The LEGO Group unveils host of new products at LEGO CON

The LEGO Group has launched its 90th anniversary summer celebrations with the virtual and free to attend LEGO CON. Designed specifically for brick-loving families, the two-hour live show, hosted by Vick Hope, Joel McHale and Melvin Odoom, gave LEGO fans a sneak peak into a new range of exciting products, including a host of sets celebrating the world’s biggest movie, sport and gaming franchises.

Among the new products revealed, fans were treated to an exclusive look at the brand-new LEGO Avatar product range celebrating the overall franchise to-date in advance of Avatar: The Way of Water premiering this December. The newly revealed set features the LEGO Avatar Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls that lets fans recreate the moment from the first film when Jake, as Toruk Makto, rallies the Omatikaya Clan to defend not only one of their most sacred sites, the Tree of Souls, but all of Pandora.

Another big reveal saw viewers given an exclusive first look at new LEGO Star Wars sets. LEGO Star Wars The Justifier and LEGO Star Wars AT-TE Walker will offer fans the chance to recreate the epic Star Wars: The Bad Batch stories with the incredible model of bounty hunter Cad Bane’s starship, The Justifier, or power into battle against the Separatist Droid Army with the AT-TE.

Fans of LEGO Marvel, meanwhile, were treated to a first look at a new Doctor Strange set showcasing the Sanctum Sanctorum as featured in a number of films, giving them a chance to open up their very own multiverses. LEGO Minecraft builders were spoilt with two brand new sets to add to their collection: LEGO Minecraft The Abandoned Village and LEGO Minecraft The Skeleton Dungeon.

Lovers of LEGO Super Mario were given a glimpse at the brand-new Character Packs that will be introduced to the LEGO Super Mario universe, with fun characters including Nabbit, a Purple Toad, Hammer Bro, Waddlewing, Toady, Baby Yoshi, Red Yoshi and Blue Shy Guy joining the fun. They were also shown how new and existing characters alike can interact with the LEGO Mario, LEGO Luigi and LEGO Peach Starter Courses.

There was also a preview of a new sporty range of LEGO Brickheadz, allowing fans to become a FC Barcelona player in LEGO BrickHeadz form. Viewers were the first to be shown the very latest LEGO Minifigures collection that will be joining the LEGO range later this year.

To top the many product reveals and sessions, the jam-packed show was also full of opportunities for fans to immerse themselves in live building activities and conversations with experts from around the globe.

Event highlights included a creative masterclass from inside Pixar Animation Studios, given by the director of Disney and Pixar’s Lightyear, Angus MacLane. LEGO Harry Potter fans, meanwhile, were given the chance to see how movie sets are turned into LEGO sets through a magical building tour of the Warner Bros. Studios London – The making of Harry Potter, with Harry Potter film actress Evanna Lynch and LEGO designer Marcos Bessa giving audiences tips and magic tricks for building their very own creations along the way.

LEGO CON 2022 is now available to stream for free in full at www.LEGO.com/LEGOCON or on the LEGO YouTube channel  http://youtube.com/LEGO.

 

 

Ravensburger debuts Minecraft jigsaw puzzles

Ravensburger, a leading publisher of puzzles, board games and toys, is partnering with Minecraft to translate the much-loved online universe into jigsaw puzzle form for the first time ever. The new line features both adult and kids puzzles and is now available for pre-order in the U.S. on Amazon.

“Ravensburger is proud to have been selected as Minecraft’s global puzzle partner,” says Thomas Kaeppeler, President of Ravensburger North America. “It was important for us to ensure the puzzles had authentic landscapes that capture what people love about Minecraft to help invoke an immersive feeling of being in the game.”

The Minecraft puzzles allow fans to piece together some of their favourite scenes from the Overworld, visiting different biomes, exploring structures and encountering familiar foes such as mobs. The line includes 3 x 49-pc, 100-pc, 300-pc, 1000-pc and 1500-pc counts and will be officially on-sale starting July 1, 2022. (Ages 5 – 14+ / $14.99 – $34.99 MSRP)

Minecraft partners with Lacoste for apparel collection

Mojang Studios has partnered with Lacoste to launch the Minecraft x Lacoste apparel collection, featuring activewear, accessories and footwear, just in time for spring/summer 2022.

Minecraft fans will love seeing how the iconic blocky style of Minecraft has been translated to the world of fashion with Lacoste – including some of their most iconic pieces like printed polos, monochrome sweatshirts and more. The collection even features an updated crocodile Lacoste logo reimagined in the style of Minecraft.

To celebrate the partnership, Minecraft has released the Croco Island DLC available for the community to download for free via the Minecraft Marketplace today. Inspired by the Minecraft x Lacoste apparel collection, adventurers of the Croco Island DLC can explore a Lacoste theme park on a lush tropical island with hidden secrets and fun minigames, like tennis, and check out 30 unique Lacoste-themed skins.

The Minecraft x Lacoste apparel collection is available from today on Lacoste.com and at select retailers worldwide.

 

 

Minecraft supports Great Ormond Street Hospital with virtual winter wonderland

The world’s largest winter festival has opened its virtual doors to the public to experience Christmas festivities – all in a Minecraft world.

Covering an area with a representative size of over 155,000 square metres or 38 acres, the virtual wonderland is four times the size of the biggest real-world seasonal event in Austria and took specialist artist Ushio Tokura over 300 hours and more than 30 million individual blocks to complete.

Commissioned by NVIDIA, the NVIDIA RTX Winter World will give families across the globe a free festive immersive experience to explore, which exceeds its real-world counterparts in scale, that visitors can enjoy from the comfort of their own homes. It will also offer an opportunity to raise funds for NVIDIA’s charity partner, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity).

Utilising NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX GPU’s (Graphics Processing Unit), real-time ray tracing stunningly simulates the physical behaviour of light, enabling reflections, shadows and other realistic lighting effects, as visitors are transported to a world offering a full winter wonderland and Santa’s grotto experience.

The world includes roller coasters, a Christmas village, frozen ice-skating lake, penguin postal service and petting zoo tent, with playable storylines and quests. Christmas film aficionados should also keep a lookout for Easter Egg homages to famous festive flicks such as ElfIt’s A Wonderful Life and The Polar Express.

The world also features a full recreation of the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) building and visitors will be able to donate via an in-game QR code to contribute to the charity’s ‘Home for Christmas’ fundraising campaign, which seeks to bring seriously ill children one step closer to home by funding state-of-the-art medical technology, pioneering research programmes into treatments and cures for rare conditions and patient and family support services.

Money raised will also help bring Christmas to the hospital for children from across the UK whose treatment needs to continue over the festive season, as well as funding important services for GOSH staff working to care for patients and their families.  Visitors can also donate directly via this link.

An NVIDIA spokesperson said: “With the power utilised from our RTX GPU, we are thrilled to bring families across the globe a truly unique, virtual Christmas experience. We wanted to bring an accessible and free event for all families this Christmas, whatever their circumstances, while supporting the vital work our friends at Great Ormond Street do. We hope to raise as much as possible to help their efforts this Christmas.”

Families can download the NVIDIA RTX Winter World in Minecraft today at planetminecraft.com.

Minecraft supports Great Ormond Street Hospital with virtual winter wonderland

The world’s largest winter festival has opened its virtual doors to the public to experience Christmas festivities – all in a Minecraft world.

Covering an area with a representative size of over 155,000 square metres or 38 acres, the virtual wonderland is four times the size of the biggest real-world seasonal event in Austria and took specialist artist Ushio Tokura over 300 hours and more than 30 million individual blocks to complete.

Commissioned by NVIDIA, the NVIDIA RTX Winter World will give families across the globe a free festive immersive experience to explore, which exceeds its real-world counterparts in scale, that visitors can enjoy from the comfort of their own homes. It will also offer an opportunity to raise funds for NVIDIA’s charity partner, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity).

Utilising NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX GPU’s (Graphics Processing Unit), real-time ray tracing stunningly simulates the physical behaviour of light, enabling reflections, shadows and other realistic lighting effects, as visitors are transported to a world offering a full winter wonderland and Santa’s grotto experience.

The world includes roller coasters, a Christmas village, frozen ice-skating lake, penguin postal service and petting zoo tent, with playable storylines and quests. Christmas film aficionados should also keep a lookout for Easter Egg homages to famous festive flicks such as ElfIt’s A Wonderful Life and The Polar Express.

The world also features a full recreation of the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) building and visitors will be able to donate via an in-game QR code to contribute to the charity’s ‘Home for Christmas’ fundraising campaign, which seeks to bring seriously ill children one step closer to home by funding state-of-the-art medical technology, pioneering research programmes into treatments and cures for rare conditions and patient and family support services.

Money raised will also help bring Christmas to the hospital for children from across the UK whose treatment needs to continue over the festive season, as well as funding important services for GOSH staff working to care for patients and their families.  Visitors can also donate directly via this link.

An NVIDIA spokesperson said: “With the power utilised from our RTX GPU, we are thrilled to bring families across the globe a truly unique, virtual Christmas experience. We wanted to bring an accessible and free event for all families this Christmas, whatever their circumstances, while supporting the vital work our friends at Great Ormond Street do. We hope to raise as much as possible to help their efforts this Christmas.”

Families can download the NVIDIA RTX Winter World in Minecraft today at planetminecraft.com.

Little Brother Books on track to sell over one million Annuals this year and reveals Christmas 2021 line-up

Little Brother Books is on track to sell over one million Annuals this year, with more than 2,500 dedicated FSDUs across major retailers in the run up to this Christmas. The feat will make the company the UK’s number one publisher of licensed annuals for the fourth year running.

Supporting its chances, Little Brother Books has details a new line-up of titles for the festive season this year, with 12 new Annuals in the collection, including titles and brands such as Blippi, CoComelon, Gigantosaurus, Roblox, and Minecraft. Each title will be hitting shelves from this September.

In an agreement inked with The Point 1881, there will be 2022 Annuals for the popular children’s YouTube live-action character, Blippi, as well as the educational songs and nursery rhymes brand, CoComelon. Also new to LBB is Gigantosaurus Annual 2022, based on the vibrant animated TV series and book licensed through Riverside Brands, as well as a new Ultimate Guide to Among Us.

The other eight titles featured in the 2022 line-up include Shoot Annual 2022, L.O.L. Annual 2022, Barbie Annual 2022, World of Dinosaurs 2022 by JurassicExplorers, Little Mix 2020 Special by PopWinners, as well as three additional ‘Ultimate Gaming Guides’ – GamesWarrior’s Ultimate Guide to Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft.

Little Brother Books reached the number one spot in Annuals publishing sector at the end of 2020, overcoming the plight that struck the market due to the pandemic, and expanding its retail listings and partnerships further. This year, the team is looking ready to strengthen its market position with exclusive retailer support and dedicated displays in high profile stores.

Managing director, Matthew Reynolds, said: “Like many businesses, without doubt 2020 was a rollercoaster but we came through it with flying colours and unbelievably had our most successful year to date. It meant we had to focus more than ever on new and existing retail partnerships to demonstrate that our leading products and brands were the ones to support and will deliver much needed incremental impulse sales for 2020.

“I’m pleased to say that our number one ranges delivered exactly what we promised. This success has given us the perfect opportunity to continue a growth trajectory for 2021. Having four exciting new titles on board with us is testament to the continued demand for Annuals which appeal from preschool to young adults alike.

“We can’t wait to see them hit the market from September this year. Annuals are a very important part of Christmas stocking filler purchases and the significant volumes we and our retailers sell each year shows families love to buy them at Christmas.”

Mojang’s Minecraft ‘hits new heights in Australia and New Zealand’ through Merchantwise Licensing partnerships

Mojang Studio’s hit video game franchise, Minecraft is ‘hitting new heights’ across the Australian and New Zealand markets through a raft of locally developed merchandise partnerships and major retail initiatives across the territory.

The programme has been developed by Microsoft, owners of Mojan Studio and the Minecraft video gaming brand, in partnership with the IP’s local licensing agent, Merchantwise Licensing.

Minecraft is recognised as the best-selling video game in history with over 126 million unique monthly players and over 200 million copies sold worldwide. In Australia it is tipped as the most popular video game among boys and girls aged seven to 14.

To compliment top global partners such as LEGO, Mattel and Harper Collins, new partnerships with best-in-class local licensees now include apparel and accessories with Caprice Australia, New Zealand apparel and accessories with MacEwen Apparel, apparel, accessories, gifts and novelties with EB Games, back-to-school stationery, bikes and outdoor toys with Hunter Leisure, lucnhing, drinkware, and home decor with Zak! Australia, and calendars, diaries, wall art, puzzles, and gifting with Impact Merch.

New products have been rolling out since July, achieving very strong sales across leading retailers led by Big W, Target, Kmart, The Warehouse and EB Games / Zing. The range includes product categories now available to local consumers for the first time.

Meanwhile, this month sees BIG W launch the first Minecraft cross-category retail marketing event in Australia. Marketing activity includes dedicated point-of-sale units across all stores, catalogue, website takeover as well as extensive digital and social media.  Plans are already underway for a major back-to-school event in the new year.

Also, from October, EB Games is launching uniquely designed ranges of gamer-centric apparel, accessories, gifts and novelties across both EB Games and Zing Stores, supported by strong digital and in-store marketing.

“It is a pleasure to be working with Merchantwise Licensing, our licensees and top Australasian retailers such as BIG W and EB Games to expand our presence down under,” said Microsoft Retailer Business Development, Minecraft marketing director, Bob Brennecke.

“Together we are creating innovative and world class Minecraft retail programs that will engage and excite local Minecraft players.”

Merchantwise Group CEO, Alan Schauder, added: “Everyone loves Minecraft, and now players can fully immerse themselves in the Minecraft world with some brilliant new merchandise across all leading categories.

“It’s a rare privilege to be working with Mojang, Microsoft and our local partners, helping to take the local Minecraft merchandise program to even greater heights.”

Gaming and YouTube properties fuel growth in demand for licensing in the toy space, says Kids Insights’ Global Toys and Games Report

The rise of YouTube and gaming properties, spanning the likes of Minecraft, Fortnite, Sonic, and Ryan’s World have fuelled a growth in demand for licensed properties across the children’s toys and games space over the course of the last 12 months, according to findings of Kids Insights’ first Global Toys and Games Report 2020.

The same report has underlined a number of key highlights from the children’s space, including a universal rise in awareness around sustainability, as well as the role that analogue gaming has to play in children’s and family wellbeing. The findings are all part of the first in a series of industry-spanning reports from Kids Insights.

The Global Toys and Games Report 2020 is the first in a series of studies focusing on the macroeconomics shaping toys, industry trends, and developments in advertising and marketing today.

Among the key findings of the report – the first in a series of reports from Kids Insights (a research organisation that surveys some 105,000 children a year across across Europe and India) – is up to the minute insight on topics spanning wellbeing, sustainability, demand for licensing, and consumer spend.

The initial report has found that today’s children are finding greater financial empowerment and in the US, kids are receiving $3.76bn a year to spend as they wish, with a growing number utilising Debit cards. With that greater means of spend, children are being faced with greater choice when it comes to how they spend their money.

Kids Insights has found that children now spend £581 million on in-experience purchasing, such as Apps and In Game Purchasing, compared to spending £969 million on toys and games.

In the UK, over one third of kids aged six to nine play with classic board games such as Monopoly, Guess Who, and Jenga monthly, while the team’s data shows a positive link between playing board games and positive wellbeing. According to Kids Insights, tweens who play board games as a hobby reported feeling frequently happy 51 per cent more than average. Similarly, they feel anxious at a lower rate.

Meanwhile, the report has also highlighted the growing importance of sustainability, underlining that as families become more eco-centric, brands need to have more focus on their sustainability strategy as this becomes a more important purchasing decision factor.

Other findings include the impact of Generation Speak, as well as the growth in demand for licensed properties, driven by a significant increase in gaming and YouTube properties, with the likes of Minecraft, Fortnite, Sonic, Ryan’s World, and Jojo Siwa performing the strongest over the last 12 months.

Utku Tansel LLB, MBA head of global industry reports, Kids Insights, said: “I have been working in this industry for 12 years and in my career, I have not witnessed such speed of change.

“The industry is increasingly embracing sustainability and inclusivity while AR and AI push limits on innovation-driven largely by ever-rising smart phone/tablet penetration among children.

“Our study takes readers to an exciting journey shaped by key developments and opportunities showcased in new world order.”

To enquire for a full copy of Kids Insights’ Global Toy & Games Report 2020, click on this link.

Or 

To purchase a full copy of Kids Insights’ Global Toy & Games Report 2020, click on this link.