Our friend Cool Play Trends has been closely following LEGO Ideas, and today he will bring you the latest updates on LEGO Ideas Donkey Kong.
P.S.: You can also check out this article to learn more about Donkey Kong.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The LEGO IDEAS Donkey Kong project, initiated by designer If You Build, reached 10,000 supporters on LEGO IDEAS a few weeks ago but has now officially been archived.
This set includes 800 pieces, featuring Donkey Kong and a minifigure of the female character Pauline. In 1980, Shigeru Miyamoto launched the Donkey Kong game at Nintendo, selling 65,000 units and becoming the most popular game of the year.
Subsequently, the game generated $120 million in profits for Nintendo, which led to a lawsuit by Universal Pictures in 1982, accusing Nintendo of copyright infringement. Nintendo ultimately won the case and was awarded $1.8 million in attorney fees.
Pauline:
In the Donkey Kong series, the female lead is Pauline. She first appeared in the 1981 version of the Donkey Kong game as the character kidnapped by Donkey Kong, whom the player must rescue by controlling Mario. Pauline has also appeared in subsequent games, such as Mario vs. Donkey Kong.
Designer If You Build once mentioned when recommending his MOC work: “Two of my happiest childhood memories are playing with LEGO and visiting arcades. That’s the main reason I designed this model—I wanted to create the Donkey Kong project by combining these two elements.”
Reason for Archiving
LEGO has not officially disclosed the reason for archiving the project, but it’s highly likely due to a conflict with the existing 71424 Donkey Kong’s Tree House Expansion Set available in LEGO stores. The LEGO IDEAS platform explicitly prohibits submissions that conflict with existing LEGO sets.
For the fan designer, this situation is rather unfortunate, as the project was submitted in July 2022, and there was no way to know that LEGO would release its own Donkey Kong set in 2023. However, this isn’t the first time such a situation has occurred. When submitting projects on the IDEAS platform, it’s advisable to avoid themes that overlap with LEGO’s current product lines, especially similar IPs.
It’s really a shame that such an interesting LEGO Ideas Donkey Kong set was archived. Have you come across any other cool Donkey Kong building block sets? Feel free to share them in the comments—let’s try to make up for this missed opportunity together!
