While more kids than ever have gravitated towards sedentary lives glued to a tablet or smart phone for their entertainment a certain form of play is becoming more foreign to today’s kids. There was television and videogames when I was a child but digital media was still less ubiquitous than it is now. Growing up in the 90’s, toys were still the foundation of a child’s hierarchy of needs. For me it was Transformers, specifically Beast Wars that made me fall in love with these portals into new worlds. These toys represented in physical form what I enjoyed on screen with the Beast Wars TV show. That form of market synergy has become less effective in this increasingly digital era. TV shows, movies, and others of their like don’t seem to be generating the same success in the toy aisle as they used to. In the last several years large toys manufacturers and retailers such as Mattel, Hasbro and Toys R’ Us have seen sales of toys descending at a steady pace. Industry institutions like Barbie and G.I. Joe are struggling and the success of Hollywood blockbusters like Michael Bay’s Transformers films aren’t pushing as much plastic as toy makers need them to.
Recently, I had the opportunity to check out something pretty cool from Disney and Hasbro. A new toy line that addresses not only the challenges of the industry, but meets kids where they are. While “toys-to-life” products like Disney’s own Infinity or Nintendo’s Amiibo attach static figurines to a largely digital experience, Playmation does the reverse, bringing a digital element to physical toys. The first set of Playmation toys will launch this October and will be based on Marvel’s Avengers. Kids (and some adults) will interact with an app and their own physical surroundings via wearable repulsor gear (Ironman’s gauntlet) and two interactive figurine stands called power activators. The stands communicate with the repulsor gear relaying missions and generating threats for the player to overcome. The gauntlet uses motion controls, IR technology, rumble feedback, as well as lights and sounds to simulate everything from shooting imaginary bad guys to shielding yourself from attack. Speakers on the glove allow Ironman’s A.I. assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. to direct players where to shoot or where enemies are attacking from. Buying a Playmation figure and placing them on the stand augments missions accordingly. During the demo, Disney reps placed a Red Skull figure on the stand and initiated a one-on-one battle with the villain which ended in the disfigured Nazi’s defeat, ejecting him from the stand with the accompaniment of satisfying light and sound effects. After missions, players can sync their progress to the Playmation app where they can level up to earn new weapons and unlock new missions. The app also serves as a museum for the players accomplishments, tracking high scores and unlocking supplementary material. The figures themselves look fairly detailed and rival those featured in the Disney Infinity lineup.
Considering the feature set of the gauntlet, the entry price is fairly reasonable at $119.99 CAD/USD for the base set and $14.99CAD/USD for additional figurines. Future sets based on Star Wars (2016) and Frozen (2017) are planned and promise different forms of play featuring similar interactivity between apps, figures and wearable devices. Every holiday season is a big one for the toy industry but this year toy enthusiasts should really keep an eye out for Playmation as it is the industry’s first true attempt at making physical toys relevant to the generation of kids born after the mid 00s.
