The world of building block toys is huge, Lego is the most famous, but Lego is not all. There are also many building block brands from China that bring players products with various themes.
Contents
Why mytoyslist？
There are too many Lego blogs, but few blogs about Chinese building block brands. There are many brands were born in China, but they should be known by building block enthusiasts all over the world. Through this blog, I hope that brick fans from the world can learn more about brick brands from China.
China building block toys will no longer be called Lego replicas. I expect that one day many China toy building block manufacturers will become challengers for Lego!
The world of building block toys is huge, Lego is the most famous, but Lego is not all. There are also many building block brands from China that bring players products with various themes.
Let us review the development milestones of China building block products in the past few years.
Development milestones of China building block brands
2014-2016: China building block brands enter the fast lane
Recalling the year 2014，china building blocks are beginning to enter the road of rapid development.
A large wave of Lego imitations have appeared one after another, and the low price has made it possible for people who cannot afford Lego to enjoy the fun of building blocks.
Lepin is the most well-known. With the fastest imitation speed, the most complete styles, and the most cost-effective quality, lepin quickly grabbed a large group of players right after it came out.
China building blocks also have a group of original brands, such as Kaizhi, GUDI, Woma, etc., which have made their own way with military themes that Lego does not involve.
In addition, QMAN upgraded the brand logo and began to step out of its own style; Sembo also appeared in this period and quickly opened the market with a mini street view.
The quality of china building block brands during this period was quite uneven. One is due to parts inspection, and another is due to design
2017: China building blocks explore own way
In 2017, XINGBAO was born. XINGBAO products were all signed with famous foreign authors of MOC . It was obvious that they wanted to change the market where counterfeit products were predominant at that time.
At the same time, the increasingly mature QMAN, the energetic sembo, and SLuban who introduced movie IP have also made efforts for original building blocks. China building block brands all exude a bright future.
2018: GOBRICKS changed the industry ecology
In 2018, the market is still dominated by lepin, but original building blocks have gradually entered the public’s field of vision.
A brand that has influenced the building block ecosystem has quietly appeared, and that is GOBRICKS.
At that time, the quality of GOBRICKS was already at the top level , but compared to the quality, everyone was concerned about the price.
At that time, imitation products were popular, and GOBRICKS was not competitive at all at a unit price that was nearly 50% higher than similar products.
Gobricks did not give up, but increased investment, continued to increase the types of molds, and gradually won the recognition of the industry and players.
2019: the end of imitation products
At the end of April 2019, the infringement of lepin products was seized by the Shanghai police and was criminally prosecuted.
This incident caused drastic changes in the industry, and the prospect of imitation products is no longer bright.
At this turning point, some brands that adopted gobricks, among which Mould King is the most prominent, together with brands such as Rael and Happy Build, launched a series of high-quality technology products, which quickly filled the market.
They provided a shortcut to success for a number of new brands, and a large number of foreign MOC works were suddenly added to the market.
Keeppley, which is the subbrand of QMAN, has begun to make efforts to introduce a number of well-known animation IPs such as “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and “Pokémon”.
With the slogan “Let the building blocks move”, CADA（DoubleE subbrand） has gradually matured. The technology series with various interesting gameplays has attracted many fans.
And Sembo, who has been working silently, has accumulated a number of independent IP experience, successfully introduced “Wandering Earth” and completed the development at a very fast speed, making it a product line that is still very popular today.
The success of peers has made other brands rush to imitate. Starting from the second half of the year, various authorized building blocks have continued to appear, and the china original building block market has exploded.
With the increasing awareness of copyright in the industry, in addition to well-known IP becoming the object of competition, global MOC authors have also begun to be watched, various cooperations continue to appear.
2020: The butterfly effect of COVID
At the beginning of 2020, COVID shocked the world, and all walks of life, including the building block industry, were greatly affected. Affected by the epidemic, offline channels have almost stopped, but online sales have been stimulated.
Among them, large sets of building blocks (such as general street scenes and large proportions of high-tech cars) are the most popular. Therefore, various brands have begun to shift their product lines to larger sets.
As the impact of COVID eases, the design of new products has changed back to a more traditional “stable” route.Various magical changing products and imitations have become active again.
Even QMAN and Sembo, who have already embarked on the road of IP, were greatly affected by the suspension of the film.
2021: Trendy play has a wider coverage of building blocks
The Forbidden City, Aerospace, Shandong Ship, etc. had never thought that there would be authorized IPs before, and they began to appear on the building block product line, and the styling added a lot of trendy elements, breaking the inherent framework of building blocks.
The traditional building block theme has also changed, and products with many other category elements have been born.
Like Sembo first music box series, many brands rush to follow suit; Forange “shaking head” square head makes simple ornaments more “spiritual”; onebot breakthrough AR-linked gameplay opens up building blocks The infinite possibilities.
There are also large and small IPs, which have become the target of cooperation with building block brands, such as Banbao “Douro Land”, Decool “Spirit Cage”, Zhegao “Mini Agent Team”, and GUDI “Yeloli” “etc,
PANTASY began to shine, Sherlock Holmes authorized building blocks, see through Astro Boy
Building blocks have successfully changed their positioning as children’s toys in the past, and have become the vane of trendy play and even trend.
China block brands
The top manufacturers of lego alternative brands in China are Sembo, Qman/Keeppley, Mould King and CADA.
Some others：
Happy build
Decool
GUDI
XINGBAO
KAZI
LOZ
SLUBAN
BANBAO
WOMA
SY bricks
The top choices for minifigures are WM brand, KORUIT and Xinh.
