Toys-to-life Games Need to Make a Comeback

 

If you told me when I was a kid that there would come a time where my action figures could be scanned and summoned into a video game that I was playing, I would've called you a witch and had you burned at the stake. Luckily for you, that never came to pass and your prediction was correct. And my blown mind was never the same. Unfortunately for me, I was too old to really appreciate this amazing innovation in the children's entertainment sector. But, now that I've got my own kids, and the toys-to-life craze is a few years gone, I long for the return of this incredible, immersive approach to playing.

 

The veritable "big dawgs" of the toys-to-life genre were Skylanders, Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions. Each of these series approached the toys and the video games differently from each other, which kept the franchises interesting and distinct from each other. Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions heavily relied on IP to market themselves. Disney utilized many of their various original movies, before eventually dipping into Marvel and Star Wars characters. LEGO worked with dozens of pop culture IP like Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Lord of the Rings and countless others to fill out its roster of playable characters and stages. Skylanders, on the other hand, started as a spin-off of the beloved Spyro franchise, before quickly developing into wholly its own thing, with a focus on fantasy creatures and magic. Nintendo's Amiibo brand is also categorized as toys-to-life, but I'm hesitant to label it as such. Amiibo never quite functioned like the other games of the genre, and was seemingly treated more as a collectible for Nintendo fans.

 

Image Credit: Variety

 To address why the genre should come back, it might be useful to explore why it went away to begin with. It's a different story across the three main brands, but a common thread runs through them - overexposure. I'll dive into LEGO Dimensions' demise first. This was maybe the most unique of the three, in that Dimensions was a single video game with a metric crapload of associated LEGO sets that provided expansions to the game. The gameplay was identical to that of all of the other LEGO video games, but the stages and characters were brought into the game with the individual LEGO sets that were themed around various IP. All of the characters that you have unlocked can be used across the diverse range of stages that you have available at any given time. There was never a sequel released for Dimensions, which was different from Disney Infinity and Skylanders.  

 

It seems that the massive overabundance of LEGO Dimensions playsets ended up being the undoing of the brand. While this isn't cited anywhere, I have to imagine the licensing of these various IP must have been expensive as well. They tried to utilize a lot of LEGO and Warner Bros properties, but there were quite a few that were not owned by either LEGO or WB, so those would've been marketing deals that likely led the game to drown under its own costs. If the game was under-performing already, and then further stymied by the costs of brand deals and expensive physical game components, it feels like that was a surefire route to inevitable collapse. LEGO Dimensions was the newest of the toys-to-life brands and it lasted for a few years before its end.

 

Disney Infinity was a short-lived, briefly successful rival to Skylanders. It lasted from 2013 to 2016, so it was largely in the gauntlet with Skylanders before LEGO Dimensions even released. Infinity released in three distinct waves, dubbed 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. The initial version was largely themed around Disney's original brands like Monsters, Inc., Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.  The two subsequent expansions were themed around Marvel and Star Wars respectively, which I have to imagine were their money makers. Disney cited the "declining toys-to-life genre" as their reason for ceasing production on Infinity; a decision that resulted in the temporary closure of Utah-based studio Avalanche Software, which was subsequently snatched up and reopened by Warner Bros. 

 

I personally think Disney Infinity was also hampered by a somewhat confusing approach to game modes, and the physical portal devices that were included with each version of the game had some quirks to work around in regards to which edition of the game would work with which portal. To add an additional wrinkle, newer figures would not work with older versions of the game, so you were better off waiting until 3.0 and then buying the old figurines to use with the newest edition of the game. I imagine that the parents buying the figurines and editions of the game were quite frustrated by these various limitations. To Disney's credit, Infinity is still purchasable on Steam and can be played without the figurines, and I've heard that it is a genuinely fun game with loads of content.

 

 

Image Credit: GameSpot

Skylanders is arguably the face of the entire genre. It is to toys-to-life what Fortnite became to the battle royale genre. I'd say that Skylanders is the most creative toys-to-life franchise as well. As I said earlier, it started as a Spyro spin-off, but quickly diversified its look and roster of characters to make Spyro almost irrelevant to the overall brand. The character designers who worked on the series designed some really wonderful, iconic looking characters who I think carried the series and helped it expand beyond its Spyro roots. The craziest thing about Skylanders is the sheer vastness of the brand. Each iteration of the game was an entirely new game that required a separate purchase. 

 

There were six mainline games, hundreds of figures and several more mobile spin-off games, as well as a Netflix TV show, a trading card game, many novels and comic books. Skylanders was a legitimate tour-de-force for Activision and it reportedly had earned $3.5 billion in its five years of being an active property. The fact that they entirely pumped the breaks on this brand is shocking and shows a surprising amount of restraint for a company like Activision. The reason why they killed Skylanders is the same reason why Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions ceased production, but I honestly think Skylanders would still be going if they had not had any competition. I think three big brands competing in the space simultaneously oversaturated the market and caused the novelty to wear off. Apparently after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, they have shown interest in renewing the franchise.

 

 So, the lesson is that oversaturation killed the toys-to-life genre. It's the same thing that killed Rock Band and Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. People get tired of buying the constantly releasing new iterations or all of the expensive physical components. But, similarly to toys-to-life, I think Guitar Hero or Rock Band could come back and make a killing now, and Tony Hawk is currently attempting this. People have had long enough to miss it. There aren't any competitors in the market any longer. The main thing that each of these brands would need to remember though is to not flood the market again. Learn from your mistakes.

 

Specifically for Skylanders, I think there is absolutely a future for this brand, if Microsoft so decides to pursue one. But, I wanted to lay out some ideas for what they could do to maybe avoid some of the problems they had. Other than over-saturation, a major thing that I think Skylanders could do would be to make the toys themselves more interesting. There was a very shortly lived toys-to-life game called Lightseekers that came out in 2017. It was a trading card game, a video game and the toys themselves were legitimate action figures. 

 

Most Skylanders figures were completely stationary statuesque toys that couldn't really be played with, how you would with an actual action figure with moving limbs and whatnot. What if Skylanders tried a reboot, with several of the iconic characters from across the years, but make the toys more like the Lightseekers action figures? Maybe include weapons or gadgets that can be placed into the toys' hands and those items reflect what is scanned into the game. I think they should drip feed the characters out, instead of releasing dozens at a time and at a breakneck pace. I also think that the new game should be the only game. No iterations. Do proper expansions to the game, like a live-service game, where you add whole new features but without charging the players for these features.

 

 What I would love to see as a new toys-to-life idea would be a trading card game with video game inter-connectivity or figurine connectivity. The first thing that comes to mind for me is Yu-Gi-Oh! with the way that the monsters appear above their respective card in the anime, making it feel like the monster is just trapped in the card and waiting to come out and unleash its attack. I'd love if the player could swipe their physical Yu-Gi-Oh! card on a device, or lay it on a Skylanders-esque portal and have the respective monster appear either as a hologram of sorts or just on a screen for a connected video game. Imagine swiping your Blue Eyes White Dragon and actually seeing the iconic drake appear and use its attack on your opponent's obviously much weaker, way lamer looking card.

 

Image Credit: Screen Rant

 

Honestly, my main reason for writing this piece is that I don't like how intangible and fleeting children's entertainment has become in the last several years. Millions of children waste their days away staring at an iPad, because their parents don't want to bother playing with them or help their child develop an imagination and play with toys. We're doing the same thing to ourselves as adults. Countless hours fly by with no physical sign that we did anything, except that our eyes are red and bleary from staring at a screen. 

 

I think there's absolutely a place for physical toys in a child's life, and if the toys just happen to also have connectivity to a video game, that's just a neat concept to me and should be explored further. There's just something magical about your toy having this sealed away potential in it that it can summon a character into your video game. I think a whole new generation of children could be smitten with this idea if it is brought back; and hopefully if it is, toys-to-life can be here to stay this time.