The blind bags were a - uh - blind stab at the same blind bag market ruled by Lego. I only bought three or four of them, and stopped when I started getting doubles. Kids can swap doubles with their friends. It's more of a hassle when you're an adult. Whichever way you look at them, however, they are much less inventive than Lego's collectible minifigs: with the PM bags, it's always different permutations of the same things: knights, pirates (zzzz ...) etc. With Lego CMFs, some of the choices are totally out there. The gingerbread man, for eg. The man in the bunny suit. Plus they did things way before PM (the statue of liberty minifig, the scotsman etc). (and I know Lego copies PM too, so let's not get into that argument
). I agree regarding the Egyptian and the Roman themes. For me the Roman theme was the last great theme produced by Playmobil. They say it didn't do very well, though. But maybe that's why they should start catering more for the adult market, too. Such historically accurate sets could be modelled on Lego's Modular or architecture series, too. Bigger sets, more expensive. I mean, the modular houses cost around 160 dollars. The Ewok Village is 200, same as the Simpsons house. Adults are willing to pay that sort of money for things aimed at them. I know there's a lot of resistance among PM fans - if it were for some, PM would still be stuck in 1983. But things have to move on. The biggest problem at the moment, I think, is that the PM management doesn't have a clue about the way the market works - you see it in the interviews with Horst Brandstatter for eg. New blood is needed, and badly. The mid-2014 catalogue is the most underwhelming one in years. Even pathological PM fanboys here on PF and elsewhere criticisied it!
But anyway, just my thoughts. We'll see how the next couple of years go.
