LEGO is considering abandoning physical instructions

The LEGO Group is weighing up whether to abandon physical instructions entirely in favour of digital alternatives, and you can have your say in a new survey.

Titled ‘Sustainable Building: Help us decide the future of LEGO Building Instructions!’, the Insiders Rewards Centre survey asks for feedback on a hypothetical scenario in which the LEGO Group switches to digital building instructions altogether. “We want to play our part in building a sustainable future for generations to come,” the survey blurb reads. “One way we can do this is to reduce our paper usage by switching to digital building instructions. It’s a small change that can make a big difference.”

Questions in the survey focus on whether you’d be interested in participating in the initiative at all, what kind of incentives might encourage you to say yes (discounts, Insiders points, instructions for alternative builds and so on), and how much experience you currently have with digital instructions.

The LEGO Group experimented for a little while with solely digital instructions in the LEGO Super Mario theme, but has recently pivoted to include physical manuals in those sets, perhaps in response to consumer feedback. Given the wider community’s stance on this topic any time it comes up, it’s tough to imagine the results of this survey being anything other than a resolute ‘no thanks’ to the prospect of entirely digital instructions.

Over on reddit, the consensus seems to be that half the point of LEGO is getting away from a screen, which would be eroded by the removal of physical instructions. “I have enough screens in my life,” NorbR33 wrote. “Please, please keep the paper instructions!” Another redditor summarised their position a little more succinctly: “Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate this idea.”

Some fans have also raised the issue that internet access is not necessarily a given, and that low-income families will be impacted most because even access to devices (and especially devices that can run the LEGO Builder app smoothly) is not something to take for granted.

PDF versions of most instruction manuals are currently available at LEGO.com, and the survey mentions them, but the first question specifically asks whether you’d be interested in building with the LEGO Builder app instead of printed instructions.

Head over to the LEGO Insiders Rewards Centre and click through to the ‘Activities’ tab to find the survey. You’ll earn 50 Insiders points for taking part.

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Author Profile

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

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