Peter Suciu

Toy Fair Hits New York City, So Where are the Games?
February 20, 2008

Compared to the longevity of the American International Toy Fair trade shows and industry conferences such as DICE, E3 and even the long running CES are really new kids on the block. Toy Fair has been an annual event since 1903! For the last 100+ years the show has grown, shrunk, grown again and while now overshadowed by shows in Europe, remains one of the biggest toy industry events in the country.

Yet a walk through the crowded Javits Convention Center in New York City revealed little in the way of upcoming video games. There were even fewer video game tie-ins. Years past at least had numerous action figures and other toys based on video games. A few years ago the trend was board games based on video games – which was a departure from the traditional video games based on board games. But other than a significant presence from Square Enix, which was showing action figures rather than games, the halls of Toy Fair were very light on video games.

Part of the reason for this is that toy industry and video game industry aren’t on the same page. Video game developers see themselves as making an entertainment product more than a toy. And the toy industry – at least for the most part – has never been one about the most cutting edge technology.

But there are deeper issues. The most notable is that other events are trying to draw the game developers and producers. The most notable is the Consumer Electronics Show, and as I touched upon, CES has a ways to go before it will be even close to a premier gaming event. But it is also clear that the video game industry sees little interest in Toy Fair.

This week the 2008 Game Developers Conference is taking place in San Francisco. The big news already coming from the show is the formation of the PC Gaming Alliance, between Microsoft, nVidia, AMD and Intel, as well as other companies that will play a part in the (hopeful) resurgence of PC game development. Clearly any significant news in the world of video and PC games will be coming from San Francisco this week, not New York. (We’ll certainly be interested in the news that comes out of the show, including the PC Gaming Alliance.)

But the other reason that Toy Fair isn’t a big show for video games is also obvious. Unlike CES, E3 or GDC, Toy Fair is not a big press show. Video game companies like huge announcements, such as the aforementioned PC Gaming Alliance, but the toy industry has few announcements and fewer press conferences. No offense to the toy industry, but they don’t know how to deal with the press. Few exhibitors had PR people on hand, and even when they did most companies don’t bother to have press kits. It makes for a hard show to cover.

This is because Toy Fair is a retailer’s show. This is the show that is meant to attract buyers. Maybe in the 1980s video and computer games could have fit in well, but today most video games are sold at major retailers including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and GameStop. The “mom & pop” video game store that I remember fondly as a teen in the 1980s (yes, I’m that old) are long gone.

And this is the reason that I personally feel that Toy Fair and the video game makers should try to find some common ground. At Toy Fair the small stores have a big voice. While walking through the halls chain buyers as well as the owner of a hobby shop in Middle America talk with the sales managers, and offer feedback. Having spoken to many specialty toy retailers over the years I am surprised how strong this voice is from the small shops. But these shops actually tell the companies what the consumers want, and what they’d like to see in the future.

This level of interaction between consumers to the retailers to the buyers just seems to be missing with video games. Try asking the employees at a big box retailer for a video game recommendation, and they’ll point out the latest Madden football game or tell you that Call of Duty 4 is a hot seller. That doesn’t tell you if the games are actually any good. And while GameStop is better – and actually tends to employ folks who actually play games – very little of customer feedback probably reaches the buyer.

So we’re probably not going to be seeing a revival of mom & pop video game retailers. But the video game industry could still learn a thing or two from Toy Fair. After all this trade show was going strong before there was ever video in games.

Posted by Peter Suciu on February 20, 2008 | Comments (0)