3/1/2013
For the last several years, Toy Fair was the evidence that technology would completely upend the toy industry. Whether adding an electronic component to board games such as Uno or building in more lights and sounds or, as seemed to be the case at the 2012 Toy Fair, having an app for every toy, it seemed as though every manufacturer was betting that children’s play patterns were changing in a way that absolutely demanded tech applications for every toy.
To some extent the focus is understandable: Today’s children grow up as digital natives. As of early 2013, 27% of U.S.?households with children ages 3-5 have an iPad. In those homes, 40% of the preschoolers use the device for educational apps, according to Nickelodeon and PBS.
As a result, toy makers have been developing new and innovative ways to incorporate technology into their products, sometimes successfully but often not. Toy industry leaders Mattel and Hasbro even trademarked special names to apply to app-enhanced toys that are used with mobile games and devices.
Digital Doesn’t Guarantee Success
Mattel CEO Bryan Stockton admitted in his 2013 Toy Fair presentation that his company’s “2012 Apptivity line had mixed results. But what we learned is it did better when we applied technology to traditional play patterns…Just being digital is not an end unto itself or a guarantee of being a success.”
Many of these initial technology enhancements were too advanced for users, say toy
analysts. Then there is the problem of “discoverability” – how parents or children find an app among the millions (literally) available. And many simply didn’t stand on their own as something a child would want to play with. The app itself has to have play value, even apart from the toy.
In that sense, these enhanced toys may have forgotten their core purpose as playthings. “Although toy play tends to be more social and digital play tends to be more solitary,” says Stockton, “toy play is better suited for friendship interactions, imaginative play, storytelling, as well as active play. Digital is an often more portable play pattern that children use to multitask or to fill in empty moments like riding in the car or waiting at the doctor’s office.”
Expense is another factor hindering mass acceptance. Adding an additional $10 to the price tag of a plush because of an augmented reality link is hard for cash-strapped parents to justify.
Nonetheless, toy makers aren’t backing away entirely from digitally-enhanced toys. They are just approaching these enhancements with selectivity, caution, and strategic rollouts.
For example, instead of tying a plush to a virtual world, toy makers are moving towards producing truly interactive plush:
- Spin Master’s Zoomer dog pees on command and responds to human commands.
- Ubooly turns an iPhone into an interactive stuffed plush animal.
- ZeptoLab is bridging the app/offline world with the augmented reality app “Om Nom: Candy Flick” that interacts with a plush toy.
- Hasbro is expanding on Furby with the Party Rockers platform that includes a karaoke app and a lower-priced Party Rockers plush line to interact with Furby.
One particular failure among this app toy craze was within the board game segment. “Spinning” a wheel on a tablet instead of a cardboard controller did not catch on with families. It also seems that more success came from apps transferring to the traditional game market than traditional board games incorporating digital tricks.
Riding that wave, USAolopy is releasing a Skylanders Monopoly game in summer 2013. And Hasbro is introducing a Bejeweled board game based on the Draw Something app.
Already on the market: Board games based on the apps Words With Friends, Draw Something, and, of course, Angry Birds.
“While many of our games can be made into an app, giving us incremental revenue, physical games cannot be replicated by an app and will always be in demand,” says Hasbro’s David Hargreaves. “You can’t play Twister on an iPad.”
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