Will video games score big this holiday?
I suspect they will. Amid multiple toy recalls, many parents are looking at toys differently than they did last year. It’s affected some buying decisions I’ve made this holiday, and I’m not at all alone. Lots of people are having difficulty weeding out perceived dangerous toys, and as a result, it’s possible that there will be a whole lot more of our industry under the tree. Of course, for some, video games are considered dangerous, too, so perhaps this is a naive assumption on my part.
At the same time, I don’t relish rifling through the closets again pulling out lead-tainted toys. For a while there, I felt like I was doing it every single week. On more than one occasion, I was tempted just to throw everything out.
Video games aside, I have to confess to an odd, child-like hope I’m harboring this year – that several games on my Board Game List will be mine.
Applied Game Design 
Its good to know with the rest of the economy under threat that my industry is still barreling on.
Yeah, Patrick, we can only hope that it will [barrel onward]. Our industry isn’t exactly protected from the state of the economy, but with extremely successful products like the Wii lighting up the eyes of millions with its affordability, fun, and overall history, that will help — if they can continue toward meeting demand. Pushing consumers to the shelves for one product, will inevitably steer them to other like-minded products.
This holiday season started out great, and has now slowed down considerably since. It’ll be interesting to see how it affects the game sales, especially for the next few months while this economy figures out where it’s heading.
Ho Ho Ho! 😀
Good point — for all of its ills, Rockstar has never had to recall any copies of GTA because of lead content in the discs 🙂
Has any first-party worked this as a marketing angle?