Global Toy News

Train Board Game about the Holocaust Pushes Boundaries

A couple of years ago, I spoke with Brenda Brathwaite Romero about her series of 6 board games titled ‘The Mechanic is the Message’ that make one ponder their themes/topics and change how you think about these topics. Among many things, Brenda is a TEDx2011 speaker (her talk is about these games and is incredible) and a celebrity in the video game world.

The titles/themes include:

-Train Board Game, about the Holocaust 

-The New World, a game about slavery

-Síochán leat (Gaelic for Peace Be With You), or The Irish Game about Oliver Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland

-Mexican Kitchen, about illegal immigration, still in prototyping

-Cité Soleil, about day and night violence in a densely populated shanty town in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, in progress

-One Falls for Each of Us, about the Trail of Tears, in progress

Art, experience, entertainment, controversy – whatever you want to label it, they are brilliant and inspired. I was going to write about Brenda and her games, but she recently gave a talk and there is an article about that talk says it better than I could have. The following are just a few excerpts to hopefully interest you to link over to the original article – a very interesting read.

“Train accomplishes something that few other board games can do: It makes you think about an emotionally difficult subject.”

“A board game might seem like one of the last places you’d find innovation. In fact, board games are going through a revival now, in part because of the popularity of crowdfunding on Kickstarter, and because they are now an increasingly popular inspiration for their digital cousins, video games. The game is part of a growing tradition of Games for Change, which are as much about social causes as fun.”

“Word about the series is getting around. A film crew is prepping a documentary about Train. Other publications have written about it.”

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/11/brenda-romero-train-board-game-holocaust/#2IyhHrpkrYBkR9wi.99

Coming Near You – Toy/Game Industry Get-Togethers

We host popular industry get-togethers at NYTF and ASTRA as well as monthly events in Chicago spring through fall. Now we’ve added ChiTAG-Los Angeles on April 16th in Santa Monica and ChiTAG-San Francisco in Berkeley on April 18th – next week! The CA events are casual, you pay for your own food/beverage, no cover charge (we can thank our wonderful sponsors for this*) and you are welcome anytime throughout the evening. If you’ll be in California, please join us. The invitation is at (please don’t forget to rsvp, counts are important to the venue for staffing). http://www.tandgcon.com/_tagieconf/chitag-california

The response has been incredible and we’ve had requests to host them in other cities. Presently we are  working on venues and dates for Seattle, Nashville (ASTRA), NYC, Toronto (with Tanya Thompson of ThinkFun), London (with Betsy Fore of Mind Candy) and possibly other locations.

We hope to see you at one of our get-togethers! It is a fantastic opportunity to meet others in our industry in a casual low pressure setting.

*Our generous and wonderful California sponsors include Joyce Johnson Designs, Peaceable Kingdom, Dynamic Designworks/DDW Inc and Otherdoor Entertainment. 

TableTop – Hit TV Series A Game Changer, NPD Missing It

This Saturday is TableTop Day. (I’ll never get people to associate me with toys if I keep writing about games, but this one is a game changer.) Have you heard of Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day and their hit TV Series, TableTop? Wil and his friends sit around and play board games. Guest stars are celebrities and next season includes Jeri Ryan, Seth Green, Bobak Ferdosi, Ashley Clements, Patrick Rothfuss, and Wheaton’s son Ryan Wheaton.

Wil Wheaton is single handedly doing more to get people to play board games than anyone on the planet & I love the way he thinks: "I think any game can be a gateway game, just because you put the right game in front of the right person, and they’re going to go crazy. … You’ve just got to figure out what kinds of games people like to play." 

He is so popular that despite it being a new show, his playing a game can cause it to sell 30,000 units of the game the following week. The show is so popular NBC is creating their hour long series version with Glee co-star Jane Lynch as host of NBC’s Hollywood Game Night, produced by Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner that features A-list celebrities hanging out and playing games with non-celebrity contestants in a cocktail party atmosphere. The series is based on Hayes’ real-life game nights.  

NPD reports that board game sales are down, but I don’t believe they are tracking the type of board games that many people, like Wil, are playing today - the games that were once labeled hobby (sometimes called eurostyle or designer games). Look at the top 10 games on Amazon.  It is a mix of types that you didn’t once see in the mass.

Most of you know about the hit Settlers of Catan, called the Monopoly buster or the game of our time – a favorite of Mila Kunis, Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Reid Hoffman among many other celebrities. Another hot game is Alan R. Moon's Ticket to Ride.  Forbes recently wrote about Days of Wonder, the manufacturer of Ticket to Ride, “… Days of Wonder has sold more than 2 million physical copies of the game at a hefty $50, and nearly that many copies of the game for iPhone and iPad at $6.99.” Incredible price points and they only have 15 full time employees. Ticket to Ride is not their only game.

I should mention that these eurostyle/hobby game inventors are treated as celebrities in their market (now making their way to the mass market). Their names are on the box, people stand in line for autographs and the chance to play with the inventor/designer, consumers buy their games like they do books from favorite authors. There is a connection to increased sales and I talk about this in many past articles, including most recently Lessons from the Housewares Show. 

The market has changed. The older more familiar style of family games are still selling, look at Spin Master’s ‘overnight’ success in that area or Lego’s games, but now there are options and people are enjoying the options. More people are playing games of every type on every platform than at any time in history.  I recently wrote an article on the benefits of board games and it is being shared almost virally. People are interested in board games – all types of them! I suggest people think of games like they do food. Sometimes you feel like a snack (an app), sometime like fast food (quick fun game) and sometimes like that family/friends sit-down meal (eurostyle). 

We need the face-to-face interaction with our diverse populations. I applaud Wil and his efforts. When asked why he made up the show and why Int’l TableTop Day, Wil said, “…to just give an opportunity to people to go somewhere and experience the boundless joy of getting together with other people and just hanging out and playing a game together.” And, now there are options - lots of options to play! 

Lessons from the Housewares Show

Earlier this week I attended the International Home and Housewares Show, the huge annual trade show of the kitchen gadget, tableware, small appliance and cookware industries. I was curious to see the show since it had been many years since I had last attended. It had definitely grown to over 2,100 exhibitors and over 60,000 attendees from over 100 countries. But I was most struck by how many celebrity chefs had their faces blown up much larger than life on booth graphics and the electric vibe around the celebrity chef stage area where they cooked for attendees and press cameras. This was a change from the last time I attended, when most chefs  were virtually unknown. 

Attendees talked enthusiastically about the chefs they got to meet, and  watched eagerly as the chefs demonstrated their latest techniques and licensed products. A Movie Star excitement rippled through the

crowd. This excitement  added a real buzz to the show – a trade show. We experience much the same excitement at our Chicago Toy & Game Fair with many of the consumers excited to meet the inventors of toys and games. But this was a trade show. 

Then flipping through one of the Housewares Show dailies, there were article titles such as “Gorham Launches Rick Bayliss Collection” and “Meyer Corporation Showcases New Cake Boss Brand.” Another turn of the page had Guy Fieri’s life-size picture smiling at me. 

Decades ago, housewares were a commodity much like toys and games are now. Making chefs into household names and bigger-than-life characters changed all that. Now there’s the sparkly and appealing celebrity factor that makes the products more special, more  entertaining, and easier for consumers to connect with on an emotional level. This is what our industry needs to do to stand out in today’s world. When it comes down to it, we are competing for the very same dollars housewares are. We spend money on gadgets we don’t need and hardly use, and those egg beaters and microplanes certainly aren’t as important as play is to individuals’ and society’s health and wellbeing. We are in the entertainment industry and we have IMPORTANT products that are VITAL to families and the community at large.

November Elections? No, Vote RIGHT Now For Top Toy & Game Inventors

I admit it. I plagiarized the title from Dan Nessel of DadDoes. In fact, I can’t beat what he wrote about the TAGIE Awards. It is just too entertaining. http://www.daddoes.com/6765/tagie-awards-2012-top-toys/ 

However, I will write the names of honorees and nominees:

Excellence in Game Design: Maureen Hiron, David Hoyt, Ken Johnson, Leslie Scott, Klaus Teuber 

Excellence in Toy Design: Lonnie Johnson, Tony Morley, Michael McGinnis, Dave Yearick, Nancy Zwiers

Rising Star Designer: Martin Nederguaar Anderson, Nicholas Cravotta & Rebecca Bleau, Gina Manola, Patrick Matthews,  Rosie Robertson 

Young Inventor of the Year: Miranda Evarts, Lexi Glenn, Seth and Alexia Kempe

Excellence in Electronic Toy or Game: Apptivity Hot Wheels (Mattel), Furby (Hasbro), Lazer Tag (Hasbro), LeapPad (LeapFrog), Spyro Skylanders (Activision)

Other TAGIE Awards to be presented include the following honorees:  Excellence in Character Design - Dora the Explorer/Nickelodeon; Lifetime Achievement - The Theo Coster Family, Theora Design; Hassenfeld Family Humanitarian - Peter and Andrew Brown/ Flair Leisure Products; and In Memoriam - Stan Clutton/Fisher-Price.

Thank you to our sponsors (couldn't host the Awards without you) -  Hasbro, our Presenting Sponsor and other generous sponsors including Southwest Airlines, Hassenfeld Family Initiatives, Otherdoor Entertainment, AGE, Inc., Global Toy News, Joyce Johnson Designs, Oxford Games, and The Playmakers!

For more information and to vote, go to www.tagieawards.com

Creative and Playful Office Spaces, Happier Productive Employees

An independent 2006 U.S. Workplace Survey reported 65% of workers asked said design and layout of
their workplace is “extremely” or “very” important to them and more than 90% said the quality of their working environment affects their attitude about their work. They published Ten Tips: Creative space at the office. The NY Times article Do Happier People Work Harder? states, "Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers." Employers and employees spend most of their waking hours at work, it should be in spaces that lift one's spirit, not drag down.

Bob Wann, President of Patch Products, said that his first move as President was to have the offices redecorated in a more playful way to reflect what they did as a company. Radio Flyer has a giant wagon out front and fun wall murals inside. Hasbro has Mr. Potato Head welcoming visitors and workers. Crayola has crayons tumbling from their rooftop. IDEO is known for their creative work/play spaces.

I’ve been collecting creative, cool and functional products and ideas for office spaces and posting to pinterest http://pinterest.com/marycouzin/creative-fun-office-ideas/. What are some of your favorite playful creative company decors?  Our industry of all industries should be known for their playful and creative office spaces! 

TAGIE Award Honorees Announced

This year the International Toy and Game Innovators of the Year Awards (TAGIE Awards) is being held at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. The TAGIEs are a celebratory, emotional, playful and elegant evening. Cocktails and appetizers will be in the balconies and exhibits overlooking the stately Stanley Field Hall where the seated dinner and ceremony will be held.

Honorees this year include:

Hassenfeld Humanitarian Award:  Peter and Andrew Brown

Inventor Advocacy: Mel Taft

Lifetime Achievement:  The Coster Family – Theo, Ora, Boaz and Gideon

Excellence in Character Creation – tba

In Memoriam - tba

In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting articles about each of our incredible honorees this year.

 

Nominations for Toy Inventor of the Year, Game Inventor of the Year, Rising Star and Young Inventor of the Year are open until September 1^st. Nominate your inventors today and join us November 16^th in Chicago! 

Invented in the U.S.A.

The NY Times ran interesting story today titled:  Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A. The opening paragraph reads:  Etched into the base of Google’s new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”

I’ve often wondered why if we have a label that states the product was manufactured in the U.S.A. or wherever, why not add where it was invented. It could be as Google has it labeled or you could have, as an example, “Designed in the U.S.A. and Manufactured in China.”

I also think it is important to have the name(s( of the inventor(s) of the box as a face or a story helps sell product, a topic I have written about many times.

 Inventors themselves aside, isn’t it just as important where the idea was developed? People are employed designing just as they are manufacturing. Aren’t we proud of our innovative spirit? Perhaps the toy and game industry should lead the way and include such verbiage on our packaging. 

 

Marketing in a Digital World

Until recently, digital media and social media were viewed as mere marketing tools for toy manufacturers and retailers. American Smartphone adoption increased in 2011 to over 50% of cell phon subscribers. Facebook app Draw Something (OMGPOP/Zynga) logs 36,000,000 active monthly users and the Draw Something iPhone App launched to more than 50,000,000 downloads in 50 days. Words With Friends, Draw Something, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Bejeweled, Doodle Jump and other digital brands provide new insights into the way kids, adults, and families play. But are digital, mobile and social trends changing the way we play? 

In Chicago in November, we host our Social Media at Play Conference, SMAPCon, to learn the latest from the best minds. Brian Torney, SVP Creative & Interactive, at  Kunoichi and Steve Drucker, VP /Executive Producer at  Hasbro, were headliners at SMAPCon last fall and will now be expanding and sharing their thoughts at PlayCon next week along with Melanie Notkin, best-selling author, Founder of SavvyAuntie.com and CEO of the Webby Award nominee for Best Family Site. They are a dream team of information.

I am part of the TIA Committee putting on PlayCon, am introducing these digital mavens and asked them each to give us a sneak preview of what they plan to talk about at PlayCon. This is only one topic of a full agenda with important topics and top name speakers. I hope to see many of you at the Conference.  

Beyonce, Breast-feeding and Promoting Play

This week’s Time Magazine has an article about Beyonce and other celebrities promoting breast-feeding - that breast-feeding is more cool and hip if celebrities are doing it. 

Beyonce also loves playing board games. Jay-Z said he went out and bought an armful of board games to keep her home when she was pregnant. Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West play Connect 4 into the night and very competively. 

There are a lot of other celebrities who play board games (didn’t find any celebrities who still play with toys). I have collected articles over the years and did an internet search for this blog – all easy to find and very public. 

Promoting play as cool and hip is another strategy along with promoting our inventors as celebrities and
the importance of play to our wellbeing to better compete with other entertainment options. 

 

Celebrity              Toys/Games
Adam Sandler        various board games
Al Gore                  Cranium
Alan Alda               Spite and Malice, Chess
Albert Einstein       Go
Alyssa Milano         Taboo
Amy Winehouse      Boggle, Scrabble and Pictionary
Angelina Jolie         various board games
Arnold Schwarzenegger Chess
Ashlee Simpson      Monopoly
Ashley Judd            Go Goddess, Pictionary
Ashton Kutcher       Dominoes
Barack Obama        various board games with daughters
Beastie Boys           Scrabble, Mahjongg
Ben Affleck             Poker, Chess

TED Talks on Play

Many of us enjoy and find inspiration in TED Talks. You may be surprised how many TED Talks are about the importance of play. Some are posted below. Also interesting is that few of the speakers are part of our industry.

We need to find ways to promote play as something good for you like eating vegetables. (Have you had your four to six servings of play today?)  You’ve heard me say that toy/game inventors should be celebrated as authors, musicians, chefs, etc. Celebrating our inventors publicly is just one way to raise the profile of our industry and the importance of play.

Steve Keil and other TED speakers believe play can change the world for the better. It is documented that it can make you healthier, smarter, more productive, more social and happier (did you know most serial killers did not play as children – check out Stuart Brown’s TED talk).

Steve says we need a Play Revolution and that it can revitalize the economy, education and society. I’m with him. Watch his video below.

TED Talks on play. Bios taken from TED:

Steve Keil: A Manifesto for Play, for Bulgaria and Beyond

Steve says:

-We need a revolution. That the more we play, the bigger our brains are… and we develop more emotional maturity if we play more.

-We develop better decision-making ability if we play more. 

-Bears that play more survive longer, not the bears that learn how to fish better.

 

Pinterest: I Need a 12-Step Program

There, I’ve said it.  I am addicted to Pinterest.  Social media maven Mary Kay Russell led me here a few weeks ago.  Although I didn’t want to add yet another social media addiction to my already full plate of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I am now spending more time on Pinterest than the rest combined.  In part, because it is new; but also because it is incredibly fun and useful on many levels.  And the more time I spend on it, the more I can see why it could be hugely beneficial to the toy business – especially for retailers – from the big guys to the small brick & mortar stores. 

So what is Pinterest?  And why should toy retailers be interested in it?  Pinterest is an online “social” site that lets users collect images they find online and offline – onto virtual bulletin boards that they can categorize and organize however they wish (i.e. home décor, recipes, party planning, TOYS I MUST BUY).  Find something you want to buy?  Or maybe a DIY project you want to try?  How about a recipe you’d like to save?  Grab the image and “pin” it onto one of your boards.  The social part (this is where it gets addicting) comes into play when the user starts to window shop on Pinterest.  Users can follow each other’s boards, and images can be shared or “repinned”, commented on, or “liked”.  If a user wants to find out more about an item or make a purchase, they can click on the image and it’ll take them to the originating site.

I now have over 25 boards with over 1,000 images – and the list is growing.  As you might have guessed, among my 25 boards are Toy and Game Inventors, Chicago Toy & Game Exhibitors, Kid Inventors and My Favorite Toy Stores.   I no longer need to keep notes about places I want to go, recipes I want to try, decorating ideas, books I want to read, unusual wine corks, videos I like, etc.  It’s all there for me when I want it, in an organized system that I understand and can access from anywhere, anytime.

Social Media Gets Bumpy for Barbie

Bald Barbie conversations are happening all over the Internet. Michelle Spelman suggested I write about it for GTN, but since has already written about it in her Cincinnati Examiner blog, I asked if she would like to share the story and how it has grown even since she wrote about it. If Michelle’s name is familiar, it is because I recently wrote about the Cincinnati’s Game & Toy Industry’s Holiday Gift Guide that she put together highlighting the products invented and produced by Cincy toy/game industry people. 

Michelle: No doubt you’ve heard about the public campaign launched recently on Facebook trying to convince Mattel Inc. to make a “Beautiful and Bald Barbie” doll for children living with hair loss induced by cancer and other diseases.  Forbes.com summarized the story beautifully earlier this week. 

This is a classic example of why large and small companies must, not only, engage in social media, but also must have strategic social media contingency plans in place for navigating public image challenges that can arise.

What started as a simple page on Facebook, grew to a crusade, in a matter of days, that is now over 135 thousand “likes” strong.  The effort has spilled over into all kinds of other social channels like Twitter, YouTube and blogs, and into the mainstream media as well.  Huffington Post, ABC News, USA Today and others have covered this growing appeal.

The initial response from Mattel to the campaign’s organizers was a canned dismissal that legions of individuals have received over the years:  ““Mattel doesn’t accept ideas from outside sources.” 

The “Beautiful and Bald Barbie” group was not dissuaded, pushing on with their efforts to spread the word and gather support.

Changing The Way We Play Part 4 – the Xbox 360 Kinect

Every so often a product comes along and changes the way we play…

If you have been following our Changing the Way We Play series with the creatives at Kunoichi, we began with Brian Torney's article, Star Wars Collectables (1977),  Sam Well's article, He-Man and the Masters of the 30 Minute Toy Commercial, and Anna van Slee's article Using Social Media Thinking to Advance Board Game Mechanics. Our last in the series is Paige Bailey's Changing The Way We Play – the Xbox 360 Kinect.

Paige Bailey is a senior creative manager and big ideas thinker at Kunoichi, a leading creative services provider in kids entertainment, toys, and games. With a background in writing and marketing, Paige seeks to build worlds behind every concept, and knock down all obstacles in between.

Paige: Normally, I’m not one to get excited about gaming console systems, but after playing the Xbox 360’s Kinect, it only took about .25 seconds to want one and about one day to make my purchase. After hours and hours of play (research), I’m ready to talk about how the Kinect has the potential to be a major stepping-stone in advancing the way we play, and how it’s opened up some virtual doors I never knew existed.  

 It seems I’m not the only one excited, as Microsoft’s release of the Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox
360 gaming console received strong initial commercial success, and continued to rise in sales above all other game systems in 2011. Securing a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling consumer electronic device of all time, the popularity of the Kinect’s new technology seems to be exciting everyone. 

Playing with the Multiple Intelligences, How Play Helps Them Grow

Scott G. Eberle could be Dr. Play. He is vice president for play studies at The Strong where he develops exhibits for the National Museum of Play. He is editor of The Strong’s American Journal of Play, holds a doctorate in intellectual history, and is author of Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame and other works on American history, culture, and play. Currently he is co-editing a Handbook of Study of Play for Rowman-Littlefield and collaborating on a book about the elements of play. He writes the new blog titled re:Play, just launched this morning.  Eberle also recently published “Playing with the Multiple Intelligences, How Play Helps Them Grow”. The latter is an important article, so I asked if he could highlight takeaway points for our industry. Play is a value in itself, of course, but it is also vital to learning, yet it gets trivialized. Scott’s research is ammunition to help the public think differently about play.

Mary: Scott, let me begin by asking how someone with training in intellectual history gets interested in play and toys.

Scott: Actually it’s an exceptionally good fit, Mary. Play is a state of mind as our friend Dr. Stuart Brown shows, and the way we play changes over time, and the things we play with change, over time. And so if you’re interested in play you’re naturally drawn into questions of psychology and history. Also, the institution I work for holds half-a-million objects (most of them toys and dolls) and installs big, original exhibits about play, two more good, practical reasons.

A Rising Star - Hard to Believe He is Just 17

I'd like you to 'meet' an extraordinary person - Nick Metzler. He won the ChiTAG Young Inventor Challenge senior division for the second year in a row and received a licensing deal – his game is expected to be on the shelves this fall. He is one of the brightest, creative and most articulate people (young or old) I have ever met. He’ll be presenting at the TOTYs again with me as part of his prize package (the TIA is a very generous sponsor of the Young Inventor Challenge).

His interview with Gina Manola of Calico, one of the organizers of the Young Inventor Challenge, is a must read. It is difficult to believe Nick is only 17 when you read his interview. You will be seeing more of him in the future, whether it is in our industry or another, I just know it. 

 

Changing The Way We Play – Using Social Media Thinking to Advance Board Game Mechanics

If you have been following our Changing the Way We Play series with the creatives at Kunoichi, we began with Brian Torney's article,Changing The Way We Play – Star Wars Collectables (1977), then Sam Well's article, He-Man and the Masters of the 30 Minute Toy Commercial, and now we continue with Anna van Slee. Anna was a speaker at T&GCon and SMAPCon and is Account Director at Kunoichi, where she guides the creative interactive strategy for high-profile clients in the toy and game industry. She facilitates the actualization of new and existing intellectual properties as animated series, interactive experiences, mobile and social campaigns, brand bibles, comic books, packaging art and custom transmedia solutions combining all of the above. 

Anna: "Five thousand years ago on a Saturday night in Egypt, a 32-year-old grandma probably eased her aching, linen-toga-swaddled behind into a well-worn wooden chair to play a board game with her grandkids. Today, I might play the very same game, but wearing blue jeans and sipping ice-cold beers, after a hard day’s work spent sitting in front of a computer. 

People have been playing board games since Homo sapiens have had time to think about anything beyond surviving from one moment to the next. Board games are one of the earliest expressions of culture, along with language and art. And it’s no wonder why: games teach players about strategy. And whether we live in adjacent mud-brick huts or skyscraper apartments, the key to a successful existence in society is advantageously balancing risk and reward. 

Like all forms of play, board game play lets young minds begin to comprehend these facts of the adult world in a fun and safe environment. Games also let adults such as myself take out-of-character risks and experiment with new strategies – casting off stress in the process. 

While these cathartic psychological foundations of board games have not changed, how humans process information and communicate with each other has changed quite a bit. In this article I’ll explore how social media has shaped human thought, and how those changes can be incorporated into board game mechanics to make the games themselves more relevant, intuitive and dynamic. 

Cincinnati's Game & Toy Industry Professionals Holiday Gift Guide

WGN Radio kindly had me as a guest the other day talking about why Santa comes to Chicago for his ideas (so many toy and game inventors here). Well, Cincinnati is another one of his favorite stops and Michelle Spellman did an amazing thing – she put together a catalog for the public of toys and games invented in Cincinnati – The Cincinnati Game & Toy Industry Professionals Holiday Gift Guide! Some of you know Michelle through a game she and her husband Jeff invented, Jukem Football, which is selling quite well in the stores and receiving a lot of media buzz. But Michelle is an incredible force of energy and sunk deeper into our industry, she put together a group of Cincinnati toy/game industry people that meet regularly and then the Gift Guide. I asked Michelle to tell us how it all came about and came together.

Michelle: The Cincinnati Game & Toy Industry Professionals is a networking group that lives primarily on Linkedin.  It was started in June, 2010 and now has more than 200 members. 

When I entered the toy and game industry four years ago, I wanted to connect with other people in the space to learn and find the resources I needed to get my company off the ground.

I discovered that there were a surprising number of toy industry veterans flying under the radar, doing all kinds of jobs in the Cincinnati region.  As many of you know, Kenner Toys was here in Cincinnati for nearly 50 years, before being acquired and subsequently moving to Hasbro’s Rhode Island headquarters in 2000.  When Hasbro left town, many people thought the toymakers left too.  But as it turns out, they didn’t.

A large number of former (Kenner) Hasbro employees remained here.  Many left the toy business and took positions in other industries.  But many others continue to work as independent designers, inventors, consultants, agents, and provide other professional services to toy companies all over the world.

In addition, the University of Cincinnati’s Design Art and Architecture Program (DAAP) has a long history of producing accomplished toymakers who produce toys for numerous evergreen brands such as Star Wars, Nerf, Barbie, Hotwheels and many, many more.

He-Man and the Masters of the 30 Minute Toy Commercial

We began a Changing the Way We Play series before our ChiTAG events with Brian Torney's article Changing The Way We Play – Star Wars Collectables (1977) Part 1 and now we continue with Sam Wells of Kunoichi. 

Sam is another talented industry colleague and play expert. We worked with him on our Social Media at Play Conference this year. He spent seven years in comics publishing assuming many different roles ranging from editor to publisher to designer and occasionally writer.  He’s the owner and main contributor to Toydejour.com, an off-beat toy review blog that has been giving unsolicited opinions and weird photos since 2007.

From Sam...

Every so often a product comes along and changes the way we play.

Take a look at any major selling toy line on the shelves today (Transformers, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, etc.) and you’ll see at only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that brand.  Resting just beneath the water is a massive structure of support for each toy line comprised of comics, video games, trading cards, websites and a slew of crazy miscellaneous licensed products.  All are necessary to keep that brand above water, so to speak. But at the very base of this now hard-to-maintain iceberg metaphor you’ll find cartoons. The very soul of any branded toy line is the story told in animated series, and in recent years it’s become quite blurred whether the toys are a means to promote the shows, or if the shows are a means to promote the toys.  But it hasn’t always been that hard to define. 

Marbles, the Brain Store on a Roll

Marbles, The Brain Store recently sent out and posted a video promoting one of their inventors, Peggy Brown, which is part of their innovative and very successful approach to retailing toys and games. The video is joy to watch (I admit I am biased as Peggy is a friend and she mentions the TAGIEs, but I think you will agree) - Marbles Peggy Brown Interview.  

Promoting inventors aside, Marbles is a phenomenon in our industry. They opened its first store in October 2008 and has since opened five more stores in the Chicago area, three in Minnesota, and 9 more on the east coast (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). We filmed a commercial in their downtown Chicago store last fall on a weekday morning and it was busy… very busy. What is their secret? I caught up with Lindsay Gaskins, Marbles CEO, to find out what makes them roll.

Lindsay: “We have had a crazy year with more than doubling in store size and introducing 20 new Marbles branded products to our product line. Luckily we have a great, adaptable team and partners that are helping us grow rapidly and handle all the bumps in the road. 

TAGIE Winner Greyson MacLean on Conan and More

One of the TAGIE Awards is for young inventors with products that have made it to retail shelves and this year we had some very accomplished young inventor nominees. Kylie Copenhagen invented Zobmondo's Ladybug game when she was in first grade and it has been top selling pre-school game at Target for years. Jake, Erin and Lachlan Johnson, the inventors of FlipOutz, a hot new product sold by Wild Creations, were featured on Shark Tank and Daymond John invested in them. Last, but not least, Greyson MacLean, inventor of BrickStix, a removable label for bricks like Legos, that is being picked up by stores everywhere. 

Our PR firm, Media Maison, worked to get these nominees and other TAGIE nominees and their products national exposure.  Conan O’Brien invited Greyson as a guest on his November 12^th show. You may have seen the clip as it circulated around the industry. Greyson was amazing. He not only held his own, stealing the show from LL Cool J, but bested Conan a few times. Definitely worth the watch.  http://teamcoco.com/video/greyson-maclean-drops-truth. 

I asked Greyson if he would share with us what it was like being on Conan, winning the TAGIE Young Inventor Award and working his BrickStix booth at ChiTAG. I am publishing his response unedited and in its entirety. Thank you to his mom, Amy, for the pictures. 

Mrs. Couzin, 

Here are the few paragraphs you asked me to do. Sorry it has taken so long. I have had a lot of homework this week. 

Changing The Way We Play – Star Wars Collectables (1977) Part 1

(This series is being published on the Toy and Game Inventor Conference blog and they are just too good not to share here.) 

We've been working with the Kunoichi team over the past year on social media, collateral and our Social Media at Play Conference (website and conference development). They aren't only innovative and insightful, but super knowledgeable about play – all types of play and play history. We thought it would be great to have a series on toys/innovations that changed our industry. Brian Torney weighs in first.

Brian is a writer, consultant, Jedi Knight and Vice President of Kunoichi, a leading transmedia services provider for entertainment brands. A 7-year veteran of the toy, game, publishing and children’s entertainment industries, Brian ideates new and existing brands, connecting storytelling across multiple new and traditional media. These are not the droids you’re looking for.

 Brian: Every so often a product comes along and changes the way we play. In 1977, Star Wars made dolls a bad word.

Starry Heavens: A Life-Size Board Game at NYC's Museum of Modern Art

Eric Zimmerman is a game designer, artist, academic, and writer who has been working in the game industry passionately for more than 16 years creating dozens of games of all kinds, from massively multiplayer online games to physical games designed for galleries and museums to card and board games. He has taught at schools like MIT, NYU, and Parsons School of Design.  In addition, he's written about game design in books like Rules of Play, co-authored with Katie Salen, considered a standard textbook for game design. I met Eric some years back at a get-together I host during NYTF not knowing his amazing background at the time. It is his most recent work that I asked him to share with us - his recent collaboration with architect Nathalie Pozzi at the Museum of Modern Art. Reviews of this work include The Observer, The Paris Review and The New Yorker. He agreed to share his experience with us – thank you, Eric!  

Eric: “I have been working as a game designer for almost 20 years – since I finished grad school – and I’ve always tried to find strange and interesting places within the game industry. For nine years I ran Gamelab, a company that created online games like Diner Dash before the term “casual games” existed. I’ve made MacArthur grant-funded games for kids, created dozens of real-world conference games played by hundreds or thousands of players, and this fall I have a game coming out for Xbox Kinect I designed with Deepak Chopra.

Why nominate your favorite inventor for a TAGIE Award?

 
Toy and Game Inventors of the Year Nominations are open. Here are the top four reasons to vote for your favorite inventors:

1. Manufacturers can leverage inventor nomination with press releases, facebook posts and tweets that promote them/their products. Tell the story of your nominated inventors.
2. Retailers can hold inventor autograph signings of nominated inventors – Drive traffic to your stores.
3. Designers of a nominated inventor’s product can promote their contribution, helping drive sales.
4. We have retained a national pr agency to promote the top nominated inventors nationally. This means your inventors, hence your products, will receive media coverage in time for the holidays.

We all know how important play is to our culture and to our development as human beings.  Without the  creators of the very games that drive this culture, where would we be?  The creators of successful toys and games SHOULD be recognized for their contributions. 

Consider this:
Actors have Emmys and Oscars
Singers have Grammies.
Writers have Pulitzer, Edgar, Newberry, Hugo and more
Chefs have their restaurants and a plethora of food shows, awards, books, columns, etc.

You have heard me say many times that inventors are no different from these other artists. The creative processes are similar and they can help us fight for the consumer’s entertainment dollar.

That’s exactly why we created the Toy & Game Inventor of the Year Awards (TAGIE Awards) – To recognize toy and game inventors from around the world responsible for some of today’s hottest products, as well as those inventor greats who have stood out in the eyes of their toy industry colleagues for their exceptionally innovative spirit of creativity or humanitarianism.

Ron Magers on Sing-A-Ma-Jigs and Mountain Tops

 

Sing-A-Ma-Jigs were a hot product last year and continue to be. It won three TOTYs at NYTF (Most Innovative, Top Preschool and overall Toy of the Year). Mattel acknowledged the inventor, Ron Magers of  MDesign, in their acceptance speech. Innovation and a new brand can pay off big. I've known Ron for some years now and he always has a smile on his face, a kind word and is a classy guy. Like many in our industry, he also gives back to the community. He is currently involved in reshaping the 'Old Man' monument on a mountain top in NH. I asked Ron to share with us how Sing-A-Ma-Jigs came to be, a bit about his other inventions and why he is bringing the Old Man on the Mountain back to life.

Ron: Call it fun if you want but the toy business, unlike the success of the Duncan yoyo, has its up and downs and can often give a toy designer a bit of heartburn. We inventors know all too well that the time and effort that goes into the birth of an idea through to its conclusion and its promise of retail success, is fraught with the industry’s built in road bumps. 

It always starts with the “this could be the one” idea. Then comes the excitement of the fantasy that your fledgling inspiration will soon be flooding the retail shelves across the land.  As brief as these inspirational moments are, most creative types will tell you is that the endorphins generated from the first “Aha” instant is where the FUN is. It’s that initial spark that often motivates one to undertake the challenging part. The development of their brainchild and make it something real you can hold in your hands. Sure, there’s always the argument that selling the idea and making enough money to pay the bills and keep your next inspirations funded is what it’s truly all about. True and let’s face it. Without the financial rewards, inspiration is really only a little imaginative smoke.

Alan Hassenfeld on Caring for the Toymakers

 
What I like best about this column is the chance it gives me to write about extraordinary people. One person who, surprisingly, I have not covered to date is my friend Alan Hassenfeld. You may know his grandfather co-founded Hasbro and that Alan steered the company through some tumultuous times as CEO and Chairman. You can read about this part of Alan's life in Toy Wars, The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for America's Youngest Consumers and other books about our industry, but what I find even more extraordinary has to do with his open heart and mind, how he is involved in so many causes and how he is helping so many people. He travels the world helping the helpless: street children in Brazil, the homeless in Pakistan, the sick and hungry in America... I don't have space to list all of his philanthropic endeavors. And yet, he always seems to have time to offer sage advice to people in the industry. People like me. He loves our industry and is a great spokesman for it. I think of Alan as a Statesman as well, because he doesn't just represent Hasbro. He goes beyond company lines.   
 

 

 

 

I asked him recently if he would share thoughts about one of his many passions, his work with the International Council of Toy Industries' CARE Process.

Alan: There has been a strong focus on toy safety over the past few years -- and deservedly so. Much has been done by the toy industry and government to help ensure that the toys are safe.

 

But there is another kind of safety – one that is also very important and runs the risk of being lost in the shuffle – the health, safety and well-being of the people who make our toys. Hasbro, and I personally, have long worked hard to ensure that workers in toy factories have a healthy, safe and clean environment in which to work and are treated fairly in terms of working hours and wages.

Reuben Klamer on Success, Careers and The Game of Life

  

I meet and work with many inventors, both professional and novice, and I love and admire them for many reasons. Chocolate is also something I love - all types and  flavors. Both inventors and chocolates bring joy of varied play experiences or flavors, but you can't help but have a few favorites. Reuben Klamer is one of mine. He wrote an article for our ChiTAG Fair Program in 2009 that I recently rediscovered and so enjoyed reading, it occurred to me to share it in this column as it has wisdom as well as a piece of our industry history.

Inspiration and Perseverance are Essential for Success

 

Sir Winston Churchill once remarked, "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm." That one sentence sums up my long career – sixty years and counting – pretty well. Believe me, succeeding is much more fun than failing. But either way I’ve always understood that to survive the constant rejection that is the hallmark of an inventor’s life you need two things: inspiration and a steadfast belief in your product. (Bonus points for having a sense of humor.)

 

My favorite illustration of perseverance? I was turned down an astonishing 21 times when I tried to sell my idea for what would become the classic Fisher-Price Preschool Trainer Skates – still on the market after 20 years and a worldwide hit. Twenty-one! It never occurred to me to abandon the skates and move on.

 

Bikini Beaches and Toy Invention

 

What Marvin Glass was in Chicago, Larry Jones was in California, but with better weather, a Porsche, cutoffs and a t-shirt. His offices were on the beach with girls in bikinis, picnic lunches, turtle races, crazy  inventor presentations and much more. He and his partners formed California R&D Center on April Fool's Day in 1969 and Larry took over running it in 1972. They announced their entry into the toy business with a Playthings ad with them seated on toilets on the edge of the beach with the line “Getting Our Heads Together”.  The company was always unusual and their by-line was “anything is possible”.  I asked Larry if he would share one of his G-rated stories with us.

Larry: “There may be a few of you out there that remember how the toy invention business was a half a century ago … things were really different and I decided to open a toy invention company to sell ideas to toy companies.  Take a minute to focus on what this business was like in the late 60’s.  The Glass group was it … well maybe a handful of others including Eddie Goldfarb, but suffice it to say, the field was wide open and no one had experience selling concepts to toy companies and conversely, toy companies had no experience in buying outside ideas.

While there are a million stories, I do remember one that was as funny as it was entertaining.  California R&D Center, my new company, had just opened its doors and I thought I would try to get Wham-O to see me, but I needed a way to get in to see Spud Melin, their President and not the submission secretary.  I was convinced that a creative idea would set me up to be always welcome in the future.

Sir Torquil Norman – an Inspiration

  
During the London Toy Fair, I attended the brilliant UK Inventor's Dinner and sat next to the most intriguing person - Torquil Norman. He was engaging, entertaining, charming and a proper English gentleman (the latter until he told stories of past inventor dinners and running across table tops to elude the police and such). 

You know Torquil is an interesting person when his Wikipedia entry starts out, "An  Old Etonian, graduate of Harvard and Cambridge, he stands 6' 7". Torquil gained his pilot’s license at eighteen, did National Service in the Fleet Air Arm and when he left, bought a Piper Comanche, flew in No. 601 Squadron RAF and took up skydiving, a passion shared by his wife Anne.

After working as an investment banker in the United States for eleven years (years in USA during the war as a child, then a year at Harvard and five years at JP Morgan), he returned to the UK in the 1960s and subsequently entered the toymaking industry, first as chief executive of Berwick Timpo toy company from 1973, and then in 1980 founding Bluebird Toys, makers of the Big Yellow Teapot House, the Big Red Fun Bus, and the very successful Polly Pocket line of dolls."

There’s more. He was knighted, is a philanthropist, designed and built a barge on the Seine to escape, piloted a plane over the Atlantic and North Pole and still  more. Click on the wiki link to read highlights. He recently wrote an autobiographical introduction to a book he is penning about lousy government, Kick the Tyres, Light the Fires. I asked if I might share a part of it. It was quite difficult to choose just one story from the 62 pages, but the idea of giving back to the world, in particular to children, resonated. I think you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did.

 

The Social Media Playground – Part 1

 

There was a lot of chatter about bloggers at Toy Fair this year both by bloggers and by exhibitors. Some companies engaged bloggers  productively and others were ambivalent or didn’t engage at all.  I asked Mary Kay Russell, ChiTAG’s Director of Social Media, also an inventor - her most recently licensed game, The Ultimate Party Block debuted at NY Toy Fair, to give us feedback from bloggers who attended the Fair and ideas going forward. 

Mary Kay: This year’s NY Toy Fair hosted bloggers, all excited to check out and blog about the newest and hottest toys and games to their loyal followers.  I had a chance to speak with several, and here’s their feedback:

Is Toy/Game Innovation Declining?

 

TIME magazine recently released its list of the All-TIME 100 Greatest Toys. They ranged from the Radio Flyer wagon of 1923 to the Zhu Zhu  Pets of today. Interestingly, it was also their most read story that week on the web garnering over 6 million page views and nearly 14,000 ‘likes’ on facebook.

I am wondering why there were so few toys and games selected from the past 10 years. The 2000’s have only 3 products on the list, and the past twenty years account for only 12 of the hundred. The 70’s and 80’s account for 29 and the two decades before those, 40! (Well, actually 39 if you discount the fake vomit.)

Is innovation declining?

The Easy-Bake Oven Did Not Lose its Soul

I love the Easy Bake Oven.

It was and still is my favorite toy. Sadly, the inventor of the Easy Bake  Oven, Ronald Howes, passed away last year. I wish I could have met him and thanked him.

This week Salon featured a story about how Hasbro had to replace the oven’s original light bulb with a heating element. It was titled “The Easy-Bake Oven Loses its Soul”.

Although I don’t agree with the author’s conclusion, that the Easy Bake Oven is losing its soul, I particularly loved this paragraph:

Family Matters

 
(Below is my most recent blog for those of you who missed it in the Global Toy News/Playthings ink on paper NY Toy Fair edition.)

What do the following names have in common?
 
Hassenfeld, Hassenfeld/Block, Henson, Pressman, Klamer, Goldfarb, Parker, Ellman, Verrecchia,  Weintraub, Fuhrer, Pasin, Calvin, Shure, Irwin, Nuccio, Levine, Becker, Osterhaus, Magers, Donner, Voigt, Tueber, Ryan, Daniels, Guyer, Wunderlich, Woldenberg, Herbert, Ganger, Meyers, Lennon, Killgallon, Norman, Kohner, Gray, Stark, Stebben, Burtch, Cohn, Meyer, Pillai/Chandra, Berger, Conrad, Gregory, Soehn, Clementoni, Glanz, Rudell, Disney, Falco, Steiner, Kislevitz, Friedman/Stern, Azoulai, Breuil, Bernstein, Ditomassi, Campagna/Lanham, Hendel/Petty, Lewis, Richter, Hess, Eisenberg, Mor/Lushi, Kremer, Gardner/Martin, Lifschutz, Jones, Monchik, Nyberg/Klint, Collins, Pavalek, Halitzer, Greenfield, DiPasquale, Bauer, Kravitz, Prince, Gaynor and Orbanes.
 

How Did China Become so Important?

 

China seems to be part of many conversations in our industry, but did you ever wonder how that came to be? Well, wonder no more. Toy Town: How a Hong Kong Industry Played a Global Game by Sarah Monks, a new book commissioned by the Toy Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong tells the inside story of how tiny Hong Kong became the world's number one toy exporter then went on to establish southern China as the global toy industry's production base. 

Angela Gardner, one of the many contributors to the book, learned the toy industry from her father,  Frank, head of Plastic Manufacturing Corp (PMC). She was the first woman to sell on an international  level and went on to found her own company, Castlespring Enterprises in Hong Kong.
 
I imagined Ms. Gardner had more than a few good stories and I asked her to share a few with our readers.

Partnering with Inventors to Sell Games Successful for Educational Insights

 

“A squirrel, a moose, and an owl walk into Toy Fair” was the subject line of an email I received  recently. I just had to open it. The content was even more interesting than the subject line referring to terrific new games that will be shown by Educational Insights at NY Toy Fair. They promoted:  

You may also bump into some of our inventors!  Meet them, hear their stories, beat them at their  own game, and walk away with a free signed copy. 

As most of you know, a company promoting their inventors has my heart. I’ve worked with EI before as they participate in my ChiTAG and TAGIE events and even golfed at their company golf outing (dead last in a scramble – another story for another time!). I know they have promoted their inventors for some time now, but they have really stepped it up. They have pictures and bios, even full page, of their inventors in their catalogs! The pictures featured in this article are from their catalog. 

I asked Amy Opheim, Director of Marketing, to tell us what they are up to. 

Super Bowl Sunday Spuds - Don Rickles and George Lerner

 

Jim Hill wrote an entertaining story on how Don Rickles came to be the voice of Mr. Potato Head in  Pixar’s Toy Story films (thank you, John Lasseter). The story is a clever tribute to the tens of millions of couch potatoes on Super Bowl Sunday. I think we should also include the Potato Head’s inventor, George Lerner, in such a tribute.

Peggy Brown authored the following story for the TAGIE Awards last November as George was honored In Memoriam. His partner Julius Ellman accepted the award on George’s behalf.

Before we came to know Mr. Potato Head as the world renowned celebrity he is today, we must explore his roots…. or the fact that he is so charmingly down-to-earth, he is practically a root himself.  Once upon a time in 1949, Mr. Potato Head was born of the brilliant mind of George Lerner, an inventor from Brooklyn, New York. George and his friend, Julius Ellman, had merged their talents and their names to form a toy development company called Lernell.

AblePlay and Lekotek - Helping Children With Special Needs Play

 

Inventors or manufacturers will sometimes say to me that their products help children with special  needs. I'll mention Lekotek or AblePlay and they are almost always unfamiliar with the organization. Hence, the topic of today's blog. Deidre Omahen, Director of Programs at the National Lekotek Center agreed to tell us about their role in our industry.

Deidre: “Inventors and manufacturers are absolutely right to suspect that many toys and games they created have applications for children with special needs.  The challenge is to be able to shift ones perspective and see a toy’s potential for these children. 

That’s actually the role of our website www.ableplay.org to match toys to children who have physical, sensory, communicative or cognitive limitations.  When viewed through a lens focused on these special needs, you can actually sort of reinvent a toy by finding all kinds of new ways a child can use and play with it.  And that’s really exciting!

ChiTAG Young Inventor Challenge Winners - Creative Kids!

 

I previously wrote about Gina Manola, founder of CALICO, Managing Partner of Playology,  author/desinger of Notable Novelists and one of the driving forces of the Young Inventor Challenge at  ChiTAG this year. The Young the Inventor Challenge encourages kids ages 6-18 to invent and present  their original toy and game at the Fair. This year there were over 50 creative young inventors from around the country participating in the event.

Gina interviewed the two winners and I just had to share the highlights of her interview (full interview on her blog) with our Global Toy News readers. There are many articles about the downward trend of creativity and imagination in kids today (including some from me). These young inventors’ games were terrific – hopefully they will inspire other kids!

From Gina:

“This year two inventors took top honors. Adrik Herbert, age 8 of Morris, Indiana won in the Jr. Category for his game, Nutterz. “Nutterz is unique because the board is mostly slanted and I had the only slanted board in the Challenge,” Herbert goes on to say he was inspired to enter the competition because his father is a board game inventor. His advice for other kids thinking of entering “Take a deep breath and go with the flow—just do your best and show what you know.”

Nick Metzler, age 16 from Algonquin, IL was the winner in Sr. Category. His unique game play and board game format really caught the eye of the judges. That’s Cheating!

What’s the twist? You guessed it—you have to cheat to win. Metzler knew he had a unique concept for this year’s competition. “First, the game revolves on the concept that cheaters win which definitely changes the way people play games; Second, the game is made up of 5 individual rings to look kind of like a bulls-eye design, but they all spin which changes the board creating shortcuts.

The winners of the Young Inventor Challenge were introduced by actor, and inventor enthusiast, John Ratzenberger and Mike Hirtle, Head of Global Product Acquisition at Hasbro.  

Winners were awarded a number of great prizes including: dinner with Mr. Hirtle and Mr. Ratzenberger, private tour of Toy Fair in NYC and presenters at the TOTY Awards compliments of the Toy Industry Association, InventNow Camp Invention Scholarships, Inventor’s Digest interview and a tour of Bruce Lund’s Chicago studio.”

For the complete interview go to http://playology.net/blog/.

A Tribute to My Mother and Toy Industry Families

 

My apologies for not posting for a few weeks.  My mother lost her battle with cancer just before my Chicago events (TAGIE Conference, TAGIE Awards and ChiTAG), and I took time off to work on her estate. 

My mother loved to tinker – she made dollhouses, castles, barns and more as gifts for her kids and grandkids. She was great at fixing broken toys as well as at designing and making them from scratch. It was from her that I inherited my love for inventing and an appreciation for those who invent. Since the beginning of ChiTAG, my mom helped in so many ways and she would sit at a table with her sisters, Jo and Virg, checking in teachers and scouts all day long.  Mom loved the idea of honoring inventors at the TAGIE Dinner and she encouraged me when the going  was rough. 

We missed her terribly this year.

 Mine is not a unique story in our industry. This year at the TAGIE Awards we honored The Jim Henson   Company for Excellence in Character Design, Ellen Hassenfeld Block and Alan Hassenfeld for their Humanitarian Works, and Eddy Goldfarb for his Lifetime Achievement in inventing. Julie Ellman  accepted the In Memoriam award for his late partner, George Lerner, inventor of Mr. Potato Head. All have parents, children or both in the business and they all told family stories. Many of the other nominees came from toy inventing families as well – David Fuhrer (brother Robert and dad Len), Kate Daniels (mother Beth) and Ali Ryan (dad Steve). 

Apart from the Mafia, there is no industry where family connections are  more prevalent. I think the main reason is that we take our work home with us and involve our children in it. Ours are products that our kids want and we use their feedback. We pass our love of the business along to them. In her speech, Ellen told a wonderful story about how her brother Stephen and she found Mr. Potato Head parts in their father’s briefcase and after sticking them into a summer squash thought that THEY had invented Mr. Potato Head. 

My son, Nick, has worn an Assistant Director badge at ChiTAG since he was 6 years old. He walks around the Fair shaking exhibitor’s hands and playing with their toys and games. This year, as a 14 year old, the highlight for him was meeting Miss Teen Illinois, but he still enjoyed talking with the exhibitors. Some of them tell me they mark the years by how much Nick has grown up. 

Many of our industry colleagues are like family. So many of our efforts are collaborative and ours is a community that will step up to help and support you when you are in need. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this year without so much help from so many of you. Thank you.

Pictures: Tim Walsh (The Playmakers) as MC on stage; Lisa Henson (The Jim Henson Company) with Jamie Kieffer (Learning Curve Brands); Ellie Hassenfeld Block (Toy Industry Foundation); George Burtch (Hasbro), Julie and Fred Ellman (Lernell Company); and, Bob Wann (Patch Products) and Eddy Goldfarb.

John Ratzenberger on Working with Young Inventors and Creative Play

We are very excited that John Ratzenberger will be joining us at the Toy and Game Inventors of the Year Awards on November 19th. He isn't just a beloved actor (Cheers, all Pixar movies, Dancing With the Stars, etc.), he is passionate about inventing and encouraging people to make things. He recently joined the Board of Directors for Foundation for Fair Civil Justice and you probably remember him from Made in America. At the TAGI Awards, he'll be presenting the Young Inventor of the Year Award. At the Chicago Toy and Game Fair, he'll be talking to the Young Inventor Challenge contestants, announcing the winner with Mike Hirtle of Hasbro and taking them out to dinner with Mike.

John, tell us why you are passionate about inventing.

John: “Making and fixing things with your hands is a dying art in America, as I see it.  Based on lessons I learned from creative play as a child, I’ve made “be creative and work with your hands” into a national campaign to save the American skilled workforce.

As a child, I tinkered with toys, boats and radios.  I learned at the feet of my parents and neighbors in Bridgeport, Connecticut, one of the nation’s manufacturing hubs.  My curiosity and old-fashioned work ethic taught by my family and neighbors turned into a career as a carpenter, innovator and entrepreneur, never losing my love of hands-on productive play.

As I began production of my Travel Channel series, Made In America, the celebration of “skilled work” quickly revealed a national crisis.  When kids are no longer encouraged to explore and create worlds of their own, we wind up with a culture that casts a slanted view towards essential skilled work.   Every major sector of our nation’s economy requires creative, skilled workers to produce and innovate – and we’re facing a severe shortage of those essential workers as a result.

I am currently working on a documentary, “Industrial Tsunami,” about the skilled worker shortage and its causes and solutions.  While vocational training and ending cultural biases against working with your hands are keys to solving the worker crisis, it is equally important to emphasize that critical life lessons – including forming a self-reliant and creative personality – start with child’s play that should be encouraged.

I delight in my relationship with the toy industry and in working with young inventors.  Creative play opens doors for young people to dream and invent.  I’m amazed every year at the level of detail and insight that young inventors bring to the table.  Every contest winner with whom I talk confirms they played with toys and, later, tools when they were young.  They learned they could create their own worlds, where boundaries were set only by the obstacles they hit while at play.

My national campaign to reaffirm the need and value for skilled work stems from my  childhood tinkering.  As a kid, I knew I could fix my bike when it broke, which meant I could get home from wherever I wandered.  Can you imagine where America would be – and can be again – if each of us had that same self-reliance and ‘can-do’ expectation that many of us learned as children at play?  Every young inventor can imagine it.”

Thanks, John, I’m a fan! Information about John’s efforts and projects can be found at www.ratzenberger.com.

 

The Jim Henson Company of Today

We are excited to announce that The Jim Henson Company is being honored this year at the TAGI Awards for Excellence in Character Creation – and there are so many fun and imaginative characters loved by kids and adults alike! The TAGI Awards are being held at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry November 19th with a private showing of the Jim Henson Retrospective, which pays tribute to the Jim Henson Company of old. 

 

Much has changed since those early years and in talking to industry colleagues, some are unclear as to which properties belong to The Jim Henson Company, Disney and Sesame Workshop as well as the relationships between them. I've asked Melissa Segal, Sr. Vice President Global Consumer Products at The Jim Henson Company, to set us straight:

 

Melissa: “This is a question we get often and it can appear complicated at first. 

 

  The Jim Henson Company created the characters featured on both “The Muppet Show” and “Sesame Street.”  The Muppets, which are the characters that appeared on “The Muppet Show,” including Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and of course Kermit the Frog, are owned and now controlled by The Walt Disney Company as a result of a 2004 acquisition agreement including all assets, the film and television library and all associated copyrights and trademarks.  The Sesame Street Muppets, which include Elmo, Grover and Big Bird among others, are owned and controlled by Sesame Workshop, the producers of “Sesame Street.” Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™ continues to build the puppets used on Sesame Street, but the Company is not involved in the development, production or business of that brand. 

 

The Jim Henson Company is an independent privately-owned company run by the adult children of founder Jim Henson.  Led by our CEO Lisa Henson, the Company is headquartered in Hollywood on the historic lot built by Charlie Chaplin where we continue to produce television, film and new media projects.  Additionally, we continue to grow the legacy brands we continue to control which include “The Dark Crystal”, “Labyrinth,” “Fraggle Rock” and “Farscape.”

 

While we are always proud to have been the original creator of some of the world’s most popular characters, we always look forward to continue our tradition of introducing new characters that can connect with audiences all around the world.  Our two most recent series do just that.  “Dinosaur Train” is the hit animated series on PBS KIDS that embraces and celebrates two things all kids love: dinosaurs and trains, while introducing young viewers to basic natural history concepts.  “Sid the Science Kid” is our Emmy nominated preschool series that is created using the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio.  The series uses comedy and music to inspire kids to explore the science they experience in their everyday life.”

 

Thank you, Melissa, for clarifying ownership of the characters as well as creating such wonderfully entertaining and inspired characters. We look forward to seeing you in November!

Toys and McDonalds

Every time I read a story about people/companies trying to ban toys in McDonald's Happy Meals, I think those people did not play enough as children and they are looking for attention. Seriously, research has proven time and time again toys are good for children and society.

When I write ‘good’ for society, I am not referring to the obvious benefits to a parent (and those in earshot) of keeping their child occupied and quiet. Dr. Stuart Brown from the National Institue for Play did research concluding play can act as a powerful deterrent, even an antidote to prevent violence, in violent individuals. He also said, “Play energizes us and enlivens us. It eases our burdens. It renews our natural sense of optimism and opens us up to new possibilities.” There are a lot of adults that could use Happy Meal toys.

One of the smartest men that ever lived, Albert  Einstein said that play is the highest form of research.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, an American scholar said, “ Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.

Many more quotes and research about the importance of play can be found on websites of The Strong Museum, Toy Industry Association and Games for Educators.

The Strong Museum publishes The American Journal of Play and this is what their play experts had to say:

About Play

Everyone needs play. It is essential to learning, creativity, and discovery. It guides physical, intellectual, and social development. It drives innovation, increases productivity, and contributes to healthier lives. Children playing on playgrounds learn to incorporate found objects and put them to novel uses, develop creative pretend and dramatic play scenarios, and build on the ideas of others. Inventors draw on these same skills to make imaginative and unlikely connections that lead to exciting new products or important medical and technical advances. Collectors play at acquiring their favorite things and, in doing so, help document important cultural trends.

Play is critical to human development

Research proves that play:

-builds ability to solve problems, negotiate rules, and resolve conflicts;

-develops confident, flexible minds that are open to new possibilities;

-develops creativity, resilience, independence, and leadership;

-strengthens relationships and empathy; and

-helps grow strong healthy bodies and reduces stress.

Children who play do better in school and become more successful adults

 Through play children learn to:

-question, predict, hypothesize, evaluate, and analyze;

-form and substantiate opinions; and

-persist through adversity.

Kids may or may not be heavy from eating at McDonalds, but it is their parents who take them there and it has nothing to do with the toys. McDonalds should be congratulated for including toys and encouraging kids to play. It benefits us all short term and long term. They should add them to the adult meals.

Sharing the Joy of Toy and Game Inventing with Kids

Gina Manola is managing partner of Playology, a product development company that specializes is producing creative play and educational toys and games in a back-to-basics, eco-friendly way. She is also the founder of CALICO, an award-winning design studio. Although busy with her successful businesses and family, she carved time out to share the joy of inventing and creating with kids at her local library and schools. The kids love what she is doing and others asked about it, so she created a template that anyone can take to a school, library or at home and lead the kids through the process.

Gina, please tell us what inspired you and how the program is progressing this fall.

"The inspiration came from the program itself. The Young Inventor Challenge, part of the Chicago Goy & Game Fair (ChiTag), offers kids a unique way to put their imagination and hands to work. It's play with a purpose—and the purpose is play!

I also saw how the program could be a benefit to schools and home-schooling families. The steps a child goes through to complete the Challenge involve planning, strategic thinking, prototyping, play-testing and presenting. The format of the program provides opportunities for teachers to meet curriculum goals in a new and fun way.

I was invited to introduce the program to Next Generation School (NGS) in Champaign, IL. They have truly embraced the program and even expanded it by offering bi-weekly meet-ups for kids and families to get together and brainstorm and play-test their ideas. Ann Quackenbush, a teacher at NGS has also coordinated field trips to a local toy store where they were able to ask questions of the manager, such as, “What makes a great toy or game? The school also arranged a visit to the University of Illinois’ Fab Lab where students were given the opportunity to try out fabrication methods.

Other schools have expressed interest in the model being established at Next Generation School and I will be working to help them get their program up and running.

My business partner, Jill Gaynor, lives in Los Angeles and is working to introduce the program on the West Coast. Our hope is that the Young Inventor Challenge will become a highly anticipated and fun addition to school curriculums and after-school programs across the country. We hope that in sharing the easy to follow presentation that we created, that every teacher and parent will have the tools they need to provide this opportunity for their children.

Seeing children’s eyes light up as they shout, “I have an idea!” is what it’s all about. The Young Inventor Challenge empowers kids to think big and make new connections all in the name of play."

Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Nominations are now Open!

 

As you have read in earlier blogs by me and my colleagues, Marvin Glass and Eddy Goldfarb invented the full time toy and game inventing business here in Chicago in the late forties. After the mild mannered Eddy moved to the west coast, Marvin became something of a celebrity. He was friends with Hugh Heffner, spent time at Heff’s nearby mansion, and even appeared in an issue of Playboy with Bunnies playing with some of his toy creations. Marvin was a showman and became known outside of our industry.

The idea of toy and game inventor as celebrity in America seems to have gone to the grave with Marvin.

In Europe, Game inventors in particular are well known. Winning Germany’s Game of the Year means instant celebrity and increases in sales of up to 500,000 games.

We have been working on resurrecting the idea of making our inventors into celebrities.

Many companies here are picking up on this idea. Educational Insights is sending Tim Walsh across the country on media/retail tours for Blurt – think book tours. RPToys in Canada is also using Tim to promote TriBond. EI has featured inventor’s pictures and their stories on some of their packages. Out of the Box Publishing has always credited inventors on their packages. Buffalo Games, Patch Products and Mindware have interviews with inventors on their websites. Many inventors are using social media to promote their own games.

Considering how important play is to our culture and to our development as human beings, the creators of successful toys and games SHOULD be recognized for their contributions.

Writers have Pulitzer, Edgar, Newberry, Hugo and more.

Singers have Grammies.

Actors have Emmys and Oscars.

You have heard me say a thousand times that inventors are no different from these other artists. The creative processes are similar.

Well, now Toy and Game Inventors have TAGI.

Our third annual Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Awards Dinner will be held in Chicago on November 19th.

The venue this year is the Museum of Science and Industry, which will be presenting a Jim Henson Retrospective at that time of our event, so the location is perfect!

The TAGI Awards recognize toy and game inventors from around the world responsible for some of today’s hottest products, as well as those inventor greats who have stood out in the eyes of their toy industry colleagues for their exceptionally innovative spirit of creativity, or humanitarianism.

Voting has begun. Visit www.tagieawards.com to cast your vote for your favorite inventor in the following categories:

• Toy Inventor of the Year
• Game Inventor of the Year
• Rising Star Inventor of the Year
• Young Inventor of the Year 

 Also being celebrated and honored are: 

• Eddy Goldfarb for Lifetime Achievement
• Alan Hassenfeld and Ellen Block for their Humanitarian Works
• The Jim Henson Company for Excellence in Character Creation
• In Memoriam, Fred Morrison, inventor of the Frisbie will be honored. 

I hope you can join us. It will be a magical evening.

Neighborhood Toy Store Day and Inventors

 

ASTRA is celebrating Neighborhood Toy Store Day on November 13th and are inviting toy/game inventors to share stories about what inspired them to become inventors and a childhood memory of a toy store (a magical experience perhaps) to use in marketing materials. In addition, toy/game inventors who are interested in making appearances at their local toy stores, let us know. I will be compiling this info, so please post to this blog (preferred) or send me a note (or both). I will also be posting outtakes to the TAGI Awards website. This is an exciting as well fun initiative. I hope everyone can help make it a huge success!

I've asked Kathleen McHugh, President of ASTRA, to tell us about Neighborhood Toy Store Day.

Kathleen – "American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA) stores in neighborhoods across the nation will celebrate the first annual Neighborhood Toy Store Day on November 13, 2010.

By setting aside the second Saturday in November as a special time for families to enjoy their local toy stores, ASTRA hopes to launch the holiday season with some community-minded fun.

Neighborhood Toy Store Day will highlight the importance of independent toy stores not only to children and their families—but to their local areas as well.

By shopping locally, consumers will find great toys while supporting vibrant communities and sustainable economic development. Shopping at neighborhood and independent retailers not only increases consumer choice, it also preserves jobs and local character. According to the 3/50 Project, for every $100 spent in local, independently-owned stores, $68 returns to the community in the form of taxes, salaries, charitable contributions and more--in contrast with only $43 dollars when consumers spend their money at a national chain.

Neighborhood Toy Store Day is about celebrating the role the local store plays in the community—especially in the lives of children.

Remember the magical feeling of shopping in your neighborhood toy store as a child—strolling the aisles, examining the exciting options, finally selecting the toy that promised days filled with discovery and adventure?

Recapturing the wonder and the awe of your childhood is as easy as visiting your local toy store. In this fast-paced world, it is heartening to know that, some good things never change. Today’s local toy store may offer special modern conveniences but they still provide the same personal touch shoppers have come to expect from independent toy stores.

ASTRA is encouraging shoppers to get to know their neighborhood toy store on Neighborhood Toy Store Day. More than 500 retailers will be participating in Neighborhood Toy Store Day festivities. Children will be entertained by face-painting, balloon animals, clown or puppet shows, musical performances, crafts, games or contests.

While each store is planning different activities for the big day, the announcement of The 2010 Best Toys for Kids Award list will be the highlight of all Neighborhood Toy Store Day celebrations. This list honors toys that deliver exceptional value and expand a child’s imagination, invite discovery, and encourage creativity.

ASTRA’s top picks are chosen by over 500 local toy store owners across the country based on their deep understanding of how kids play. What makes this list particularly unique is that most of the toys are not advertised on television. Many are made by small manufacturers and are only available at independent toy stores versus big box stores."

By announcing the 2010 Best Toys for Kids Award list during Neighborhood Toy Store Day celebrations, ASTRA hopes to highlight the expertise local stores have in selecting just the right toy to help children grow and learn through play."

(Neighborhood store pictured is Ann Kienzle's store Play that opened this week in Chicago. Congrats, Ann!)

Play in Public - The PiP Campaign

 

Remember streakers? They drew attention to themselves by doing their thing in public. The hobby games segment of our industry is promoting the PiP Campaign - the Play in Public Campaign - a fabulous idea. This movement was started by Kevin E. Schlabach and you can read about it on Kevin’s website. I contacted Kevin about extending the PiP Campaign to mass and specialty market games and he agreed.

Although Kevin’s focus is on the hobby market, I think this is a powerful movement to include all ages and all forms of play. Encourage kids to play outside again. Ask restaurants and cafes to stock board games of all kinds so there is something for everyone. And, take a game or a toy to play with everywhere you go and play at every opportunity.

What better advertisement for our industry! The world would be a better place if people took time to play and played more with others. I’ve long talked about getting our industry together along with celebs to sing a rendition of the extremely successful and groundbreaking 1971 Coca-Cola song "I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony" and replace ‘Sing’ with ‘Play’. I’m thinking about a worldwide campaign to bring people together. The PiP Campaign could help ignite that idea as well as being powerful by itself.  

Kevin, why did you start this campaign and what is your vision?　

"I started the

PiP (Play-in-Public) Campaign because I feel that more people would play games if they simply knew what is available. The mainstream stereotype of board games seems limited to what people remember from childhood. Most people have no idea of the wide variety of games brought to market in the last 10 years, especially since they aren’t carried in big box retail stores. Every time I convince sometime to try a game, they are always excited to learn more. At some point I just decided that getting the most passionate people within the community to spread the word would be the most effective. After weeks of thinking and writing, I ended up with the PiP Campaign post on my Seize Your Turn website.

I didn’t start out with a long term vision. It was just a philosophical idea and I was hoping it would resonate. As the fire ignited, I’ve quickly responded to people’s suggestions and helped the tribe grow. This included starting a

Facebook Fan page, expanding the definition of games in the campaign (originally it was only for "euro-games"), and working with publishers to do giveaways to encourage participation. Being at the center allows me to react to ideas and suggestions, and my goal it to keep the momentum for as long as possible. If it loses momentum at some point, then I will simply rekindle the fire again next summer. It’s only been two weeks and I’m a little surprised of the journey so far.

The goal of this is the same as the goal of my website or game group. I simply want to help spread the joy of learning, playing, and collecting table top strategy games."

Thank you, Kevin, and congrats on a great idea off to a great start!

Part 2 - Transformers, GI Joe, Toy Story AND Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story

Continuing where we left off last week, I asked Kevin Tostado, Producer/Director of Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story why he spent 3 years of his life (probably 3 or 4% of his life) making this film. 

Kevin – “As a kid growing up, MONOPOLY was a game that was always present in my house.  It’s  probably  one of the first games I played in which I had to handle cash, as well as having to negotiate trades with my opponents.  By the time I was 12, I could no longer get my family to play with me as they felt I took the game too seriously.  It even got to the point where I was studying The Monopoly Companion, written by Phil Orbanes, to try to prepare to compete at the next US Monopoly Championship. And yes, they actually have national and world championships for the game of Monopoly every 4 years.  “Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story” arose out of my passion for Monopoly as well as my desire to capture and create compelling stories to share with audiences.

With this year being the 75th anniversary of the game first being released by Parker Brothers, it’s a great time to reflect on how Monopoly has become a part of our global culture and continues to bring families together (and sometimes tear them apart).  In all my travels for the film, no matter where I went, I could always find someone who knew the game of Monopoly, and while they may have been speaking a different language, the game is played the same around the world and serves as its own language.

It’s somewhat surprising how many exciting things Monopoly has been a part of over the years. For instance, during World War II, the Red Cross brought sets of Monopoly to POW camps that contained hidden maps, compasses, and currency to help the prisoners escape. People also go out of their way to set wild and wacky Monopoly records: longest game in an elevator, longest underwater game, the world’s largest permanent Monopoly board. And collecting the thousands of different Monopoly editions has truly become its own passion for many fans of the game.

During the three years we spent making this documentary, we filmed in nine countries all over the world, 19 US states plus DC, and shot over 300 hours of footage.  Along the way, there were so many great stories that we captured and it’s always a challenge to figure out which stories are the most compelling ones to share with our audiences.  As a big fan of the game myself, it’s been a lot of fun to get to spend time and form friendships with some of the best players from all over the globe, and I’ve finally begun competing in local tournaments myself to see if I can put into practice the many tips and tricks I’ve learned about how to improve my Monopoly gameplay.

We’re currently putting the finishing touches on the film and are awaiting word about which film festivals this fall will be showing our film. Anyone interested in finding out more about how they can see our film in the coming months can follow us on Twitter (@MonopolyDoc) and join our mailing list at MonopolyDocumentary.com.”

Transformers, GI Joe, Toy Story AND Toyland & Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story

 

Tranformers, G.I. Joe, Iron Man and Toy Story　aren't the only films about toys and games. Have you　seen　Toyland or Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story? I attended the Sarasota Film Festival to see　the debut of Tim Walsh's Toyland and am working with　Kevin Tostado, Producer/Director of Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story to bring his film and a Monopoly Tournament to ChiTAG.　These　are interesting guys with great films. Since there was so much to say, we'll start with Tim and catch up with Kevin next week.

Tim, tell us the Toyland story. "Toyland　came to be after a documentary film director named Ken Sons bought my book　Timeless Toys.　He was impressed by it and asked if I would like to come on board as a Creative Consultant and do a documentary film on how toys and games are created and licensed to toy companies. Since I had met many of the inventors he wanted to interview, I helped him choose who to sit down with. We interviewed Betty James (Slinky), Milt Levine (Ant Farm), Eddy Goldfarb (Kerplunk, Battling Tops, Yakity Yak False Chattering Teeth, etc), Burt Meyer (Lite Brite, Toss Across, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Inch Worm, etc.), Reyn Guyer (Twister, Nerf) and many more toy design "legends." We interviewed students and faculty　at Otis College of Art & Design, which is one of only two college that offer a 4-year degree in toy design, and the playmakers at Big Monster Toys, the largest and most prolific toy design firm in the world. It was so cool.

About a quarter way into the project, Ken and I realized that we didn't have "an outcome in question." In other words, we didn't have a compelling reason for people to watch the film to see how it was going to end. Sure we had a ton of cool toys, and inspiring inventors, but the format of "here's and inventor and here's the incredible toy he invented, and here's　another　inventor and here's the incredible toy she invented..." got pretty repetitive. Ken knew that I was a game inventor and he asked if there was a game or toy that I had shelved or that I hadn't really developed yet that he could follow throughout the film. His idea was to show the creation of a concept from idea to prototype to pitch meeting, all the way to seeing it come off an assembly line. This added a lot to the film because we were then able to shoot at Toy Fair where we talked to Mike Hirtle, the Head of Global Product Acquisition and Inventor Relations for Hasbro. He became our expert "voice of reason" throughout the movie as we tried to get this product to market. One of the reasons　Toyland　took 2 1/2 years to complete was because I couldn't find a company to license my toy! Ken kept saying, "Well we can't end the film until we have an ending to this story. What's going to happen?!" It's the nature of documentary film making. You really don't know the outcome until it happens and hopefully you're there to "document" it. We did and we're very proud of the result. I think the film is authentic because it's not all a bed of roses. We had a good number of toy industry veterans　come to the premier of　Toyland　at the Sarasota Film Festival and a number of them said that we really captured the struggle of what it's like to be an independent toy inventor. It's a tough racket, this toy trade. 　

I don't want to give away the ending, but it was one crazy ride and we caught it all on film."

The Best Board Games: Learn From An Insider

 
Kim Vandenbroucke, aka Brainy Chick, designs, plays and reviews board games. Her newest game is with Winning Moves, Scattergories Categories, but she has had product with Hasbro, Mattel and others. She used to work at Meyer/Glass, a professional toy/game design company that sprung from the (in)famous Marvin Glass Company and now freelances design and started a game review site that has really taken off - The Game Aisle.

I worked with Kim to find a media outlet for her game reviews. There should be game reviews next to movie, music, book and theater reviews – all entertainment and all creative products. If anyone has ideas and can help, let us know.
　
Kim, what was it like working for a professional design studio and why start a game review site?

"I feel so lucky that I started at Meyer/Glass Design; the experience really gave me a solid foundation to build upon. My education started the first day I walked into the studio when I was pointed to a room filled from floor to ceiling with old manufacturer catalogs from the early 1900s on and told to review ALL of them. The following days I buried myself in the books. It was such a learning experience to see huge brands built from one strong concept. It really opened my eyes to this whole unsung inventor community that I didn’t know existed before my first interview two months prior. It also meant that I had enormous shoes to fill being a part of a new generation of designers. I had to compete with the classics invented by industry legends, but also work within the changing landscape of the toy/game industry. Still at times it’s kind of daunting, but I like challenges.

Starting a game review website was a natural transition for me. I have to keep up with new products and I’m happy to dole out game suggestions to anyone who asks. One experience that jumpstarted the site’s development was a chance interaction at Target. I was surveying the game aisle and a woman was shopping with her son who badly wanted this card game. Mulling it over, she said "but I don’t know if it’s going to be any fun." I told her it was a great game and after looking at me like I had four heads, she tossed it in her cart, thanked me and walked away.

Unlike books, movies and even video games, which are regularly reviewed, people are left to judge games by their boxes. Consumers often stick with brands they’re loyal to – which isn’t always a bad thing -- but there are so many great games to choose from! Yet, I completely understood the woman’s hesitation. Games are played over and over, thus it makes sense to know that you’re buying something you’re going to enjoy. So I started The Game Aisle.

On the site I only review games I like. (Who wants to read a bad review?) People want to know which games to buy and I try to provide a mix of mass market and specialty titles. I aim for games that can be played in less than 30 minutes and appeal to the general public, not necessarily die-hard gamers. I also think it’s important to talk about the inventor community, not only because I’m one of them but because I think people don’t realize that the odds their favorite game was invented in someone’s basement and not in the conference room of some manufacturer’s corporate office are pretty high. Telling the stories behind the games really humanizes the product – and the industry. And I hope it encourages a couple people to try something new. So as you say Mary, ARTFAB."

A Comic Strip About Board Games? Yes!

You probably haven't heard of Mackenzie Cameron, also known as The Author M, just yet. He writes comic strips featuring 4 friends who play board games and we see them in the roles they play (pieces they choose). His site launches today and his work will bring a smile to your face!

 

Mackenzie, please tell us how you came up this idea and show us some of your work.

"When my friends and I play board games, the whole night is a laugh riot. Whether it’s the puns, the innuendos, or fighting over who gets to be the Professor Plum in Clue, the jokes flow like water. To quote a friend, who quoted Plato "You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." The communities that board games form have greatly influenced my life, and they’re something that has been boiling at my core for some time. The decision to create OverBoard came from attending a convention known as PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. The convention was established by Penny Arcade, a video game webcomic, and seeing the incredible impact it has had on the video game community has made me intent on doing the same for board games. To show people the comedy and magic that comes inherent with cardboard, dice, and rule books."

Thanks, Mack! You can see more of his work at OverBoard, the Board Game Webcomic.