I've thought about it,seen the videos, researched it, and came to a chilling conclusion. The Lego minifigures game will fail.
Why?
1.) Its just another generic mmo with a Lego skin over it.
-originally I thought the idea was for kids to buy "lego sets" in the real world(really a plastic card) that will let you access the set in the virtual world and build the set in the mmo with all the custom modifications that people love to do in the real world. Then you can take it into the lego world and interact with other "builders" in virtual lego worlds. People will try to build the coolest custom whatever (think minecraft) and the prized possessions/gear will be building blocks (the special pivoting block that's crucial to building the door hinges on your spaceship for example.) But no, its just another 6man/raid BS with lego figures instead of half naked chicks.
2.) Its been done. There already was a Lego MMO.. this was its fate.
http://universe.lego.com/en-us/help/faq.aspx?id=359551
3.) Bad MMO environment. These types of stale,over-done, generic MMOs will quickly die in an ultra-compeititive deeply saturated MMO scene. It's not that the MMO industry is dying (it's not but it's not growing either) but rather people are digging in (their first love mmo) or gravitating toward the next "it" MMO. So, unless you're EverQuest big or a really darn good F2P game(AoC is not true F2P, not the way they have it setup) chances of survival are slim to none.
Impact: This is where things get tricky. As you well know if Funcom goes down AoC may die as well (or hope we get sold to another company). But I'm not certain how important financially this Lego game is to FC's survival. I'm looking at their companies financial statements and it doesn't look like the Lego budget was too terribly big. But say it totally fails, what kind of impact would that have on the company? Do you believe Conan will take a hit?