My LEGO Nexus Organization

What do you think the purpose of MLN was for?
Maybe LEGO was losing money and needed a method to keep people interested?
Just another game for people of all ages to try out?
Or was it deeper than that? Was it to give children basic education in a fun, continuous way?

 What do you think the purpose of MLN is?

Maybe they needed a tax writeoff...

 Maybe to create a fun online game for kids! ;)

I think they wanted consumers to get to MLN.Possibly they wanted the people who use MLN will tell people about the game and buy their products.

 I think that lionytai got the purpose of MLN for LEGO! =P

Yes but heres the big question....if it is about profit, why isn't there any LEGO Sets actually IN the game? If you think about it and observe MLN, they don't feature any image of a LEGO Set (except Sticker and LEGO Factory models) in any of the ranks.

There are some minifigs from the sets.
All(most) of the Bionicle networkers are sets. Thornax are from sets.
When you do the CITY mini rank you may get in touch with lots of CITY sets.

I agree lion. Its possible that they made a mistake in early development and these extra ranks also have profitable benefits.

Also, there isn't much fun with only using sets. They wanted something new.

Maybe its purpose was for kids to enjoy LEGO.com and to keep them coming back for more, kinda like Facebook, seeing that kids under 13 can't get one.

I think the progammers were getting bored with fixing the CPs.

To waste 6 months of my life

I think facebook became popular after there was "MLN". You what you said works.

Facebook was before MLN...

But I think it was just as a Club Page 'sequel'.

Facebook may come before MLN, but when did facebook become popular?


That's possible. There isn't much interactivity in the old club pages, except for the tic tac toe.

It was around the time MLN came out; but still before it. But it wasn't because of MLN or anything. ;)

And I'm pretty sure it was just a 'club page sequel', otherwise, why did they get rid of the club pages after MLN was made? ;)

The club pages were too old.
The club pages didn't let the users interact much.

The few reasons I could think of.

Aside from the undeniable fact that most kids lie and get them at 8... My sister has a facebook and she has found kids I used to know that are too young for it. It's inevitable.

I personally think that it was just for advertising, seeing as they don't really seem to notice the community any more, now that they have LU.

I'm pretty sure it was just for advertising. You can pretty much draw a line between when LU was picking up development speed, and when LEGO started to basically ignore MLN. And it would match.

The only other possibility, is they figured we couldn't handle any new stuff, after the disaster that was the Delivery Race. -_-;

Gonna be a cynic here, albeit a cynic that hasn't played the game in question since beta:

To make money.

-Canama

This is about MLN, not LU. Just pointing that out.

Now, I think MLN was a failed experiment to try and get people to work together to rank up... that failed. The ranking system failed: the probably 5-10 year olds would likely try and befriend those of higher ranks, but those of higher ranks would not accept those of lower ranks due to them being... kids. A high point on an online 'game' means a lot to them, they're young children. And when they were something like Rank 7 or above they likely thought their non-existent reputation would be ruined. From this, (I hope) LEGO has learnt that a ranking system does not work. Everybody needs to be at an equal stage for the target audience-kids- to work together without disliking others for being of a lower rank or worshipping those of a higher rank.

And I guess LEGO didn't learn with ranks being in LU, though only at 1-3.

Except that the ranks in LU had nothing to do with the large scale in the game; but was more a 'power scale' of sorts, since it's used for the faction equipment.

 MLN has to be the worst updated thing ever. =P I would say the purpose was to attract people to buy more legos, but for some reason I don't see MLN doing that anymore. ::)

LEGO needs to realize that people who are on their site for stuff like this... Isn't going to attract anyone else through advertisements that they haven't already. =P

 Lol, quite true. I wonder what's eventually going to happen to MLN.

It'll be replaced by something more than likely. =P

 Lol, how many times can they replace it before it turns into the Newer new newest version of the lego club page! =P

It'll always technically be that. =P

 True. =P I wonder why they suddenly abandoned it though, it's kinda wierd.

*Points at the Delivery Race* That or LU, take your pick. =P

 Oh, the Delivery race, every time. =P

Yeah, I think so too. Especially because they still haven't added the top ten for Delivery. =P

 Or Haul. =P I just checked my LU page, you want any clicks? =P I now have 110,000 of them. >=)

Hmm? What do you mean?

If you're bragging that you have more clicks than me, everyone likely has more clicks than me. =P But congrats if so. =D

 Nah, I was just wanted to know if you wanted 100 clicks, since they're not going anywhere else. I was bragging though, yes. =P

Ah, I see. Sure, just dump them randomly; or you could help out KNU. Either choice is fine for me; though I don't even know what my clicks are at right now. ^^;

 Okay, will do. =P

I might check them on Friday, not sure. Tomorrow's likely a write-off, though. =P

 There ya go, you now have +100 clicks. =P

I never bought a single brick because of MLN.

Derp.

Okay, let's do this again:

I once again feel that the purpose of MLN was to sell Lego sets.

And at least in my case, it didn't work. I have not purchased a Lego set since summer 2008.

I have received sets as gifts since then, and spent plenty of time building, but from then till now all of my expenditures have been in my new primary hobby - gaming (And books. Can't forget books.). As time goes on and I get a car, graduate from high school and head to college, etc. I will be spending money for more practical reasons. What little I will have for frivolous uses will probably continue to go towards gaming or books - probably just gaming; if I can I'll find a library on or near whatever campus I go to and use it instead of buying.

So while MLN was fun, I think in terms of accomplishing its intended purpose it was a failure. I believe that this is why Lego has largely dropped support for it.

-Canama

 Yeah, but Lego would still want to keep MLN going for those who couldn't play LU, at least theoretically.

The thing about this advertisement campaign; however; is three things:

One; you're already on the LEGO site, and know all about the LEGO site.
Two; they only added like three things that was current, and never made any sets based on MLN.
Three; Half the characters from MLN's main campaign were either new; or from extremely old sets that weren't even being sold anymore.

My stance on LEGO's games are that they're for fun. Always have been, always will be. And if they're starting to shift to an advertising stance for them, to merely advertise new things; I don't particularly think that stance will work. I mean, look at DRC's popularity, even years after the sets it was 'advertising' was gone. Heck, even look at MNOG... It's sets have been out of stores for more or less 10 to 11 years now; and it's still widely regarded as one of the greatest games on LEGO.com...

And I don't even have to explain BrickGame... Which they removed recently for some reason.

This, so this. Even the gaming/books over building and not buying sets since 2008. I think MLN was supposed to make kids feel older and feel more like they could buy sets themselves. Which, by extension, make the small gullible kids buy almost anything that was LEGO, good set or good price or not. I and many, many others didn't change their behavior, hence it being abandoned. And so they made LEGO universe, a MMOG (most young kids don't even know the term) that I believe was also supposed to advertise as well as make money.