An interesting piece of news that came out from the recent San Diego Comic-Con is that LEGO has extended their partnership with Mojang in regards to LEGO Minecraft. We have known for some time (see: LEGO Minecraft Minifig-Scale Sets Coming!) that LEGO is planning to release a series of minifigure-size LEGO Minecraft sets, but according to this latest piece of new the relationship may extend even further. 🙂
ToyNews reported the following based on an article by Richard Milne in the Financial Times: LEGO and Mojang are extended their partnership to bring a full range of LEGO Minecraft sets to market. The Danish toymaker already teamed with the popular videogame franchise to release four Minecraft sets following the success of a fan suggested play-set on LEGO Ideas (then LEGO CUUSOO) in 2011. However, the pair now plans to launch a full range of LEGO Minecraft sets, in similar scale to that of normal products lines such as LEGO Star Wars.
“Credit to LEGO: they could see us as competition and not work with us, but they’re basically just embracing it and putting a lot of effort in to this project,” said Carl Manneh, chief executive of Mojang. LEGO has even adopted the strategy of collaborating with Minecraft players themselves for inspiration for the project. “One of the things that LEGO did that was kind of unprecedented for them in their long history was to reach out to the community for feedback directly on how the characters should look,” added Vu Bui, Mojang’s chief operating officer.
Players helped decide the look a characters including the Creepers alongside a host of animals and objects, such as the mine cart. Brian Eskilden, senior marketing manager at LEGO, said: “There’s a lot of similarities between the two experiences being about building and being creative with blocks and it is amazing to see what Minecraft has done with the community aspect.”
As mentioned above, LEGO has been tremendously proactive, reaching out to the LEGO and Minecraft communities to basically co-create the sets. You can visit the LEGO Minecraft Facebook Page for updates and to participate in the development with your feedback and ideas.
I find it interesting that the original LEGO CUUSOO submission was in fact minifigure scale, but LEGO decided to redesign it to micro-scale, and now after four micro-sets, they are going back to minifig scale. I like the LEGO Minecraft Micro World sets, and I have reviewed them before (see links at the end of this post), and I’m looking forward to the minifigure size versions as well. (See original LEGO CUUSOO submission below.)
There are some pictures circulating of the possible upcoming LEGO Minecraft sets, including: #21113 LEGO Minecraft The Cave, #21114 LEGO Minecraft The Farm, #21115 LEGO Minecraft The First Night, and #21118 LEGO Minecraft The Mine. You can see images of them in the video-preview below. Please note that these may be prototypes and not the final sets.
I’m also pretty sure that the introduction of the minifigure-size LEGO Minecraft sets will be the end of the LEGO Minecraft Micro World line. So if you are a Minecraft fan, and would like to collect something unique, the four LEGO Minecraft Micro World sets are a good and (not so expensive) option. They are available at the Online LEGO Shop.
So what do you think? Are you looking forward to the LEGO Minecraft sets and minifigures? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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