Blog – Page 20

Virtual World Sites for kids are growing. Top 10 USA kids worlds reveal insights.

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

First posted on the YourToyCom.com blog forum and community website serving the toys, games and childrens’ technology industries, on behalf of the Spielwarenmesse. Spielwarenmesse is the leading and largest International ToyFair in the world, held annually in Nuremberg, Germany in early February.

According to the Virtual Worlds tracking study by KZero Worldswide, virtual worlds crossed the 1.4 Billion cumulative registered users mark, with the largest quarterly growth in Q2 (the most recent data available) since KZero started tracking these worlds in 2008. This represented an increase of 214 million since Quarter 1 2011.

Second quarter 2011 growth came from a variety of sources, especially from the larger virtual world sites that are targeted to kids, including Moshi Monsters (up 16m to 50m), Poptropica (up 26m to 170m), Habbo (up 20m to 220m), and Stardoll (up 22m to 116m). These kid-focused virtual worlds represent a variety of play patterns, including role-play, pets/nurturing, casual gaming, chat and user generated content. The table below shows the quarterly growth numbers by age range.

For the toy industry age targets, the following two age groups grew quite significantly: The five to ten year old segment grew 17.6% from Q1 to Q2 assisted primarily by increases from Poptropica and Panfu. The next age segment, 10 t0 15 year olds grew by 16.2%, with Moshi Monsters and Stardoll leading the charge.

« Continue »

Mass Customization: An Emerging Trend that Teaches Kids about Making their Own Toys.

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Jan 3

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Futurist

Lately, there seems to be a pendulum swing back toward imaginative play and giving kids the tools to create their own versions of toys and games. With technology creeping into so many children’s toys, it is a breath of fresh air to see this new movement offering kids a different approach. Don’t get me wrong, technology can definitely enhance a play pattern, or seamlessly add to creative role-playing. Giving kids the option to play with both tech and non-tech products does provide a more balanced toy perspective, and an opportunity to explore a different type of play experience. Here are just a few examples that have caught my eye lately.

Brickstix: A 12 year-old boy, Greyson MacLean, recently won the 2011 TAGIE Young Inventor Award, at the annual November 2011 ChiTag Chicago Toy & Game Fair, with this toy invention. He created removable and reusable decals for adhering to building blocks, such as Legos and MegaBloks. This tween inventor came up with everything from city decals to every day messes that he calls “Splats.” These stickers are available online at www.brickstix.com, to allow other kids to customize their brick collections.

In a kid’s world, who hasn’t dreamed of developing their own original toy creation? In an adult world, the concept of mass customization has allowed that very dream to become a reality. Here are just a few of the ways kids can customize and design their own toys, and in some cases, then have them delivered to the child’s home, in a matter of days or weeks, building self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment for a creative kid.

« Continue »

The Role of Play in Our Lives, from Cradle to Grave

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Dec 16

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

The Role of Play in our lives, throughout all of the Stages of Life, from Cradle to Grave.
Have you recently stopped to think about play in your adult life? There is a reason for play, for adults, for teenagers and for children. Although play means something different to each of us, at the various stages of our lives, it is still an essential ingredient to staying young and to creating balance in our lives.

I have always loved the following quote by George Bernard Shaw: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” The more playful we are, the younger we appear to other generations, and the younger we feel. But besides a feel-good experience, there are many tangible and intangible effects of play, on our lives.

« Continue »

Cyber-Retailing sets records at one-day Billion dollar Holiday 2011 Sales in the USA, surpassing last year’s record sales figures.

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Dec 16

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

Now that one-day online sales figures surpassed the Billion US dollar mark, three days in a row (Nov 28th-30th, 2011) in the United States, more countries will be looking to test these types of online retail sales promotional programs with their consumers.

The first round of Fall 2011 Cyber Monday events in the USA occurred on November 28th, the Monday following Black Friday and also following strong US Thanksgiving weekend sales (the week of Nov 24th – Dec 2nd). The reported numbers showed a marked increase in online deals and sales, resulting in one-day Cyber Monday sales of 1.25 Billion US dollars. To put this in perspective, this was only the second day in US history where online sales crossed the Billion dollar USA mark, according to comScore.com, following the same day sales for Cyber Monday in 2010. This year, the phenomenon continued through Tuesday and Wednesday, with single day sales on Nov 29th and Nov 30th, 2011 also crossing the Billion dollar USA mark.

In addition, comScore predicts that the USA Free Shipping Day (scheduled for Dec 16, 2011) is expected to cross the Billion record, and surpass last year’s record-breaking 942 Million dollars in US sales. That record was 61% higher than the previous Free Shipping Day sales in 2009. Over 2000 merchants will offer free shipping to addresses within the continental USA, with delivery by Christmas Eve.

« Continue »

Trend #6 Affordability takes on a new face with Mini Collectibles Battling Minis

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Feb 10

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

In 2011, Affordability takes on a new face, actually hundreds of new faces, as mini collectibles stampede onto the retail shelves. I was not surprised to see the wealth of Mini Collectibles that are back this year, at the Spielwarenmesse Toy Fair 2011 Nurnberg , but I was amazed at the depth and detail included in each of the new ranges, for both girls and boys.

Some brands have dozens of new collectibles in their ranges, others topping out at about 100 new collectibles in each range. These Miniaturized Collectibles are invading the toy aisles at both classic and alternative retailers. Just like the rubber-band inspired collectible craze from 2010, these new minis are priced affordably for children to purchase with their own pocket money, without pestering parents, another key success factor. Listed below are just a sampling of the many products that are available.

All of these minis have incredibly detailed sculpting, which is eye-candy for kid collectors. For girls, the “cute” factor and play & display are the key collectible motivations, whereas for boys, many of products also have a dueling or battling component, involving spinning tops, yo-yo snap-capture-&-battle components and/or trading cards and point-scoring. Many minis have companion websites where kids can display and nurture their favorite characters, and ogle the newest creations. One gender-crossing collectible brand, Moshi Monsters, is reportedly increasing their website fanbase by 1 million members a month, and their mini collectibles are expanding rapidly, in proportion.

« Continue »

Trend #4 Everyone Plays Gaming emerging in Quick-Play Social Games

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Feb 7

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

Another Social-Connected trend for gaming is emerging world-wide. A gaming trend I am seeing involves the concept of Everyone Plays Gaming, which ties into the social trend with Face-to-face interactions. Everyone Plays Gaming involves both social and strategic gaming where everyone plays simultaneously. Each player is engaged with the outcome of each turn. These games reduce the “wait time” between turns, provide an intensive game experience, and could involve consensus play, team play, cooperative play, or strategic play.

These games seem to be the especially relevant to the European market and are growing in popularity in the United States.At the Spielwarenmesse 2011 Toy Fair Nurnberg, I spotted some newer examples including Wobble Tilt the board balance and concentration skill game by Identity Games, and the new Boggle People family game from Hasbro.

« Continue »

Trend #5 Tapping Tech, Social Media and Cultural Trends to Innovate Toys and Games

By Reyne Rice Leave a Comment Feb 7

By Reyne Rice, Toy Trend Expert and Youth Market Specialist

On Feb 6th, at the Spielwarenmesse International Toy Fair 2011 Toy Business Forum Speech, I presented the topic of how toys and games are branching into the Social Media space. Earlier this week, we presented some of the App-ization of toys in two different formats: Toys to Apps and Apps to Toys products.

But there are even more products that I located walking the Spielwarenmesse Toy Fair 2011 Nurnberg trade show floor this week. Many products fall into the technology connected trend, also called e-Connected products.

« Continue »