Now We Have Games, Whither Toys?
I know we talk about video games, like, all the time, but there's an interesting new CNet article asking: 'Has the toy industry screeched to a halt?', which is worth looking at for GSW readers.
Why so? It'd be this intro: "Some of the biggest attractions at the Toy Fair, which ran from Sunday through Wednesday at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, were Legos, action figures, Nerf guns, Barbie dolls, Klutz books, K-Nex building sets, and Transformers--all things that most twentysomethings and thirtysomethings would undoubtedly recognize from their younger years. Sure, some of the plastic pistols now have laser-sight features, and most of the action figures can talk, but these toys would still be far more recognizable to a child of the 1980s or '90s (or even '70s) than a Wii would be to a gamer who knew only the Super Nintendo system, or an iPod would be to a Walkman listener."
So what? "In short, the toy world seems to be evolving at a noticeably slower pace than the rest of this rapidly changing 21st-century world. And it raised the question for this reporter: is this a sign of healthy stability in the toy industry, or a sign that it may be losing ground to video games and the Internet?" An interesting question - how should the physical game biz act to keep up with the video game biz?
Comments
I don't know if the public will let them do such a thing right now. Once the video game industry reaches its first plateau, toys can experience a resurence in the public consciousness.
Posted by: GhaleonQ | February 16, 2007 12:54 PM
People aren't buying as many toys as they used to. This is evident by the full toy dept's and completely empty video game departments that I witnessed around christmas time in our area. Every toy had more than enough stock however the video game department was bone dry with not a nintendo system to be seen for weeks on end. People still buy toys for the 5 and under crowd but thats about it, older kids mostly get video games. Its almost becoming inacceptable to purchase toys for someone over 9-10 years old now because toys are not considered cool at that age yet ipods and playstations and nintendo ds lite's are. The only toys I saw people purchasing were radio controlled cars and other very high tech toys that are almost like video games.
Posted by: SaraAB87 | February 16, 2007 6:40 PM
I also find it interesting that toy companies like Lego continue to try to find growth within the video game biz - with some success of recent, too, after a long period of iffiness.
Posted by: simonc | February 16, 2007 7:49 PM
What I think a lot of people aren't considering is there really isn't any need to 'update' toys because once one generation moves past them they are all brand new for the next one! Plus I'm sure there are plenty of parents who love getting their kids the same stuff they had "oh man optimus prime, jimmy will love this". It's one of the few industries that can just keep presenting the same product over and over again as new.
Posted by: AnonymousGrue | February 18, 2007 4:45 AM
Physical toys are far from dead, but they do need to market themselves better, and manufacturers need to not abandon cool ideas so quickly after introducing them--a failing of the corporate mindset in general. My favorite building set growing up was Construx, a surprisingly durable girder-and-knot set that could be used to make some surprising large things. Alas, other than a half-hearted revival a few years back, Mattel has slid them back into the Dark Bag of IP, from which they will probably never be heard from again.
Posted by: John H. | February 19, 2007 12:06 AM
The funny thing is that after listening to this report on the CNET news podcast, I then listened to the Toy Fair report on NPR Technology's podcast, which was all about how advanced the technology was in the toys they saw...
Posted by: nick botulism | February 19, 2007 1:16 AM