LEGO Design by Me - Closes on January 16, 2012

[Toys N Bricks]

The LEGO Group has decided to close their LEGO Design by Me customization service. Orders are accepted until January 16, 2012. The Hero Recon Team customization service for Hero Creator will continue to operate. Its rather unfortunate, but one of the reasons for the closure is that the LEGO Design by Me experience did not live up to the quality standards that LEGO wants. Below is the LEGO Press Release.


Design byME to close in January

The LEGO Group is closing that part of the Design byMe customization service that allows consumers to order digital models in real bricks. We will be accepting orders until January 16, 2012.

Consumers will still be able to design what they want with LEGO Digital Designer and upload models into a public gallery as before. All existing models will be transferred to a new gallery on the LDD website. Consumers will also be able to download the instructions generated from LEGO Digital Designer.

The HERO Recon Team Hero Creator will be unchanged and consumers will still be able to build and buy their own customized Hero. Bricks can be bought separately, using the Pick a Brick service.

This is not the end of customization for the LEGO Group, but a revision. We believe in the future of customization, but the service we offer has to be right for our consumers and Design byME has proven to be too complex for children.

The original Design byMe vision was for a unique customization service, where consumers could design whatever they imagined, display it and get the model sent to in their own LEGO box. Design byMe as a concept attracts several million people each year to build a huge range of amazing creations using the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) software. Despite this success, the overall Design byMe experience has struggled to live up to the quality standards for a LEGO service.

Over the years, we have also added other simpler customized building experiences like Hero Recon Team. However, the overall Design byMe experience has struggled to live up to the quality standards for a LEGO service. The feedback from Design byMe users has taught us that we would need to rebuild the entire setup of Design byMe to fix this. This would only make the service too expensive.

Article Link: http://toysnbricks.com/lego-design-by-m ... y-16-2012/

[vynsane]

WOW! With the closing of LEGO Universe and now this, I thought it was surely two nails in the coffin for LDD, but I'm relieved to hear that LDD will continue to be available. I just hope that these occurrences won't stunt the further development of the software.

I can't say I'm too surprised that DbM is being shut down. The piece/color selection was too thin and the prices were outrageous compared to standard sets. I understand that producing essentially one-off sets for people is far less cost-effective than mass-production of official sets, but surely there was a way to fix the current situation as opposed to shutting down operations. The first thing should have been to make the printed box/instructions optional - had I ever used the service, I would have been just as happy receiving my pieces in an online PaB bag and using my computer for the instructions. The printing of a custom box and instructions, while not a huge part of the over-all cost, would easily reduce the cost by at least a bit.

The piece selection is the other issue - as evidenced in the official online PaB, the prices for the pieces are pretty high compared to what you get them for within the production run of the retail sets, and DEFINITELY out of proportion to what you can find on Bricklink - in most cases, even for NEW pieces. If they reduced the profit margin on the pieces and offered pieces in more colors, I think they would make more money in the long-run due to a higher volume of purchases. I would pay a (modest) premium for the ease of designing something in LDD out of ALL presently-available pieces/colors (obviously pieces long out of production would need to be removed from the 'ordering' mode of LDD) and having it delivered to my door lock, stock and barrel as opposed to using third-party software that extracts the parts list from the LXF file into a Bricklink want list-compatible XML file, which then would need to be uploaded to BL and compared and cross-referenced amongst all sellers that have those parts... Oy, that's a PITA. It takes forever.

[1brickshyofcrazy]

I'm guessing neither one of these was profitable enough for them to keep them running or selling.
Also, it probably wasn't very popular enough for them to keep it.
But they'll still let you download the LEGO Digital Designer so that's good.

[legogod]

I had made in the program a dog house for my daughter. I thought it would be cool to have her open a little set I made her for Christmas to go along with the puppy set we had gotten for her. I loaded everything and checked the price-it was $24.00. I used a little less than 60 pieces and none of them were Hard-to -Find or rare pieces. The box/instructions must be what makes up the entire price. I like the idea a whole hell of a lot- it just needs to be within the realm of my pocket money to be feasible.

Jared

[anthonyj8]

What a week. Although I never used LEGO Design by Me, I always thought of it as a wonderful and relatively inexpensive way for regular LEGO fans to design, create, and buy their own dream product, without having to scavenge for random LEGO pieces in their own personal collection. I am not exactly in tears because of this announcement, but I'm not happy because of it either. I really hope that in the following months the LEGO team will be able to create something just as good as Design by Me, for the average LEGO fans who just like to create stuff.

[Brickbuilder0937]

One possible problem is that when younger kids build a model in LDD it can be hard for them to tell if a design is solid/stable, then when their set arrives they may get frustrated that their model is flimsy and breaks easily.

[Brick & Blue]

I think the main problem was the INSANE pricing. It's a great idea, it just didn't work out, so buy what you need now and be happy we will have PaB.

[ENeuman600]

I was using with Design by me and now they will close on January 16, 2012. I been working on some design on lego files.

1. is there a way to post the file and pictures on this website so people can find LDD including age 6 to 99? Other website at eurobricks.com?

2. Is there better lego design software beside Design by me? Also include history of files and pictures with other software website location?

I felt some people are using this Design by me software but I know cost lot of money to modification with LDD software and online design web page. But is there other option using this?

Again, I really disappoint what has Lego company plan to big changes? I wonder how Lego market plan for year 2012 and next five years plans?

I hope hear any feedback on this.

[vynsane]

ENeuman600 - I think you're a bit confused, using 'Design byMe' and 'LEGO Digital Designer' synonymously - 'Design byMe', the service that's being closed, is just the portion of the LDD software that allows you to design and buy custom sets directly from LEGO. LEGO Digital Designer, the software, will still function the same way it has, allowing you to digitally design MOCs.

You can already upload your LDD design files (these end with the .lxf extension) to the LEGO website, though I don't know the actual process of doing so - I've never done it myself. The press release about the closing of the DbM service mentions that there will be a new LEGO Digital Designer gallery website where you can upload your creation, but I don't know if it makes the .lxf file available, or it's just a screenshot gallery.

You can use filehsaring websites to host links to your .lxf files if you wish to share them and don't have your own webserver to upload them to. I know a user on Flickr who uses http://www.2shared.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to host big files.

As for 'better LEGO design software', the most popular seems to be MLCAD for Windows and Bricksmith for Macintosh. That said, LDD isn't going anywhere so it will still function. Once again, it's just the DbM portion that won't work anymore. You can also 'unlock' almost all the LEGO elements ever available by following the instructions as set forth in this topic over at Eurobricks. Enabling 'Extended Mode' makes LDD really competitive with other offerings.

In order to actually build the models you make outside of the Design byMe mode, you can use a java program called brickhelper (scroll down a bit on that page to get it) to output a list of pieces necessary in a Bricklink-compatible 'want list XML format' to easily add the pieces you want to your Bricklink want list.

As the press release states, this isn't the end of customization at LEGO, just a re-evaluation of the process. I'd wager we'll see the replacement for DbM within the next two years.

[BrickWild]

DesignByMe was originally LEGO Factory, which began in 2006.

[ENeuman600]

Thank you for clearify on issue.

ENeuman600 - I think you're a bit confused, using 'Design byMe' and 'LEGO Digital Designer' synonymously - 'Design byMe', the service that's being closed, is just the portion of the LDD software that allows you to design and buy custom sets directly from LEGO. LEGO Digital Designer, the software, will still function the same way it has, allowing you to digitally design MOCs.

You can already upload your LDD design files (these end with the .lxf extension) to the LEGO website, though I don't know the actual process of doing so - I've never done it myself. The press release about the closing of the DbM service mentions that there will be a new LEGO Digital Designer gallery website where you can upload your creation, but I don't know if it makes the .lxf file available, or it's just a screenshot gallery.

You can use filehsaring websites to host links to your .lxf files if you wish to share them and don't have your own webserver to upload them to. I know a user on Flickr who uses http://www.2shared.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to host big files.

As for 'better LEGO design software', the most popular seems to be MLCAD for Windows and Bricksmith for Macintosh. That said, LDD isn't going anywhere so it will still function. Once again, it's just the DbM portion that won't work anymore. You can also 'unlock' almost all the LEGO elements ever available by following the instructions as set forth in this topic over at Eurobricks. Enabling 'Extended Mode' makes LDD really competitive with other offerings.

In order to actually build the models you make outside of the Design byMe mode, you can use a java program called brickhelper (scroll down a bit on that page to get it) to output a list of pieces necessary in a Bricklink-compatible 'want list XML format' to easily add the pieces you want to your Bricklink want list.

As the press release states, this isn't the end of customization at LEGO, just a re-evaluation of the process. I'd wager we'll see the replacement for DbM within the next two years.

[BrickWild]

Only 2 weeks to go before DBM closing time!

[Bobsterino]

No more Design By Me... :(