The LEGO Group’s evil plan to prevent LEGO fans from identifying the new Series 3 Collectible Minifigs has now been completely foiled. LEGO says that the barcodes were never intended to enable people to get past their cunning marketing ploy (ha!), so they eliminated the unique barcodes on the back of each Series 1 and Series 2 minifig bag.
Instead, the Series 3 manufacturing process seems to have put patterns of raised bumps on the flat part on the bottom of the package. FBTB Forums member that guy cracked the code yesterday, and I’ve confirmed that the dot method works with my own case of figs this evening.
Rick Theroux pulled all the dot patterns together into a handy-dandy cheat sheet:
The consumer wins! Nice try, corporate goons.
The dot patterns can be a little tough to distinguish in a few cases, so it’s also a good idea to know what you’re looking for and identify your Series 3 minifigs through the bag by touch.
When are they due to be released generally?
Why use a chart when you can buy all you see (for some people)?
It’s nice to know that at least some LEGO fans won’t lose all of their LEGO money trying to find the minifigure that they really wanted…
I thoroughly enjoy the circumvention of the blind-bag gimmick.
Yes. I’m still not likely to buy any, but I completely approve. If they’re going to treat consumers like an adversary to confound, they have no place complaining when consumers refuse to play along with the gimmick.
And you know what, LEGO? I’m still gonna buy multiples of them all!!! So it makes no difference!