Stories, Comments, and Advice

 

Gizmodo's Favorite Toys of 2022. It's been a good year for putting lots of silly things on our desks and being satisfied by that. We love toys here at io9, and when we’re not writing about them, we’re probably playing with them. It’s been a killer year for cool nerdy collectibles, so here’s just a few of our favorite things we picked up in the proverbial toy aisle this past year.

    
Empathy key to Palos fourth grader's Inventor Challenge win. Three Palos area students won in their divisions after submitting games they created to the 17th Annual Young Inventor Challenge. Carrie Martinez, who taches the class at Palos West, said it’s about more than just making entertaining games. “Aside from being fun, engaging, and meaningful, the Young Inventor Challenge builds and reinforces sophisticated practices such as critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and leadership,” she said. “These essential skills are needed to be successful in the 21st century.”

 

We’re in a golden age of board games. It might be here to stay.  “It is undeniable — they are gaining in popularity fast,” said Elan Lee, the creator of popular card game Exploding Kittens. The global board game market has an estimated value between $11 billion and $13.4 billion and is projected to grow by about 7-11% within the next 5 yrs, according to market research companies Technavio and Imarc. 

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Hot Wheels: Ten of the weirdest and most wonderful, Perhaps the most famous four-wheeled toy on the planet comes in many forms. Some costing $250k… Recently we dived into the world of Hot Wheels, exploring the creative process and the decisions behind the development of the world's most iconic and obsessively collected 'toy cars' – and the people behind them. Now, we're looking at 10 absolute favourites from the past...

 

The next toy creator could be a sixth grader. It's definitely not your average Toy Fair inside a school in Cardiff. In fact, sixth graders are creating what could be the next big hit.  It is a school project months in the making.... research, elevator pitches and all! 

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Bored by board games? How your old favourites are fighting back. In a world filled with digital distractions, players’ attention spans are growing shorter. So manufacturers are making their games quicker and easier to win. The nation’s board game designers are facing a challenge greater than being able to afford a hotel on Park Lane in Monopoly. How to keep people’s attention on a pack of cards or a piece of cardboard,,,

 

It Was My Favorite Toy to Give to New Parents, Until It Went Away. The life cycle of a magical baby-soothing toy. I don’t remember who gave me the hard plastic bug with the mesmerizing light-up wings and the only infant-toy melody I’ve never gotten sick of. But I do remember how they described it: Like a drug for babies. 

 

***The above posted after December 23rd***

 

John Baulch, Toy World (UK) - The best way to spread Christmas cheer…it’s the festive Blog! Why, it’s almost Christmas Day – the season of good cheer and goodwill to all men (except Jeremy Clarkson, obviously). A few hours from now, we’ll be heading off to celebrate with our loved ones, exhausted but happy. The Toy World team has worked long and hard throughout November and December to pull together a January...

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10-year-old Cooper Dean creates 'Chicken Poo Bingo'. Two years ago, Cooper entered the "People of Play Young Inventor Challenge." It's an opportunity for young inventors around the country to pitch their game ideas to major companies, and Cooper was one of the winners. After that, toy company giant Goliath decided to manufacture the game and put it on shelves around the world. 

 

The Best Gifts for 12-Year-Olds, According to Experts. The Strategist. While you might think the tween years all blend together, those who spend a lot of time with adolescents say that is not exactly the case. when it comes to choosing gifts for these not-yet-teenagers, your best bet is to let their interests be your guide. For those who may not have that time, though, we asked 24 experts (including actual 12-year-olds) to...

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Kidscreen’s most-read stories of 2022. Prodcos dusting off beloved IPs and projects that spotlight inclusion attracted the most attention this year from Kidscreen readers (and the internet alike). Join us as we look back at our top-10 most-read stories. The return of Zodiac Kids’ Totally Spies! after eight years was Kidscreen.com’s most-read story of 2022, according to our analytics, a win that likely got a boost from both...

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School principal goes all in as ‘Elf on the Shelf’.  “I didn’t realize it was going to get this big,” she said. A TikTok video of her amassed nearly 8 million views. “Every day when they’re walking out, they say to me, ‘I can’t wait to see what the Elf is doing tomorrow,’” Hoeing said. She has even been taped to the wall.

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The Best Board Games of 2022.  Players of all ages will have to make room in their closets for these selections. It’s a safe bet that if you anticipated a new board game in 2020, it probably came out at the end of 2022. Kickstarter, the online fund-raising platform, has dominated the board game industry; it’s a place where designers can effectively find their audience before the game is even made. 

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A Generation of Gamers Started Out Playing Barbie Fashion Designer. "Pop culture, tells us," Mary Kenney writes, "that video games are the realm of boys, and only a few girls play games at all. But the evidence tells us another story." The monologue given by the presenter of the 2019 Writers Guild Award for Videogame Writing was so incredibly cringeworthy, it’s lodged in my skull for life, and I wasn’t even there.

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Toys for Tots gave a toy bunny to a girl in need. She became a Marine. A 9-year-old Mariela Peña and her family were in their car on a California freeway when her mother broke the news that the young girl and her siblings shouldn’t expect much of a Christmas that year. The family of six had come to live with Peña’s aunt in San Jose, CA, earlier in 1986, having fled violence in Nicaragua amid the Sandinista Revolution.

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Why Are Toys Ingrained In Our Culture?  For many, the holiday season means gift giving.  According to the American Retail Federation, the average American is set to spend more than $830 on gifts and other holiday items this year — with much of that being spent on toys. Toy spending topped $38 billion in the U.S. in 2021.

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Once a Santa, always a Santa: An L.A. set decorator and seasonal Santa tells all. Almost 20 years since “Elf” became a holiday classic, it is almost impossible to see a Santa, any Santa, and not reenact, or at least think of, Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf utterly freaking out over seeing a department store Santa. Or Buddy’s horrified gasp of “You’re not Santa” when he realizes this is not the real deal.

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A Nativity scene made with 900 Playmobil toys. Last Monday, the bishop of the diocese of Coria-Cáceres, in the far northeast of Extremadura (Spain), blessed a Nativity scene made from more than 900 Playmobil pieces. In a press release published by the diocese, Monsignor Jesús Pulido explained that he visited the Nativity scene with his 9-year-old nephew, “and it is an experience that I want to recommend to...

 

Why Hot Wheels are one of the most inflation-proof toys in American history. Inflation, the curse of our pocketbooks and the Federal Reserve, has hit almost every good in the U.S. But the price of a beloved toy has managed to hover around $1 — for more than 50 years. Hot Wheels are a retail oddity. They remain one of the most affordable toys in the country at a time when inflation is chipping away at savings ...

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Are you a 'kidult'? More adults are buying toys for themselves in growing trend. Adults who buy toys for themselves have fueled the growth of a toy industry catering more and more to "kidults" looking to capture some carefree fun. A rising group of "kidults," or adults who buy toys for themselves, now makes up at least 25% of toy consumers and has the industry marketing more and more products to adults looking for some...

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30 Years Later, Barry Levinson’s Toys Is Still A Strange Movie. Remember Toys starring Robin Williams? No? Well, it’s been 30 years since this forgotten curio was released at the height of Williams’ fame. Around this time, Williams had appeared in the critically lauded The Fisher King in 1991, Aladdin earlier in 1992 and would go on to appear in Mrs Doubtfire in 1993. Arguably, these few years feature some of Williams’...

 

The 12 Most Anticipated Video Games of 2023. 2023 is shaping up to be a huge year for gaming, with almost wall-to-wall releases coming out at least once a month, though in some instances more like once a week. The new year could potentially bring on record-breaking sales, although delays of some of the year’s biggest games are always on the table, given the crowded release schedule.

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