Re-Inventing Hotwheels

garzpacho writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Gary Swisher, Mattel's Vice-President of Wheel Design, who talks about the challenges of designing new toys for today's tech-savvy kids. In addition to discussing 'the challenge of stewarding an old-school brand like HotWheels in our tech-driven age, the emerging technologies that will affect the toy industry, and Mattel's Web strategy,' he also talks about the effect that video games have had on toy design, and argues that exciting the imagination is the most important role that a toy can fill."

Comments

Why does everything need to be tech based?

[nachmore]

Just as long as they remember that you don't always need technology to excite the imagination we may actually see something new and innovative out there.

Lego bricks anyone?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[frosty_tsm]

Tell that to the children.

You know, the children who constantly play their gameboy wherever they go and possibly have lost the ability to enjoy the simplicity of non-technology based entertainment.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Moofie]

And thus repeateth the cycle.

People have been saying "Eh! Kids these days! Never amount to anything!" for approximately 6000 years. They've pretty much always been wrong.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[kfg]

Just as long as they remember that you don't always need technology to excite the imagination. . .

Like a corn husk doll and a chunk of wood. There's a kid in my neighborhood who always has some sort of stick in his hand when he walks by my house. The interesting thing is that it's always a different stick, but it's always a stick that in some way impresses me as being, well, cool.

I mean this kid doesn't just pick up any old stick and start waving it around. He's got himself a serious eye for just the right kind of stick. I actually find myself watching for him to see today's stick.

Batteries not included. Powered by the mind.

KFG

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[MrShaggy]

maybe its a specific stick because he is breaking into someones house?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[pw700z]

Context: I was born in 1976. Does anyone else find the tech stuff a "turn off"? If I want to play with tech stuff, I will play with my computer. If I want to play with toy cars, I want to play with ... TOY CARS!! Why in the world can't I buy my 3 year old a decent quality hot wheels/matchbox sized Dump truck? Or bull dozer? Or car that actually looks like a car that actually exists on this planet? Why do they all have to be "pimped out"? Or have crazy high tech styling? I remember when GI JOE was pretty realistic looking, then they got all spacey, and suddently it seemed stupid to try and play around in my back yard with them... And at hotwheels.com, or matchbox.com, why can i find a listing of their products, such as which cars they sell? What's wrong with realistic?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[DAldredge]

Not all kids are that way.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like you'd know. 'Your' children don't even look like you.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Bad D.N.A.]

the children who constantly play their gameboy wherever they go...

These kids are not the target, if they are then the company should hire a new CEO.

My kid plays with these things all the time. He knows about vidio games and badly wants to play them but he is only 4 and just cant get it right. I dont doubt that in a year or two the hot wheels will be in the closet and the game boy will be the hot property.
I think hot wheels has a strong but limited and temporary audience, they should understand that and focus on it.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[lawpoop]

Boy, that brings me back. I remember days of running through creeks and posion ivy in the woods, wielding sticks that served as guns at long range, swords at short range, and magic staffs and we had all maimed and killed each other.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Ohreally_factor]

When I was a kid, we had plenty of toys to play with that "excited our imaginations". However, it was just as fun to play with a cardboard box. (And we liked it that way!)

I'm sure there are still plenty of kids that get bored with whatever toy and turn to playing with the box in which it came.

Don't even get me started on bubble wrap.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[plover]

Why in the world can't I buy my 3 year old a decent quality hot wheels/matchbox sized Dump truck? Or bull dozer? Or car that actually looks like a car that actually exists on this planet? Why do they all have to be "pimped out"? Or have crazy high tech styling?

Context: I was born in 1962. (Yes, people really are that old.) When I was playing with Hot Wheels in the 1960s and 1970s, the cars were all "futuristic". Nobody wanted to play with a navy blue Chevy Impala when you could have a purple metallic-flake paint "Scorpion" or a "Stinger" with a plexiglas dome for the driver, looking more like a UFO than a car. Even the models of the current cars were "tricked out" with giant chrome air intakes poking out of the hood, and flame decals burning down the sides. They were indeed the "pimpmobiles" of their era. None of them looked like cars anybody I knew would ever own, or anything I'd seen anywhere but the Popular Mechanics photos of the Detroit Auto Show.

Matchbox, on the other hand, made the "realistic" vehicles. I had a dump truck that was obviously of British origin, which I always thought was kind of cool. And I played with those, too.

I suggest you get your kid some Hot Wheels anyway. When you sit down to play with him/her, the only person who cares if they're real or not will be you. You'll both be making "brrrm-brrm" noises soon enough, making little roads in the dirt, and the realism will not matter in the least.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Ohreally_factor]

You had sticks?

When we were kids, we had to attack each other with pieces of fruit! And tigers.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Andrew Kismet]

I'm 18, so still technically a child by some crazy countries' definitions.
I grew up with a Gameboy, a SNES, a Megadrive (Genesis for you yanks) and the cardboard boxes they came in.
As much as I love tech (as reading /. proves) I still know the value of other games. Just because technology increases doesn't mean fun develops a lower technology limit. A few boxes goes a long way...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[pw700z]

We have an assortment of toy cars, with which we do play. There is a place for the futuristic ... what makes me sad is what seems like a total lack of realistic toys - which (for me, as a child) had a seperate place and fosters a different type of play. Your are correct, hot wheels were/are the crazy ones; but have you seen matchbox these days? I don't know that they are any better.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Mr_Tulip]

The reason kids these days are more into Gameboys and iPods than trucks and footballs is that many parents these days can't be bothered to actually play with their kids .

Gameboys can be played solo, and it is much easier, as a parent, to buy your kid a gameboy and tell them to go play with it than to spend time with them.

A toy truck is a pretty boring toy in itself, but if you have several toy trucks, a few kids of the right age, and one or more helpful parents, I guarantee that it's a lot more fun than playing a gameboy solo.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know just what you mean. These young people with their fancy cell phones and PDAs just don't know how to have fun.

Check out how the Toy developers at http://www.realdoll.com/ use new technology to promote some good old-fashioned playtime.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Ohreally_factor]

You get off my lawn, Andrew Kismet! I know your mother! I'm going to call the police if you kids don't get off my lawn! =)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[CommunistHamster]

Lego mindstorms anyone? Albeit, in this case the technology is not the "hook", it is merely another way of giving lego more creative potential.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[zotz]

[[Context: I was born in 1976.]]

[Context: I was born in 1962. (Yes, people really are that old.)]

Context: I was born in 1959. ~;-)

I am not so sure about the hot wheels all being "tricked out" or "hot rodded" but I now have a 5 year old who just got a hot wheels pack with a 3 d figure 8 track with jumps and a launcher. These new deals might be cool if they worked consistently, but more often than not, the car does not make it around the track. It is a waste of time. Give me the clip on to the coffee table two tracks side by side for racing with a loop in the middle of each side. Gravity powered so pretty much nothing to break. Bring it back or tell me how to get it for my boy if it is still produced.

Now, as to the british stuff, matchbox was fine, but corgi cars were a bit bigger and they were top.

all the best,

drew
(da idea man)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[micrometer2003]

I can remember the hi-def, 3-d effect of simply looking out of a glass window, especially one in a moving vehicle. Kids just don't know what they're missing today!

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[arose]

I know your mother!

In the biblical sense?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[jank1887]

well, everyone else in the neighborhood does...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[JargonScott]

That's where Ertl comes in handy. They have realistic versions of non-road machinery (backhoes, dumptrucks, tractors) from Matchbox size all the way to huge sizes. My son has 2 tractors that have to weigh 10-12 pounds. Plus, they have plenty of accessories for the farm stuff, and they're all good quality metal with very little plastic.

Find yourself a John Deere dealership, and they'll usually have a big selection.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

"I think hot wheels has a strong but limited and temporary audience, they should understand that and focus on it." I actively "played" with Hot Wheels and Matchbox (and the occasional Johnny Lightening and Corgi) cars until I was 10-12. I had the playsets when I was younger, but as I got older we used to take those long strips of plastic track and run them down the stairs and make big jumps at the bottom.
I am almost 30, and when my kids (a boy and a girl, 3,5) want a hot wheels car I always give in. They are only a buck and are always at the register. It is one of the only toys my kids beg for that costs less than a cup of coffee, so I am happy about that.
As far as age goes- I know a lot of older guys that collect hot wheels. We dont zoom them around (not when other people can see) but they are fun and inexpensive (new- some of the vintage ones are expensive). My wife always puts a few in my Christmas stocking. I have a couple old camaros (1:1 scale...) so people always buy me Hot Wheels, Johnny Lightening etc. Camaros.
I don't think that hot wheels has a limited/temporary audience. Maybe for the playsets, but the cars are ageless. Also, I have seen the large scale super detailed hot wheels (the 1:24 scale). Those are for older "kids...)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[CaseyB]

I don't know where you're shopping. Over half my 3 year old's cars are "realistic"; he's actually recognizing more and more of them on the street every day. He got a box of all-realistic Maisto cars (noticeably lower quality than Hot Wheels, but still good) for Christmas, which has some really boring cars (Ford Explorer, Mercedes C-Class) mixed in with the Zondas and Vipers.

On the other hand, I don't see what there is to complain about in the pimped out / spacy realm either. The designers at Hot Wheels are frickin' AMAZING. You'll see more interesting ideas in 5 feet of shelf space at Toys R Us than in the last 30 years from Detroit.

For the product listing, try http://www.hotwheelscollectors.com instead.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Red Flayer]

I'm not so sure of that. My parents rarely had time to play with the kids, and the same is true for previous generations, IMHO. We amused ourselves outside because that was our best option. We wanted to play with the newest and coolest toys -- we just didn't have them, so we made do with building forts in the woods, playing tag, playing catch, etc.

I think you hit the nail on the nead, though, when you mention "a few kids of the right age." Larger houses, smaller families, and fear of predators have led to kids playing inside by themselves, or maybe with a sibling or one friend. Gone are the days of all the neighborhood's kids playing outside, unsupervised, in the afternoon.

I guess my main point here is that it's not parents not playing with their kids that is the issue -- it's kids playing solo. It's not like parents 50 years ago magically had more time to play with the kids, or more of a drive to play with their kids.

Then again, my perceptions are skewed -- I grew up on a farm with six kids.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[misfit815]

1975 here. It may have been a sign of my future as an anal-retentive programmer, but I hated all of those futuristic designs and pimped-out features. I wanted muscle cars and ferraris and trucks and tanks and police cars and fire trucks.

My 4yo son has a decent HW collection now. Some of them are whacked-out designs, thanks to gifts from family and friends. Many, though, are courtesy of yours truly. And he can tell the difference between the Chevelle and the Nova. His favorites? A BMW, a Ford GT, and a police car. That's my boy!

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[NatasRevol]

My 5 yr old just got this as well. It helps a LOT to stabilize not just the track, but the loop as well. You can actually hear the cars going around faster.

But then, it's not so much fun to just sit there with your hand on the loop, watching cars just go round & round.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[casmithva]

Why in the world can't I buy my 3 year old a decent quality hot wheels/matchbox sized Dump truck? Or bull dozer?

You can. My three year-old has an entire fleet of construction trucks that are Matchbox- or Hotwheels-sized. Admittedly some aren't made by either company, but I know for a fact that he has a really nice Matchbox dumptruck -- which, come to think of it, I think came with a construction set of some sort. 'Course, he also has an entire fleet of Hotwheels monster trucks. He puts that stuff together with his larger construction trucks, tractors, and a farm or two, and has hours of fun, sometimes with us, sometimes with his younger sister, or even just by himself. And, yes, we actually love to play with our children and they love it, too. And we can't just dump them in front of a TV and leave them be because they actually want to talk about whatever it is they're watching.

All that aside, though, I do think that Hotwheels and Matchbox need to do something to their fleet. So many of their cars these days seem like they don't do anything. When I was growing up (born in `71) I had a ton of cars from those companies that at least did something. Maybe they had a door or hood that opened or a dump bed that lifted up and down. Doesn't sound like much, but for a little boy that's a big deal and can do quite a bit to inspire imagination. And my son's taking after his old man. The cars that have working lights (yes, even some that are Matchbox- or Hotwheels-sized), moving parts, or even pull-back-n-launch or push-to-launch motors are his favorites. The trucks that you can buy at Hess gas stations around Christmastime are awesome trucks, and he loves 'em. The rest are merely obstacles in his monster truck races or fodder for his construction trucks or tractors.

His friends that come over to play who are raised on/by technology all go nuts over his comparatively primitive trucks. They understand trucks. They know they can do whatever they want with trucks. They're not confined by a game maker's rules, and the fun doesn't have to end after a few minutes or when the batteries die or when the power goes out.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[digidave]

And *that* is the problem with modern Hot Wheels.

My six year old got lots of Hot Wheels three years ago for X-Mas. He's got roads and mountain passes and all the cool stuff. The problem is that none of the new cars will actually go over the hills because they don't have enough ground clearance. Some of them won't make it down the mountain race track because they have giant spoilers that get stuck in the tunnel. Some are too wide to fit on the roads. Only two or three will make it down the race track and do the loop.

Of course, I gave my son all my old Hot Wheels. All of them will work with his new race tracks, including the loops and hills. They have higher ground clearance and go a lot faster.

So maybe what's wrong with Hot Wheels is that they care more about what the cars look like than making a product that works well. If my beat up 20+ year old cars are faster than any of the new ones and the new ones don't work well with the playsets, no wonder kids don't play with them much anymore. Mattel should just try to make them fun again.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[SloppyElvis]

TFA makes a dad like me think that HotWheels is surely doomed...

If you want realistic toy cars that are inexpensive, modelled and scaled after actual vehicles, and sized appropriately for small boys, go to Wal-mart. There is a manufacturer out of China (surprise, its Wal-mart), that builds 1:40 scale toy cars for about $1 per vehicle (a bit larger than your standard HotWheels car, a good fit for small hands). My son (almost 3) has a dozen of them and plays with them frequently.

Many of them have rubber tires, opening doors, and some have a simple low-tech rubberband mechanism where he can pull it back and it "drives" forward. I think the brand is something like "Kid Connection". They're in a light blue box - a bit generic looking. I couldn't find them on the Wal-Mart website, but they're in store.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[beaverfever]

Tell that to the brand managers.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[mooingyak]

I'm 18, so still technically a child by some crazy countries' definitions.

I too was once 18. I didn't think I was a child anymore when I was 18. But nowadays I certainly think I was still a child at 18. Doesn't mean that it applies to you, but I'd wonder what your take will be 10 years from now.

And for a topical comment:
I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old, and any number of tech-ish toys in the house. The 2 year old loves nothing more than playing laundry baskets and large cardboard boxes, and can usually wrangle her older sister into playing with them too.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[f0rtytw0]

What if I were to come at you with a banana?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[ClemensW]

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."

Now guess who said that?

Socrates, greek philosopher, 470-399 BC.

Very probably in his advanced years ;-)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[pimpimpim]

Please take a look at this page form february 2006. It shows some very nice toys that are actually based on technology, like the bug sound amplifier (bugs to be collected by the kid himself) a toy creator set, where you can mould your own toys. And some moldeable moon sand. All these modern technological toys really stimulate kids discorvering the world, and technology is in there, but not in the way. And dammit, I wish I had some of these things as a kid! By the way, lego also contains a lot of technology, one way (how come the bricks stick so nicely but are also easy to remove from eachother) or another (the new robotics sets).

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[brother_b]

I'm a little younger (1978), but one of the greatest toys ever was the old yellow "big hunk of metal" Tonka dump truck. Man, I loved mine. It's sad that they don't make it like they used to anymore. I also had some other metal vehicles including some that had been my dad's toys (born 1943) that were smaller, probably 1:24 scale or so. They had paint chipped and scratched everywhere and dings all over them but they didn't need electronic parts to be fun.

My current favorite toys are Transformers Alternators - they look like real cars with details but go back to one of my favorite toys from 20 years ago, the original Transfomers. The original Transformers are pretty clunky looking in comparison, but I got many an hour out of playing with those.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[OldeTimeGeek]

[[[Context: I was born in 1976.]]]

[[Context: I was born in 1962. (Yes, people really are that old.)]]

[Context: I was born in 1959. ~;-)]

Context: I was born in 1958 - I win! I guess...

I had one of those tracks that clipped on to the end of a table, too. I don't know how many hours we spent figuring out new and ultimately destructive (to the cars) ways to use it. We had a virtually endless supply of cars 'cause Shell gave away one free with each fill-up. Crash cars, stunt cars (a little lighter fluid and a match), blow up (firecrackers) and, sometimes, actually racing them. Then came the argument about who actually won...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't get over the fact that there are toy HUMMER's. Yeah, we're giving our kids a healthy apetite for status symols early on. When I was a kid I had a huge collection of toy cars and trucks. No hummers though. Actually, I think one of them was a gremlin.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[PhoenixPath]

Sounds like more a parenting issue than a problem with 'kids today'...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[ReidMaynard]

..you don't always need technology to excite the imagination.. When I was 12, my friend's older sisters excited my imagination.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else build toy car road networks in piles of flour as a kid?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[vdrummer85]

I'm in college and I have a 5 yr old brother who LOVES HotWheels cars. Not many of my collection survived to go to him (another brother in the middle), but he has dozens of them and plays with them all the time. That doesn't mean that he won't jump at the opportunity to play/watch me play any Star Wars game (particularly Battlefront 2). He enjoys playing with cars, Star Wars action figures, Legos, Brio trains, etc He uses his imagination quite a bit. The cool thing about the Legos is that someone used to have to build things for him, but now, he's learning to build on his own and coming up with some very interesting designs too.

He is very smart and can use a computer better than a few adults I know. One day, he got loose on a Windows XP box and managed to change the user's picture...all without being able to read...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Maybe you should look at the Johnny Lightning, American Muscle or Racing Champions brand of vehicles?RC2.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[operagost]

Hopefully this was a while ago-- he'd better learn how to read before entering school at five because (unless he goes to private) he sure won't learn there.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the world can't I buy my 3 year old a decent quality hot wheels/matchbox sized Dump truck?

Given the world we live in, you can't because:

- it infringes on someone's copyright.

- it may offend someone.

- if you but it, then OMG THE TERROWRISTS WILL WIN!

- it's illegal, we don't know why but we're not expected to know anyway.

- all of the above.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[operagost]

On a side note-- has anyone noticed how the quality of Matchbox has decreased since Mattel acquired it? The cars are made in China and I notice the lack of detail. Things like headlights and bumpers used to be separate chromed pieces of plastic and now they are just painted on with grey paint!

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[inKubus]

Specialty toy stores (such as the place in my sig) have all kinds of good stuff that works. The problem is that your Mattel stuff is for the "big box" retailer market (Walmart, etc) and is designed for the masses. It's pretty much made to be disposible, just like everything else in the store. If you go to a quality local purveyor or on the internet, you can find high quality toys that cost a little more but last longer, offer more fun value, etc.

My favorite items now are the 300(100,60)in one electronic kits and the slot cars. They still sell model trains and all kinds of cool steam engines and stuff out there. Just look. If you're only going as far as your local walmart, Toys'r'a'multibillion'dollar'business, or KB, you are only getting to see the crap made in china for pennies and not the quality stuff from europe, etc.

Of course, I am a toy fanatic. The kids have to go outside, no console for them EVER.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right on the money with Legos. Personally when I was young I would rather play with Legos or play a game of catch with a friend outside. I know my son is now the same way. There is always a place and a time for video games (console or handheld) but all of my fondest memories were with the old fashioned toy. And yes, I am young enough to still be a part of the "video game" generation.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[JohnFluxx]

I appreciate that you want to join in, but please check your facts first.

There is no evidence at all that Socrates said that at all. Probably some joker made it up in the 1950's then attributed it to Socrates.

Besides, there's no way Socrates would speak like that. This was 2500 years ago.

What Socrates did say however, on a similar line, is:

. . .
A boy must hold his tongue among his elders.
. . .
Greed was abhorred, it was taboo to snatch
Radish tops, aniseed, or parsley before your elders,
Or to nibble kickshaws and giggle and twine one's feet.
. . .
So, you shall learn to hate the Agora,
And shun the baths and feel ashamed of smut;
. . .
And to get up and give your seat to your elders,
And not to behave towards your parents rudely
. . .

John

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[RonTheHurler]

Oh yeah... I was born in 1960. Really. Not only that, but my parents refused to buy me those hot wheels or any of the other cool toys that the other kids in the 'hood were toting. Did I feel bad about it? I sure did. I spent a lot of time in the backyard, developing cooler toys of my own. I built catapults to fling my dog's poop into their yards, I built flying toys that really flew, and I made huts and other structures to shade me and my work from the sun. All out of scrap lumber I scrounged from construction sites. I learned engineering and problem solving. I learned how to use my dad's tools and other hardware. And I had fun doing it too.

My other friends who had all the cool toys eventually ended up in ho-hum jobs. One is a manager of a music store, one is a truck driver, etc. Out of them all. I was the only one who became an engineer and eventually started my own business. I am by far the most successful of them all.

What's the point of all this? Imagination isn't enough, kids also need to excercise their creativity and develop the drive to complete a project. They need a goal, one with a reward. Building a machine that hurled dog poop into my neighbors yard was an incredible reward for a ten year old kid!

That's my complaint with hot-wheels. What's the goal? The real toy isn't the car, it should be the tracks and the tunnels and the other things that make the toy interesting. You only need one kind of car for that.

So, in my business I make toys that kids can learn engineering from. I make and sell the catapult projects that helped me down that path towards becoming an engineer. http://www.catapultkits.com/
The reason I do it is because these days, and in the days to come, the world needs and will increasingly need good scientists and engineers who can think creatively and be resourceful, and that starts with the toys they play with as kids.

Old tech is just as good as new tech for getting kids to learn while they play! (as long as there's really a lesson in there somewhere.)

If you can't buy a catapult kit for your kid, at least give them some rope and sticks to play with sometimes. (legal disclaimer- Just be sure to supervise them at all times too. Ropes can strangle, and sticks can be used as weapons. They can also be used to make bridges and machines to pull tree stumps out of the ground, but I'll leave that as an excersize for the reader.)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[shmelly]

I played with the Impala, you insensitive clod.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[ObiWanKenblowme]

Maybe he carries the stick because he sees you staring out the window at him everyday... ;)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[tehcyder]

[[Context: I was born in 1976.]]

[Context: I was born in 1962. (Yes, people really are that old.)]

Context: I was born in 1959. ~;-)

I was really hoping for more of this thread, it could have been one of the greats, but no, the best /. could come up with was 3 child posts, stopping at 1959, not even 50 years ago. Pathetic.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up with video games and we still played outside a lot, building forts and everything you said. Parents are to blame if kids don't play outside all afternoon now. These parents are just too scared. I live in a pretty rich and very secure area in the suburbs now but the paranoiah level is way hihger than when we lived in the city. Your perceptions aren't skewed.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Eternauta3k]

If a kid nowadays wants to build with legoS or build airplanes, he can. Thing is, what % does? This leads to lego releasing robotic sets without backwards-compatibility so they can have another wave of income, blablabla, I want my regular legos.

PS: legos legos legos
PPS: yes, I said legos

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[brunson]

Socrates never would have said that, he was Greek, so he would have spoken Greek. Geez.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[wed128]

Why not? I learned to read in 1st grade of public school. In New Jersey no less.

Public school systems, while definately lacking in some districts, are not all bad.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[shawn(at)fsu]

My nephew who is still young likes playing with his hotwheels cars and playsets just as much as his gameboy.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[ardin,mcallister]

Don't forget kneeling in the dump truck and flying around the house on it til you ran into a coffee table or down the stairs!

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[tddoog]

What if I were to come at you with a banana?

And that sir, is why they don't let kids play outside alone anymore.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[geekoid]

except this is the first time in 6000 years where a toy activily interacts with the child.
Watchuing children play these games it become abundantly clear that it is incredible difficult for them to stop.

AS a parent, I limit my childs electronic game time.
I Also limit their TV(we actual only have dvd's, no cable or sat.)

Funny, until I had kids I wuold have thought that unnessesary, but closley watching kids, and seeing the immediate impact on them has made me change my mind.

No, it's not because I am getting older, I always expected kids to behave like kids have.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Great Beyond]

Of course, I am a toy fanatic. The kids have to go outside, no console for them EVER.

Now here's what I dont get. I had an Atari 2600 when I was a kid (context: born in 1969, so I'm just a baby compared to some of you). And while yes I did play HOURS on the console, I would also go outside, play with other kids ride a bike as fast as I could (sans helmet, thank you), and climb trees. I also played indoors a lot - board games, star wars figures, hand held games and whatnot.

The key, people? Balance! All things in equilibrium. Too much of any one thing is bad. Sometimes you just have to run home after school, turn on cartoons, veg on He-Man and Transformers for the whole afternoon before finally going out to play cowboys and indians before the sun set and it was time for dinner.

Don't hate the game consoles. Hate the kids who cant put them down (or the parents who dont make them put it down)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Moofie]

Hmm...it's like this idea I heard of once... "everything in moderation".

Must be a brand new notion, that. Nobody from, like, 3000 years ago would think that. Like Plato. Nah.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[blugu64]

I agree with you, though I take it even a step further, I don't even have a TV set! I do have basic cable though (go figure it's cheaper to get Cable Internet with Basic Cable then just Cable Internet). No kids or anything, single actually. After I moved to college I didn't have a TV, and basicly cold-turkey dropped TV, and ya I wanted a TV for the first couple months, but after a couple more months I realized that I didn't miss it too much. Now 4 years later I can barly stand it because most of it isn't very good, and I don't feel like spending 15+ min on the hour watching commercials or finding things to do while commercials are on. Instead I read books (90%+ non-fiction, though I've got a soft spot for Arthur C. Clarke), and listen to music (Vinyl and Sirius, mostly). If I ever have kids...I'd like them to at least know what life is like without the TV/VideoGames. I wouldn't mind the watching TV/playing VideoGames in moderation, but I'd want them to make an educated decision about it (When they get older I mean)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[kchrist]

If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[cr0sh]

I'm a little younger (1978), but one of the greatest toys ever was the old yellow "big hunk of metal" Tonka dump truck.

Oh, man, are you bringing back memories - those trucks were the greatest, you could do crazy stuff with them that would make today's toys just fall apart. I remember sticking a brick in the back of mine, running with it down the dirt path in my backyard and launching it off a dirt ramp. End-over-end tumbling action, and nothing broken whatsoever!

Eventually, all the paint chipped off, the plastic windows busted out - but overall it stayed in playable condition...

Man, I loved mine. It's sad that they don't make it like they used to anymore.

No, they don't, and unfortunately my mom got rid of mine in time. If I had it today, I could probably sell it for $100.00 (if it was mint, I could sell it for much, much more).

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[plover]

I make and sell the catapult projects that helped me

Nice toys!

at least give them some rope and sticks to play with

Since city kids don't seem get enough of that at home these days, we call it the Pioneering Merit Badge and get them to do it in Boy Scouts. One of the highlights of being involved in scouting is going to a scout fair and seeing the lashing projects. I've seen kids lash up a pair of 12 foot towers and hang an Indiana Jones style log bridge between them. I've seen kids lash together a working drawbridge, and a crane. And we've organized contests where the kids have to lash together catapults and launch water balloons at each other. Someone even had a project to lash up a "pirate ship" at camp one year (playground equipment sized), and every single 11 year old boy who saw it had to go play on it.

Privately, I've heard some mortified parents' reactions: "How could they let the kids climb that thing?" In reality, the worst injury I've seen from anything like that has been a bruise or a sprain from a fall, never even a broken bone from any of this stuff. (The only broken bones I was ever around for were from the tag- or tackle- based group games.)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[edis]

possibly have lost the ability to enjoy the simplicity of non-technology based entertainment

Not true. Being games/toys addict and having some children around to care for and observe, I must admit, that it is LEGO Mindstorms, that is still awaiting for the prime time on the shelf, when great idea-based games like Ligretto, Zicke Zacke Huehnerkacke, Zapp Zerapp, Cluedo, Die Siedler von Catan, Lego, Lasy, Abalone, Pusher are all played constantly, Quercetty is another manufacturer, that is trusted and admired here. You just have to let them experience other worlds, do they still have this ability, are their parents, friends, whatever capable of introducing them to real stuff?

OTOH, Dreamcast is very appreciated console for them (and me), and I see no proper replacement for it yet.

I guess, main qualities for the perfect game/toy are simplicity, exciting idea, manufacturing quality, and yet ability to create that tense, competing (or, probably, different) atmosphere, still provide opportunity to experience phenomena of socializing around it.

Speaking particularly about Mattel - they should be having hard time, as they have been very detached fom those goals (commerce is not about them).

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[SABME]

Go ahead, Mr. Apricot; brandish that raspberry, be as viscious with it as you like ...

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[vdrummer85]

He'll be homeschooled starting this fall and so he will definitely learn to read. I was homeschooled K-12 and while there are a few areas where doing everything at home is not the best solution (chem/bio/other science labs & some social activities), I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[inKubus]

Yeah, I agree. I figure it'll be over at a friend's house playing, so at least I know when they are around they aren't playing. Thus balance. Home/Out balance also.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Pxtl]

Yep. I'm older than you - started off with a C64 and was a complete video-game addict for most of my childhood, but I got along with my lego too.

Now, one thing I always wanted as a kid: a good, solid set of remote controlled-cars that (a) didn't cost an arm and a leg, (b) didn't interfere with each other, and (c) were small enough that could actually use them in your back yard. A lap timer so you could do time trials would be cool too. But every store sold cars that were huge/expensive, or that retarded "2-function" thing that introduced small children to the word "scam". And even if you and your friends had huge monster cars, they couldn't race because one was too fast or the frequencies argued. Last time I was in a Source/Radio Shack, I finally saw that my prayers were answered - remote controlled cars that actually let kids race against each other (cheap, compatible, and small enough to build a track in your back yard).... and now I'm too old to enjoy them. To me, this is a high-tech toy market Hotwheels could explore.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Ohreally_factor]

I'd shoot you with a hand gun, then eat the banana, thereby disarming you, the assailant. Now, did we already do grapes?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[zotz]

"I was really hoping for more of this thread, it could have been one of the greats, but no, the best /. could come up with was 3 child posts, stopping at 1959, not even 50 years ago. Pathetic."

Weeny, Weedy, Weaky.

Does that make you any happier?

all the best,

drew
(da idea man)

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Matchbox has gone to hell. Used to be that the Hot Wheels brand had all the crazy designs and shoddy workmanship and Matchbox had the well-made realistic cars.

But it actually started changing when Matchbox started moving production from England to the new factories in Macau and Singapore, etc, in the late 70's.

Of course, all hell broke loose when Mattel acquired the brand. Matchbox is nothing like it used to be. It actually resembles the old Hot Wheels line, and the current Hot Wheels is much closer to the old Matchbox. They've sort of swapped places.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[double07]

Yeah and we all know what happened to the Ancient Greek civilisation.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[Lotharus]

...and now I'm too old to enjoy them.

Why?

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[l33t_f33t]

[[[[Context: I was born in 1976.]]]]

[[[Context: I was born in 1962. (Yes, people really are that old.)]]]

[[Context: I was born in 1959. ~;-)]]

[Context: I was born in 1958 - I win! I guess...]

Context: I was born in 1991- I think I win personally.

When I was a little kid we still had the generic traks, I think they only got rid of them about 5 years ago. But we had an upgrade to gravity - forget about the electrisity munching 'Power Launchers' The greatest addition to the toy-car racing stuff has to be a small product called: 'Cars go fast' Not an original name, but certainly a true one.

No confusing electrics, or moving parts, just a small section of track, a plastic plunger, and an elsatic band. Just about anything could fit in it, from hot-whels to Tonka trucks, and it had a connector so that you could hook it onto generic track. It allowed you to end up about a foot above where you started, or just make them go really fast, I remember pointing the track out of a first-floor windo and having competitions on how far the cars would fly out of it. Good memories...

pffft "reinvention" ... just bring back lead paint

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Lead paint makes small die cast toys taste good and that will be good for business.

Memories

[alphax45]

I still remember being a kid and setting up huge tracks that went all the way from the 2nd floor to the basement. I had a ton of track :) Good times.

Re:Memories

[TenLow]

Never had a multi story house to play in, but when my grandparents were getting their pool redone, we had the best track setup EVER going into the empty pool. When we were told to stop playing with the track in the pool we put it away. Then went back to the pool with the cars and tried to launch them out of the pool. Never did work cause there was a lip on the edge of the pool, but it sure was fun.

Re:Memories

[dsa157]

This was what I wanted to do with my son a few years ago when he was into Hot Wheels. One of the problems I found was that you couldn't just buy a whole lot of plain track and connectors, you had to buy all the different sets that had a bunch of stuff we didn't want. Mattel should keep it simple.

Dave

I buy hotwheels cars practically every other day

[LiquidCoooled]

They don't need to reinvent themselves because they are perfect as they are.

My youngest is a clutcher and takes a car with him to school every day.
Most days he doesn't come back with one, or if he does still have one, you can bet it wasn't the one he took.

Glad to hear this:

[kassemi]

FTA: [On video games] They aren't the imaginative play that toys are. That's a sad thing for us.

Thank god someone making these toys sees that. Shoving loads of useless, yet focus-grabbing information in front of a kids face is going to destroy that child's ability to actually create. Imagination should be nurtured, and the only way to do that is to force these kids to find a way to pre-occupy their own minds. My hat's off to you, Mattel.

Re:Glad to hear this:

[YrWrstNtmr]

Shoving loads of useless, yet focus-grabbing information in front of a kids face is going to destroy that child's ability to actually create.

Unfortunately, imagination is secondary to sales.

Re:Glad to hear this:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they want. Creativity allows people to imagine a better life than that which our corporate feudal masters are willing to provide us with. If you ruin a child's imagination, they'll never get it back as an adult and they will be nice and compliant for life.

Re:Glad to hear this:

[StarkRG]

Yeah, too bad most adults don't have much imagination either... In fact, most adults don't seem to have matured past 8 years old... while most of my 6 year old Japanese students were quite well behaved... (Of course my 13 and 14 year old class was the worst of them all...)

Re:Glad to hear this:

[Anonymous Coward]

KANCHO!

Re:Glad to hear this:

[Aladrin]

I have to disagree with this. Have you SEEN some of the things people do with games, taking them 'out of the box'?

And let's not forget games like The Sims. What started out as a simple 'wander around and be bored' game turned into a HUGE 'make-your-own-stuff' game. (Disclaimer: I wrote the first mesh converter for The Sims.) People have added all kinds of things to that game, from simple wings (me!) to entirely different avatars (robots, etc) and many, many kinds of furniture and even scripted objects. You can't tell me there's no imagination being used there.

And now that companies support this (Second Life) it is easy for any child old enough to use a computer to do.

Don't blame the companies for toys that 'kill imagination'. Blame the people who buy those toys. There are still PLENTY of toys out there that encourage imagination. Play Doh, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Lego, etc.

Another poster also said that when he was a kid, a towel and a stick was a cape and sword and he was He-Man. Newsflash: Those items still exist. There are just other choices as well. I was born like 15 years later than him, and I still did the cape thing with a towel. In fact, I believe I recall my nephews (another 15 years later) doing the same thing when they were small.

It's nice to blame mega-corps for our perceived problems, but maybe we should focus a little more on paying attention to our children, instead of complaining that the mega-corps don't.

Re:Glad to hear this:

[schon]

Have you SEEN some of the things people do with games, taking them 'out of the box'?

Usually they just put them in the console. :o)

Wheel Design

[Orestesx]

...no need to reinvent the wheel.

general-purpose sets

[bcrowell]

I had a general-purpose hotwheels set when I was a kid, and it was great. I still remember some of the stuff I did, like starting the track on a shelf way up high in the kitchen and running it down and all the way across the apartment, and taping fireworks to the back of the cars with my friend in second grade. I wanted to get hotwheels for my kids, but all they seem to sell these days is dopey little special-purpose sets that you can only do one thing with.

Re:general-purpose sets

[night_flyer]

you definitally arent looking in the right places...

Re:general-purpose sets

[Edax Rarem]

Check ebay for the old school sets of just track, the loop, and a couple of ramps.
I just found the set from '74 and it was only $20 (+$10 for shipping). I got it for my 2 year old, but really... It's for me.

Re:general-purpose sets

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to Toys R US, where they sell track by the piece... (and have done so for some time now...). They also sell cars by themselves practically everywhere, with some places even selling five-cars-to-a pack... My son (11 years old) STILL loves his Hot Wheels, even though he has a GameBoy Advance, a laptop computer, AND an desktop computer. I'd also bet a dollar that he has at least one in his pocket right now (if it isn't out of his pocket being used for play, complete with "brmmm-brmmm" sounds from his mouth).

Matchbox still makes cars, too, that look more realistic, as does "Speed Wheels," which is sold (cheaply, and also are made cheaply) at local Wal-greens stores.

Exciting the imagination

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

What about providing scope to explore and develop new skills?

From kittens playing hide and seek, to puppies playing tug of war, to human kids playing house, play is how mammals learn. That's why they're programmed to dedicate such immense levels of energy to it.

Are any of the Mattel toys as good for a kid as Legos would be?

Re:Exciting the imagination

[himurabattousai]

In the preface of the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" Technical Manual, the authors go out of their way to make the point that the USS Enterprise was first and foremost a vehicle of the imagination. The starship could go anywhere that one wanted it to go, so long as he put more than two braincells into the voyage.

The same applies to toys like Legos and HotWheels. I used Legos for all sorts of things that they weren't originally intended for--like souping up Domino Rally layouts. I took my HotWheels cars to places that never existed. Some of the Lego men were privileged enough to get to drive the larger die-cast cars. Sometimes, the stories I made up made absolutely no sense. Now that I'm old enough to drive, I don't need the little cars to go exploring, but I still have a few to remind me of when all I needed to escape from real life (through the eyes of an eight-year-old) was some cheezy engine noises.

Video games aren't all bad in small doses, but their major shortcoming is that someone else took care of the "exciting the imagination" part of play. What's left are the consequences of actions that the programmers don't approve of. It's a subtle form of indoctrination into the mentality of "follow the rules and don't think for yourself." Children need to stretch their minds, and too many hours playing "XYZ video game" serves only to box the mind into a cubbyhole where it could be exploited later.

Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[walnutmon]

I think it is possible that all this technology is actually going to make toys shittier. What was great about being a kid is you could have something very simple and make it fun with your imagination... I remember when a towel was a cape, and a plastic sword made me HeMan "I HAVE THE POWER!".

The problem with technology is that it makes it easy to complicate things to a point where you can't take the toy in the direction your imagination wants to go. I used to love action figures that were plain, and could move in all directions, simply because I could use them to do anything... I even had GI Joe Football games.

Seems like technology should be used in CREATING toys, not actually in the toys themselves. I don't need action figures or wrestling buddies with voices and changing facial expressions, what if i want the toy doll to be my hated enemy who I must fight in a steel cage match? Nothing worse than dropping bows from the top rope only to hear some stupid voice say "I am hulk hogan, eat your vitamins!".

Of course kids are losing a lot of the fun toys because of the tendency to pull toys from the market that focus on violence. How else are kids going to get rid of the evil guys? Diplomacy? Bullshit, our government can't even get that to work.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[Moofie]

And the generation before you didn't have a plastic sword, they had two pieces of wood nailed together. And the generation before that just had a stick.

Just because the toys have changed doesn't make the children less imaginative.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[Anonymous Coward]

#if defined CRUMUDGEON

Comming from somewhere between 'a stick' and 'two pieces of wood nailed together', AND raising a kid who had a plastic sword, I can assure you that you don't know what you're talking about.

#endif

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[Moofie]

Coming from somebody who can't spell "coming", I don't think much of your opinion. But thanks for sharing it.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

I remember when towels were capes and plastic swords were the 1337. Then I figured out hour to turn the scrap metal in the back yard into weaponry. It amused my parents for about 5 minutes.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[MustardMan]

Have you ever seen www.stikfas.com? These are some of the coolest toys I've ever seen - buy a couple of kits and you can create crazy battles between normal guys, or crazy battles between crazy six armed beasts. I've completely replaced my retro action figure shelf decorations with stikfas. I wish they had toys like these when I was a kid, I would have been ALL OVER that shit.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[pigwin32]

My kids favourite toys are their little plastic animals, the ones that have no moving parts and feel really great in your hand. And yeah they go everywhere with us.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[Eivind]

Thinking back, most of the things I played with as a kid was not toys at all. A tree is no toy. A stream, a lake, an empty barrel, 100 feet of rope, a saw, a bike, a fish, a path, a bunch of planks, a screwdriver, a stick. None of these objects are toys. Though all of them can be used for play.

I think it' silly how so many parents shut their kids away in their own separate universe with brigthly-coloured, but ultimately useless "toys", that ultimately acomplish nothing. Kids these days tend to have plastic saws, plastic screwdrivers, plastic hammers, plastic cooking-pans none of which actually do what these objects normally do.

Now I'm a parent myself, for a two year old son. And given the same choice, real or "toy" he'll go for real every time. "playing" kitchen cannot measure up to actually go in the kitchen and make a cake, or a bread, or dinner. The "toy" screwdriver is no fun, the real one is different, it *works*.

Thing is, real objects can frequently be dangerous, if used improperly. So they tend to require that you spend time with your child, that you have patience. That you accept needing to wipe the kitchen-floor again, for the third time today. The toy, on the other hand, you can generally relatively safely let your kid handle alone with minimal supervision.

Lots of "toys" seem to be made more for the parents than for the kids.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[elrous0]

The problem with technology is that it makes it easy to complicate things to a point where you can't take the toy in the direction your imagination wants to go.

That's a problem I have with many video games. The best ones let you think of creative ways to do things, to explore, to do tasks out of order, to choose your own path, etc. The worst are the games where you feel like you're on a set track with little or no deviation.

This is why I love games like Oblivion, WoW, Guild Wars, Second Life, etc. and hate games like Doom 3.

-Eric

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[kabocox]

Of course kids are losing a lot of the fun toys because of the tendency to pull toys from the market that focus on violence. How else are kids going to get rid of the evil guys? Diplomacy? Bullshit, our government can't even get that to work.

Dude, don't tell me that your "good guys" actually captured, and killed the evil bad guy? That's against union rules. After any small adventure the evil villian must be let go or escape so more adventures for the "good guys" can happen. Diplomacy might rock. You'd just make all the "good guys" black ops soliders sent out to kill the evil villian if you fail your government would claim no knowledge of your actions. Yeah, that'd be much more releastic.

Re:Technology COULD Limit Imagination

[tehcyder]

a lake, an empty barrel, 100 feet of rope, a saw, a bike, a fish, a path, a bunch of planks, a screwdriver, a stick

I'm pretty sure that's how they end the list in serial killer films when they're doing the profiling:-

The perpetrator is a white male in his 20s to 30s, of above average intelligence, probably living alone, has difficulty holding down a steady job, may have been arrested for arson as a teenager, used to wet the bed as an infant, and as a child used to play in a lake, (with) an empty barrel, 100 feet of rope, a saw, a bike, a fish, a path, a bunch of planks, a screwdriver, (and) a stick.

Bingo - that's it exactly

[Weaselmancer]

Back In The Day(tm) you bought Hot Wheels and it was up to you to determine what they did. Could you make a track that would make them do a loop? Make it all the way down into the basement without jumping the track? And along the way you learned a lot about how the world worked. Notice how the car can never get higher than its starting point without a push? When I read about potential and kinetic energy in high school first thing I thought was "Aha! The Hot Wheels problem! I've seen this before."

But nowadays (opposite of BITD, see above) the sets only do one thing. The idea is to maximize revenue. A kid gets hooked on Hot Wheels and they buy set A. They do everything set A can do, then they have to buy set B. And of course, sets A and B are not compatible.

And that's what is wrong with todays sets. No room to grow with them. Of course they get boring quick - that's part of the revenue model. They're designed not to hold your interest very long - you can only do one thing per set. Don't confuse poor toy design with ADHD or video game addiction. You are making a more boring product these days. Your revenue-maximizing model you've fallen in love with is the broken part. Go back to making general sets as well as your special kits and you'll see interest in Hot Wheels perk back up I'll bet.

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod Parent up.

Want to increase imagination. Bring back the fricken Purple C-clamp.

When I was a kid my friends and I combined our track & attached it to our basketball hoop, over my dad's van and down the driveway. it took a little doing to get it before the cars would fall off the track but we all remember racing our best cars against each other.

-jw

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[CastrTroy]

I agree. I think the one thing that they don't sell is the one thing that everybody wants. It's much harder to find a box of miscelaneous generic lego than it is to find the sets. It's almost impossible to find generic hot wheels track pieces that kids can put together on their own to create their own track designs. At least you can still get crayons and blank paper.

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[Aceticon]

And that's what is wrong with todays sets. No room to grow with them. Of course they get boring quick - that's part of the revenue model. They're designed not to hold your interest very long - you can only do one thing per set. Don't confuse poor toy design with ADHD or video game addiction. You are making a more boring product these days. Your revenue-maximizing model you've fallen in love with is the broken part. Go back to making general sets as well as your special kits and you'll see interest in Hot Wheels perk back up I'll bet.

Same problem with Legos.

I stopped giving Legos to my friends' kids because of that :(

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[zotz]

In keeping with you post and the parent post: Hear! Hear! You have hit the nail on the head.

See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=191458&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=15735264#157355 56

"Go back to making general sets as well as your special kits and you'll see interest in Hot Wheels perk back up I'll bet."

Indeed, so their revenue maximizing model is self defeating at least in my case as I am not going to buy my son any more of these special purpose sets.

As I point out, another issue I have with the special purpose sets is that they often don't work well.

I wonder if they are listening... (I hope for thier sake and for my son's that they are.)

(Be sure to make the track sections without the tongues and then have those seperate little tongoes to join them.)

all the best,

drew
(da idea man)

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[myth24601]

I had legos as a kid and the sets usually ended up ploped into a box that held the legos. I think my older brother put one together for me one time to build a fire boat but soon after that I had it totally rearranged into the ultimate Star Blazers Space Battleship!

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[hurfy]

And who ever said it's not an outdoor toy ;)

I still remember having a party with the Hot Wheels track going from the fence on one side to the end of the yard on the other and the launch set as high as we could reach :) I was the local racetrack for the neighbor kids. We used to play Indy with the sizzlers, still remember being Johnny Rutherford with the little blue indy car. (Gotta love the internet tho, now i can buy new batteries for the darn sizzlers (and tires for my slot cars) finally)

Still have em all too and i was 7 when HoT Wheels came out so the collection starts at the begining :)

Or maybe the recollections are simply better when you find you now have $1000's in old toys hehe ;) Dozens and dozens of 60's-70's Hot wheels and Matchbox. Matchbox car transports were epecially handy for make believe.

But yes, Generic playsets for many of these toys are harder to find than they should be now. The comments on the LEgo sets are dead on too, why is a box of bricks usually special order but single use sets are available by the shelf-full ;(

Re:Bingo - that's it exactly

[PitaBred]

Lego is starting to realize that.

hopefully

[hawfizzle]

with negroponte's laptop freebie-thing, the kids of the future will hopefully be programming infrastructures and desiging better networks. networked digital interaction is the (near)infinite playground, it is play on a level completely different from physical play.

Re:hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

That of course assumes there's enough electricity when they grow up to supply their network infrastructure with power. And until designing networks is more fun for kids than climbing trees, the trees win.

Re:hopefully

[hawfizzle]

uhh, that would be me, having spent 10/14 of my bipedal years in front of a computer/interweb, and much less time in the backyard pine tree.

Changing times call for changing business model

[path_man]

Lego is a great example of adapting to the changing world. For example, a few years back when they were all the rage, my son had upwards of 20 bionicle Lego sets. These are the kits that let you build robot-like guys with ball-and-socket joints and interchangeable arms/legs/heads/weapons.

These are a long ways from the red and blue square blocks that Lego made when I was a kid, yet the idea was the same: give a kid a kit that they can primarily build the picture on the box with, but the ability to adapt a few kits into something all together different. My son built everything from hover-crafts to star-wars droids to ultra-mega-bionicle-man.

Not to crack on Mattel, but the core hotwheels concept is die-cast metal cars that resemble the real things. The only "innovation" that I see them coming up with is the new H3 with pimp spinners, a lift kit, and gold trim. Unless they come up with something like Lego has with the shift away from their legacy product and into a new Internet age toy, Mattel will be doomed to a niche of kids who really dig cars (arguably a shrinking demographic...)

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[Red Flayer]

Sure, Lego has three main lines now -- Legos, Bionicle, and Technik (sp?).

But most of Legos "innovation" now comes not from new products, but from licensing. I recently went to a Lego store for the first time (awesome! the only problem was I didn't have a kid with me, so it would have creeped people out if I stayed there too long...) and was amazed at what was available... for $60-$100. Star Wars, Batman, etc.

Lego's patent is expiring/has expired. The shift to Bionicle and Technik reflects the concern that basic Legos will be facing cheap competition in the very near future. The shift to licensed subjects for kits also addresses this issue. I'll be able to buy basic "legos" for next to nothing... but if I want that AT-ST Lego model, I'll be paying through the nose for it.

That said, does anyone recall what happened to Fischer-Technik? Those were the most amazing toys when I was growing up... expensive, but I got a solid foundation in mechanics from play.

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[Metropolitan]

Something to keep in mind: recently, the company that makes Legos had to shift it's thinking about their products, since they realized what they made had become too specialized, and was appealing to a narrower and narrower set of buyers (an alarming number of whom were way outside their original target range of younger than 16). They were watching their marketshare, and the number of toys they could sell, erode. There for a while it was nearly impossible to get a large generic set of Lego blocks at a retailer. Fortunately, those running the company realized this, and began to change the way they designed and marketed their products.

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[cr0sh]

That said, does anyone recall what happened to Fischer-Technik? Those were the most amazing toys when I was growing up... expensive, but I got a solid foundation in mechanics from play.

You must have been a very lucky kid or lived in Europe :) - those were (still are) expensive kits. As far as I know, they are still being made and sold, but they are difficult to find here in the US (not like they have ever been easy to find). I know that Fry's Electronics sold a few them at one time (right next to the Tamiaya motors) - not sure if they still do, but that is the only B&M store I have seen that carries them here.

Here is a place I found by googling - I am sure there are other online stores which sell FT as well...

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[boingo82]

Lego's patent is expiring/has expired. The shift to Bionicle and Technik reflects the concern that basic Legos will be facing cheap competition in the very near future. The shift to licensed subjects for kits also addresses this issue. I'll be able to buy basic "legos" for next to nothing... but if I want that AT-ST Lego model, I'll be paying through the nose for it.

They already have those. They're called "Megablocks", and they've been competing with (and compatible with) LEGO for at least 20 years now.

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[Red Flayer]

I used to save up my allowance ($1 per week) for 20-30 weeks to buy a kit. My parents were nice enough to pay shipping from Germany.

Technology has changed us

[Harmonious Botch]

Those uf us who have sampled the intellectual delights of high tech can no longer be fascina...oooh...SHINY..

Open standards related reply.

[B5_geek]

I am 32 years old now. When I was a kid I had a several Hot Wheels cars, and a maybe a couple of cheap imitations. What annoyed the hell out of me at even a tender young age, was that not all of my cars would work with the tracks that I got. I was MOST annoyed that only 1-2 would work wiht the custom tracks that I put together from all the different tracks that I had.

How could I setup a decent testing methodology of speed/flight with only 1 car!! (yes, I was a geek even then)

So, I told my mother to stop buying them for me because it was a waste of money that if I couldn't use all of my cars on all of the tracks, I didn't want it.

Re:Open standards related reply.

[bigkahunafish]

What annoyed the hell out of me at even a tender young age, was that not all of my cars would work with the tracks that I got. I was MOST annoyed that only 1-2 would work wiht the custom tracks that I put together from all the different tracks that I had.

Yes, but kids like me, would put the stuff that didnt fit on the track and make it go down the stairs anyway and laugh when it just fell off at the first jump.

I also put airplanes, plastic animals, etc down the track, just for fun. Its amazing how much you learn doing that... "Wheels make something go down track faster." Yea... I was a smart kid.

Re:Open standards related reply.

[pimpimpim]

Yeah, but did you see their new radar gun? This time you could actually measure the speed, measure the distance that it travelled and compare (draw graphs of the trajectory if you want to). Does someone know if it works as a generic radar gun, and until what distances? Could be pretty cool for kids that want to do physics experiments!

Re:Open standards related reply.

[cr0sh]

I am about the same age as you, and I know what you mean. However, most of my stuff worked together. My parents went the opposite way one year, though - they bought me a *more expensive* set: one of the super insane Darda Demons track and a couple of cars. These kits were not cheap (still aren't, last time I saw one) - but boy were those cars lightning quick! Tons of loops, jumps, etc - crazy crap to keep you entertained for hours. The best part was that my other normal cars would work on the track, so it was fun using the Darda car as a "booster" vehicle for the non-powered cars (though usually they wouldn't even make it thru the first loop!)...

Mattell....just do it better

[Chanc_Gorkon]

My son LOVES hotwheels. Granted, if I offer up my Nintendo DSlite for him to play Mario, he jumps, but he's just as happy pushing his hot wheel across the floor. I just wish Mattel would make more durable hot wheel tracks. Bought a cheap one for my son on Christmas Day and by the end of the week it was broke. The old one that looked like a race track with T-Handles was fun to play with when I was a kid.

Re:Mattell....just do it better

[chinton]

Not to sound like one of those "When I was a kid" whiners, but... When I was a kid I had a huge box of that orange hot wheels track that lasted for years. I came across it while cleaning out some stuff in the attic and it is still in great shape. Thank goodness for a time before everything had to be biodegradable. My 6 year old loves it.

Re:Mattell....just do it better

[geekoid]

The best par was you cuold wack your sibling with them!

Man, I miss hotwheels.

My sons track cracks with the lightest amount of waving around.

Re:Mattell....just do it better

[cr0sh]

The best par was you cuold wack your sibling with them!

For me, the worst part of Hotwheels track was getting hit with it by my mom! If it wasn't that, it was a switch off the tree (no, I didn't have to pick my own!).

Let's just say that didn't happen very often for me - you tend to learn not to talk back and do your chores after the first couple of whacks with a piece of Hotwheel track.

From the people who brought us BARBIE

[zoomshorts]

Will they make her more anotomically correct for educational purposes?

Imagination!!!! Woot!

Gilding the Lily

[heptapod]

Doing anything more to Hot Wheels, other than making gimmicky collectible cars and racing sets, is just gilding the lily. Kids still get hours of enjoyment out of big, empty boxes that held the expensive high tech toy from their parents. No one except for some hardcore, completist geek would want a web-enabled, 802.11e Hot Wheels Corvette that can store megabytes of songs.

Re:Gilding the Lily

[Anonymous Coward]

How long have you been waiting to use 'gilding the lily'?

Obligatory 'PROFIT!!' joke...

[X-treme-LLama]

Reinventing Hot Wheels(tm):

1: Buy a petrol company.
2: Invent Hot Wheels(tm) that run on tiny gasoline engines...
3: ....
4: PROFIT!!!

wait.. That one might actually work.. I guess it can't be a true 'PROFIT!!!' joke..

Re:Obligatory 'PROFIT!!' joke...

[b0s0z0ku]

1: Buy a petrol company. 2: Invent Hot Wheels(tm) that run on tiny gasoline engines... 3: .... 4: PROFIT!!!

There are *already* model cars that run on 'gasoline.' Although the liquid fuel they use is more like a mixture of nitromethane, kerosine, and alcohol...

-b.

Re:Obligatory 'PROFIT!!' joke...

[X-treme-LLama]

Yeah yeah.. I meant lil' hot wheels car though.. It would be pretty interesting to see a .5 cc engine.

Re:Obligatory 'PROFIT!!' joke...

[Garabito]

3: Kids put their cars on fire to see if they explode as in TV.
4: Kids get injured.
5: Class action suit.
6: PROFIT!!! (but not for you)

Car with AI

[vldragon]

Maybe these new "cars of the future" will be able to play with them selves too. And if they can't they better learn since 90% of toy tech gets tossed/broken within a year. Hell a Hotwheeles 10 years ago is just as cool as one now.. probably cooler.

Re:I buy hotwheels cars...

[kent_eh]

They don't need to reinvent themselves because they are perfect as they are.

Seconded by my 5 year old.
More votes for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" from my nephews and the kid down the street. And my 2 year old daughter.

These marketing weenies need to get their heads outta... wherever they keep them, and take a look at what their customers actually want.

Note to toy designers:

[arthurpaliden]

Put a couple of kids in a room with a pile of standard old fasioned lego pieces. Then sit back and watch.

They brought back the "classic" sets

[csoto]

Picked up the nothing-but-gravity-and-an-assload-of-track "Hot Wheels Classics" track set at Target. It can go from one end of the house to the other. My son loves it. We race everything down it (even his Thomas the Tank Engine trains). It's most fun when there's carnage. Boys will be boys...

As I've always said...

[DigiShaman]

You never grow out of toys. They just get more expensive as you get older.

Re:As I've always said...

[Zoxed]

Similar quote I heard was "Men never grow up - their toys just get bigger".

(I'm guessing it wasn't a bloke.)

Re:As I've always said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. I sure wish Matchbox and Hot-Wheels did it for me. Unfortunately for me and my wallet, it's hookers and coke that do it for me. And that does tend to get expensive. :)

Crack Wheels

[billcopc]

Want to keep today's kids hooked on your retro toys ? Lace em with crack.

I think today's kids needs toys that slap them in the face with a wet noodle and yell "You're a stupid disrespectful worthless excuse for a human being. Cut your hair, go to school, get a job, pay your taxes, go get real friends, quit screwing up my goddamned Drive-thru order."

Back in my day, we had parents to do that. Where did humankind go wrong ? :P How hard can it be to put a Sausage McMuffin and two hash browns in a farking bag ? Kids these days.. The only reason they're still alive is because it's illegal to run them over with my car.

Re:Crack Wheels

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason they're still alive is because it's illegal to run them over with my car.

No, in Alabama it's not. But you have to run over them after midnight on a new moon and a dead chicken glued to your windshield.

Obligatory Tommy Boy Reference

[denverradiosucks]

Rob Lowe's character: Did you eat paint chips when you were a child?

Chris Farley (Tommy): Hahahaha . . . why?

I'm 17 years old...

[WileyK]

...But fuck if Lego's aren't still fun. Every once In awhile I get tired of staring at a screen, grab a nice big tub of bricks(2000 or so) that i've had for the past 10 years, dump it on the floor, and sit there for hours building shit. Toys should be a low-(Or no-)tech alternative to all that stupid blinking shit.

you really want to foster creativity in kids?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...[video games] are stealing kids from their training in imaginative play."

Then why even buy your branded cars, Hot Wheels man? Give the kid a little cardboard box and some wheels. THAT's creativity...or, you know, child abuse.

When I was a kid videogames ruled my play

[rsilvergun]

since I was pretty poor, and getting 1 videogame, with all the characters, features and do-dads was like getting a whole box of toys.

Hmm...

[Greyfox]

Did anyone catch the Mythbusters episode where the little model cars tried to outrun the Dodge Viper set in neutral? They found a freaky-big hill, laid out something like a mile of track, fabricated their own cars out of... stuff (I think Adam's was lead) and had themselves a race.

So maybe instead of buying your kid that Hotwheels car you should buy him an aluminum lathe, a few blocks of aluminum and a couple miles of track (And a Viper for Dad.)

(Or not -- after all, they say don't try this at home...)

You want to reinvent HotWheels? SIMULATOR!

[Rachel Lucid]

I want to see the insane tracks that make huge loops under and through your Mom's coffee table again! Bring me a way to do that, even if only with a computer, and you have your scheme right there.

Re:You want to reinvent HotWheels? SIMULATOR!

[THESuperShawn]

No, no...thats not how to do it....

Call the rich kid over that has the 'Mach 5' Hot Wheel and have it "jump" the coffee table- long-wise- while watching the Speed Racer hour. Don't you remember anything!!!???

Do I need to call Trixie to have her remind you????

Re:You want to reinvent HotWheels? SIMULATOR!

[TigerNut]

You'll have to really reinforce the track to make it hold together while the computer does a loop on it...

Then again...
10 print "Hello World"
20 goto 10

The only thing HotWheels needs...

[Nick Driver]

...to do to reel in some insane profits for the 2006 holiday season is to make these following models:

1) Red sports car that looks like kinda like a curvy blend of a Corvette, a GT-40, and a Viper.
2) Blue Porsche 911.
3) Blue Hudson Hornet.
4) Rusty old, hoodless 1955 Chevy tow truck.
5) Blue Roadrunner SuperBird.
6) Green Buick Regal.

And an assortment of other vehicles from you-know-what-movie.

Better put eyes on their windshields too.

Re:The only thing HotWheels needs...

[mOdQuArK!]

You're joking, but I'm surprised that some companies haven't tried that yet - selling a "collection set" based on the vehicles seen in various movies.

Re:The only thing HotWheels needs...

[WinDoze]

4) Rusty old, hoodless 1955 Chevy tow truck.

My daughter (2.5 y.o.) has one of these in plastic. In came in a box of Mini-Wheats. We took her to see the movie a couple of weeks after it came out, and immediately upon seeing the poster with that car on it she started yelling "MINI-WHEAT! MINI-WHEAT!!!!!" Seems she thought the truck's name was in fact "Mini-Wheat".

Re:The only thing HotWheels needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, I'm pretty shure the porsche is a gt2...

Re:The only thing HotWheels needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, off topic, but back when I was 4 or 5, I took a crayon and in very legible letters wrote
the world "shit" on the wall, except I spelled it "chit". My older sister saw this, and
exclaimed "Chit!", thus informing me of the correct spelling of that word to this very day. :)

Technology is great, but...

[jbarr]

...kids really need to exercise their imaginations. Toys that do everything for you (makes sounds, moves on its own, etc.) really take away the "fun" of playing with toys. Sure, the whiz-bang toys are often the envy of most children, but it's simplicity that typically wins out. It reminds me of the story of the kids who got the latest and greatest, most sought after toy, and after an hour or so, the toy was in the corner and the kids were happily playing with the box.

It's one thing to see kids zombie-like adeptly playing video games, but it's a joy to see them when they're imagining and really "playing" with toys that encourage imagination.

It's good that TFA deals with remembering the basics...

-Jim Barr
http://jimstips.com/

Re:Technology is great, but...

[cr0sh]

It really is too bad that computers are like they are, today.

I (and I am sure, many other /.'ers) was born in the early 70's and grew up in the 1980's, and I had a computer - a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with 16k of RAM. Friends had assorted other computers, and there wasn't much that you could do with them "out of the box". A few cartridge games (or games on tape) was about it, unless you had a floppy drive. Even so, most of us would play with BASIC, writing "games" and other software. It was a challenge. It was fun to swap code and attempt to convert it (port it) to run on your hardware (going from a Commie to a Trash80 was always a blast, but conversion between a Trash80 and an Apple IIe wasn't bad - unless the Apple game used sprites). These exercizes led many (most?) of us to careers in programming.

I recently (just last weekend) got a big box of floppies for conversion to emulator formats from a guy who was "throwing out" all of his Color Computer stuff. He gave me around 300 floppies, a few tapes (long since converted to floppy, but having the tapes is cool), some manuals, etc. My goal is to convert it all over to file formats for emulator use, then upload what I legally can somewhere to share it with others (that was the condition of the "gift"). Another guy I know got another 100 or so copy protected floppies (mostly games) to convert as well (he has the hardware - something called a CatWeasel - that can handle it). Most of the stuff that is copy protected or whatnot is in the public domain anyway (most of the authors of the old CoCo stuff have long ago given their permission).

Just going through this stuff, I realize how much I missed (and I had my own sizeable collection that I converted a few year back after building a complete CoCo emulator to complement my real system). Even so, as I go through the collection, there is a sense of nostalgia and knowledge of just what I gained from "hacking" on that system. I still have all of my old code, some of it printed out, and I laugh at my former naiveness, while at the same time seeing just what level of knowledge I had (in one piece of code I was looking at this morning, I had put a comment after a line where I referred to an array index as a pointer - which is what it was - I was 13 at the time).

Kids today just can't have that same experience - the closest they can come to it (out of the box, so to speak) is by playing with javascript, dhtml, and css (or, if on a windows box, some form of vbscript), if they even have a clue what any of that means. If they want to go further, they need to get on the internet and download compilers. Even if all they do is javascript (or vbscript), they still need to hit sites on the internet, because no manual comes with the computer telling you how to do any kind of programming on it. I still have all my old manuals, with the fun and cute "CoCo Guy" cartoons (I also have an OS-9 book from Falsoft Publishing that has the CoCo Cat character through it). They are what ultimately started me and taught me how to program. This isn't possible for a kid on today's machines.

I know that there will be programmers in the future, and I know that kids today program. But is it the same kind of experience? It might be close, but it is likely different, and that may be a good thing in the long run. It might lead to some amazing things in 10 years time. However, I tend to wonder how many kids who might have enjoyed programming, and made a career and/or contributions to the field, aren't (or won't be) programmers - simply because they didn't have an easily available way to program on their systems...

MEGABLOCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

Megablocks wooo hoooooo!!!! Cause I was too poor as a kid to afford Legos. Megablocks all the way!!!
 
  Cue crickets chirping

Can you find "Johnny Lightning" cars?

[StressGuy]

Look for "Johnny Lightning" cars....hard to find, but they still seem to make actual replicas of cars. Although, I seem to recall that Matchbox still makes construction vehicles and even Hot Wheels will have vintage hot rods (Shelby Cobra for example).

There out there, my kid has over 100 of them.

Hot Wheels are supposed to be like this..

[clickclickdrone]

My kid has a few Hot Wheels sets. They're all about 2 feet square and feature noises, moving arms, dragons and all manner of junk. They also keep him amused for about 1 minute after I spend an hour putting it together for him (damn hard!) This is wrong. When I was a kid, Hot Wheels let you build big long twin tracks with boosters along the way, loops and mad high curving corners. You dropped your two cars in the top (you and a friend) and watched them race to the end. Cool! Fun! Add a bit of 3in1 to the wheels. Better! We had great times building more and more crazy tracks, seeing what we could get away with, tweaking and adjusting to make the car cling on to each curve. This is right. This is how it should be.

Re:Hot Wheels are supposed to be like this..

[wift]

Couldn't agree more. Looking at the track where the ape swats at the car is just ridiculous. I loved the long tracks and trying to bend them just right so they didn't shoot off the track and embed themselves into the wall as they fly down the stairs. What happened to the solid metal cars that could last and only have a few chips of paint missing after 20 years?

Re:Hot Wheels are supposed to be like this..

[edis]

Exact statement - my child, too, could not get creativity nor interoperability from several contemporary Hotwheels - it is cheap (kept expensive) plastic junk, how somebody is expected to believe it is anything more?

What?!!

[StressGuy]

From the article:

=======
Where will HotWheels be in five years?

I see HotWheels going beyond the vehicle. We're just testing the waters now with toys like the Ray Gun. We also want to get kids outdoors.
========

As the father of a three year old boy and a 4 year old girl (who both play with Hot Wheels), my first thoght was, "I wonder where this puts the world in five years?"

Great, forget about buiding entire cities populated with Hot Wheels vehicles and "My Little Ponies" using Legos, Tinkertoys, and Connects to make buildings and structures for them to run through.., or figuring out how to make a track that goes through a loop, hit's one of the battery-powered car boosters (you know, with the spinning foam wheels) then circles around and jumps back through the loop eventually arriving back at the starting point so we can send it through again. No....it's much more creative to just go outside and pretend to shoot each other. ...any other Dad's out here shudder when they read that?

Re:What?!!

[StressGuy]

Whoops...5 year old boy....I think I must have channeled Monty Python ;)

Re:What?!!

[some guy on slashdot]

Considering the "Ray Gun" they're talking about is actually a speed reader gun like the kind cops use to watch your speed on the real road...er..no. I guess you should actually read the article *before* you succumb to blind panic.

Re:What?!!

[dswensen]

The parent's username made his comment all the more funny.

Toys?

[Anonymous Coward]

You had toys? Pfft! Why back in the day we had to make do with badger bones and buffalo do-doo and we LIKED IT! Both ways, uphill, in fields of crushed lava glass! We didn't have any of that cushy "snow" stuff like kids got now!

ahh...badger bones and buffalo do-doo...

[StressGuy]

You know, if you take the shoulder blade from a medium badger at attach it to his femur, it makes a heck of a device for flinging buffalo do-doo. We used to trap our own badgers, but sadly, the white-man killed almost all the buffalo so that's hard to find nowadays. I'm thinking about just getting my kids a large dog - for the do-doo that is, not the bones. Once you harvest the bones the animal is pretty much useless....kinda like harvesting apples by cutting down the tree if you know what I mean.

MOD parent funny

[pimpimpim]

I hope he ment it that way, anyway.

Re:I buy hotwheels cars practically every other da

[bitt3n]

Most days he doesn't come back with one, or if he does still have one, you can bet it wasn't the one he took.

that's going to become much less endearing in 10 years or so when he's driving your car.

Waxing Nastalgic

[qazwart]

Oh boy. You guys waxing nastalgic about the good ol' days back in 1972. Well, I was born back in the early pleolithic around 1958.

Even back then, old people were whining about the toys being so high tech (like requiring batteries), and how kids were no longer able to use their imaginations. Hot Wheels when they first came out were a perfect example of what was wrong with toys! You built a track, and raced them.

"When I was a kid", as people complained back then, "We had big toy trunks that you could actually play with! Not these little tiny cars. Back then, you *pretended* to race them, and that built imagination!" Then, they would go on with some story about walking 9 miles in the snow in uphill both directions every day to school, and having to work in some salt mine and how that built character. In the meantime, I went back playing with my hightech Hotwheels.

Somehow, despite all the high tech toys I played with, I have managed to somehow grow up, avoid becoming a delinquent, and make some contribution to society. However, I worry about my kids. They sit around all day and play with their dang hightech toys. Not like I did in my day. If I wanted a my toys to beep or buzz, I had to do it myself. These kids, they have no imagination.

And, TV only had four channels, and one of those was PBS. And, when we wanted to change channels, we had to get up off the couch, walk all the way to the TV set, and turn a dang knob.

And, we liked it!

Re:Correction - Maisto @ Wal-Mart

[SloppyElvis]

Correction: "Maisto", not "Kid Connection" - saw another poster called these out.

Ugh.. tech based toys

[Zerbey]

When my 3 year old threw a tantrum because the toy I bought him didn't make any noises I vowed to start buying him more "manual" toys. The big issue nowadays with kids toys is that the kid doesn't need to play with them. They press a button, it does something cool and they sit and watch it. Yuck.

When I was a kid, such toys where very expensive and a treat you only got at christmas (that Millenium Falcon ruled!. Of course, now you can pick them up at [something]-Mart for a couple of dollars.

Since encouraging my own children to play with more traditional toys (cars, lego, etc.) I've seen their imaginations improve and less cries of "I'm bored!".

Re:Ugh.. tech based toys

[Quiet_Desperation]

When my 3 year old threw a tantrum...

I have a toy for him. Ritalin pops. :) But then again I'm an advocate of keeping children as drugged and as QUIET as possible until the age of 18.

Yes, I have cold, black heart. No need to say it.

Re:Ugh.. tech based toys

[Zerbey]

I know you're trying to be funny but I've seen what happens to a kid when they go on Ritalin. They turn into Zombies, and when they're NOT on the stuff they have no idea how to handle their emotions. So, you end up with a kid who previously had a few minor issues that could be addressed without pills (usually they just need more attention) who will now spend the rest of their life popping pills and in counselling just to stay normal.

I fucking hate people who put their kids on medicine.

Re:Ugh.. tech based toys

[inKubus]

Yeah, I think blankMart and Toys'r'expensive fail to show the entire spectrum of "World" toys. In general, they are American designed, chinese made junk. There's a whole world of toys from Japan, Europe, Africa even, and some made in the USA that aren't battery and microprocessor controlled and actually require kids to play with them. I think they are just hard to find or something. Or maybe parents "give in" to their kids too easily. Kid throws a tantrum in the store, most parents are going to just stick the thing he wants in his face to shut him up. Saying no takes courage, but since when are we afraid of 3 year olds?? I remember the few times my parents said yes to some piece of crap and those were the toys that I got bored with quickly. I did get a chemistry set one time, which was awesome. Of course, you can't get those anymore.

I did use the computer a lot, but in the summer time my parents threw me outdoors to go fight with the neighbors kids or build forts or ride bikes, dig holes, etc. Which built some great relationships I still have today.

Re:I buy hotwheels cars practically every other da

[LiquidCoooled]

It annoys me now because most of the cars he comes back with are crap and fall apart easily.
Hotwheels cars are usually well made and robust.

We managed to save ourselves quite a bit last autumn because he was happy to carry a leaf into school, but that didn't last too long.

Can we bobble the MBAs?

[Quiet_Desperation]

the challenge of stewarding an old-school brand like HotWheels in our tech-driven age, the emerging technologies that will affect the toy industry, and Mattel's Web strategy,' he also talks about the effect that video games have had on toy design, and argues that exciting the imagination is the most important role that a toy can fill."

Damn! If he just says "synergy" I have buzzword bingo.

Baldur's Gate I & 2 still kick major ass!

[Dareth]

And I seemed to have picked up an old bad habbit again lately...

Can you say STARCRACK!

And it had been many years... but the Terran Defense is still the bomb!

The rules of war

[djdavetrouble]

I would have to escalate to a banana cream pie.
Pine cones and rocks are off limits. Dirt Clods
are acceptable projectiles. No stabbing with the
stick, only swiping attacks. All water based weapons are acceptable.
You must stay in bounds. If jailed you must always be touching the
tree with a hand or foot. Climbing trees allowed. No head shots allowed.
A Runner with the flag must display the flag. Go.

Never bored!

[Dareth]

I was never bored as a child. My mother, who bless her misguided ways, proved that the world was not fair. A very good lesson to learn. She would put up with cries of "I'm bored!". If you were bored, then there was a floor to be swept, since you were bored and obviously need practice at sweeping.

As I said, never bored was I! Still got way too much practice sweeping the floor. Way more in fact than my wife. What does that say about gender roles these days?

Re:Never bored!

[Zerbey]

Yes, that sounds like my Mother. If I claimed boredom, I'd get the standard lecture about how much she'd love to be bored and then handed a chore to do.

20 years later I find myself agreeing with her 100% :-)

tech-savvy kids...

[Anonymous Coward]

... My ass. Kids aren't "tech-savvy", they have ADD and that's all. If it hasn't flashing lights or anything fancy their brains switch to seek-any-entertainment mode.

Tech-savvy? They can't even draw or write properly. Jeez.

Bionicles are *NOT* a new adaptation....

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a re-hash of Micronaut Magno-Power figures from the 70's

So it breaks down quicker

[peter303]

Or becomes obsolete quicker. Then people have to purchase the next level.

No...the PREVIOUS question mentioned RADAR gun

[StressGuy]

The question I was referring to said RAY GUN....perhaps he meant radar gun, but he said RAY gun. It is either blind panic, or poor editing.

Perhaps you should read the entire article *before* making blind accusations.

What about curiosity?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think curiosity is as important as imagination. I remember when we got our Atari 2600, I wondered more about how this magical box worked rather than what the games had to offer. Then came my Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64. I killed my Commodore 64 by trying to hook it up to a 9V battery, I wanted a portable (5V logic, who knew?). I remember spending countless hours typing in hundreds of lines of code from magazines and books and then playing the game I "wrote". Then came my 300-in-1 electronics kit from RadioShack.

Those "toys" shaped my future career, otherwise I would probably have some shitty job where I couldn't even take time to read /.

Re:LEGOS

[ardin,mcallister]

Oh My God, Don't get me started on the legos.

I walk down the toy isles (I'm 21) looking for the huge bucket of legos, and all I find are these stupid sets that have maybe 80 pieces to them, and most of those are special shaped pieces. Where'd my squares and rectangles go? I remember, I used to keep myself amused for hours with legos... infact, I think I'll go find my legos!
-Ardin

Back to Basics, Please!

[PhotoGuy]

I loved HotWheels as a kid, but now that I have kids, I am so disappointed with all the crappy and expensive fluff. We don't need a fire spitting demon track, battery powered launchers, or hundreds of crappy and brittle little plastic pieces to put together for the "sets". Too many themes, with large towers and crap that snaps and breaks easily, or pieces that get lost and ruin the set. I was shocked at the stupid and needless themes, and poor quality. None of the sets were usable beyond the first setup of them. My son has more fun with my old track, curve, loop sets, with a bit of gravity to launch some stunts. If a pieces gets lost, no biggie, they're all basic and rugged units, not specialized and poorly built theme sets.

I searched high and low last Christmas, and couldn't find a basic set with some track, a few curves and maybe a loop, and some cars. (I ended up buying some bulk track, couldn't find any curves; and a few cars. Not as much fun as when I was a kid.) Please, HotWheels, get back to the basics, with some well built, simple, and fun, sets. I think you'd be surprised at how much appeal (and profits) it would find.

I see it a bit like Scrabble, one of my favorite games. There have been attempted variations of it, most of which sucked. But they have come out with deluxe versions of the old game (fancier tiles, rotatable board, electronic versions, etc.); that's useful and classy enhancement of a sure-fire formula. But changing the fundamentals usually blew the formula. Same thing with chintzy and expensive theme sets from HotWheels, IMO.

Re:Back to Basics, Please!

[boingo82]

Have you tried Super Scrabble?
It's like regular Scrabble, only it takes longer!

Track by the foot, and connectors?

[whyde]

Today's technologies fail us in the Hot Wheels and Matchbox super-fun-playtime department.

It's hard to stack up a bunch of Wikipedias to make a good starting point for a track. Old School Encyclopedias worked much better in that regard.

Really, though, what I'm unable to find is somewhere to buy a spool of hotwheels/matchbox track by the foot, and the plastic connectors that join the ends together. I know we used to have gobs of 2-/3-foot sections, and a box of plastic connectors. I don't want the pre-fab self-contained kits with a limited size and possibilities. I want tracks that span several rooms of the house.

You can't get that in Wal-Mart or We-B-Toys, as far as I know.

Re:LEGOS

[Great Beyond]

I walk down the toy isles (I'm 21) looking for the huge bucket of legos, and all I find are these stupid sets that have maybe 80 pieces to them, and most of those are special shaped pieces. Where'd my squares and rectangles go?

It's even worse than that. A couple of months ago I was at the mall and I decided to stop by Toys R Us to grab some green Army Men for my 4 year old nephew. You know, just a huge bucket of a hundredred green men with guns - nice and simple, right? Hell - TRU should carry them, right? Army Men (or a Bucket o' Cowboys, or a Bucket o' Dinosaurs) are immortal!

"Oh, I'm sorry - we dont carry those. Havent for years."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Do you people also not carry yo-yos and slinkies and cap guns, too

Eventually I did find a huge Bucket o' Army Men (and Cowboys and Dinosaurs) at the dollar store and picked up all three. And the kid? He loves the hell out of 'em. Viva El Old School!

death of hotwheels

[micromuncher]

In an odd twist, my 2 year old who LOVES cars and trains, completely avoids the more technical toys. His favorites? The wooden Thomas set with track. No fancy set up. Powered by him. He makes the noise.

All the noise making gadgets he's received hold his interest for about a week and end up in the toy box. His old style hotwheels and trains; he always goes back to those.

Where are they at...?

[cr0sh]

What happened to the solid metal cars that could last and only have a few chips of paint missing after 20 years?

They're all down at your local (or not so local?) antique mall/consignment/store!

Seriously - that is where all the good (and somewhat abused) Hotwheels and Matchbox (personally, I preferred Matchbox over Hotwheels, they were a much better product) cars of old have gone. If you want to go and pick some up, though, prepare to bring a bit a money. I have personally seen Hotwheels from the 1970's go for anywhere from $15.00-$35.00 per car - and these were *not* in "mint condition" - they were in "played with" condition. Mint condition (as in, still in box/bubble wrap) are extremely rare to find, and when you do, depending on the age of the item (among other factors), you might be looking at a lot of money.

Don't even get me started on the old Matchbox RoadKings series - those will really set you back. My only consolation to the whole thing is the fact that I have (well, they are at my mom's house) four cases (over 100 cars from the 1970's) of the things, many in great condition (not mint, but way better than crap I have seen at antique shops). Plus, all of the cases are "vintage" branded Hotwheels and Matchbox cases, plus several of the other accessory toys as well (various "city" cases Matchbox produced in the late-1970's, the Hotwheels "Criss-Cross-Crash!" set, the Matchbox car wash, etc). I played with all them, so none are in perfect condition, but they still have a lot of collector market value. I tended to also collect (when I was a kid - I collect computers, now) the "real life" models, not the specialty "fun" models - which makes my collection even more valuable, as least to another collector. Finally, somewhere I have Matchbox Model-T car that Matchbox made in the early-1970s, which holds a lot of sentimental value (actually, all of them do - so I am likely never going to sell them), because my Dad gave it as a gift to my Mom (don't remember the story behind it). I remember she sat it on her dresser for many years and would barely let me hold it (probably a good thing, I might have tried pitting it against my RoadKing tractor hauler!). Finally, once I was in high school (and long past playing with them), she gave it to me to put in my collection - so it is "safe" in a case.

So - if you really want a surprise, and see the Matchboxes and Hotwheels of "yesteryear", you can do no better than to head to whereever they keep the antiques in your locality. You are sure to find many, and most of them will be for sale. Just bring your checkbook...

Re:LEGOS

[blugu64]

What??? You can't be serious! Between a big box Lincoln Logs and several buckets of army men (I had like 3 or 4 colors of them) I had the most awesome battles when I was a kid. Say it ain't so!

Nowhere to play and nobody to play with

[vinn01]

Gone are the days of all the neighborhood's kids playing outside, unsupervised, in the afternoon.

Totally gone. And since they can't play in the street (heaven forbid) for an vacant lot (liability problems), or a parking lot (ditto) they are inside with electronic entertainment.

Re:LEGOS

[CaseyB]

I call BS. Lego has been selling the big brick-shaped boxes of 500-1000 pieces of Lego for years, for around $20. You can't walk through a store without tripping over stacks of them. Basic Lego has never been easier to buy (or cheaper).

Re:Track by the foot, and connectors? - nope

[vinn01]

I also looked to buy track and connectors for my kid's Hot Wheels collection. No luck. Anywhere.

When I was a kid I had many feet of track and could make a raceway the size of a room. The sets that they sell today are maybe 4 feet of track - boring. And what is the deal with the motorized car chute? It's noisy, heavy, and hard to carry around. When I was a kid we used gravity - and we liked it.

Add technology to a Cardboard Box (#1 toy)

[VGfort]

Seriously, who cares if its not hyped up on the christmas list as the "hot toy". When the battery runs out or the battery cover is lost, they have to improvise with these toys anyway.

Re:LEGOS

[online-shopper]

And don't forget getting a buddy and a bag of rubber bands to shoot each other's army men. Last man standing!

Not really joking....

[Nick Driver]

...I was actually kinda serious.

If Mattel could swing a licensing deal with Disney/Pixar to make a complete "Cars" collectors set as HotWheels models, such a set would probably be quite a marketing hit. Heck, I might even buy a set myself.

I saw the movie just last weekend, and the Route 66 nostagia really got to me. I was also surprised to see that Hollywood is still capable of putting out a movie (of any kind) that can still capture your heart and make you feel good, like the classics of yesteryear's golden age of movies used to be able to do long ago, without having to resort to gratuitous sex, mindless violence, and shock-value storylines. This movie was good clean entertainment that made me feel like a kid again... a rarity among the usual crap we've grown to expect coming from Hollywierd.

Re:Track by the foot, and connectors? - nope

[online-shopper]

I'll give you that it's noisy, but the motorized car chute actually adds playability.
You can start the track up at the fridge, come down for a couple of loops, then through the chute and go up to the kitchen table, spin around once or twice, down the table, to another chute upstairs to almost make it, then back down the stairs to build up some speed and launch itself into your little brother.

OK, next, HotWeels drift cars

[Animats]

R/C car drifting is already here.

The next thing is a stability control system to support drifting, with a rate gyro, to make it easier.

In stores now!

Re:Track by the foot, and connectors? - nope

[richardpaulhall]

The motorized car chute? Old school, way old school My younger brother was born in '57, by the time he was 10-ish, he had Hot Wheels. One Christmas he got a HOt Wheels racing set. You were spposed to set up two tracks and race cars. At the start-stop there was this foot square orange building. There was a chute in spinning rubber wheels and a throttle to control the speed. It was very hard to set up a race, and onlu certain cars would make it through the building, but they went FAST! Rick