Today LEGO and content-creation company Tongal are announcing their latest partnership. LEGO World Builder seems like it's meant to be a platform for people to suggest any LEGO-related ideas they have, whether it's a new playtheme, a new TV show, or anything else they can think of. If that sounds broad to you, you're not alone. It feels like this could open a lot of interesting opportunities for the fan community. To check out the full press release, read on.

The LEGO Group partners with Tongal to launch LEGO World Builder, a first-of-its-kind platform for developing stories, shows and more

The platform opens unprecedented, direct access to the LEGO creative team for a worldwide creator community, revolutionizing the way new talent and stories are discovered

Los Angeles and New York - August 24, 2020 The LEGO Group and content creation platform Tongal announced today the launch of LEGO World Builder, a first-of-its-kind story development platform that gives the LEGO fan community and creative talent all over the world direct access to the LEGO creative team to develop stories, shows, and more.

LEGO World Builder, designed in partnership with Tongal and powered by Tongal's technology, connects a worldwide creator community to the LEGO Group, who can incubate ideas, collaborate, give feedback, and option or buy the rights to new concepts. Anyone over the age of 18 can join the open community and pitch their own stories, or team up and collaborate on story worlds with other fans, writers, animators and designers on the platform.

Each year, thousands of creatives send the LEGO Group original ideas for new content and stories. LEGO World Builder is wholly dedicated to empowering this type of creativity. The platform will also include challenges from the LEGO creative teams, where fans can share their own spin on existing LEGO IP.

"The LEGO Group is known for innovation. As early adopters of open platforms, they have shown true leadership in engaging those who love their products throughout the creative process," said James DeJulio, Tongal Co-Founder and CEO. "They were one of the first organizations to adopt Tongal and our creative community, finding success developing and producing content on the platform, and now they have a dedicated environment to take it to the next level."

The LEGO Group has been leveraging Tongal and its virtual production capabilities since 2012, working with their global creative community to produce video content across social and into streaming.

"As our partner for many years, Tongal has provided us a way to engage with our creative community and LEGO World Builder is an extension of that," said Keith Malone, Sr. Director of Content Development at the LEGO Group. "We are privileged to be a brand that stands for creativity not only with our incredible products but also with the experiences we create for our fans. We hope the next Ninjago or LEGO Masters could come from this collaboration!"

Creators can go to worldbuilder.tongal.com to join the community, explore worlds and start creating.

Until I can see the fine print on what World Builder is, it's hard for me to say if I think it's a good thing or not. At a high level, it reminds me of LEGO Ideas all over again, but with an even broader scope and not voting required. There's also no talk of profit sharing like there is with LEGO Ideas sets. So while on one hand this could be a chance for fans to work with LEGO to create something awesome, it also seems like it could be a way for LEGO to avoid the suggestions people always send them anyway and then have the legal rights to any ideas they feel like using. I'm very curious to hear more and to see what the rest of the community thinks.

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