Youtube video and even asked The Brick Show and BrickTsar to review/showcase it but they have never got around to doing it yet. I believe it's the main image I chose which is a render, it looks dull and at the time I didn't have the pieces to built it myself and the fact that I have posted related stuff to it could also mean the initial hope had died down. I think The Brick Show will give it a huge push since they have over 300,000 subs and most of them are kids and they wont be picky as much. I should be able to get more people into it if it reaches 1000 before Brick 2015, so then I can promote it to a general audience who has seen the models in person.

I saw the email from brickset about this earlier. It's an interesting idea, but to me, some of the numbers in the email just didn't add up.

"You get $0.25 for every rental and 10% of net proceeds for each sale"
"After just two weeks, they received $1,720 in royalties!"

That's an insane number of rentals in that period, even if you offset it with some sales - how much does it sell for? It would have to be an awful lot for 10% to make a big chunk of that $1720.

Perhaps I'm just underestimating the demand for such a site, which is entirely possible.

@losimagic The numbers seemed a little "surprising" to me too, I notice they have a design competition running that includes tiered cash prizes so perhaps that number includes a fixed element too - which would have the handy effect of bumping up the headline number and obfuscating the rental rate. I've no idea if that's what has happened, I'm just thinking out loud but when you've raised $16.75 million as Pley have that's quite a lot of customer acquisition costs covered!

@losimagic: they lost me when they presented the numbers. Seriously: $1,720 in royalties in two weeks??? That just seems impossible, considering royalties from a rental only pay out $0.25 and 10% of net proceeds for every sale. How many of this set were sold??? How many rentals were made in those two weeks??? How many sets were even available for rental in those two weeks???
I hope someone from Pley.com or someone from their new partnership (yeah, that's you, Brickset.com), will come along to explain those numbers to us.

Do I have to provide the bricks for my creation if it makes it, or do they?

This is actually a cool idea and seems to be a good way to get some of the MOCs that I will never make myself.

It seems like a good way to rent/buy modular buildings.

@Huw: I have to say that the wording of the e-mail sent by Brickset and Pley.com did indeed give me the strong idea this was a straight up partnership between Brickset and Pley.

I quote:
"Brickset is proud to announce its partnership with Pley.com, the leading LEGO® rental service.
(...) Sign up now, upload your MOCs, then you too could start earning money from them.

The Brickset and Pley teams"

Anyhow: this is not meant as negative criticism. I wish Pley all the best in their endeavors, even if I have absolutely no interest in their service (no charge for missing parts... Seriously?!?). I'd be very interested to see pricing for the MOC sets, especially the ones that use rare parts.

Also of note, I just created an account tried to rent a sent, just to get a feel for the pricing, but for the moment this is a US-only service. Shipping outside of the US is not possible yet.

Huw, you may want to add that same disclosure to your earlier article about the Pley listings being added to the database:

http://brickset.com/article/15597/links-to-pley-com-added-to-listings

I assumed there was some kind of arrangement between Pley and Brickset when that was posted, but now that it's been disclosed it probably should be included in the article, even if it's old now.

Sounds very profitable. I'll sign up ASAP.

Thanks for the notification! ;)

I wonder how this may affect the availability of certain parts? Say I submit a design which utilizes a hard to find part, with few lots available, would Pley still go for that design and buy up all the lots? That would no longer allow others to find the piece.

I saw this in my email this morning, and while it's a cool idea, something about my design being rented out to random people makes me a bit uncomfortable, commission or no.

Well, the ethics of disclosure do apply to journalism and a blog/fansite is sort of on the edges of that, depending on what the site aspires to be. The ethics may be more relaxed, but disclosure is still something that should be done to ensure the site's integrity and trustworthiness.

This site, and the editors behind it, carry a lot of weight with fans. If Brickset started promoting some new product, readers would assume the site has only their best interests in mind and would probably be more likely to buy it. If it turned out there was an undisclosed financial relationship, that can get rather unseemly. That's what a shill is. It could make readers question other recommendations and articles, if not turn away completely if it happens often.

A disclosure is not meant to be interesting; it just lets readers know there's other information they may need to be aware of, and they can do with it what they will. There's no harm in disclosing arrangements or partnerships, and it certainly benefits Brickset in the credibility department.

sorry for the lecture, and I appreciate the response.

Can we please get an option to disable the notifications for this website? I'm not trying to sound like I am complaining, but a pretty decent amount of users don't really seem interested in the whole renting thing.

@Adzbadboy, from past experience of working with people who have submitted to LEGO designs, I've found that if your design reaches 10,000 votes, LEGO owns the rights to your design and we cannot take it. However, designs at any other stage we can- especially if you're past the voting window and want to see your design made into a set. You'll retain the license to your own intellectual property if you post on our site and if it becomes a set. Hope this helps!

@polyester333, we're responsible for obtaining rights from licensed characters- we haven't run into that yet for a set that has reached 5,000 votes yet, but we have been in talks with some groups on being able to use their characters.

@wunztwice, when a design reaches 5,000 votes and we reverse engineer it, we also (with permission from the designer) replace parts that are rare because we want to make the set readily available and easy to fix with lost pieces. We try to avoid the problem with rare pieces and haven't run into issues so far.

@Huw My understanding of the ASA rules suggests that you *are* required to make a disclosure: https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2013/Blurring-advertising-and-blogs.aspx (Though obviously I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV)

Brickset provides an excellent service to us all, and I'm well aware it has to be paid for somehow so I don't for a moment criticise the site taking advertising, but even I recoiled slightly at what I presumed to be an advert ending in the phrase "you could be coining it in..." without clearly being marked as such. So I, for one, am pleased to see the disclosure note added.

@missing-brick YES! Some of us are absolutely incapable of the 2D-3D conversion! I'm not ashamed (ok, a little) to admit that even mid-build in a City set, I have no idea what's going on...I get such a kick out of the different means to build a car / a scene / a building! Pre-Dark ages (i.e., as a kid), all I wanted were idea books, instructions, parts lists, etc. With the online instructions and the books, an entire ecosystem that I couldn't have imagined as a kid is available now. And I'm hooked!

As far as Pley goes; just renting LEGO is a bit odd, but, the ability to have a pre-picked parts set sent with some of these insane MOC designs is very intriguing. Maybe its "only a jigsaw puzzle" at that point...but it is enough for me!

I wonder if it works the other way around--can I put a model on Pley, and then if it gets popular enough, withdraw it and submit it to Ideas, or do you get locked into Pley much like you're locked into Ideas?

Kinda annoys me that people may be "tweaking" another person's MOC, give no credit to them, but receive royalties form Pley.

How can I get rid of this annoyance?

I am still confused on how this renting works when you rent it do you get the bricks to build it and then when your done send it back? Or do you just get the instructions and then send the instructions back the website is not super clear.

thanks

@huw What Modok said: it's an ethical breach to write a news article about a company with whom you have a financial relationship without including a disclosure notice. Whether or not you are required to do so is beside the point. Including it gives a reader fair warning and maintains trust.

If it was me, I'd be very careful not to repeat the company's claims without independent verification. You can safely write "according to a spokesperson for PleyWorld, a designer made more than $1,700 in two weeks." Unfortunately, in the current version of the article you are stating this as a fact. It *could* be true, but it's a fairly extraordinary claim and should be viewed skeptically without solid evidence and/or a second, independent source.

And yes, the mass e-mail suggested that there was a partnership between Brickset and PleyWorld, in that *that's what it said.* If that's not the nature of the relationship, it would be a good idea to send a clarifying follow-up. Frankly, the piece read as if it was ad copy written by a Pley employee.

This may sound like criticism--and it is, to some extent--but is also intended as a friendly warning about some murky waters ahead. (And to be clear, I rely on this site and appreciate all of the work that must go into it.)

^drops mic... :P

Thanks, Huw, for giving me this opportunity. I needed a financial incentive to spend the time on a MOC. This might be it!

Submitting a MOC seems to be as easy as uploading a few pictures and giving the piece count. It would be really easy to just copy another person's MOC and upload it in the hopes of gaining votes. I wonder if there will be anything to prevent this.

A pity it's bad website design again:
not working without JS and a ton of external sites.
And dang! Pinterestlike infinite loading pages... BOOH: how to reach the footer????
Paypal background movie: Doublebooh!

"Lost a Piece? We Don't Charge. Free Delivery to Your Door"
Sorry I lost the 8285 crane hook....

I like the fact there are more ads on the site than actual news now.

@ra226- every designer has the rights to their own design and can take them down at any time. However, do keep in mind that voter populations and the vote threshold differ between the two sites!

@77ncaachamps- considering the amount of people we touch with the coverage we give designs that reach 5,000 votes, we really do depend on the community to identify if any plagiarizing occurs that we don't catch.

@legotrains- you'll receive the LEGO bricks along with the instructions, and send both back once you're done! We provide shipping both ways.

@jintranpley: it's a pity that, although you've been willing to answer most questions asked in this topic, you still haven't been able to give a breakdown of the $1,720 royalties ("in two weeks!") for the rainbow blimp MOC.

^ *starts slow clap*

If membership costs $19.99 and a member is allowed unlimited returns, then surely it doesn't take long before the cost of shipping (to and fro) exceeds the membership fee. Can it really be sustainable?

If a member takes advantage and swaps sets once a week, wouldn't that alone cost more to ship than $20? I don't know much about internal US shipping rates, but that would only be $2.50 each way.

I can't see kids only wanting one set a month, and I can't see parents paying $20 for one set a month, when that money could buy some Lego (so not a Millenium Falcon, but some nice sets all the same).

my thoughts on the $1700 royalties in 2 weeks. by linear algebra:
if,
x= of rentals
y= of sales { assuming that 475 pieces set lego sells about $39,99->$49,00 but we put it @ 69,99 for pleyworld derives $6,99/sales royalty)

this gives a equation of
1700 = 0.10x + 6.99y

lets find the edge cases,
(x=0) case no rental, only sales
roughly 244 sets sold in 2 weeks (possible)

(y-0) case no sales, only rental
roughly 17,000 sets rented in 2 weeks ( very unlikely)

so the best case is its a combination of rental and sales... mostly sales
i am guessing that they may have sold about 240 sets and rented about 224.. sounds reasonable.

we would love to see the data for like 1 month/3 month and 6 months. that would give a better judge of overall picture.

we all know how front-loading can work to change the number.

So do you rent out the model that you yourself built? Because it said "made into sets." Does that mean you keep your model and the people at pley.com are just remaking it to rent out?

@starwarfan77 Your calculations assume that the designer receives 10% of the sales price, but the e-mail refers to "net proceeds." Once one has factored in the costs of reverse engineering, bricks, sorting, packaging, shipping and other business expenses, the actual percentage of the sales price that goes to the designer would likely be much, much lower.

"I have no reason to question the claim, particularly given that the designers in question could verify (or dispute) it."

@huw But that begs the question: does anyone in the AFOL community know these designers? Has anyone contacted them to confirm the accuracy of the claim?