A classic Lego mini-figure chasing a wheel
Since childhood, I have had a strong passion for Lego. I grew up with it and built everything from my own designs to all the suggested models provided with instructions for each box. Actually, one of my strongest memories from childhood, is from my 7th birthday when I got the 8860 Auto Chassi. Boy, was I happy.
Lego is a very interesting company for many reasons and to my happiness I found this excellent article about the Lego company, it´s history and strategic direction under CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp. It´s a long article, but a great read and I strongly recommend checking it out. Especially, if you like me have a strong personal relation to these plastic bricks.
The article also mentions the new Lego Universe project – a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) that Lego has worked on for several years and which will take the Lego experience to a digital world.
I attended New Media Days in Copenhagen a few months ago, and there Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, VP Lego Digital, gave an interesting presentation of the project and Lego´s digital strategies. In short, the following is what Lego Universe is all about according to a recent Lego press release:
With a creative and building focus, LEGO Universe invites players to explore, battle, make friends, and flex their imaginations with the brick in a vibrant online world. Developed by The LEGO Group and NetDevil, LEGO Universe is a family-friendly online game, appropriate for players aged eight and above. The LEGO brick lies at the center of the experience, and several levels of building are available, from simple gameplay-oriented challenges all the way up to sophisticated brick-by-brick building.
LEGO Universe is expected to launch during the second half of 2010. Another sign of Lego taking digital media seriously, is the following iPhone application.
Everywhere, focus seems to be on the basic Lego brick and maximizing the combined Lego building experience offline and online. Lego being smart to utilize the strengths of both a real world and a virtual, fantasy world and the synergies between them, I am hopeful not only my daughter but also her children if she has any, will be able to enjoy Lego several decades into the future.
Finally, from the daily mail article: Did you know that Lego produces 306 million tyres every year making it the world´s largets tyre manufacturer?
Edit: Just found an article in Gizmodo with some more details about the Lego Universe MMOG. Here´s an excellent part from Gizmodo that really makes me excited about this:
The best bit is the promise that you’ll be able to take digital creations you make in the game and make a custom set, complete with constructions, in meatspace. Lego will figure out which pieces are necessary to build your masterpiece, give you a price list, and ship you a custom box with everything inside. It won’t be available at launch, but it is coming soon.
A great exemple of online/offline synergy!
Edit 2: Lots of discussion going on about Lego Universe after CES. Found an interesting brick over at Destructoid which I thought was worth sharing:
The possibilities from this alone was enough to get me excited, but then they showed me the programming language. Wow. With some very smart and focused basic programming tools, you’ll be able to take your creations and make them interactive. Say you had a castle with a door and you wanted it to open on approach. You could use a visual editing mode that features pre-programmed behavior blocks to do this. Or anything else. I saw examples complex enough to have one action send a trigger to another function. The possibilities seem endless. If you were the creative kid growing up, you’ll definitely want to give this feature a spin.
Imagine being a kid getting this fun introduction to programming! When I grew up, programming BASIC on an ABC80 was what was available…
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
The order your custom design is quite intresting.
The only problem I see with this buying your virtual creations as a set is that most likely the price will be massive and with limitations when it comes to bricks you can use. Just like it is with their current design-your-own-LEGO-set “Design byME” (Formerly known as “LEGO Factory”): http://shop.lego.com/Product/Factory/Default.aspx?cn=301
They really need to come up with a better packing system for theese custom sets. Right now orders for custom sets are being packed manually by LEGO staff. Which, understandably, can make the pricetag on those orders skyrocket.