Where’s my “I brake for Chocobos” bumper sticker? I think that’s what a lot of gamers are asking themselves these days. I don't mean that item in particular, rather, “where are all the gamer related products?”
I’ve been noticing in the last month that mainstream companies seem to be lacking in the marketing and designing of products towards adult and child gamers. You would think with video games being the number one form of media today that more brand-name companies would start producing more gamer-related products for sale.
Hit the jump to listen to my rant.
Go to any mall in Canada today and you’ll be lucky to find a Pokemon toy in a store like Zellers, let alone any gamer-related product created for adults. Mainstream stores like Wal-Mart, Zellers, The Bay, and Sears do carry video games, systems, accessories, and strategy guides, but don’t expect to find a Halo t-shirt in the men’s section or a Final Fantasy key chain. I would expect that US gamers find the same problem with their mainstream stores, but since I don’t shop there, I’ll just have to assume for the sake of argument.
Back in the late 80s when Nintendo became huge in North America, I remember you could find hundreds of products in stores from Super Mario Bros. backpacks to pajamas, and now there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of anything gamer-related in stores. You go to Japan and you’ll find hundreds of items in stores like Dragon Quest bath mats and Final Fantasy Potion drinks and yet Canada and the United States has very little to choose from in the way of gaming products.
Japan's mainstream market has adopted the gamer culture so much that you can video game endorsed products everywhere. Shops carry every item imaginable like Final Fantasy sunglasses, Resident Evil cosplay items, The Legend of Zelda belt buckles and Castlevania Soundtracks on CD. Whole districts in Japan are dedicated some much to electronics that you can find hundreds of arcades, cyber cafes and stores selling everything gamer and techno related. Yet I can't find one gamer product for adults in my local Wal-mart. How is that fair?
Of course, if you really want a t-shirt that says “I pwn boys,” you can find one online -- but how does that help a 12-year-old with an allowance and no credit card, or a person who doesn’t want to pay for shipping and duties? Also, some items are just not available online. For example, I wanted a video game cake for my birthday, so I decided to check out the local grocery store and Dairy Queen designs for something and low and behold… nothing. Not a single Pokemon, Mario or Halo design to be found. There are hundreds of kids playing video games around the world and Dairy Queen can’t produce one Mario Bros. design for their cakes? That’s ridiculous.
Even places like Canadian EB Games which sell all things video game, don’t carry anything besides games, system and accessories. I think once I saw several Halo figures but that’s was when the first game came out over 5 years ago. Where are the t-shirts, the plushies, and the figurines? Why wouldn’t a gaming store carry other gamer-related products? Game Stop in the United States does, so why haven’t they changed the stores in Canada to carry them too?
If you go to a music store like HMV or Sunrise Records in Canada, you’ll find hundreds of CDs, along with band t-shirts, posters, figures, patches, CD cases, concert DVDs, etc. So why doesn’t a place like EB Games haven’t gamer-related products too? Where are the Halo t-shirts and Mario plushies? Sunrise Records stores even carries NECA’s Player Select line of video game figurines and they don’t even carry video games.
The best chance of finding anything gaming related offline is to check out local comic book stores. In most cases, you’ll find some Halo or Hellgate: London comic books or some Resident Evil action figures, but still that isn’t much. If you're really lucky, you'll have a specialty store or Korean family run convienince store near by that will import gamer products from Asia at low, low prices. Even local bookstores like Chapters are carrying fewer and fewer strategy guides in their stores, but seem to stock a lot of Dungeon and Dragons table top RPG guides.
As a gamer who loves to shout to the world that I play, I find it sad that the mainstream product market in North America can’t seem to realize that they are missing out on a huge demographic, and that they can make lines of original gamer products without ever having to sign a licensing rights deal with any gaming companies. Many online stores like ThinkGeek.com have their own t-shirt lines of gamer related slogans that don’t require licensing rights and they sell quite well.
Stores could also look into importing products from overseas. They do spend a lot of money shipping items over from their own sweat shops, so its not like it would cost more since the gamer items would probably be coming from another sweat shop right next door. Basically, stores need to look at what is selling really well over in the Asian markets and starting importing those items over here because the gamer market is pump and ready for someone to dig in.
The mainstream market needs to wake up and realize that the gaming industry now holds of the attention of men and women ages 3 to 80 and that those gamers ages 20 to 40 probably will buy up gamer-related products for themselves and their children. That’s a lot of money that could be spent in your stores instead of being spent on products from eBay and other online stores that market to gamers. So get to work Old Navy and EB Games, I want my “I brake for Chocobos” bumper sticker and “Gamers do it online” t-shirt.
Contest:
3:34 PM on 06.29.2007
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I agree though, more options would be nice. :)
I hope some marketing guy is listening.
i have a little question block from mario hanging from the rear-view mirror of my car and i want MOAR!!!
be thankful
Though I'm not a big fan of those kind of things, there will be a lot of people satisfied. I want my lifesize Master Sword and Hylian Sheild for next Halloween.
Some of that Nintendo merch was embarrassing. Who wanted a mutant Mario drawing on a shitty sleeping bag that's rated for 50 degrees? Or a crappy set of Mario bedsheets. Where would those fit in your modern lifestyle? They're completely applicable to a kid, but not to us.
And the problem is that marketing depts at licensing firms are full of 50-60 year old tools who completely don't understand advertising to people our age. They hear video games, and out come the deals with Kelloggs to throw a pack of Wii stickers in with a box of Honey Smacks and Apple Jacks.
They never give any thought to catering to adults, and never will. Nintendo, Sega, whoever just puts a bulk license out there and lets a 3rd party group pick and choose, purchase, and approve just about everything you see their name slapped on.
Marketing ideas are like shameless whores (Peter Moore-s?). They'll do anything to make a buck.
You rock Faith!
I remember having a Pokemon cake at one point so the design was out there, it was one of those edible paper sheets they put on the cake, you might still be able to find the design if you look hard enough. I hoarded enough pokemon merchandise to last me a very long time though so I do not have to worry about lack of it in the stores now. I was also able to capitalize nicely by selling Pokemon backpacks for 60$+ on ebay to desperate parents last year in August for back to school.
You can buy shirts at hot topic but they are very overpriced, most stores like Sears and JC Pennys have video game shirts, thats where I buy most of mine. They usually only cost 8-13$ at these stores rather than the 20$ each at hot topic. I do not see a lot of others wearing the shirts I have though. I have atari shirts made in 2000 that are still holding up well. But thats about all you can find, buttons, wristbands and tshirts. I do have some nintendo shoelaces though, I have a bad habit of picking up most video game related items that I see, provided I will actually use them.
Wal-Mart is about the only Main-stream store that I have seen even carry much to do with video games. Occasionally target will have a pac-man shirt, but that is rare.
I guess we are doomed to buying online, or asking a parent to buy it for us. I would totally let my kid get some cool gaming shirts, if he gave me the money.
Not really a fan of it that much but i still think it should be out there. When I was a kid I had these badass things for school (In blue):
Kids deserve those awesome memories.
[img]
http://www.zfans.de/zfans/dates/multimedia/merchandize/zsmerchlunchbox.jpg[/img]
Oh yeh.
and
Aww man this thread has brought this all flooding back. Good times I had forgotten about.
This makes me wish I still lived in Korea. Electronics Market FTW.
The shirt sizes are also annoying. They do not like carrying sizes small enough for women usually. My best fitting shirt is a God of War shirt. Where the logic of making an XS in that instead of Zelda is beyond me, but I'm not complaining.
Oh man, I totally had that Legend of Zelda Game Watch. I would play it all through class. :)
Also you guys who are begging for Shirts.....get some fashion sense....you guys might be hardcore gamers, but that doesn't mean you have to dress like nerds. I like swag as much as the next guy, but save your Zelda shirts for LAN games.
And at one of the gamestops near me, the walls are covered with games, but the rest of the store (all the center isles) is all gaming action figures, keychains, toys, shirts, etc.
And a few years ago it was a surprise if I went into ANY store and DIDN'T find a Pokemon product.
You mentioned that you can find some gaming products at comic shops. Have you ever noticed how much dust sits on these items? There is no turn. This stuff sits on the shelves for months. Very simple if gamers buy it I want to sell it.
If someone makes a good gaming related product that sells we'd love to carry it. One of the reasons we do not see this stuff out there is copyright. Those who hold the copyright.... and their lawyers are the real reason you don't see gaming items beyond promotional crap they hand out at LAN parties. Convince the publishers to license their franchises and we will all be in business!
Finally, the items need to turn, they need to be available and
dealers need to be able to make money off of them. Game publishers and their distributors are stingy keeping the lion share of profits for themselves, they also thumb their noses at retailers with unfavorable pricing models and return policies. If the same guys control the licensed products that control the games retailers will not carry them if they can't make a profit.
All this being said if you have a gaming related product you would like to sell, I would love to hear from you and market it on gamegiants.net contact me at cs@gamegiants.net
I'm sorry I forgot to link your site on the article. I added it to the page.
I hope you can forgive me. :)
But, apart from that, it's the same deal here as it is in Canada and the US. Shame, really, because I'd kill for some Street Fighter-themed threads.