The Decline of LEGO Video Games: Reasons & Predictions

The influence of LEGO on pop culture is significant. This popular construction game became the basis of multiple games and even successful feature-length movies, such as The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie. However, according to deep research conducted by GamesMojo, the unpredictable world of video games appears to be a rather heavy milestone for this highly recognizable brand.

The Story of Virtual Bricks

It may be surprising to hear, but LEGO entered the world of virtual entertainment long ago, in 1995, with LEGO Fun to Build for the SEGA Pico. This wasn’t a very wise marketing move through which to reach the masses because this console used to be a very niche product for children.

The game also wasn’t oriented to the masses. LEGO achieved its first more-or-less notable success with a PC game called LEGO Island, which was a very fun small 3D quest. The following attempts to achieve success on consoles and PC were insignificant due to the low quality of visual implementation, mediocre plots, and borrowed gameplay features.

Everything changed dramatically in 2005 when LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game was released. This title arrived in time to impress gamers with its brilliantly detailed universe. It was available on a highly popular generation of consoles, such as GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox.

The success of this title by Traveller’s Tales studio is also explained by the game’s authentic characters and environments. The developers managed to endow the game with a “Star Wars Movie” atmosphere as well as to build famous locations out of LEGO bricks. This idea sounds obvious. However, it was the first LEGO video game of its kind. This blockbuster combined humor, pop-culture gags, and exciting exploration with thrilling fights.

The next three years marked a period of marvelous success for the entire franchise. The idea of remaking movies proved to be effective, so the following AAA chapters were about the hits Indiana Jones and Batman. They hit the jackpot several times three years in a row!

Routine Development

There’s nothing bad in Traveller’s Tales’ wish to squeeze the lemon of collaborations with movie studios. The scheme proved to be highly efficient and raised sales from lackluster tens of thousands to a massive 100 million copies in total. You can find specific sales figures in the GamesMojo.com research tables via the link above.

After 2008, designers relaxed and decided to create games in the universes of Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean. All these titles are similarly literary, as they simply provide virtual battlefields for local multiplayer fights with changeable character skins. Of course, gamers noticed this tendency, so the series of LEGO video games became a middling arcade for children again.

Nothing Personal, Just Business

Can LEGO raise the video game sales again and is the decline an awful thing to happen? On the one hand, the total income of LEGO Group and Traveller’s Tales in the video game industry since 2006 was so huge that both might be considered unsinkable. The mother company used the right marketing strategy to keep annual revenue slightly growing over the past 13 years.

Such a good index is very unusual for toy companies. Talking about TT, their revenue is directly proportional to the sales figures for their LEGO games, so their profit won’t rise again. Serves them right for making repetitive games. This means that the video game campaign was primarily a very far-sighted marketing move oriented at sales enhancement. It still works, but it’s not very enthusiastic anymore.

On the other hand, 13 years of success is not a reason to start working carelessly. The video game industry is rapidly changing but it’s not an unsolvable problem for a financial giant to predict trends and invest in the right direction. GamesMojo.com community are real people who need real art with soul and identity. Consumers don’t care a lot about sales and revenues, but they feel the number of efforts put into games.

The year 2018 is over, as is the period of stable financial growth with a 5% revenue decrease. Of course, this drop is very insignificant, but the lack of new original video games is tangible. Hopefully, best LEGO games by TT are not just history and their legacy will give birth to at least a couple of memorable LEGO video games.