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2018 Toy Fair Trends Part 5: Last of the Toy Fair Game Trends
This is it! To read Part 1 of the 2018 Toy Fair Game Trends CLICK HERE, for Part 2 CLICK HERE, for Part 3 CLICK HERE, for Part 4 CLICK HE..
2018 Toy Fair Trends Part 4: Adults Rock!
To read Part 1 of the 2018 Toy Fair Trends CLICK HERE, for Part 2 CLICK HERE, for Part 3 CLICK HERE.
Continuing & Evolving Trend: Adults ..
2018 Toy Fair Trends Part 3: Silly Action Games that Aren’t POOP
To read Part 1 of the 2018 Toy Fair Trends CLICK HERE, for Part 2 CLICK HERE.
Continuing Trend: Silly Action Games that Aren’t POOP
..
2018 Toy Fair Trends 2: What’s Old Is New Again
To read Part 1 of the 2018 Toy Fair Trends CLICK HERE.
I’ve always said that good games don’t die, they just sort of go away for a ..
2018 Toy Fair Trends Part 1: Poop
There was poop everywhere. EVERYWHERE. People were making jokes about it being a “shit show.” I really cannot believe how many feces-the..
2018 Toy Fair Preview: North Star Games
North Star games is introducing a new line of games called “Happy Planet,” which I presume is to build on the wild success of their game H..
2018 Toy Fair Preview: Gamewright
I’m always so excited to see what’s new at Gamewright as their games regularly make it to my Holiday Picks list. Just look at the last fe..
Sagrada wins Best Casual Game of 2017
Congratulations to Floodgate Games and designers Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews on their Best Casual Game of 2017 win for Sagrada!
Toy Fair 2018 Preview: Educational Insights
I might as well start by getting the self promotion bit out of the way. Panda Rollers is one of my games and while it was on sto..
2018 Toy Fair Preview: Winning Moves
Happy 2018! Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season and played tons and tons of games with family and friends! Can you believe it’s Toy..
Interview on Power Kid Podcast
A while back toy industry veteran Phil Albritton asked me to go on his podcast, Power Kid, to have a nice chat about the industry — and o..
2017 TAGIE Award WINNERS!
On Friday night of Chicago Toy and Game Week, we all attended the 2017 TAGIE Awards (Toy and Game Innovation Awards) and this year there I..
2017 Toy Hall of Fame Inductees Announced!
It’s time! The 2017 Toy Hall of Fame Inductees were announced this morning! This year the nominees were: Clue, Magic 8 Ball, Matchbox Ca..
Look at what’s coming back! Do you remember these?
When you’ve been in the biz for a while, you end up with ex-coworkers all over the place. Right now most of mine seem to be at Hasbro, bu..
I’m reviewing a children’s BOOK: Do you know why?
Believe it or not, this is a BOOK review. Yeah, this is still The Game Aisle, but something interesting is coming from Educational Insigh..
2017 Toy Hall of Fame Nominees Announced!
You know it’s fall when The Strong National Museum of Play announces the Toy Hall of Fame nominees. Last year we saw Dungeons & Dragons, ..
2017 Spiel des Jahres Winners!
Yesterday they announced the Spiel des Jahres winners! ( If you don’t know about the Spiel des Jahres, it’s the game of the year awards in..
Monopoly Ditches 3 Tokens!
As many of you know, Hasbro put all of the Monopoly tokens on the chopping block back in January and they asked everyone to vote which to ..
2017 Toy Fair Trends: Part 4 (the last one)
This is it, the last part of the 2017 Toy Fair Trends series. If you missed them here are links: Parts 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.
Co..
2017 Toy Fair Trends: Part 3
In Parts 1 and 2 I covered three HUGE trends: YouTube, Toy-etic, and Strategy. Those are pretty big themes, but what TYPES of games did I ..
2017 Toy Fair Trends: Part 2
Did you miss 2017 Toy Fair Trends: Part 1? Click HERE.
Continuing Trend: Toy-etic Games
Back in 2012 I wrote about how nice it was ..
What’s that on the box?
I was doing some late reading (yep – checking out the latest issue of The Toy Book AFTER Toy Fair). And I was really jazzed about thi..
2017 Toy Fair Trends: Part 1
I cannot believe that another Toy Fair has passed, but what a great show! The longer I’m in this industry the more I love events like ChiT..
Toy Fair 2017 Preview: Haywire
Whew there are a lot of new titles coming out of Haywire this year! They’re doing a whole series of games under a new “Ten Dollar Game Ni..
Toy Fair 2017 Preview: FoxMind Games
Sometimes I get press releases which make writing these preview posts super easy. Other times I come across some pics on Social Media and..
Toy Fair 2017 Preview: Winning Moves
I always love seeing what’s new at Winning Moves because they usually have an interesting mix of games that have been brought back from ye..
Toy Fair 2017 Preview: Educational Insights
The first thing I noticed when I was looking at some of Educational Insights’ new stuff was not something that was new but something that ..
Toy Fair 2017 Preview: Gamewright
New York Toy Fair is a little over a month away and so it’s time to do a couple of PREVIEWS! This is what’s going to be coming from Gamew..
2016 TAGIE Winners
I’m a bit late in getting this one posted, but it was a lovely even in the Navy Pier ballroom. I had the pleasure of sitting with some in..
2016 Toy Hall of Fame Inductees Announced!
And the winners are… swing, Fisher Price Little People and… Dungeons and Dragons!!!
These three were selected from 12 finalists..
2016 Toy Hall of Fame Nominees Announced!
Feels a bit earlier than past years, but the National Toy Hall of Fame nominees have been announced. There are a couple we’ve seen before..
2016 Target Exclusives: Do you know HOW many there are?!
The Bullseye Design and Target are registered trademarks of Target Brands, Inc.
Anyone else notice how Target is starting to be an int..
Codenames: Spiel des Jahres 2016 winner!!
It’s funny how I chose Codenames as one of my 2015 holiday picks after playing it at only one game night — sometimes you know when you’re..
Happy 10th BANANAGRAMS!
Do you remember the first time you saw “the game in the fabric banana?” Can you believe that was 10 years ago? Yep —BANANAGRAMS is turn..
2016 Toy Fair Trends: Part 3
This is part 3 in my article of 2016 Toy Fair Trends; to view part 1 click HERE and part 2 HERE. If you are reading this via the email ne..
2016 Toy Fair Trends: Part 2
This is part 2 in my article of 2016 Toy Fair Trends; to view part 1 click HERE. If you are reading this via the email newsletter, many o..
2016 Toy Fair Trends: Part 1
It’s time for my annual Toy Fair trends article series based on what I saw in New York during Toy Fair. I’ll admit some years there are bl..
Toy Fair 2016 Preview: North Star Games
Toy Fair is now less than a week away.. it starts on Saturday to be exact! North Star Games (of Wits & Wagers fame) is going to be releas..
Toy Fair 2016 Preview: SMART Toys and Games
Last year SMART introduced the Three Little Piggies solo-player kids puzzle and it is absolutely adorable!! I like it so much that it mad..
Toy Fair 2016 Preview: Winning Moves
New York Toy Fair is now less than 2 weeks away and I’m really starting to get excited!! Here’s some of the new stuff coming from Winning..
Toy Fair 2016 Preview: Patch Products
Patch Products is launching four new games this year — plus they are promising a “VERY BIG SURPRISE” to be revealed at Toy Fair. I’ it’s..
Toy Fair 2016 Preview: Gamewright
New York Toy Fair is less than a month away – can you believe it? I’ll be honest and say I’m not ready. On a happier note, I’m getting lot..
2015 TAGIE Awards: The Winners & The Cats
Last year at the TAGIES we saw John Spinello handing over the original Operation prototype to Hasbro for safe keeping. This year didn’t h..
Toy Industry Association Announces 2016 TOTY Nominees
And congrats to all of the games nominated:
Choice Words by MindWare
Chrono Bomb by Patch Products LLC
Lego Dimensions by Warner Bros..
2015 Toy Hall of Fame Inductees Announced!
And the winners are… Puppet, Super Soaker, and… TWISTER!!!
These three were selected from 12 finalists, which also included: Amer..
2015 Toy Hall of Fame Nominees Announced!
It’s that time of year again where we see what toys and games have been nominated for the National Toy Hall of Fame and I’m so pleased to ..
French Scrabble Champion doesn’t speak French?!
Earlier this week it was announced that the winner of the French Scrabble championships, Nigel Richards, does not speak French – yes, you ..
Books and Movies about the Industry and becoming an Inventor
A list of books about being/becoming a game inventor, books about the history of the toy and game industry, and a few movies about the industry.
"In reality, Defendant never hired artists for the board game and instead used the consumers’ funds for miscellaneous personal equipment, rent for a personal residence, and licenses for a separate project." -FTC complaint
Scrabble “Anagram Lovers” Viral Marketing Campaign
What do you think? Does it make you want to buy Scrabble? (if you do I’d recommend the Tile Lock Version) I should mention that this is ..