Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning Graham Hooley, Brigitte Nicoulaud; John Rud... continue to be anchored in the physical brick experienee. But we are going to explore more ways that you can brild strosig liukages belween the physical and digital worlds', he says, LEGO toolk the decision to concentrate ca the physical brick when it neared financial collapse in 2001. As pert of ats recovery under chief executive Jargen Vig Knualstorp, over-diversification was diagnosed ns one of its ills and its video games development nrm was sold off. Mr Buton, who was also an executive producer of The Lego Move, says each company decided to focus on what they were best at: 'They handle bricks, we handle the digital side." Another recent collaboration is 'LEGO Worlds', a game still only in limited beta relense that many see as the toymaker's answer to 'Minecraft'. Players can build worlds, buildings and figures using LEGO bricks with nearly all the freedon of the physical world, while new ideas are being incorporated noeording to what I.FGO's online community suggests. Mr Goodwin and Mr Burton say these is more to come, especially around making the digital experience more 'real'. The toys-to-life category works by the conntroller reseding a chip in a character's base, meaning that if Batman is placed on Supenaan's base the machine will still think it is Superman. Similarly, only the exact model or vehicle will be imported into the gane, not whatever the player imagines, Mr Goodwin hopes that will change cas day. Mr Rohertson snys that L.FGO's great saccess has been brilding a range of products snd experiences around the physical brick - so that children cannot just play with the prodocts but also watch a television show, go to an event or see a display in a toy shop. Its digital push should be seen in that light, he argues, althought he also says LEGO could gradually develop into mose of a digital company. 'Maybe you and I might be talking in 2020 about what is the core of LEGO: is it physical or digital?" Mr Goodwin disnisess such talk, arguing that if you 'put bricks in froat of kids they just love to build". Losing strategies: award-winning games but not sales winners Success is far from guarnuteed for 'LEGO Dimensions', as some of the toymnker's previons digital efforts show, 'LEOO Universe', an ambhitions and costly attempt to replicate the experience of playing with bricks in a gaane. developed by dozens of workers, was killed off within months of its launch in 2010. At about the same time, a single Swedish computer enthusiast working part-time developed 'Minecraft', which became one of the biggest-selling games of all tine and is, in Jon Burton's words, 'a digital version of LEGO'. Jolan Goodwin sys that failure led to LEGO renlising it veeded to be more ngile when desling with digital products rather than physical ones: 'Other companes put their games out in beta [an early development stage] and constantly reiterate it. That's not part of our DNA. We have a
