darkSpyro

As everybody knows, Skylanders was a huge success this holiday season and still is. Stores don't have ANY figures, and what they do have sells quick. Why is this? I became interested because of Spyro. I've loved him since day one, but I still truly believed Skylanders wouldn't do well. I didn't think people would want to spend all that extra money on figures, but looks like I was wrong (I'm glad!). Was it the advertisement/the help from Toys R Us/was it simply the Spyro name? What helped Skylanders succeed?

Who knows really. For me it was my fiance. she wanted wrecking ball. and the game for xmas. So she got it. then well I started playing and took it over ><. But over all it just loads of fun. being able to swap them out and the way they look is rather neat. I have played loads of games in my 22 almost 23 trips around the sun. and by far this the one of the neatest way to play a game.

If you're old enough to remember when Pokemon cards first hit shelves in the U.S., you might know why. Kids love to collect, it was always a great feeling having more/better Pokemon cards than your friends and I'm sure it's the same way with Skylanders for kids nowadays.

I think it was a combination of a few things:

-Promotion: While I didn't really see things EVERYWHERE for Skylanders, I did see quite a few commercials on big channels like Nick and Cartoon Network. Surprisingly, I even saw one on the Disney Channel! (that's really rare; Disney only has their own commercials. However, this one was like "Disney Channel is sponsored by Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure")

-Collectors: People LOVE collecting things. It's like a hobby. Not to mention the fact that there's quite a few variants for characters, there's also some very rare ones out there for hardcore collectors. We've all seen how high the prices are on them on ebay. Plus, the figures are incredibly well sculpted. I collect other action figures and they don't look this amazing..and they don't work in a game!

-Prices: Yes, Skylanders does cost $50+. BUT...that's actually the regular price for most of the games for the current gen systems. EVERYTHING you need is contained in one central package, and requires almost no extra cost for completion. Since the "DLC" is an actual physical item, kids and their parents are more inclined to buy the extra characters rather than have them downloaded to the game through the respective console's shops.

-The Spyro Factor: Lots of people love Spyro. Did it carry the game on it's own? Probably not entirely. This game has sort of found ground in a wide demographic; Kids love the games and figures and adults like the Voice Actors, the figures and the Spyro series. While there did seem to be a lot of flack from people complaining about Spyro's design and whatnot, it ultimately didn't really matter what they were whining about.

-Reviews/blogs: Almost every single review I saw for this game was good. It flawlessly combined the crazy concept of having figures that could be used with a video game. A few blogs and things seemed to be spread around in the adult community praising it as well.

I completely agree with the prices thing. Though $10 DLC for any other game might contain a whole lot more bang for the buck, I'm not as inclined to buy it since it's not physical (even though I know in the long run it would be more worth my money to get downloadable DLC with more content for said game). However, picking up a figure for $8 when I'm doing grocery shopping is completely justifiable simply because it is something I have that's physical.

It's got a great concept and it's the most pure fun I've had on both my playstation 3 and nintendo 3DS.

I think the immense amount of advertising really helped.

TV commercials being played at the right time, stores advertising it all over, the figures hanging on the wall (entices people really, though I'm not certain that would count as advertising), the online game, and let's not forget the European exclusive - Skylanders - Live! Tour. They really went to town on that event, handing out exclusive freebies before the game had even been released!

Fun theory: The figurines are soaked with addictive stuff. The funniest thing is, Activision pretty much confirmed this, when they said (I don't know where, l0l ), that kids WILL BOND WITH THE TOYS AND LOVE THEM AND NOT WANT THEM TO DIE....

Funny thing, I didn't see any ads for Skylanders, except on Youtube.

I bet the toys helped actually; kids probably thought that toys you could actually control in thier own world, toys which are 'alive inside' as the commercials go, are just plain awesome and so want more and more of them.

Quote: Archae

Funny thing, I didn't see any ads for Skylanders, except on Youtube.

I've seen a few ads on TV, mostly on Nick and sometimes CN. I think the game succeeded due to the innovation and the target audience.

It succeeded because it was a good game... or, set of games. Every other factor, every promotional campaign and partnership, all the cool figures, Spyro, whatever; none of it would have mattered if the game had sucked. Luckily Toys for Bob knew that, and made sure to create a game that's accessible by all ages and, at its best moments, impossible to put down. There's enough smash & bash, twitchy gameplay for the kiddos, enough in-depth play/PVP/theory for the adults, and an online universe for the Farmville/Angry Birds casual crowd. Nothing else matters but the games, and every one of them turned out good.

Quote: Tashiji

It succeeded because it was a good game... or, set of games. Every other factor, every promotional campaign and partnership, all the cool figures, Spyro, whatever; none of it would have mattered if the game had sucked.

ETD. Terrible game. Perfect advertising. Financially successful.

Skylanders being good was a part of it's success, but promotion is everything.

^ ETD had good advertising? Color me impressed. I heard of it in a contest for something and that's it; I was hooked.

^I saw ETD on the back of a Crash game manual. The only Spyro game's I've ever seen advertise were AHT, Skylanders and DotD, but DotD wasn't even the official advert, it was some store saying, 'come buy **** from us cause we have Crash and Spyro games!'

There's a difference between being financially successful and cracking the pop culture barrier the way Skylanders did.

I agree that promoting the game helped A LOT. They're pretty much set for the sequel, although they'll still advertise it.

Quote: Tashiji

There's a difference between being financially successful and cracking the pop culture barrier the way Skylanders did.

Successful is successful in my eyes. After all, this topic is 'How did Skylanders succeed?'.

All I'm saying is that there are loads of games out there that are amazingly good, but still did not receive the amount of attention Skylanders had, and sometimes even the opposite. Promotion really was the key, and Activision knew that.

In my my opinion....
It was successful because it grabbed a lot of fans from different areas. Spyro fans of course, toy fans and collectors too, and also people who like to try new technology, and of course their targeted audience... young boys. So it had all these different types of people playing the game adding to it's success.....and the game itself is fun! If the game was garbage it might have just crashed and burned, but that was not the case.
It is a great enjoyable little game. Then the addicting part sets in and the true success of Skylanders kicks in. The gotta have them all factor. People grabbing all the figures, and just keep collecting.

To be clear I never saw no advertizing for the game...walked by it tons of times a Wal-mart did not even know what it was??? I just happened to be listening to a pod-cast and one person talked about the game for 2 min. So I bought it on a whim!