Review: LEGO Brickmaster Club Membership

If you have a child who loves LEGOS, you may have considered buying him a membership in the LEGO Brickmaster Club as a gift. Brickmaster Club membership includes two coupons for use at LEGOshop.com, 6 LEGO models (delivered by mail to your home every other month); 6 issues of the Brickmaster magazine with Bionicle comics; and one coupon for one free admission to LEGOLAND California.

The Brickmaster Club membership costs about $40.00. Is it worth it?

When we bought the Brickmaster Club membership, we were contemplating a trip to California that would include a visit to LEGOLAND. A one-day admission ticket to LEGOLAND costs $62.00 for an adult (ages 13-59) and $52.00 for a child or senior (ages 3-12, 60+). Two-day admission costs $77.00 and $65.00, respectively.

If you actually use the LEGOLAND coupon to save on one child's admission ticket to LEGOLAND California ($52.00), the Brickmaster Club is a matter of "why not." Even if the Brickmaster Club doesn't deliver on any other benefits or enjoyment, it's still, quite literally, "worth the cost of admission."

If you are not planning a trip to LEGOLAND California, however, the value of a Brickmaster Club membership gets a little dicier. Here is a review of the pros and cons of Brickmaster Club membership. This information, from my experience with LEGO Brick master, may help you evaluate whether club membership would work for you:

The LEGOShop.com coupons

As with the coupon for one "free" admission to LEGOLAND California, if you actually use the two coupons that come with your Brickmaster Club membership, the return on your "investment" in the club gets a little better. Still, at $40.00 a pop for membership, a few percentage points off some subsequent LEGOShop.com purchases is not likely to be enough to make membership worth the cost.

The 6 "Great New LEGOS Sets"

As part of the Brickmaster Club membership, LEGOS sends you six sets, one every other month. These sets may intrigue the LEGOS novice. On the other hand, they may cause crestfallen faces in children with a more developed interest in LEGOS and more LEGO experience.

In short, the LEGOS sets that are included in the Brickmaster Club are largely forgettable. Some, frankly, are even laughable.

Occasionally one of the sets may be tied to something that already is of interest to your child---such as the Indiana Jones set that coincided with the release of the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie. That tie-in might up the excitement level a little. Still, I have to tell you: my child's response to even the Indiana Jones set (a small jeep with some doodads) quickly started to remind me of the "thrill" he got (NOT) with the cheap movie tie-in toys in fast food meals.

Otherwise, the best that can be said about the Brickmaster LEGOS sets is that they provide bricks (usually tiny ones) to add to your child's collection. My child eventually used the pieces for details on combat aircraft, various spacecraft , and ray guns he designed.

The Brickmaster Magazine and Bionicle Comics

LEGOS touts the Brickmaster Club as "the ultimate LEGO experience." The centerpiece of this "ultimate experience" is supposed to be the Brickmaster Magazine that is delivered to your home every other month. This "magazine" turned out to be more thanmerely disappointing. It actually is a potential bummer for the child who is enthusiastic about LEGOS---and for the parent or grandparent who was hoping to encourage the child in his design interests and skills, not simply encourage more requests for expensive sets.

The Brickmaster magazine simply is not a "magazine." It is merely a catalogue of LEGOS products that are hawked over and over again in every issue.

Sure, the purpose of the Brickmaster Club is to sell LEGOS. And, yes, the LEGO enthusiast will enjoy browsing the products, even, in some cases, repeatedly. That said, when the cover of the Brickmaster magazine heralds "Over 75 NEW items!," often you can have more fun making a game out of trying to find the "NEW" items than reading the catalogue---I mean, magazine---again. Seriously, that's what my son does with the Brickmaster magazine when it shows up.

It's reasonable to expect that $40.00 buys the LEGO enthusiast a little more of an entrée into the world of LEGOS, not just a bigger catalogue to flip through. For the Brickmaster Club magazine to be transformed into something that actually resembles a magazine, rather than just a mail-order / shop-online catalogue, it needs at least a few pages devoted to articles about LEGOS.

Right now, Brickmaster doesn't add value to the LEGOS experience. It easily could be improved with a few simple changes.

The Brickmaster magazine should include at least one feature article---yes, something to honest-to-goodness read---about LEGOS or LEGO building. The magazine also would benefit from regular columns and items, such as LEGOS news, "How To" tips on LEGOS building, design, collecting and so on, and a column (suitable for kids) on science and engineering concepts relevant to LEGOS design.

Kids also would love a regular item publishing the photos of LEGOS creations sent in by other kids, along with photos of the creator and a description of the project in their own words. And how about a LEGOS joke page? Surely there are some brick-laying jokesters out there.

How hard can this be?

As it is, the Brickmaster Club magazine usually has nothing to read beyond product descriptions. And the vast majority of those are the same issue after issue. Blah.

The Brickmaster magazine does have themes that change (or maybe rotate?) with each issue, such as pirates, undersea adventures, and Star Wars. This is not nearly enough, however, to rescue it from total catalogue tedium. Brickmaster also occasionally offers contests for LEGO designs. These might interest a child. Contest rules, and the object of the design, however, were not clearly explained.

Oh, and about those "Bionicle comics" that supposedly are included in the membership or the magazine? Never laid eyes on them.

Maybe I just don't know my Bionicles. Or what the meaning of "comics" is.

The Brickmaster Club experience

Overall, the Brickmaster Club did not provide added "value" to the LEGOS experience. Unless you definitely are planning to visit LEGOLAND California, and will use the one "free" admission coupon, at $40.00, membership in the Brickmaster LEGO Club is a tad steep for what you get. You or your young LEGOS enthusiast probably would have a lot more fun spending that forty bucks on a LEGOS set or a load of new bricks.

Source:

"LEGO Brickmaster Club," LEGO.