Vancouver Province Article on Virtual Worlds for Kids

Last week, I was interviewed by Lena Sin of the Vancouver Province about kids' online games, commercialization and market research. We had a nice long chat about the various issues that arise within children's gaming sites, a chunk of which is featured in Sin's article on virtual worlds for kids, which appears in today's issue. Here's an excerpt:

Sara Grimes, a PhD candidate at SFU whose research is centred on children's evolving relationship with new technology, said parents can easily be lulled into a sense of safety because media companies are careful not to raise red flags with violent or sexual content on children's sites.

"What they are doing is using this notion of a safe or fun area that's really kid-appropriate to advertise heavily and also conduct market research in almost every aspect of the sites," said Grimes.

Advertising and marketing techniques run the gamut of placing a simple ad on the screen -- which Webkinz did for the first time last October to much outcry -- to actually incorporating products into the game.

You can read the rest of the article here. Thanks to Lina for her clear and succint coverage of the topic, as well as her excellent summation of my comments...which I'm sure were actually much more rambling than they appear in the final text.

The UK Kids' Media Disconnect

One of the reasons I came to London this semester was because the UK is currently such a hotbed of academic and public debate about kids and media. From child obesity and videogame controversies, to the numerous nation- and EU-wide studies being conducted here, to special government task forces and initiatives, to the large amount of media coverage UK newspapers and bloggers provide of these developments, London just seems like the 'place to be' for a children's media scholar. As a hotbed of debate, it is necessarily populated by conflicting opinions and interpretations -- which is both hugely exciting and a little overwhelming. As in the US and Canada, however, the debates here are also characterized (possibly hindered) by an underlying disconnect between everyday use (kids' media usage, parental concerns, family dynamics, school life) and popular discourse (governmental response, media representations, industry agendas). An example of this can be found in two articles that appeared in the BBC News online in the past couple of months. In December, the BBC published an article on a Microsoft commissioned review of 4000 parents in various countries around the EU. Among other things, the study found that:

- "More than 75% of parents are concerned about the content of video games played by their children."
- "Almost half of the 4,000 parents surveyed in the UK, France, Italy and Germany said that one hour of gaming each day should be the limit."
- "43% of the surveyed parents said they were not aware of ratings systems for games to determine suitability."

Without digging up previous reports/surveys, I'd risk making the claim that these findings pretty much support prior work in this area, which consistently finds that the "problem" lies in the parents' lack of awareness about ratings...a convenient argument that puts the blame and responsibility back in the home and well away from the industry (i.e. any need for government regulation).

The story is positioned in relation to an ongoing study being conducted by Tanya Byron on kids' new media culture (you can check out her study's Bebo page here), which was commissioned by the PM and launched in September 2007 to the immediate outcry of the UK videogames industry and self-regulatory board. Although the findings of the "Byron Review" won't be released until March, the BBC story appears to be laying some important groundwork for its reception, making preemptive links to industry-commissioned studies, and setting up the debate within the age-old industry-vs-parents binary. The article notes that according to the Microsoft study, parents "saw themselves as the key decision makers for which games should be played by their children, rather than regulators or the video games industry", making it seem like an "either or" scenario, rather than a system that can (and often does) work in concert. A big chunk of the remainder of the article is dedicated to providing the industry's perspective -- its defense of the educational and social aspects of games,reproducing the same tired dichotomies we've been seeing for years - violent vs. educational, wasted time vs. productive leisure.

The last third of the article gives some of the study's findings on kids' media use, again based on parental reporting/perception:

- "[M]ore than half of children played games on consoles, 32% on PCs, 9% played games online and 4% played on a mobile phone."
- The majority (64%) of kids play digital games alone, while less than 10% played with family members, and 12% played with friends. (although it doesn't specify whether this includes playing with friends online, I would assume that it probably doesn't)
- Only 5% of kids played "mainly online" - again, not sure what that signifies exactly, or how and whether parents keep track of this.

A few weeks later, the BBC published an opinion piece (though not so clearly labeled as such) by the Chief executive of Becta, Stephen Crowne, under the headline: "Parents urged to embrace new tech: The head of the government agency which promotes technology in schools urges parents to see it positively". The article takes aim at recent ChildWise report, under the introduction of: "It seems that every week a new report is published revealing the negative impact technology such as the internet, computer games and television is having on young people." The report found that UK kids spend about 5 hours and 20 minutes "staring at a screen each day", which reading continues to decline. Crowne suggests that before parents throw away their television sets and computers, they should consider some usage stats published by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (that 41% of children 8-11 yrs regularly use the internet; 75% of 11-year-olds have their own TV, games console and mobile phone; 56% of children aged 8-11 play computer games; and 7% of 10-year-olds have their own web cam), stats which he says describe the "real world of children." The gist of the argument is that because technology is to kids what honey is to bees, parents shouldn't fight their children's technology use, but channel it towards positive outcomes. etc., etc., etc.

Again here we see a tidy reduction of the issues, a championing of productive play and educational value as the right and only response to parental concerns, a vilification of children's current technological/media use as "non-effective" (i.e. wasted time) that can be "repurposed" (by parents and teachers, of course) as developmentally and economically beneficial activities, if only parents and teachers will "get on board". A perfect example of the kind of thing Ellen Seiter talks about in The Internet Playground, and that Anil Narine and I discuss in our paper Playtime is Over! (forthcoming). Crowne concludes with the following advice to parents who are worried about their kids' uses of technologies:

Rather than trying to exclude technology from their lives because we feel uncomfortable with it or have a vague idea that it is "not a good thing", we need to do what parents and educators have always done - harness their children's passions and interests and use technology to engage them in learning.

Sound familiar?

The Vancouver Olympics Woos Kids with the Cutest Mascots Ever!

So, last week the 2010 Vancouver Olympics committee unveiled its team of official mascots (seen above - picture courtesy of canada.com, which you should also check out for a hilarious short article about them entitled "Why do our mascots all look like Hello Kitty?"). Each one is based on West Coast Native legend, and represents a key component of the BC landscape. For example, check out the "bio" for "Miga":

The sea bear is inspired by the legends of the Pacific Northwest First Nations, tales of orca whales that transform into bears when they arrive on land. The Kermode bear is a rare white or cream-coloured sub-species of the black bear that is unique to the central West Coast of British Columbia. According to First Nations’ legend, Kermode bears — also known as Spirit Bears — were turned white by Raven to remind people of the Ice Age. Orcas are also honoured in the art and stories of West Coast First Nations, as travellers and guardians of the sea.

They're also super cute, anthropomorphic Pokemon-types, that do look like Japanese animation-style (e.g. Hello Kitty) characters, and surely not by accident. On the other hand, the mascots and their branding are also obviously targeted to kids, and in that regard are pretty on the pulse in terms of what's aesthetically and thematically popular right now. Think of the huge popularity of Chinese and Japanese legends in kids' culture over the past few years, which forms the basis of a number of media brands. This includes Xiaolin Showdown and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and even things like Magi-Nation and Pokemon that incorporate the same mythical themes and elemental magic. In this respect, I think Miga the Sea-Bear, Quatchi the Sasquatch, and Sumi the Animal Spirit might have a lot to offer, adding Native legends to kids' repertoire and possibly opening the door for a more diverse kids' cultural landscape.

I can't help but notice, however, that the Olympics committee seems to have taken a much larger cue from the commercial kids' industries (not just style and themes). Branded toys, books and other mascot-imprinted accessories are already available for sale on the website. Hmmmmmm. Is this an example of making a big important public event more relevant for kids through the incorporation of themes/interests drawn from kids culture, or is it simply yet another case of rampant commercialization (increasingly associated with the Olympic games in general) reaching into the child demographic? I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but my fingers are tightly crossed for option number one.

Everybody's Talking About: Magi-Nation

This week, everyone's been talking about a new kids' MMOG project in the works that will tie into an up-and-coming (and Canadian-based) property called Magi-Nation. The property was first introduced as a collectible card game (CCG), Magi-Nation: Duel, which was heavily inspired by Pokémon and other collectible kids' properties. It had a few incarnations as a videogame, mostly aiming for the same type of CCG-Gameboy crossover success enjoyed by Pokémon (hmmm...I think I see a pattern emerging ;). This past year, Canadian-based Cookie Jar Entertainment launched an animated series to tie-into the CCG (and remaining digital games, I suppose, which includes a cell phone game) -- appearing as part of the CW's Kids' WB Saturday morning cartoon block, as well as on Canadian public broadcaster CBC -- along with a first, smaller online game, Magi-Nation Arena, as well as various ancillary toys and product lines (including a new CCG). The new MMOG will foster and supplement the emerging Magi-Nation media brand, and will surely have some pretty close links to the tie-in card game (I'm guessing that "secret codes" with every purchase will be somehow involved). Here's the description from the company press release:

Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands is based on the popular children's animated television series Magi-Nation, which follows the adventures of 15-year-old Tony Jones, an average teen from Earth who finds himself mysteriously transported to the magical world of Magi-Nation. In these Moonlands Tony befriends two young Magi heroes-in-training who join him on a journey to defeat the evil Shadow Magi who are out to rule their world. Along with their trusty collection of Dream Creatures these new friends must solve riddles, battle evil and discover the secrets hidden in each region on the Moonlands. During their adventures, they just might discover some secrets about themselves.

According to Cynopsis Kids!, the game will be beta-testing this December (unfortunately it's a closed beta, but you can apply here to become a tester). What makes this web-based branded game unique is that while much of the game will be free (i.e. ad-based), it will also incorporate a micro-payment or microtransactions model, in which players will pay small fees to upgrade characters, etc. As Next Generation reports, while this strategy isn't all that new, it is not that common among kids' sites/properties. As Kris Graft writes:

Battle for the Moonlands will be a browser-based game that is supported by advertising as well as microtransactions, an increasingly common business model. What makes Moonlands more unique is that it will be putting microtransactions in the hands of kids. Finding a chunk of charges for virtual clothing and spells on a credit card bill would likely irk some parents, but [Cookie Jar senior VP of digital media Ken Locker] insists there will be restrictions set in place.

"We want to make sure that parents are in control of any online spending, so we are developing a number of ways for parents to be involved in Magi-Nation purchasing activity," Locker says. [Notably, however]"We are also working on implementing a number of payment options so that we do not rely solely on credit cards as heavily as many online games."

Hmmm....perhaps this is where the "secret code included with every purchase" will come in. Either way, it certainly seems like Cookie Jar is casting the widest net possible in its bid to become the next Pokémon. In Virtual Worlds News, Locker is quoted describing Cookie Jar's goal to:

"[R]each kids wherever they are, be it via through television, consumer products or online worlds. [...] We are thrilled to be working on such an ambitious undertaking as Magi-Nation: Battle for the Moonlands and can’t wait to bring the Magi-Nation online entertainment package to our fans. Our young viewers are extremely Internet savvy and routinely monitor their TV shows online. With this project we will extend that connection and enable players to have a fully interactive experience with their favorite characters in one of their favorite worlds."

Indeed! Find out more by following the various links above, or follow the ongoing developments firsthand by visiting the Magi-Nation website.

Okami Lives!

Great news on the gaming front: Eurogamer, Slashdot and Joystiq are all reporting that last year's critically-acclaimed yet sadly commercially-ignored Okami will get a second crack at the big leagues, when it is transported to the Wii this coming spring (2008). You might remember me going on and on about this game when I played it early this year. And given the unique forms of gameplay enabled by Wii technology, I'm pretty excited to play the remake. Here's an excerpt from the Eurogamer article:

Celebrated on PS2 for its absorbing puzzle and action adventure mechanics, gripping narrative inspired by Japanese folklore and beautiful watercolour visuals, its rebirth on Wii has been much hyped.

The game also lends itself rather well to the potential of Nintendo's Wiimote for control. Amaterasu's Celestial Brush - a paintbrush used in combat and for solving puzzles - is a perfect fit for the Wiimote, and so it proves, while combat will also include various "motion-controlled physical attacks".

I completely agree that this game is pretty much the perfect candidate for adaptation to the Wii - even though the original PS2 version was amazing and groundbreaking, the opportunity to draw with the Wiimote is going to be something else entirely. Since playing Okami, I often find myself wishing I could pause whatever game I'm playing to draw in a Slash or Lightening Bolt. I also wonder if the Wii version will retain the original T rating...there's was really no reason for it. Other than a couple of subversive jokes, there's nothing "crude" or suggestive or particularly violent about it. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for a Wii trailer.

aoir 8.0: Let's Play, October 17-20 2007

This week, I'll be presenting my work on television-themed MMOGs for kids at the annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (aoir). The theme this year, "Let's Play", explores the "(playful) blurring of boundaries online". Here's an excerpt from the official conference description:

Our conference theme of play invites empirical research and theoretical reflection on how human beings "seriously play" with one another on, via and through internet/s, on local, regional, and global scales. We call for papers that explore the intersection of the serious and the playful, the sacred and the profane, the revolutionary and the mundane, and fantasy and the reality.

Highlights (i.e. things I'm especially looking forward to) include a keynote address by Henry Jenkins, and presentations by Hector Postigo, Tarleton Gillespie, and Dan Burk, Mia Consalvo, danah boyd, Sal Humphreys, Bryan-Mitchell Young, and various others. Here's the abstract for the paper I'm presenting:

Saturday Morning Cartoons Go MMOG: Cross-media integration, branded play and the migration of children’s television to massively multiplayer online gaming

Since the 1980s, children's television has established itself as the nexus of cross-media integration within North American children's culture, both in terms of its frequent expansion across a variety of media forms, as well as its extension to a vast array of consumer products through merchandizing tie-ins. Today's successful children's television programs consistently adopt a cross-media strategy that transports their characters and themes into film (both feature and direct-to-video), print (books, comic books and magazines), and the digital realm (websites, video games, mobile content)—- each of which works to cross-promote the others, and all of which promote related merchandise. From action figures and play-sets, clothing items and school supplies, children's television and its companion media provide characters and narratives that act as a type of media-brand for innumerable "tie-in" toys and commodities. These products allow children to "play" with elements and characters from the shows, wear their images, and use quotidian objects that bare their imprint. Through the coordination of media content and branded toys, children’s television promotes a form of narrativized or "branded" play which sees children loosely conforming to the scripts and parameters predetermined by these media texts during both fantasy play and when playing with the branded objects (Kinder 1991; Seiter 1993; Kline 1995; Fleming 1996). When children "play television" they are not only often engaging with specific tie-in products, but they are also building more intimate relationships with particular media-brands.

The quest to get children "playing television" has been most recently achieved through a number of highly successful, television-themed online destinations for kids, often produced by networks carrying large amounts of children's programming. Websites or "online communities" such as Cartoonnetwork.com (in the US) and YTV.com (in Canada) consistently rank among the most frequented and top-rated by their relevant target markets. Here, networks are able to offer users information, games and content related to popular shows, direct-market their tie-in products and merchandise, and build brand loyalty. While these sites may feature a variety of cool applications and engaging activities, including discussion forums, mini-games, and exclusive "webisodes," they are ultimately promotional vehicles for the television network, its programs, and cross-media/merchandizing initiatives. More recently, the children’s television industry has once again sought to expand its scope, this time setting its sights on an emerging form of digital gaming that has already proven immensely popular amongst older market segments—the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).

This paper will explore the migration of the children's television networks to the realm of MMOGs, the issues these new games raise in terms of the commercialization and rationalization of children's (online) play, and their significance within the larger context of the gaming industry. Tracing the development of three television-themed MMOGs targeted directly at children, I will examine how this new form of cross-media integration both extends and diverges from previous instances of "branded play." I will discuss the ethical implications of enhancing the immersive qualities of child-targeted branded play spaces, considering the ways in which children's special needs and vulnerabilities make them particularly susceptible to certain forms of manipulation inherent within "immersive branding" of this kind. At the same time, however, I will consider how the unique properties of existing, adult-oriented MMOGs—including an emphasis on collaboration, creativity and open-ended narratives—have enabled compelling instances of player-empowerment that could easily be reproduced within child-specific virtual worlds. In this sense, television-themed MMOGs and other "branded" play-spaces could in fact provide children with "narrative openings" instead of enclosures, allowing them to break-down, appropriate, subvert and re-write the very scripts and parameters that have traditionally constrained other forms of branded play. This analysis applies a critical approach to the study of technology (Feenberg 1999), drawing forth the political and ethical dimensions of specific design features and choices found within the three case studies examined, while utilizing a user-centered approach in the accompanying discussion of their meaning and potential impact on the experience of the child player.

New/Additional Resources:
Virtual Worlds, Real Ad Dollars in eMarketer Daily.
Are Kids Ready for Ads in Virtual Worlds? in C|Net News.com.
Virtual-world Makers Aim To Hook Kids, also in C|Net News.com and also written by Stefanie Olsen.

Policy Rumblings on the Online Privacy Front

From KidAdLaw, news that the FTC will be holding a town hall style "open forum" on online targeted advertising. The two-day event will take place on Nov. 1-2, in Washington, D.C. and is open to the public. Sounds like a good opportunity to raise some of the issues with kids' sites, data-mining, advergaming, etc. Here are the details.

So-called "behavioral" advertising involves the collection of information concerning a consumer's activities online, including searches conducted, Web pages visited and content viewed, according to the agency. The goal of the meeting, the FTC said, is to bring together consumer advocates, industry representatives, technology experts and academics to address the consumer protection issues raised by such practices.

"Recently, several consumer privacy advocates, as well as the State of New York, sent letters to the FTC urging it to examine the effects of behavioral advertising on consumer advocacy," the agency stated. Topics at the Town Hall will include how behavioral advertising works, the types of data that is collected, whether such data is personally identifiable, and how such data is used.

Anyone can submit written comments on the topics to be addressed at the Town Hall, the agency noted.

Here are the KidAdLaw story link to the original FTC announcement, and some additional coverage from MediaPost, PCWorld and Broadcasting & Cable (all courtesy of KidAdLaw).

Coincidently, the 29th International Conferences of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners was held in Montreal last week, which examined a similar set of issues. Included on the agenda was a plenary session called "The Next Generation Dragon — Children’s Online Privacy", featuring Canadian kids' privacy/online culture experts Leslie Regan Shade, Jacquelyn Burkell and Valerie Steeves. Here's the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's blog post about their talk, which you can check again next week for video of the complete session.

Mark Your Calendars: Worldwide Day of Play

From Cynopsis: Kids!:

Nickelodeon's fourth annual Worldwide Day of Play will be held on September 29, 2007,when the network and its digital siblings Nicktoons Network and Nick G.A.S. will go dark for three hours (12p-3p) as part of an ongoing initiative to get kids up and active to combat childhood obesity. Nickelodeon comes back on air at 3p with health oriented messaging and the finale of the Let's Just Play Go Healthy Challenge at 6p (30min), followed by new episodes of several series and the premiere of Back at the Barnyard at 9p. The Let's Just Play Go Healthy Challenge is a joint effort of Nickelodeon, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an initiative between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. Some 1,000+ Go Healthy events are scheduled to take place around the world on this day.

You can check out the official site here, where kids can sign up to join the challenge of either losing weight, exercising more or eating healthier foods.

New Article in This Week's Escapist

I have a new article out in this week's "Generation Why"-themed issue of The Escapist. It's a snapshot of some of the work I've been doing this spring/summer on TV- and toy-themed kids' MMOGs. The Escapist is probably my all-time favourite non-academic games publication, and the other articles in this week's issue are, as always, all pretty awesome. They touch upon generational themes in gaming, from "Growing up Gamer" (by Leigh Alexander) to teen-boy stereotypes of gamers and fanboys (by Charles Wheeler), to shifts in gaming patterns among new parents (by Aaron Griffith), to the construction of socio-cultural norms among M-ature gamers (by Roger Travis). Enjoy!

Toy Recalls and Globalization

Mattel has issued another toy recall, putting its total for recalled toys somewhere between 18 and 19 million (including the magnet-toy recall and the lead-paint recall from earlier this summer. Although no injuries have been linked to the latest batch of recalled toys, an earlier line of recalled toys (CBC says Polly Pocket playsets) caused serious injury to at least three kids who swallowed magnets. According to today's CBC coverage:

The bulk of Tuesday's recall covered magnetic toys manufactured between 2002 and January 2007, and expanded on a similar recall made in November 2006. Also included in Tuesday's recall were 436,000 Sarge brand cars, because the surface paint could contain lead levels in excess of U.S. federal standards.

Under current U.S. regulations, children's products found to have more than 0.06 per cent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

"There is no excuse for lead to be found in toys entering this country," Nord said. "It's totally unacceptable and it needs to stop."

The blame, it seems, is being squarely placed on quality control, as well as Chinese contractors in violation of corporate standards. But perhaps a better way to think about all this is in terms of larger trends within globalization, such as the increased reliance of transnational corporations on offshore labour and the subsequent throttling of production costs (and therefore production budgets). The $22 billion toy market [$71 billion globally] makes up a large portion of our imported consumer goods and 60 percent of all toys sold in Canada are made in China (Jones, 2004). Behind the current string of recalls lie the pressures and disparities created by the kind of labour conditions that arise from so much "offshore" production...labour that is displaced onto developing countries and regions in order to shrink production costs by creating an underpaid and undervalued labour force that is often comprised of women and children.

Political economic theorists point to the global issues that are often left ignored when large, mostly US-based, conglomerates control the majority of resources in a transnational industry, as is the case with the toy market. Langer (2004) argues that the toy industry’s association of “childhood with play, fun and toys situates toyshops and toy makers as part of the enchanted landscape of childhood” (p.253), naturalizing the current state of the children’s market while the more problematic aspects of global toy production remain obscured. NGO and human rights discourse on global toy production emphasizes the young age of toy factory workers, who Langer argues are often “constructed as ‘little more than children themselves’” (p.259), as well as the low wages, high levels of occupational hazard, and long work hours endured by a largely rural, largely migrant labour force. While the average North American toy maker earns $11 an hour, in 2000 Chinese toy workers were earning an average of 30 cents an hour. While it wasn't specified in the article, I suspect that stat applies to adults and that things might be much different for child "employees."

In an open letter written in December 2003, (Can.) Senator Consiglio Di Nino had this to say about child labour in the toy industry:

More often than not, this is the reality behind the manufacture of children’s toys. Toys are not manufactured by diminutive elves in workshops, but by diminutive beings of another kind… children. China is a popular choice for North American manufacturers because labour is cheap and plentiful. International news reports hint that child labour is prevalent in China, and factory managers go to great lengths to conceal the epidemic. United Press International cites a provincial labour official who confided that, “factory managers are routinely tipped off about inspections and will send child workers home.”

China is by no means the only country in which child labour is widespread; indeed, it is a global issue. Human Rights Watch is particularly critical of bonded labour practices in India and Pakistan, where an estimated 15 million children are being exploited, primarily in the manufacture of textiles. The International Right to Know Campaign, a movement supported by international organizations such as Amnesty International USA, Global Exchange, and Oxfam America, estimates that there are 211 million child labourers worldwide, over half of whom work in China [In 2004, UNICEF increased that estimate to 246 million].

The vast majority of North American multinationals have corporate codes of conduct that apply to their global suppliers. Evidence suggests, however, that these codes are poorly enforced and egregious labour rights violations are the norm. These violations have been documented extensively by the International Right to Know Campaign and by human rights groups across Asia. These organizations indicate that the ineffectiveness of corporate codes of conduct stems from the fact that independent third parties do not conduct the factory audits mandated by these codes and we are told that factory owners are usually notified of the audits in advance.

Of course, this doesn't 100% prove that Mattel -- the world's largest toy company -- has indirectly employed child labour, or that the recalled toys are directly linked to impoverished manufacturing conditions. And I'm certain they didn't know that lead paint was being used by their suppliers, and that the damage control they now face will be a burden that far outweighs any advantage that could have ever been accrued from cutting costs in safety measures. But the fact is, it's unreasonable to expect that costs and work conditions can be continuously cut, threatened and squeezed without any kind of trade off or consequence. The lack of accountability and transparency within the toy industry, combined with known statistics of child labour in the toy manufacturing industry and of the impoverished working conditions in China and other production zones, demands a more thorough consideration of the complicity of North American toy companies (and the toy market!) in creating the substandard conditions from which substandard products have spawned.

These issues got a lot of press coverage a few years ago, when anti-globalization was "hot" and transnational trade was being put under the microscope. At that time, a woman from Victoria, BC, named Sarah Cox wrote a scathing expose of the toy manufacture industry in various parts of Asia called The Secret Life of Toys, which I unfortunately can no longer track down online. Cox did field work in various toy factories that manufactured toys sold in the West, and found rampant workers' rights violations and poor working conditions. But attention to these issues has died down today, and although all of the big toy corporations (Hasbro, Mattel, Irwin) manufacture a large portion of their toys in China, it's been difficult for researchers and journalists to make direct links between specific toy companies and specific toy factories. The transnational conglomerates don't commonly release details about their overseas partners. According to Chelsea Jones, writing for Briarpatch magazine in 2004,

Toy companies such as Mattel hold back names of their suppliers. This means that any toy made by Mattel could have been manufactured by any one of about 50 Chinese factories contracted by the company, or in a factory Mattel may own with private investors. Or it could be that parts of the toy, including it’s packaging, have been made in one of many factories jointly owned by the company and contractors small enough not to be named or legally acknowledged.

In 1998, George Irwin, the president of Irwin Toy Ltd. said that the reason for the strict confidentiality surrounding toy factories is due to the competitiveness within the industry. “We guard very jealously our vendors,” Irwin says, “because we don’t want any of our competitors to get an advantage by knowing who they are.” Sixty percent of Irwin’s toys are produced overseas, primarily in China and Malaysia.

For more up to date info on working conditions and child labour in China, with a healthy amount of focus placed on the toy industry in particular, check out this new report conducted by the Hong Kong Liaison Office.

Langer, B. (2004). “The Business of Branded Enchantment: Ambivalence and disjuncture in the global children’s culture industry”, Journal of Consumer Culture, 4(2), pp.251-277.

Club Penguin to be Disneyfied

News via Gary Rusak at Kidscreen that Disney has announced it will be acquiring Club Penguin, for a reported $350 million (which could grow to $700 million (USD) if goals/promises are met). Rusak writes:

What likely attracted Disney is that Club Penguin has seemed to crack the code of making digital platforms pay in the kids space. Since its launch in October 2005, the site has signed on more than 700,000 subscribers who willingly pay the US$5.95 fee every month, and it currently has more than 12 million activated users, primarily between ages six and 14, in the US and Canada. The site will be re-dubbed Disney's Club Penguin, but will retain its URL (www.clubpenguin.com) and continue to operate from its Kelowna, Canada base.

While the company's founders will remain in control of the site, and Disney says that it has "no immediate plans" to change Club Penguin's contents or mode of operation, I have a pretty good feeling that this is going to significantly transform the property. Either we'll soon be seeing Club Penguin merchandise at the Disney Store, or else some sort of movie or television deal, or some other imprint of what media scholars like Janet Wasko and Alan Bryman have termed "Disneyfication". In the meantime, you can read the whole article here.