Future of Toys
 

How will toys be made 5-10-20-30-50-xxx years from now?
What do you all see in the future of toy collecting?
Will the electronic and hi-tech age eventually place plastic toys to the side? Does Apple and other companies have strategies moving forward to ensure that children young enough to play with toys will instead have Ipads and tablets in their hands as opposed to action figures?
Barbies have been very similar throughout the years while toys like GI Joe's and Transformers have evolved into excellent toys. How much better will they be in the same amount of time that has passed from the "vintage" 80's Joes and TF's to now?
Will they be mini versions of hot toys 10-25 years from now or will there not be much advancement in those lines?
I've thought about this for a while and think its an interesting topic that could be discussed with various viewpoints.
Thoughts?

I think there will always be a market for action figures at least as long as our generation is still alive.

As technology advances, so to will the technology of toys.

Maybe in the not to distant future GI Joe will resemble something like the acrion figures in Small Soldiers.

Our generation wont be around forever though. I agree with your Small Soldiers comment and thinking of this makes it hard to fully understand how we won't be around to see many of the future technological advancements along with some amazing future toys that we'll probably miss out on.

My guess? Something like Skylanders would be the way to go.

Combining Video Games with physical, actual hard product. Think of the possibilities for a franchise like Star Wars or G.I. Joe. Sure, you can buy just one and you'll be set. But every version of a character- say, Snake Eyes- that you get unlocks a new outfit or ability for use in-game that you can only get from that figure.

I agree - no doubt video games are here to stay but if you like action figures, who doesn't appreciate a well made one with lots of details. The virtual world is fun but we still live in a real world & holding an action figure or setting up poses or scenes will always be fun for some.

maybe itll go hardcore geared towards the collector market. low numbers, high quality output.

but, thats for just action figures. Legos and transformers are still mega popular with kids.

What is "Skylanders"?

I think in the future there will be more of a hybrid of the traditional toy, and cutting edge technology (or at least what we consider cutting edge now).

I'd love a remote control car, with a camera in the driver's seat, and a video screen on the remote control, so it would be like I was in the remote control car.

I'd love to see this commercially available one day and as a norm for the standard of remote control cars/planes.
F16 Full operational.wmv - YouTube

This is where action figures are going to go in the next 10 years (at least from the collecting side of things). 3-D plastic printers are going to become affordable for personal use in the next 10 years. Customizers will become better and better at the process of printing figures in this manner. Eventually, Mattel and Hasbro will have to recognize this issue and start to sell figures straight to the consumer via CAD files that can be printed at home, thus saving them the expense of overseas production and shipping yet continuing to profit off of the use of their properties. Just like the piracy wars with movies and music, this will become a major legal issue that these companies will have to overcome or fade away. It will be a hey day for casual collectors who will be able to simply print a Pimp Daddy Destro instead of paying $2000 for an original for example.
The after market values of uber rare figures could drop depending on the quality of the printing of these 'customs'. But they're going to be able to look the part if not feel the part. If you don't think you will be able to do these things with a printer in your own home in 10-15 years, you're fooling yourself. They do it this way now with rapid prototyping at the major toy companies in the present day. Every year the technology becomes cheaper and better to be able to make these things.

It would be awesome to incorporate video games with action figures. I think the price of oil in the future will determine the price of an action figure. Remember where plastic comes from. If some predictions are true then new toys may not be around in the future. How far in the future? Who knows. That would make old toys maybe even more valuable if there's a market for it and if the world isn't at war over what little oil there is left. "Thanks Debby Downer!" :D

they already do incorporate figures to games. arkham asylum. unless your talking about a new age version of that robot from the NES.

Hmmm its very hard to say what the future holds. I mean its kind of hard to imagine something better then what we have now. Maybe its just my lack of imagination but to me what we have now is perfection and trying to come up with something better is like trying to imagine a new color that has never been seen before.

Who paints the figure?

They've tried toy to video game integration before with a playstation game that had robots that you built and part swapped to have your in game robot do the same. Don't think it ever made it stateside. They're trying again right now with a new spyro game too. It just doesn't seem to work out that well for people though.

Toylines have to be something that has a good push behind it, as well as something that's just fun to play with. If it's missing both factors they tend to shelf warm. If it has one side, it can sometimes prolong the inevitable but not for long.

Part of what makes MU work is it has so much media behind it and history. Then the figure themselves are also built pretty darn well. The same can be said for thundercats and why it's working so well right now.

Plastic grades can come and go, but I don't think the action figure will be going extinct anytime soon. They'll just eventually switch to non-fossil fuel oil based plastics at some point if that becomes too much of an issue. There are other types, just the most dominant in the market right now is fossil fuel oil-based plastics. Eventually that too will change, which may make everything we have now more valuable because of it. Though I will have a laugh when the day comes action figures are made from hemp-oil plastics. Different sources for plastics can be just as durable as the ones they use now. It's just a matter of what's cost effective.

Toys will always be around, and people will always want something to play with. Until the day comes that holorooms exist or transporters/replicators the business will never go extinct and the search for the next hot property will always be on.

People have tried to suggest that virtual figures is the next big thing, but we've had those already forever with programs like XNALara, and even other game mods like GTA SA has, or Unreal tournament, among more. So I don't see that ever changing or hindering the toy market either.

Painting will always be an issue with 3D printers. So while that does look lucrative, it's not as feasible as many would think including the grade of the product it makes. There's a reason toy makers use it only for fragile prototypes that then get made into a better cast for real materials and plastic grades. Some day 3D printers might be able to do full on figures, but the detailing, paint schemes, and more will become an issue which is what'll keep toy places in business.

Now for star trek esque replicators. That'd be a real issue since the figure would be painted, and would lead to the digital file selling you're talking about, but that'd also turn into a massive piracy issue as the sellable blue prints will be pirated for actual free goods. Just like they could for the 3D printers too. This is why those mediums won't be as progressive as you think for a market. Instead, they'll just tighter their belt on protecting licenses for people who sell or make these knock off goods.

Completely different than the book, music, and movie industry though. Those products have moved to pure digital means, not an actual physical tangible good, and the debate gets more complicated from there. An action figure is meant to be held, played with, posed, and there's no means around that unlike purely visual or aural entertainment.

The printer. Or you could I guess if you were into that kinda thing. The 3-D printers that are around now don't paint the figure, but it's not a stretch to believe they won't be doing that too as a two step process in the future.

ive used 3-d plastic printers before, and let me tell you it is not feasible for this application. Not only is the machine thousands of dollars but the raw plastic sheets are way more expensive than an already made figure. Your better off just buying it at retail. Costs are why there are little to no factory jobs in the states.

I see 5 years from now someone opening kiosks in malls wherand e you sit down and have your head scanned printed. They then stick the head on a standard buck, much like the majors do now.
Eventually like the carts that used to peddle photo tshirts they get pushed out when it becomes cheap enought to do it at home. I mean you can already do it for $50 or less now that the machines have dropped from tens of thousands to thousands.
Heck you could use the software that they use to age missing persons to make kids figures of themselves as adults.

The only real factor limiting it right now is the cost of the medium. The tech is already done. What price point do you think it would work at?

Right now yes. We're talking about the future. 10 years ago most toy companies were still sculpting their figures in 2-ups. Now they use 3-D printers for prototyping. It's not a stretch that 10 years from now 3-D printing tech won't advance leaps and bounds. I can't even imagine what the price point it would work at would be when you can't predict how much inflation will occur over time. 10 years ago I was paying $7 for a 2-pack and now I'm paying $8 for a single figure.

I think people are going to create giant LEGO men and start throwing them into the ocean.

Crap. When I first saw this I was about 6 and I loved my g.i.joes but then after watching the movie I didn't touch my Joes for weeks.

Really? I for some reason thought this movie meant that if I bought the Small Soldiers figures, they'd be bad ass like the movie. Man, was I ever wrong.....

If I had it my way, give me $10 million and 10 chinese scientists and toy makers and I'll give you a real life "small soldiers or indian in the cupboard/toystory. I think look at the tron toys and think this is only the beginning, why can't our toys have harddrives, ai and respond to commands or controls.... I would love to have 2 mortal kombat figures that fight eachother that I could control say from a wireless ps3 controller ;) tell me that wouldn't be awesome. or Have two basketball figures go at it on a mini court, or 2 wrestlers in a ring, ufc etc or spiderman that climbs walls and the ceiling... common toy companies hire me for creative director.

WOW why have you not been hired?

Pays to have experience, as much as I love toys, there's not many schools I can go to, to learn what I need to do what I mentioned, if I were to do it all by myself it'd require becoming an engineer, sculpter, businessman and a marketing expert all in 1, add in some graphic design and print design for package detail and your a 1 man toy machine, but what I just mentioned would take about 15 years in schooling, 1000's of dollars and a lot of luck. I have plenty of ideas just not the internal knowledge to make it all work.

im with u bro. this is one hell of an idea.