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Is Lego Dimensions a con?
Just seen the Doctor Who trailer for Lego Dimension so had a look at Amazon. If I am reading this properly then the PS4 price £95.00 for the game and another £20 for each level. I just want to play a game not get Lego characters and whatnot.
Do they really think they are going to get people to part with lots of cash for this game?
Do they really think they are going to get people to part with lots of cash for this game?
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You can buy level packs to get additional levels in those themes and fun packs to get characters, but if you just want to buy the base game you'll get plenty of content.
They had an edition for £120 and one for £50. I just want to buy the game without having to have all the pointless, to me, additions.
Isn't the problem that the base starter pack is £95?
Included in the LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack:
LEGO Dimensions videogame
LEGO Toy Pad
Bricks to build the LEGO Gateway
3 LEGO minifigures (Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle)
LEGO Batmobile vehicle
I just want the game - not the other crap.
We should be getting it at £72 given the current exchange rate.
Same goes for the additional add-on packs as well. We're paying £29-£30..when in Europe they pay around £21.50 (including tax).
Yes people certainly will be spending plenty of money on this, look at how popular Disney infinity and skylanders are, this is just another player in that space. My kids will be wanting it for xmas but with new skylanders and disney infinity star wars coming out around the same time they will have to wait a little longer for lego dimensions.
So that leaves the video game content with 30%-50% of the cost. Unlike the physical toy, the virtual contents value is variable for each purchase. For example, I’ve got ‘Wicked Witch’ FP on pre-order and this will access her unique character abilities and grant access to the Oz Adventure World. Each subsequent Oz FP I buy will only give me new character abilities and will never offer the same value as my Witch purchase. To try and pin value down, we need to look at brands as individual games…
Ninjago has 5 X FP’s, 1 X TP and (presumably a TBA) 1 X LP. The cost for all these together would be approx. £130. The value of physical toy content is £65 to £85, so that leaves a video game content of £45-£65. The Ninjago ‘brand game’ would be;
“A miniature, normal LEGO”* story level
An open, themed Adventure World with quests, races, games, buildings to restore and (probably) more.
8 characters with different abilities and different tasks to complete
9 vehicles and gadgets to help open up the adventure world even more and complete special tasks
It doesn’t sound bad for a normal, standalone video game that you’d pay £50 for and all these figures and gadgets can be used in other worlds and levels and their world can also be visited by others! Of course, until the game is released we can’t really judge the digital value but we know what Tt games normally offer, so let us assume for now that the content will be comparable with a £50 video game, and I would expect a absolute minimum of 30 hours game play for that! (OP...would you pay £50 for a 30 hour DW LEGO game with those specs?)
There is a third element that we need to factor in to cost and that’s the NFC bases. This ‘smart tech’ links an already existing toy type with an already existing game type. If LEGO released special bases that could be attached to normal MF’S and that allowed them to be dropped into already existing specific video games (via a separately purchased peripheral that plugs into PC/ console) Amiibo style, how much would that cost? Of course this is unknown but probably no more than a MF, so £2.50? But let’s say £1.
Taking the lowest assumed cost for each element, the ‘Ninjago Adventure World LEGO Toys to Life Video Game Experience’ breaks down as:
£20 - 8 LEGO minifigures
£45 – 450 LEGO pieces that create 9 ‘3-1 build’ toys
£17 – 17 NFC Toy Tags
£48 – LEGO video game
So, looked at like this, you are actually paying what you would already pay for these products and LEGO Dimensions is costing exactly what it’s worth, (if the video game content delivers on its promise of course...). Should the original question be 'Is LEGO a rip off?' and 'are video games a rip off? '
I feel much more comfortable buying LD then the other T-2-L games for the simple reason that they are taking an existing, genuine toy that I know the value of and digitising it. I also like the more puzzle solving aspect and accessibility of LEGO games and I trust Tt to provide an improved and deeper version of their existing format. Disney Infinity attracts me because of Star Wars, but (outside of the Toy Box feature) the game play seems limited and the need for statues, contrived. Skylanders has better game play but the lack of familiar IP’s, and the again contrived statues, puts me off.
I honestly wouldn’t be interested in any T-2-L game at all and have only considered LD because of its fabulous looking Doctor Who content. But I love LotR, Portal, BTTF, Simpsons...and Scooby-Doo looks brilliant in LD so I’m going to give this one a go. If it’s a bummer and I hate the thing at least I know that the LEGO content on its own is a good investment (better than gold at the moment it's said!) and will be fairly easy to sell as AFOL’s are already going nuts for some of the exclusive minifigures...
*Doug Heder of WBIE describes the LP levels as a 'whole, miniature LEGO story based on the respective brand that will be at least as big as the levels inclouded in the Starter Pack.
Bluntly, no because that is not what this product is. I'm not kidding myself that LD represents amazing value for money, but you are getting what you pay for and I am paying a premium price for a bucket load of LEGO and a groovy looking video game.
If you want a toy free open world, 'sand box' LEGO game with 14 or so assignments/chapters, loads of unlockable characters and vehicles, witty dialogue, humorous references and in jokes about major movie franchises, then I 100% recommend LEGO City Undercover on Wii U. Its is underrated despite a few flaws and you'll get about 50 hours of genuinely fun game play for £40.
Can you play Skylanders without any of the figures? or disney infinity?
I think Infinity got a PC release with content much cheaper than the physical stuff. I doubt LEGO will go down that route because LD is much more about the Toy, but you never know.