Let's be honest, this isn't about protecting LEGO's toys - especially their licensed lines - from Chinese bootleggers. Lepin doesn't require the early, fuzzy images that LEGO Star Wars fans do cartwheels over. Nor do they need photos from toy fairs to start their production runs. It's pretty clear that they have far more elaborate networks and sources which allow them to get their cloned products on the shelves before LEGO has started to ship them from their factories.
The real reason, the piece suggests, is that previous early reveals have frustrated the LEGO Group's licensing partners:Control is the end-game here, and if industry rumours, and a number of pieces of circumstantial evidence, are to be believed then LEGO has received a number of pants down smacks from Disney regarding the early release of images from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
It is worth reading the piece in full at Rebelscum, for more speculation about the benefits – and drawbacks – to the LEGO Group exhibiting to media at such events.




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