My oldest daughter hasn’t yet started kindergarten, and I’ve been known to plead blissful ignorance about online games and tech toys for tweens. Playtime at our house still means pushing a toy stroller around the family room and sshhhing me for talking too loudly around the baby doll bundled inside it.
But last week at Digital Life Preview, a press event in New York City, I got a view of how playtime might take shape in our household a few years from now. I’m not sure whether to be clapping or crying. All I know is that it lays to rest any quaint notions of borderlines between on- and off-line play – not to mention erasing the divide between watching commercials and escaping into playtime.
Take, for example, Barbie Girls. According to Mattel, more than 2.5 million people have already registered to become members in this virtual world. (Mattel assures me that there are protections in place to insure that the members, are, in fact, girls; I’m curious about exactly how they can be so sure.) Girls choose identities as Barbie-like avatars and walk around Web-based rooms. For example, they can decorate their “cribs” by picking and choosing new virtual furniture or "go shopping at the mall!" (This is where I'm crying, not clapping.)
In the next few weeks, Mattel will be selling non-virtual, hold-them-in-your-hands Barbie figurines that double as MP3 players and that can be plugged into a docking station attached to the computer. Plugging in the figurines opens up a new level of interaction in the Barbie Girls world, enabling members to buy even more outfits and decorative accessories. If someone isn’t yet doing a study on how virtual currency may change a child’s view of money, it’s time.
But even more fascinating is the way these figurines are designed to be shared among face-to-face friends to build private online clubs. Bear with me as I try to explain. If Jill goes to Jody’s house and plugs her Barbie MP3 player into Jody’s docking station, Jill can now be part of Jody’s inner circle online. In fact, the only way to be part of one’s inner online circle is to meet in person, go to her house, and plug the figurine into her computer. Mattel sees this as a safety measure, but it also puts new fluidity between offline and online play. I wonder if it will lead children to simply replicate their real worlds on the Web, or create some sort of hybrid in which their play takes on new dimensions and incorporates both close friends and unknown personalities.
For more, see The New York Times’ article from a month ago -- Doll Web Sites Drive Girls to Stay Home – and this ClickZ article that gives voice to the advertising side: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3626340. )
9:01:18 PM 
|
