A new service called Pleygo invites users to subscribe to receive Lego bricks delivered right to their door—on a rental basis. Choose from three different price points ranging from $15-39 per month and Pleygo will keep your kid in bricks. Members can return one set in exchange for another as often as they’d like, and shipping is free. Bricks are sanitized between users and if your geekling happens to lose a brick, there’s no charge.
The premise here is that buying Lego sets is expensive. (Our own Ruth Suehle tackled the issue of the rising—or not—price of Lego bricks awhile back.) No matter what it costs to purchase a new set of bricks, those monthly rental fees are going to add up. Personally, I’d much rather save my cash for a few months and purchase a set that will add to an ongoing collection. Restricting a child’s Lego play to one set at a time eliminates the potential for free form building that comes with an assorted collection of bricks.
That said, I could see this being of value to a family residing in really tight living quarters where there’s little space for a collection of Lego bricks. Or perhaps for grandparents who want to have something new for the kids to play with each time they visit.
My Lego junkie—who maintains his own giant collection of bricks—had strong words to say about the service: “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
What say you? Would you consider renting Lego bricks instead of buying them?
Frankly, Lego bricks don’t take up THAT much room. You can own several thousand in a few shoe boxes. I have a similar opinion about Game Fly. It’s expensive and my sons take a while to complete games (because I don’t let them play them that often). Those costs add up in a hurry! You’re right, you may as well invest in the bricks themselves.
It’s definitely a cool concept, but I would never spend that kind of money on Legos that I couldn’t keep. Not too long ago, I was in the Lego store and saw the small Ultimate Builders set for $15. That’s a deal!
That said, I guess it would be kind of cool for the sets. I don’t know about you, but once we build a set here… it never gets touched again. (Even after it eventually falls apart!)
I saw this service posted on Geek Dad a week or so ago and had to comment on it there. I had the exact same line of thought, I would have to restrict my son’s play so much that it wouldn’t be worth it and I have a panic attack just thinking about trying to keep track of all the pieces to return. The Lego death star is cool but that is a LOT of pieces to not lose.
On the other hand, I work with college undergrads in computer science and when I mentioned the service to them most said they thought it was an awesome idea! So I guess there is a market with college age kids who want to put together the new cool sets but can’t afford to buy then and don’t really care about keeping them.
Ah, college kids. There’s a market I hadn’t thought of! My son has some AFOL college friends who left home with a very restricted Lego collection; this could be of interest, I suppose.
My husband and I have thought about starting a game and toy rental service (for kids and adults) so it’s interesting to see this article. The price would have to be low enough to make sense, and I’m not sure they’re there yet. We’re pretty selective with the toys we choose to own, but it would be nice to have a chance to try out something new before committing to it, or just to have something novel for a few weeks during the miserable winters.
I agree with Codecrafty. This sounds like a great idea, but I think it’s better suited to high school/college aged folks. My kids are seven and four and are pretty much emotionally attached to their Lego kits. My son would never be able to have it for awhile and then get rid of it. I think I would consider renting some of the robot kits for a DIY Maker Day but other than that, I don’t think it would fly in our home.