Lego Factory to become Lego Design byME

Just today Flickr user TallTim posted a discussion topic in the Lego group about some exciting news coming out of Lego.

Very soon, the Lego service we all know and love (or maybe hate because of the high prices), Lego Factory, will be changed into Lego Design byME. To be released along with the new LDD 3.0 on the 1st October, Design byME is said to be 'superior' to Factory beforehand. It comes with a shiny new box, a box within a sleeve, and fully customizable graphics. Then, once you look inside the box, there's a fully printed glossy instruction manual so your [awful] creation can look just like a real Lego set! [God help us]

It's not just Lego Factory that's changed. Now with 50% more bricks to use, Lego Digital Designer has changed yet again. The press release says it has a 'more friendly tone of voice', a new logo, and a fully redesigned layout. We've got an updated hinge tool, a way to hide bricks and focus your construction on a certain part of the creation, custom templates, a 'buyability tool' which will help you not spend so much, and to run all that there's some improved performance. Sounds great.

So, on the 1st October, we'll be happy as nutcakes buying our custom Lego sets with new bricks, having designed them on a newly redesigned software. Maybe not. What I didn't tell you is that the new custom packaging means an extra $10 on top of P&P and the cost of the model itself, which is also high: Lego bricks from Factory cost, in some cases, over double the price you can buy them on Bricklink for. So what's the point in spending so much money? The idea is that you don't know the alternative - people wasting their money on glossy manuals for awful creations will be those who don't know about Bricklink, and who don't know acceptable prices for bricks. And so Lego will rake the money in, one gullible sucker at a time. Ah well.

What are your opinions on this new announcement? Write a comment below!

~John