By: David Pickett

David Pickett — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 23:05:43 +0000

When the first LEGO Tongal contest appeared I thought it was interesting. The fact that they were offering cash prizes seemed like an improvement over their old contests which mostly offered LEGO sets as prizes. But now that Tongal contests have become part of the status quo for promoting new LEGO themes it seems much more like exploitation than giving back to the community.

Contrast this with the LEGO Nicktoons contest from 2008 (which David and I tied for second place in). The parameters were much more open ended (basically just a 2 minute time limit), we all kept the rights to our films, our films got distributed on a major outlet (Comcast OnDemand) and the Grand Prize winner was then commissioned to make an animation for LEGO and Nickelodeon (Spongebob’s “Don’t be a jerk, it’s Christmas”).

Really great diverse films came out of the Nicktoons contest, if it had been a Tongal contest for Spongebob, we would have gotten a bunch of Spongebob animations, which is less exciting. Both Garret Barati and David Pagano got noticed by LEGO through contests and then were given opportunities for actual paid work. This doesn’t seem to be what the Tongal contests will lead to.

By: bodville

bodville — Thu, 01 Aug 2013 03:34:45 +0000

There has been a lot of competitions and big $ thrown at Tongal by TLG. I’ve even entered a few myself. It is interesting that you end this article questioning the degree of exploitation.
This is something I’ve been thinking about and have since decided not to be part of these competitions any more.

IMO it is very poor form by TLG, which is a billion $ company, to use services like this to get very high quality results for next to nothing. There is so many restrictions on the entries now that the mold is set for what they want. If they know what they want they should support the industry and pay for it.

Not well played LEGO.

Comments on: LEGO DC Universe Super Heroes Tongal Contest

By: David Pickett

By: bodville