Slashdot Mirror
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?"
My mom gave me a brick and told me to go play outdoors
-Eod
"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?
No nothing can stop... The Animal!
As they mentioned, RC vehicles are wayyyy more popular now that they're affordable. The one thing that ticks my nephew off is the batteries don't last long enough and no one will buy him more sets so he can spend hours driving instead of minutes. :)
But the more complex toys like a robot that does some sort of dance moves and stuff don't interest him much. He likes things that go so that he can follow them around the yard, not just things that move around in his local space like a regular toy.
You can't very well ram the grandparent's legs in the kitchen if you have to be in the room, otherwise you don't get away with the "accident." ;)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I for one welcome our new plastic, assembly required, batteries not included overlords!
The all-mighty lego!
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Its in Hobby stores and on the net in places. Its this small helicopter that charges on a basepad that doubles as the controller and is filled with double AA batteries. You can fly it all around the room and its pretty durable(fly it into the wall a few times). For $40 its really cheap for such an awesome toy. I'd buy one if I didn't lose the link.
God spoke to me.
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.
Now, while we're getting all nostalgic, let's break out the lawn darts!
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.
my son's favorite present this christmas was also the least expensive. it was a set of plastic discs that had hook-n-loop stuff on it that you could strap to your hand. it came with a tennis ball that you throw - and then catch by letting it stick to one of the discs. he's 4 and he'll do that for longer than he'll spend on just about any other single activity. we have a great time playing catch at the park. his sisters enjoy it too - so i picked up another set. i think a set with two discs and a ball was right around 3 bucks at wal-mart.
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?
Remote control 4wd or tank device with a camera in it and a lcd in the remote ,B&W is good enough. Kids that are bored of RC cars will play with a car that has a camera on it for days on end.
Oh and faster is not better, slower with power and the camera is better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I used to play a lot with GI Joe's. Now, I am killing iraqi terrorists. It's cool.
I have a friend that strongly believes in the value of toys. He has two boys and, rather than buy cheap, plastic stuff, he builds toys. These toys are miniature working bulldozers and front-end loaders with actual hydraulics and small diesel engines. Another friend built a small rideable, electric railroad. He figured that the little HO models just don't bring to life the magic of the railroad for a kid. Toys are awesome! The day we give them up for video games is a sad one. Video games do not encourage wholesome play. Granted, they are fun (when I have a bad day, I love a good game of Grand Theft Auto to relax by but this ain't wholesome fun), but should be kept to a minimum. Toys have an innocence about them that should be embraced.
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!!!!
In other news:
For the 1,000 consecutive year the ball has won best toy of the year again.
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
Hint: more rubber bands mean more strength behind the shot! If you can't put a bruise on your brother's arm from across the basement, your artillery is under-powered.
I played with my sister's Barbies. It didn't affect me at all. I became an actor.
Check me out in my latest movie, "Broke Mast Galleon"
Avast ye matey, get ready to swap my poop deck, there be gold in dat booty!
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.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
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).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I hope when I have kids, we can substitute board games for video games. There's just a lot of cool stuff out there right now, especially due to the German renaissance in board gaming.
I'm going to have to lock the PS4/5 in the closet upstairs or something.
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).
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Yeah, I've usually got (or can get) the latest, greatest video game platform(s). And yeah, there's fun to be had there. But there are aspects of the games we enjoyed as kids, that STILL can't be simulated on video games.
I'm not just talking about "free form play" here, although there will always be that. I'm talking about the basic physics of well, destroying things. No pre-set destruct area can compete with the slow destruction of a Lego or Girder and Panel metropolis by means of endless dart gun barrages. No race-car damage modeling will ever be quite as interesting as what happens to a Tonka Truck set rolling down a very long concrete drive-way. No "rag-doll" engine can compete with the viceral thrill of taking a Lysol Blow torch to a GI Joe Doll. Even games which cater to the frustrated Juvenille deliquent in us, such as the Soldier of Fortune series, still can't hold a candle the mind-boggling gore of opening up with a cheap airsoft machine gun on a crowd of raw eggs with faces drawn on. Even when video games go "too far", they still fall short of what kid's real-life imagination can do (PS2 + Hot coffee mod VS hand lotion + privacy).
So the question is not whether toys can ever compete with video games, but whether video games will ever be able to compete with toys.
My guess is that yes, but only if the politicians keep their damn noses out of it. A lot of the really fun toys I played with when I was kid are banned now, because some unsupervised, stupid kid hurt themselves with them. Usually be trying to eat them. It was huge mistake to ban those toys because a)there are only stupid-children toys left now and b)it makes it harder to identify stupid adults by looking for things like "fire-cracker face", "lego-lung" or other evidence of childhood brushes with natural selection. And now we have dolts like Joe Liberman who seek to suck the life out of video games too (read their actual words before assuming they're only trying to "think of the children"). At some point in the not-too-distant future, consumer grade video game machines will be technically capable of showing what it would really looking like if you crashed your Grand Turismo car, your WOW guild caught fire, or shot a Doom 3 alien in the face with a shot gun. But without some common sense voting, those games will either not exist or only be available to adults aged 90 and up.
Which is fine by me, because that's roughly the age I'll be when Duke Nukem forever gets released. But this a post about toys, so it's not about adults like me. It's about the children.
Won't someone *please* think of the children?