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The Return of Toys
valdean writes "With videogames becoming so ubiquitous, it sometimes seems like kids have less and less time for toys these days. Toy makers, however, are pushing back with high tech toys designed to be more compelling than a game of Supreme Commander. The New York Times reports that remote controlled vehicles in particular seem to be up for some friendly competition. As one designer suggests, 'navigating well-designed vehicles in the physical world... is vastly more compelling than steering a virtual vehicle in a computer-generated universe.' Will toys ever be able to compete with videogames again?"
"I think, right now, that there is a push back from our industry to get kids off the couch where they're playing video games," Mr. Khasminsky said in a telephone interview from his office in Toronto.
so he works for nintendo on the wii?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The all-mighty lego!
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The thing about computer games is that they allow you to go places you can't normally go. Toys are simply a object you manipulate in one way or annother. Why play with a single toy soldier when I can create an army of gun toting robots in SupCom? Same sort of thing with some logic circuit design I do in my spare time, I can design it on the computer, and there's no way I can destroy a part, do I need more parts, just duplicate one. It's cheap, fun, and allows me to learn. With computer games it's the same way. Toys break, games don't (at least not in the same way that toys do).
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
Toys will be more popular than computer games when they're less boring than computer games. If you look at some of the crap kids are expected to find amusing, I'm not surprised they'd rather play games. How many times have you tried to play a game with your children and got to rule 6 which is "when all the players have been around the board twice in a counterclockwise...zzzzz". Jesus christ - that's supposed to be fun? Calling a shit game "Frustrating" is ironic, but surely board games are supposed to be fun, not frustrating. I can't believe anyone actually finds that game fun.
I grew up with video games, and so have my kids. I collect arcade machines and console, and we wholeheartedly love them. But a video game is never a match for a good toy, and the best multiplayer games we've played have never been as enjoyable as a good round of monopoly. There's no real person-to-person interaction playing Mario Party or Halo 2.
It *is* vastly more fun to play with RC cars than video game cars. I was looking at the RC aisle at Target not too long ago, milling around waiting for my wife, and got really jealous of my kids. When I was a young, cars like these were the realm of Tamiya, and required a fair amount of investment and work and model making. We'd spend hundreds crafting and honing our cars, and treat them like they were made out of gold and eggshells. Now you can get a 14V crazy honker car that does backflips for 29.99. Zip zaps are a blast, etc. A sub 50 dollar "RC car" in my youth was one of those dumb things that always went forward, and had one button that made it back up and turn right. Serious RC enthusiasts may scoff at such silly toys, but for just pure fun factor, these kids have it made.
They're two different markets.. Video games can never replace real world toys, and I feel sad for anybody who lets them.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Kids go through phases.
One week everyone is racing around the streets on their bikes, the next its football.
Then someones grandma will get a new console or a skateboard or anything else.
Inevitably, along the way, some kids will become wizards at the fad and join a school team or they will enrol in a club and the heroes of tomorrow are born.
liqbase
No matter how good the games are, most kids (given the opportunity) would rather play baseball, basketball, or soccer. It's too bad that because of fear of kidnappings, etc. kids are not allowed to just "Go out and play in the yard" like when I was a kid. At least not until they are older. But by then I think a lot are 'hooked' on video games and would rather stay indoors.
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If toy sales are anemic, why don't they try making something traditionally American, like firearms or cap guns, or toy guns, or something 'gun' related? That's big business - Nerf and Supersoaker are hugely popular (or, at least, they were when I was a kid just 10 years ago).
:P
I mean, c'mon: boys are more likely to play video games, particularly the ones with videos and weapons. Sure, they might like a remote-controlled helicopter, and they'll likely play with it for hours. But it gets stale: there's little replay value, batteries are expensive (for kids), and it's not really an 'open platform' in terms of creativity and play. Now, if you were to give the same boy a (say) military-styled toy gun, maybe a low-velocity airsoft, nerf, or heck even a 'lasertag' gun costing roughly the same amount as either a
As for those who are going to bitch about giving kids 'toy weapons' and training them for war: bullshit. It is natural for boys (in particular) to play war games all on their own, even if you restrict them from seeing things like guns on TV or in movies. If you prohibit them from having guns, they'll use a pencil or a coat hanger for a gun (I've seen it). I've seen 4-year-olds who were prohibited by their parents from playing with such thigns by their 'progressive' moms come over and be nearly euphoric at the possibility of hunting dinosaurs and monsters, playing cowboys and indians, and various other such things. It was not something that was encouraged - it was their preference.
When I was a kid, I had an NES. My brother and I would play hours and hours of video games; our mom didn't want us to have violent ones, with Rampage being disallowed because it was 'graphical and violent'. However, that didn't prevent us from saving up for games on our own and hding them from her (GI Joe, Contra, Jackal) or borrowing from friends. For whatever reason she let us have toy guns, though - and even though we had those prohibited games which we could play only while not being scrutinized, we still generally preferred to be outdoors throwing 'bombs' or 'hand grenades' at each other (snowballs), shooting each other and our neighbors with supersoakers, or just playing pretend with cap guns. We had RC cars and stuff too, but they didn't get nearly as much use due to their limited creative applications.
From what I gather, such activities are fairly unique for my generation, even though I'm by no means 'old'... I guess most parents from my parents generation were much more restrictive.
Besides, it's not like Mattel hasn't made rifles in the past (ok, not really, but it's still funny).
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Toys will be popular if toymakers focus on the advantages of physical toys: BEING PHYSICAL. I always loved playing make-believe adventure with action figures (either alone or with a friend). I liked coming up with a fun (to act out, anyway) story (it helped me flesh out my budding storytelling ability). I also liked playing 'imaginary games' (i.e. childhood LARP) in my backyard with friends. Those games were the most fun I have ever had!
It is harder to get this same kind of experience with computers because you have both a higher expectation (since you have to visualize the entire environment) and it is harder to fulfill those expectations. With physical toys, all your materials are ready (all your objects are initialized) and you can use your imagination to fill in the rest. Computers are logical entities; hence, they don't have much room for imagination, and we are not at the point where a DWII (Do What I Imagine) interface is feasible.
Also, any toy that facilitates interaction with other children (toy swords, baseball gloves, etc.) is more fun than sitting at a computer all the time. (Remember, most eight-year-olds are bundles of energy and HATE staying still).
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Legos are fun but if you want to get your kids the most fun toy they've ever had, find a nice big refrigerator box (or better yet, a refrigerator box and the boxes from a washer and dryer). You can thank me later.
Bricks are cool. Lego never went away....
I recently took my kid to a place called "the treehouse" in Ogden, UT. She discovered a toy called "Kapla" It's brilliant- nothing but a wheelbarrow filled with sticks measuring 1" x 4" x 1/4" each. About 2000 of them. She made a tower over 3 feet tall, then had a blast knocking it down by throwing things at it. Tactile toys have their own appeal.
In fact, I make a living by selling kids a set of plans that can turn a brick, a stick, and some string into a machine that hurls eggs. It's called a trebuchet. There is a market for old school stuff. Just look at http://www.catapultkits.com./ Then there's the toy guns, pogo sticks and skateboards - http://www.ballistictoys.com/ - that help a kid get an intuitive feel for ballistic motion, the foundations of physics.
Here's the appeal- Kids learn real physics, not simulated physics as in a computer game. With the catapult kits, they get to do simple math to predict how far it will throw, then (and this is the part that gets them hooked) they go outside, into the field to test their work. When they see the connection between the math and the real world machine, one that hurls an egg about 200 feet, then they get excited. They see how to apply math to do something fun, outside, away from the CPU and CRT, LCD, etc.
Real toys are an important part of a kid's total education. Even if it's a piece of string, a stick and a brick.
when I was a kid, getting a $20 dollar videogame was like getting a whole box of toys, what with all the characters and features in games.
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