Playing is still the best way to learn important skills later in life but the toy market value is decreasing.
While the toy market has been slowing down in the last two years, according to Euromonitor International, video games and consoles are the categories that are still strongly performing in the industry.
It appears that children mostly play with videogames or download apps on their phones. Children as young as three or four years old are playing with consoles or on phone apps upto six hours per week, Statista says.
As video Games and applications grow, classic toys seem to be almost destined for extinction because of different changes in modern society.
“Education has changed, parental skills have changed, technology has changed a lot and these things are effecting people’s expectations on what’s normal”, says Jorna Bergum,33, psychologist and volunteer at Brombley by Bow centre.
Children up to 11 years old are not playing as much as recommended: one or both of their parents work and there’s nobody that can play with them.
“For parents is becoming easier to give them gadgets than trying to engage interactions with their children,” says Begum
Schools are also offering computers and tablets as educational means but “it depends on how they are used,”says Bergum and she also mentions “Electronic devices are harmful if not controlled, they are a great source of information that is not always positive,”.
In fact, these factors are transforming play as a passive activity, that makes three quarters of children in the UK spending less time outdoor than average prison inmates.
“Children are active players if stimulated and if parents interact with them creating new things together,” firmly says Bergum.
According to a Toy Fair research, 75% of parents think that screen time is deteriorating their child’s communication development, and 37% of them also admit that their children spend less time playing with traditional toys.
“Though, parents cannot be completely blamed, it is this generation of children who are manipulated through the surroundings , hence spending more time on electrical gadgets than natural environment,” confirms Bergums.
This has led the toy market to a 2.8% decrease in 2017 caused even by other factors: underperforming licenses (or in other words the permission to use a character to promote a product), counterfeit toys and Brexit.
Toy R Us is the toy retailer giant that suffered from this problem. Even though it tried to cut down staff standards, it filed for bankruptcy in 2016.
Differently from the famous retailer, niche businesses like Village Games, perform better even during the recent market crisis. Barbara Bathke,69, is not only the owner of Village Games but a puzzle and board games enthusiast, “It’s a niche market. There are no stores in London where you can only find puzzles,” and for this reason, she started her business forty years ago in Hampstead before moving to Camden Town.
“I found that every year we are selling a little bit more and it’s surprising,” says Bathke.
Board games seem to have the same appeal every year and they had a 24% growth in 2017 only in the UK. Along with the classic branded board games, Barbara Bathke sells board games from independent companies such as Gibson, which is the only independent games producer in the UK.
“Over the years price increased and simultaneously there are no facilities in the UK, and that’s very sad,” says Village Games owner.
The recent loss in the market is even a symptom of the continuous impact that counterfeit goods have in the United Kingdom. International Trademark Association found that the counterfeit market will hit a global value of £3 trillion by 2020.
Kristin Baybars shop though is one of those businesses where almost everything is produced by hand and is a binding point for different generations.
A pink storefront. A small door that says “open”. The window has a veil of dust that doesn’t reveal the incredible number of handmade toys inside it.
“The same kids that play at their machines are fascinated by what is inside here,”says Denise Wills, 65, miniaturist at Krisitn Baybars’ in Gospel Oak.
The shop looks like Disney’s Treasure Planet: eyes of every colour, feet of every size, clothes for every taste; it’s a shop for everyone.
It is not highly publicised neither on the internet nor on social networks but the phone doesn’t stop to ring.
While most toys are made with plastic (polyolefins and pvc) handmade toys like these exclusively use wood, metal and fabric.
“Wood is very tactile, plastic it’s not quite the same, the sound of wood on wood is much nicer,” says Janette Carmichael,60, another miniaturist who works at the shop.
Kristin Baybars shop is a treasure hunt for collectors all over the world but “you could see one every 6 months or one everyday,” says Carmichael.
Janette and Denise learnt the craft after becoming friends to Kristin Baybars and they never stopped seeing surprised children at the shop front counter.
“Children are just fascinated as they always were, pushing computer buttons doesn’t stop the imagination altogether” says Janette while looking at the top shelf of the shop telling how special was playing with her mother.