Since 2011, when Activision Blizzard introduced the first toys-to-life game, Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, global sales in the category have rocketed to more than $4 billion. Toy giant Lego last year made a new game with Warner Brothers to bring the building blocks into the toys-to-life category in order to compete with the likes of Skylanders. With toys-to-life games becoming more popular worldwide, our reporter Xi Jia visited LEGO's Danish headquarters to find out the trends in this super big toy market.
Lego is a favorite of almost every child worldwide, no matter what the age group.
Those colorful bricks spark creativity in youngsters and, of course, parents are so proud to see their little ones design figurines and buildings of all shapes and sizes.
But, last September, Lego brought a "toys-to-life" series called Dimensions into the market. It ties video games to physical toys.
Toys-to-life is a genre of video game using physical figurines to interact within the game.These toys use a near field communication (NFC) or image recognition data protocol to determine the individual figurine's proximity, and save a player's progress data to a storage medium located within that piece.
Lego is the latest toymaker to step into this four-billion-dollar "toys-to-life" market. Such is the enthusiasm surrounding this genre, future trends are predictable.
Since its line of products are already popular -- as are their video games based on the toys -- Lego is a natural fit to join the "toys-to-life" market. Whether it's just following the latest trend, or it has been based on true inspiration, it's no surprise that Lego has found a real foothold in this market
And the world's appetite for toys-to-life games may affect China's toy market. The success of the category is having an impact on both the sales of traditional toys as well as those of non-toys-to-life family video games. But there is still room for other toy companies.