>>6644811No doubt G2 could've gone much, much better than how it did. The fact that it lasted less than half of HF's run despite a much richer design work behind alone speaks volumes about how badly Lego handled the line. All the good things G2 did were solely because of the talent
of its creative team because Lego treated it like another of its modern copypaste action themes.
It's a bit harder to say about G1 but I agree that you can't reduce its success to a lucky shot. Early 00s culture certainly helped it but it was the talent and creativity of people like Faber and the Templar team that made Bionicle explode in popularity. Later Bionicle dwindling out was a result of a natural decline in a product's lifecycle as well as poor understanding of what the fanbase wanted ("Halo is popular? Surely that means kids don't like magic and melee weapons anymore and that every single character should use a gun!").
Which brings me to another point: sometimes I honestly think Lego's marketing team lives under a rock. They poured so much effort and marketing budget into Chima (
Lego.com at one point was completely covered by Chima ads!) that given how big Lego is you would think the line would sell like hotcakes, yet it didn't.
I don't think they quite grasp how complex and rapidly growing pop culture is these days and how much it plays into purchasing habits. That's what G1 managed to become, a cultural phenomenon. They think that producing low budget mobile apps and TV shows is a genius strategy and that it "encourages roleplay" (they use this phrase a lot) but it obviously is not enough to get kids to care about the characters and certainly doesn't secure a line's success.
Bionicle G2 could and should have fit perfectly into modern pop culture, but for that to happen it had to fall into competent hands, which is definitely what didn't happen.
