Why Skylanders Matters to Children
Skylanders is a video game that combines physical toys with a traditional video game experience. Part of the Spyro series of games, the Activision series has the potential to become a $1bn franchise!
But what’s the secret to its success and why do kids love it so much? To answer this Dubit spoke to family gaming expert Andy Robertson. You can read Andy’s article on our Dubit Platform blog.
More than half of children own a toy based on a virtual world
Children’s virtual worlds – like Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin – aren’t just popular online; they’re also proving a big hit as toys with new research showing over half of UK children own a toy based on a virtual world with some as popular as Dr Who.
Dubit recently studied the popularity of toys based on online worlds, looking at Disney’s Club Penguin, Mind Candy’s Moshi Monsters, as well as Build-a-BearVille, Poptropica and Webkinz.
The study of 500 kids showed that an amazing 55 per cent of children owned a toy from at least one of these games. The most popular was Disney’s Club Penguin, with 32 per cent of children owning a branded toy from the online world. Club Penguin, which has 150 million registered users (globally) launched in 2005 and has spawned a series of books and video games. Each toy is connected to the virtual world as they’re packaged with a code that allows items to be unlocked in the virtual world.
Moshi Monsters, whose plush toys and Mini Moshling Treehouse are expected to be among the most popular toys for Christmas this year, was a close second. The study showed that even before Christmas a quarter of UK children already own a Moshi Monster or a Moshling (a Moshi pet). Since launching in 2008 Moshi Monsters has gone on to accumulate 50m registered users, with one in three British children believed to be a member. Even with the publishing industry struggling The Moshi Magazine, launched in February, has accumulated the largest circulation of any UK children’s magazine.
As a comparison with toys related to kid’s TV shows, the research shows that just as many children own Club Penguin toys as they do toys based on Dr Who. Furthermore, Moshi Monster toys are more popular (25%) than toys based on the cartoon Ben 10 (20%), and only marginally less than popular than Spongebob Square Pants (29 per cent).*
Interestingly, toys from virtual worlds are gender-neutral, with equal popularity across boys and girls.
73 per cent of the children questioned had played at least one of these online games, with half having played Club Penguin and 47 per cent stating that they’d played Moshi Monsters.
Dubit’s head of research, Peter Robinson, commented: “Children are spending more time playing in virtual worlds and now those worlds are becoming part of their offline playtime.
“Today’s kids are platform agnostic and don’t care where their favourite stories and characters come from. It used to be the case that books or TV shows launched characters and toys, but now online entertainment is proving just as important.”
*Research into children’s TV shows was carried out in October for Toy News.
The Dubit Knowledge
Welcome to the Dubit Knowledge.
Dubit are immersed in the world of young people. With so much information available on young people today, we have collated a number of great ideas, reports and insights to help you further understand the youth market.
We hope you enjoy it!
YOUTH MARKETING: Pepsi show everyone how to do some Grade A social media marketing (US). Luke Abbot blogged about marketing to Gen Y and how to keep up with them (IRE). And given the surge in voter turnout especially amongst young people, you could argue that political parties have worked social marketing rather well (UK). Matt Britton has highlighted the ‘Top 7 ways to connect with the Class of 2014 (US) right now’ through Engage:Teens.
GENERAL ELECTION: It’s but a few days since the General Election and the political debate shows no signs of abating. Dubit recently carried out research into young people’s opinions of politics and the general election – the full report can be seen here. (UK)
Headline stats from the study include:
- If they could vote – 31% Lib Dem; 22%Conservative; 22% Labour; 4% BNP; 3% Green Party.
- Lib Dem especially popular amongst 17yo females (39%)
- Labour popularity strong for males (over females) and BMEs (over whites)
- BNP stronger for males, no BMEs said would vote for BNP - The economy is seen as the single most important issue facing the UK in 2010 (60%), 9% say education, 8% say crime, 7% say foreign affairs, 7% say the environment, 6% say health and 2% say the local community.
We looked at areas including knowledge of which political party each leader belongs to, who they would vote for in the 2010 general election if they could, likelihood of voting if they could, the most important and least important issues facing the UK in 2010 and the voting age.
On the subject of politics and young people, the BBC spoke to some young people to find out what London’s teenagers would do if they could vote (UK) and the New Statesman comments on Nick Clegg and the youth vote (UK).
ONLINE GAMING: Dubit’s Research Manager Claudio Franco and Disney presented to the Market Research Society on Trends in Online Entertainment for Kids – The Rise and Rise of Online Gaming which is now available on SlideShare. Further research from investment firm Piper Jaffray on gaming points towards gaming accounting for 8% of teen budgets(US) which is up from 3% of their budgets back in 2004. Finally on the gaming front, OnlineMBA.com have created an infographic of online gaming stats (US) which gives a good snapshot of the size of the industry.
MOBILE: FlowTown have made yet another great infographic regarding teen mobile use. Microsoft have now launched The Kin and are hoping to make an indent into the iPhone’s popularity (despite the iPhone having a 50 million unit headstart!). T-Mobile have also thrown their hat into the ring for tween/teen users with their myTouch 3G (US) hoping to appeal to users that were so keen on the Sidekick. Finally, Emily Bazelon harks back to growing up in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and asks whether the phone is really better than Facebook for kids (US).
BEBO: It’s been just over a month since AOL announced that Bebo was going to be either closed or sold having seemingly lost the social networking fight with Facebook. Dubit’s Sam Brown thinks it’s partly down to it not actually being that social a social network (UK), Marketing Week highlight that brands risk losing hard earned fans if Bebo is shutdown (UK) and Sarah Perez details how young people are making the shift over to Twitter (US). Then again, maybe it was always doomed if they can’t find the time to update their press coverage since 2008?
Trends in online entertainment for kids
The following is a presentation delivered by Dubit’s Research Manager, Claudio Franco at the Market Research Society’s annual Children: Seen and Heard 2010 Conference, organised by Research Conferences.
This last decade was marked by an incredible rise in the importance of games compared to other forms of entertainment. They are now officially the fastest growing form of entertainment with Call of Duty, GTA and Word of Warcraft part of popular lexicon.
Millions of people play games all around the world – games have never been so fun and entertaining. But games are not just fun – their uses have expanded greatly: from brand engagement to education, games are even used in therapy – we discuss opportunities and barriers and present you with our insight and recommendations.
Dubit&Disney MRS Children: Seen and heard 2010 Conference
[slideshare id=3104546&doc=dubitdisney-mrs-children2010-conference-100208085358-phpapp02]
Methodology
The main source of data used in this presentation is taken from research undertaken by Dubit, in partnership with Disney, between December 2009 and January 2010. This included:
* A pan-European survey of kids’ online gaming in 8 EU countries
* A more detailed survey of UK children and focus groups with kids
* Focus groups with children and parents from the UK, France and Spain
The samples used were drawn from online panels, thus they are of kids with access to the Internet. What is covered is the result not just of the findings from these recent surveys, but more importantly of the insights generated by over 10 years of experience as a business researching and creating social games and virtual worlds, networking with major players in the industry and closely following major developments in the gaming world.
