The LEGO Ideas theme, which started in 2008 as an offshoot of the Japanese website Cuusoo, then formally known as LEGO Cuusoo, is based around a website which allows users to submit ideas for LEGO products to be turned into potential sets available commercially. If fellow users in the LEGO Ideas community up vote the project to 10000 then LEGO Group has a committee which votes on whether to build the set and release it. If the project is approved and cleared for production, it is developed and later released as an official set under the "LEGO Ideas" banner and the original designer receives 1% of the royalties and a number of free sets. Typically, a few projects are approved a year and most are rejected due to various restrictions.
2016 LEGO Sets
2016 saw some truly iconic releases with sets from Ghostbusters and the introduction of the Nexo Knights. LEGO also released the licensed, but short-lived The Angry Birds Movie theme. However, LEGO did discontinue Legends of Chima, Pirates and also the LEGO Simpsons which only did see a couple of sets. The Creator theme really shined in 2016 with the release of the Volkswagen Beetle (10252-1) and Big Ben (10253-1). The shining star that year for investors was certainly the Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters and pretty much all the Speed Champions sets which have seen growth in the triple digits.