Comments on: Has the toy industry screeched to a halt?

There weren't a whole lot of "new" toys at the American International Toy Fair. Is it a sign of stability or stagnation?

[menty666]

maybe the newer toys are just crap?

I'm a parent of a 17 month old and my wife and I both find ourselves buying similar toys for our little one as we had as kids. Those include legos (the giant quattro line at the moment), alphabet blocks, and matchbox cars. We've seen the leapfrog toys and the elmo DMX and while the elmo is interesting, we didn't feel that it lead to the imaginative play that legos and blocks do. It's no so much that innovation is dead, I love the new mindstorms kit that Lego came out it, I just can't afford it. But rather the people buying toys for those children now are like my wife and I are, and are looking beyond the battery sucking beeps and lights and looking instead for toys that actually lead to a kid having an unstructured good time. It teaches independent thought and that's sorely lacking these days.

[jabbotts]

We're after the "shapes ball" that seporates in the middle

Who knew it was from rubbermaid?

You may have something with that "new toys are crap" bit though. Seems everything today goes above and beyond to insure a child needs no imagination. Everything talks or makes noises or projects something by spring or air pressure. Heck, there's a complete line (picture was in the article pictures) of doll hoses, cars and such that are just digital displays and buttons to move the little "doll" avatar between platic blobs.

Like the movie industry; rehash, redesign, reuse, recycle, rewrite and my favourit "modernize". why continue evolving the toys industry when you can just pain Snake Eyes a new colour, give him a voice box and repackage him from the same molds.

[Geoffrey Sperl]

It's the amount of collectors, too

There have always been crappy toys. Look at some of the stuff that was foisted on kids in the 50s and the 60s... it's not just that new toys are crap.

What isn't being discussed here is the amount of collectors in the market. Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Magic: The Gathering, Barbie, etc. - Hasbro and Mattel realize that, by just tweaking those (and other) toy lines, they can continue to bring the collectors along and that the collectors (being adults) are employed and have more disposable income than a child does. As a Star Wars collector and an adult I decide if I want to buy a $50 or $100 toy from the Star Wars line. A child might want it for Christmas or their birthday, but it's a question for the family as to whether the kid is going to get it. Come on: How many kids own a Darth Tater Mr. Potato Head? I only know of adults who own one.

So, when I see a lot of the toys being focused on the sustaining lines it's because the manufacturers are trying to keep the collectors interested.

There will be more innovation when the current crop of collectors finally give up on buying every single thing that is licensed for a specific property and they need to attract a lot more kids to new properties (I, and many collectors I know, have scaled back on my Star Wars collecting over the past two years now that the movies are over).

[jabbotts]

hehe.. gotta get me a darth tater

I nearly picked it up for a collector friend at christmas though he's more a purist and won't touch anything not from the first three movies.

[Penguinisto]

It ain't just toys...

Movies have done the same thing (re: the recent "Project" of making the old '70s TV series [i]The Bionic Woman[/i] into a movie).

Both problems can boil down to one source of blame: Overpowered copyrights. Movie Studios and Toy making shops BOTH have a ton of "intellectual property" they've been sitting on, and both will be damned if they can't squeeze the last possible penny of of them. There's no incentive to innovate when folks like, say, Disney can simply re-hash old crap in both toy and movie form.

There's no incentive to innovate for the big players, because there's less risk in simply pushing out the same old concepts. The little guys have a ton of innovation, but they don't have the resources to really get their ideas to market as easily.

/P

[btljooz]

What you are describing is

these companies [i]playing[/i] to the Baby Boomers (those who began to be born from the early 1940s...look up the term Baby Boom or Baby Boomers to learn something new! :| ) who NOW have money to spend. It's all about getting their money! It boils down to worshipiing the [b][i]almighty $ [/i][/b]!!! ...NOT "stagnation". Where have you been? These companies learned quite a few years ago that [b]Nostalgia [u]$ELL$[/u]. Isn't that a sad commentary on today's world??? THINK about that..................................

[Jane in KC]

"New" Toys

Interesting thoughts. The last several things I bought for my three-year-old grandson were purchased from www.backtobasicstoys.com. They have some nice quality products which obviously appealed to me. Just wonder if others are thinking along the same lines these days.

[btljooz]

I agree with you.......

What's [i]wrong[/i] with "basic" toys? I see a LOT wrong with toys that do it all for kids ...stunting their reasoning powers and ability to think for themselves. (...making them better [u][i]puppets[/i][/u] of the bergioning oppressive governmental regimes that are in place at present.)

Sure, having [b]SOME[/b] of the "latest, greatest" tech toys are fun and help ready kids for the tech world ...quite a [b]small[/b] part of **** Sapiens' [b]BASIC[/b]survival. However, 'basic' toys help ready kids for the [b]REAL world[/b]...and [u]THAT[/u] is what is [b]MORE[/b] important!!!

[ozidigga]

It's all about choice.

If you are a parent then it's up to you to present a child with alternatives to computer games or TV. A child isn't going to necessarily make choices which will lead to good habbits. I remember when I was about 5 when my Mum decided to sell the TV to make sure I would find something else to do.

[btljooz]

Yup, and that made you have a

more enriched life in the long run, too. (...with a honed ability to reason things out and think for [b]yourself[/b]!!! Didn't it? ;)