A Thankful Toy and Game Inventor

At a time when so many seem aggrieved and ungrateful for their lot in life, it is truly refreshing to see that my co-author and long time friend, Richard C. Levy, took time at Thanksgiving to express in a Toy Book piece how thankful he is to be a toy and game industry participant. It would be very easy for Richard to direct thanks inward for all he has gained from his very active 38-year career creating and licensing so many successes.

But no, his message of thanks was in large part targeted at the many companies that stepped up and took his creative nuggets and invested resources to bring those ideas to market. And he directed gratitude at the corporate staffs who unselfishly contributed their skills to make his good ideas better.

Richard's message included acknowledgement of his lasting relationships forged with so many colleagues in the independent inventing community. Those colleagues may work in anonymity, but they ultimately are collectively bound to an industry that relies so heavily on their inventive skills to replenish new product offerings year after year.

Perhaps it was the beginning of another holiday season that got Richard to resonate his good fortune to have a career in such an entrepreneurial industry. It was clear to me that he has an unbound love for the toy industry, the people and companies that make it work, and the great country that nurtures so many marketers. As I read Richard's message, I became thankful for my small part of what he described so eloquently in his article. The link to the full Toy Book article is below:

http://toybook.com/a-time-for-thanksgiving/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-time-for-thanksgiving

Co-Author Meets Co-Author

Always good to see co-author, Richard C. Levy, anytime, anywhere to rehash issues covered in the third edition of  The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook . I particularly enjoy annual meetings in his south Florida "war room" with its impressive floor to ceiling display of toys and games he has licensed during his long, active career.

If we miss meeting in the Sunshine State, New York Toy Fair offers opportunities to exchange "state of the industry" perspectives in the aisles of Javits. For the past two Toy Fairs, I have enjoyed Richard's Be Terrific appearances in onsite interviews.

Richard's 2016 NYCTF interview: https://youtu.be/w6fdD0Slu_A

Richard's 2015 NYCTF interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cG_jH2PIHY

Words from the Wise

The original edition of The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, included "profiles" of some eighty creatives, who could enter "occupation-professional toy inventor" on any application. These were high achievers in the speculative, high-risk world of licensing ideas to industry marketers. Time has taken some of these incredible talents from the industry like Ralph Baer, acknowledged "father of the video game business", and Fred Kroll, who pushed roller carts filled with new toy and game "opportunities" around the old 200 5th Ave. NYC Toy Center for sixty-six years! (Fortunately for Fred and Hasbro, Hungry, Hungry Hippos dropped off one of those carts!)

In our third edition ebook, some profiles have been altered but much of the advice and perspectives from eighty pros continue to ring true. For any inventor, who hopes to create new playthings,  thoughts from these old pros on what makes great toys and games and what sparks their original ideas are invaluable. They live the life captured in quotes of Thomas Edison, "Have a great idea, have lots of them" and "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Inventors profiled in the Handbook averaged thirty ideas annually. (That's a lot of ideas and a lot of perspiration!)

Recently, several pros offered prospectives on challenges facing toy inventors today. Mary (Game Bird) Ellroy and Hank Atkins feel that "larger companies seem focused on brands rather than unrelated concepts no matter how good they are". Tim Moodie acknowledges, "the loss of larger game companies reduces likely licensees for his ideas." He shares Mary Ellroy's view, "that opportunities are emerging with new, interesting marketers". All three agree, "that new toy and game ideas need to compete with gadget play", and they favor "adding electronics or some novel technology if possible."

There is timeless cautionary advice as well. Seeing the advantage of now popular crowd-funding, Ken Evoy, Canadian licensor of many playthings, counsels,"Never mortgage the house. It is much safer to find venture capital. The worst thing is to spend your money on 10,000 pieces, sell a few thousand, and have the rest end up in your garage." Hank Atkins opines that a single license will not generate sustainable royalty income, saying, "Don't give up your day job." And co-author Richard C. Levy, with over 125 original concepts licensed and approaching 40 years in the business of fun and games advises, "Never give up, never grow up." To meet the challenges of inventing today, it makes sense for creatives to mix into their thinking several dashes of sound advice from the wise--and successful--pros.

Cat Paw! Toy on Letterman Goes Viral

Some of you may not have seen Anna Kendrick's reaction to the Cat Paw toy on the David Letterman late night show. Her rather risqué' comments in this video clip went viral resulting in great PR for this  new toy! If you missed it, check it out here.
https://vimeo.com/114815744

Guess who invented it? None other than Richard C. Levy, my co-author of The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook. In past NYC Toy Fairs, Richard and I gave numerous anecdotal presentations on the TIA's Creative Factor programs about toy and game invention and licensing new product ideas. At Javits 2015, Richard went solo in an interview with host, Michael Artsis of Be Terrific, offering fascinating snippets to chronicle his long and successful career in the toy and game industry. Artsis seemed mesmerized, yet playful, as Richard described his career in the professional inventing community punctuated with demonstrations of not only Cat Paw, but his other latest creations, Dirty Words Game, and The Electronic Waving Flag.

Richard's Be Terrific interview shares his thoughts on the creative process used by the author/inventor respectfully dubbed Mr. Outside in the introduction to the Handbook. Throughout his long and fascinating career, Richard has been an inventor creating outside the corporate walls while thinking outside the box as well! See his amazing story here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cG_jH2PIHY

Toy Fair Inside Out

There are thousands of Toy Fair images thanks to iphones. These are just three of mine.

Toy people love New York

2 of the 3 are big toy celebrities

Famous faces in a sea of Javits Center faces.
Hope your iphotos captured fond memories of Toy Fair 2013.

The Creative Factor at Toy Fair

On Monday. February 11, Richard C. Levy and I shouted out SNL's famous line, "Live from New York City!" For the past seven years, we have hosted a TIA Creative Factor symposium for toy and game inventors. This year, we were MML (Monday Morning Live). The nor'easter notwithstanding, our room filled with intrepid men and women who traversed slushy Manhattan streets and driving rain to get to the Javits Center for the 110th Annual Toy Fair. Our attendees proved their resilience living by the old adage, ""often the hardest part of any challenge is showing up!"

This year, we did something different. Rather than a speech format followed by an audience Q and A, we started with answers to ten questions we felt inventors often find of most interest. (See our answers as recorded by attendee, David A. Miller, Executive Editor of Purple Pawn) Answers

  1) Is New York Toy Fair the best place to sell ideas?
  2) Do you need an agent to license an idea?
  3) How do you know if an idea is original and never done before?
  4) What are some reasons why companies reject ideas?
  5) Does collaborative invention improve chances of licensing an idea?
  6) What are the major points to prepare to pitch a prototype to a marketer?
  7) What can you expect if a company asks to hold your prototype?
  8) Should you produce and market the concept yourself?
  9) Should you hire an attorney for patent and trademark applications?
10) How are mobile gaming and interactive toys affecting the market?

These questions and dozens more from the audience made for a fast-moving sixty minute session. Afterwards, we continued to entertain questions in the hallway as inventors' natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge would not surrender to the clock.

Between what we imparted firsthand and the information in our just released 2nd edition of The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, there is a possibility that some in the audience will not attend our 2014 session. They will be too busy admiring the products they licensed to one of the more than 1000 plus Javits exhibitors.

The TIA frequently says that the Toy Fair showcases 6000 to 7000 "never seen before products". It's a good bet some of those new toys and games will come from inventor graduates of past TIA Creative Factor programs, We certainly hope so!

Curtain Up! Light the Lights!

The 2nd edition of our critically acclaimed, The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, is now available as an ebook for the Kindle tablet on Amazon. The price is $9.95.
CLICK HERE TO  Order Now!

    So much has changed in the industry since our original Handbook was released in 2003. We have done our best to refresh the book's content during this past year of energetic reporting. Also new in this edition is a "Websitary" of selected URLs important to independent inventors and industry followers as well as hot links to key websites imbedded throughout the book.

Thanks to several licensing attorneys and agents, we believe the advice and document templates in Chapter 9, Molding the Deal: The Gets and the Gives, have no equal in a self-help book for toy and game inventors. In fact, we can confidently say that this 2nd edition, thanks to the contributions made by the professionals we interviewed, leaves other books of this genre languishing.

The Handbook continues to profile over 80 professional inventors containing sage advice from some of the industry's best and brightest talents. In addition, there are 35 company profiles (together with contact information for submitting new concepts ) who welcome submissions from external sources.

We trust that even the most seasoned, successful inventors and industry executives will find this book a valuable resource and stimulating read about the new product process that sustains the toy and game business. Thanks in advance for your interest in our work.

Your writing team,
Richard and Ron

What Did You Do This Summer

So how did you spend the summer months in 2012? Travel to exotic locations for stimulating sightseeing? Bask at the seashore coated with lotion to protect from harmful UV rays? Or just do all business and no play in attempts to spawn ideas creating new toys and games?

I've been absent from my blog since late March and most forms of summer fun, (fall and winter, too) to concentrate with co-author Richard C. Levy in the preparation of our publication, The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, for release as an ebook. We were gratified with hardcopy sales since its release in 2003. However, when our publisher notified us the book had sold out and would not be reprinted, that was motivation for us to update and move our work into the realm of digital readers. So, the 2nd edition will be digital like so much of other communication around us.

By foregoing travel, beach time, gardening, raking, shoveling and other seasonal activities, I am delighted to announce, "mission accomplished"! The Handbook will be available on Amazon for Kindle readers February 1 with versions for other tablets later in the year.

Indeed, the industry has changed significantly since the original hardcover publication. Inventors today are faced with even more challenges in attempts to license toy and game ideas as playtime, like our 2nd edition, has become more digitized. With invaluable help from some new contributors, active links to useful websites, and encouraging words from industry leaders, we believe the 2nd edition will continue to be a message of hope and direction to the creative talents that have been and will continue to be the lifeline of new products for the industry.

Richard and I hope that The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook 2nd edition, like its predecessor, will be one small steppingstone for inventors as they work to make their toy dreams reality. If we meet that goal for a few inventors, our project was well worth the collective loss of other leisurely pleasures.

No Reading Required

A common message on a toy package is "some assembly required". Those words may result in a parent needing a toolbox, an ability to read blueprints, and possess basic engineering skills before the "knocked down" parts assemble to be the plaything shown on the package. A notice of "no reading required" on a game package is the industry's signal to adults that young players need not know how to read cards, spinners, dice or boards to enjoy game play.  

Reading in games, or more specifically, reading to comprehend rules may determine if consumers ever get to the intended play. With the short attention span of today's consumers, lowered reading levels, and desire for instant gratification, players want to open a box, set up the pieces, and get into play with minimal reference to rules. (Methinks this attitude is one contributor to the popularity of I-games where user friendly symbols and emoticons get players into the action without wading through a page or two of challenging verbiage.)

A rules intensive game like Monopoly was fortunate to appear on the market back when consumers were more patient and tech-less. It is common product acquisition belief that if Monopoly was introduced as a rules-laden board game today, it would likely not become a classic. Its longevity may  partially be the result of what Mike Meyers, former Senior VP of R&D at Milton Bradley/Hasbro Games, dubbed the Rules Shepherds Theory. His contention was that one literate and patient person (the shepherd) reads the rules and then explains how to play to two or three other players. These players in turn pass known rules on to other new players, and familiarity grows exponentially through an oral history. Good shepherds, often parents or grandparents, bring the non-reading players into the game with some familiarity with the basic rules without reading all details of play.

Game inventors Tim Moodie and Richard Levy tried their own unique idea to make rules user friendly in a VCR game marketed by Mattel in 1992 called Wayne's World. Since the game already had the electronic medium, their thinking was to complement printed rules with a riveting audio-visual explanation of the rules right on the VCR with the box of components nearby. Their efforts to make the rules MRR (minimal reading required) may have touched on other comprehension issues that could be called SHR as in "some hearing required". Unfortunately, the short appearance of Wayne's World game on the market made it impossible to determine if consumers would more strongly embrace hearing rules rather than reading them. Check out this You Tube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=parXcDqvixQ to see an entertaining effort of one of the first audio-visual efforts to market a game with reduced rules reading.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=parXcDqvixQ

What's Your Favorite Game?

Everyone has a favorite game. One played incessantly with friends where one never tires of winning or losing so long as there are hours of entertaining play. Richard Levy was asked recently to identify his favorite game as run-up to contributing with other authors on a new book called Kobold Guide to Board Game Design. http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/kgbgd

What did he name out of the hundreds of games exposed to him over his long career? Parcheesi! Certainly not a technically enhanced game by today's standards but rather one that has been around for hundreds of years. In fact, it continues to be marketed currently by Winning Moves Games.

Here are Richard's thoughts on why Parcheesi is his favorite. http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page10600.php By the way, my favorite classic board game when playing with grandsons Tommy, James, and family is Sorry. With that crew, the simplistic "move pawns on a path around the board" is transformed into a highly competitive, "take no prisoners", boisterous action game!

So what's your favorite game?

Wide World of Toys and Games

Toy and game licensing contracts ask the question, what is the "territory" the licensor grants product marketing rights to the licensee? A worldwide or "all territories" deal is complex, but there are advantages to both parties. An inventor is often willing to give worldwide marketing rights to a single partner IF that marketer can produce, package, and ship a product to retail shelves in all corners of the globe. A global marketer must decide if the product that plays in Seattle will make it as successfully in Shanghai and Sydney. In my days with Milton Bradley and Hasbro, the entire globe was certainly our marketplace.

There are some classic toys and games recognized as global brands. That elite status often takes years to build. But my friend, Richard C. Levy, a globe-trotting game inventor and marketing maven has devised a campaign to generate interest in his new game, Coffee Talk, marketed by Pressman Toys. Coffee Talk was co-invented with former Hasbro Games Marketing VP, Gary Carlin. Shaaa-zam! The game has magically appeared in remote places in the world where there are no Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks shops. Talk about spreading the word for a product and getting it before international game players! Shown below, in the hands of various locals, is the unique Coffee Talk package looking just like a retail sack of coffee not filled with beans, but rather playing pieces for the new game! www.coffeetalkgame.com


















Chess Playing Armenians



















Mongolian & Yak


Just shown at Toy Fair 2011, Pressman ships the game mid-June in its distinctive coffee pouch package. Hey, if a word game can be a hit packaged in a simulated banana skin, why shouldn't a game like Coffee Talk hit the toy shelves looking like a sack of coffee? And after all this grassroots global exposure, you can bet there are already some deals for foreign language editions of the game. Game players worldwide await its arrival! To follow Coffee Talk around the world, and to become a fan, go to www.facebook.com/coffeetalkgame


















Lijiang, China Youth

A Must Read Book

In today's wired world, there is no limit to information access. We are Twittered, Plaxoed, Facebooked, and Linkedin. Ask a question and the vast ethernet network is ready to respond. That is all well and good, but for my information I for one still look to the comfort and support of the expertise captured in a bound book originated by a known authority.

Hopefully, an inquisitive toy or game inventor sought the advice contained in The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook. (Always good to engage in a bit of self promotion). But for those inventors seeking to navigate the broader arena of consumer product licensing, there is an important new book by my co-author, Richard C. Levy. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cashing In On Your Inventions (Second Edition) is a must read all inclusive information compendium for any inventor's personal library.

How much time do you want to spend on Google sifting through a multitude of dubious sources in search of information related to defining, selling, protecting, and licensing ideas? If time is money, isn't a tell all tome of "turning an idea into a windfall" a truly invaluable resource at less than $20?

There are numerous sources for information on how to protect intellectual property, including free literature from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Copyright Office. There are books on how to invent and sell inventions that are written by patent attorneys, IP managers and agents trolling for business. Most of these people are all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas. Richard is a marketing dynamo who has co-created, co-developed and licensed hundreds of products that combined have generated $1 billion in global retail sales.

Where Richard's book excels is in its practical, down-to-earth, non-theoretical, real-life information on how to protect your wallet and bring your ideas to market. You are fortunate to be able to peek over Richard's shoulder as you turn the pages of this book and learn the secrets to his success.

Written in a crisp, energetic, insightful manner, this eye-opening book is crammed full of Richard's firsthand experiences that are enhanced through interviews with experts in disciplines ranging from prototyping and off-shore manufacturing to patents and trademarks. He reveals his personal strategies. He shares templates of licensing, option and hold confidential agreements that could save you thousands of dollars in legal fees.

So, if you are a serious inventor or designer who has licensed or wants to license original ideas to industry, you can benefit from this quintessential tool for turning ideas into money-spinners.

Simply put, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cashing In On Your Inventions (Second Edition) is an essential addition to any inventor's library and just plain fascinating reading.

Knowledge is power and this is one powerful source for any inventor who wants to sharpen all the important and related skills. Read, dream, invent--with an added edge! If there is one disappointment I have with this book, it is that I did not co-author it with Richard!