News review of the year

Definitely not the 'icons set 99999 is revealed' posts we'd usually get another two or three articles about said set and those reveals were every other week so I just waited for the review. Only when I was bored would I visit the comments on the reveal article.

For me the price increase ones were the most significant. Both the 'prices between EU and US will be raised to match each other' and the 'everything will be raised, even yesteryear's ones' articles. Despite presumably lego's best intentions those seriously turned me off from buying new sets and made me overall more skeptical of Lego as a company.

I wonder what the most commented RSOTD was? Last year we were graced with the legendary appearance of My Dad...

Thank you for your reviews! I personaly enjoyed reading EVERY SINGLE one of them.
I enjoyed the most the one written by kids :D

Thanks once again to Huw and the team. I too enjoyed all of the articles, especially from my hospital bed over the last 4 weeks...
10305, 10497 and 21335 - all classics in my view.
Not surprised that cost increases caused such concern, but then everything in UK has soared in price this year - our energy prices are now more than double what they were a year ago!
I will seek solace in immersing myself in building 10305 over the coming week, just glad to be alive!

Thanks Huw for everything you and the team have done for us this year! Brickset continues to be the best site for news and reviews, and it’s been a pleasure reading it all! Thanks again, and have a happy new year!

@MegaBlocks said:
"It staggers me the amount of traction the Lion Knights Castle gets, yet Lego had to put it on special offer because clearly it wasn't selling that well."

Do we all want it? Yes.
Can we all afford it? No…..
this is the reason why. Also where did you see it in special offer??

@MegaBlocks said:
"It staggers me the amount of traction the Lion Knights Castle gets, yet Lego had to put it on special offer because clearly it wasn't selling that well."

Huge assumption without data. We are talking about a group of people who buy very expensive toys here, and it's also just as likely that The Lego Group simply ran a sales promotion to generate traffic and press.

Yes, thanks @Huw, @CapnRex and team for running this wonderful site. I check in every day - an excellent resource, and appreciate your yearly overviews.

All the best for 2023!

@TheOtherMike:
Nostalgia and trash talk are what keep the wheels of RSotD spinning.

@Rimefang:
They don’t always know what they need to do with the expensive sets. When UCS MF2 launched, our late store manager had to practically beg them to get a dozen copies sent to the only LEGO Store in the state, and corporate was certain he’d still be sitting on some of them come January. Over 20 people ended up standing in line for the store to open, even knowing 40% of them would be going home empty handed. And of course they were completely sold out worldwide before non-VIPs were allowed to buy them, and it wasn’t until several months later that they could be bought off the shelf.

I was worried about getting a copy of Home Alone on launch day, and was told they had several copies left when I got off work, plus they had another shipment scheduled the next day. When I mentioned the Falcon, I was told they’ve learned to expect massive demand for SW UCS launches, and the Modulars, but it’s still like shots in the dark when it comes to pretty much anything else in that price range because they don’t know what IP is really going to fly off the shelves, or just warm them. One-off sets don’t have any track record to help gauge their potential success, like something that’s part of a yearly series.

They know there’s a very vocal sub-group of AFOLs that want a full return of the classic themes, but there’s no way to tell how the general public will react when they drop something like the castle. Nostalgia alone might be enough to make something like Benny’s Space Sauad do okay, just because AFOLs can army-build it. If the castle was a $20 set, it might also work as an army-builder, but not this behemoth. For this, they need the public to find a reason to react to it, and not just a few thousand AFOLs who are going to buy one copy each, and several thousand more who are just going to drool over it.