Toy expenses

Each year, the parents of a Belgian child spend an average of 204 euro on toy’s for their tots. When including videogames, the average can be raised up to 399 euro. We can thus conclude that, despite the financial crisis, there is still a considerable amount of money reserved for the pleasure and wellbeing of our children.

For the last years, the European toy market has grown 10% annually. According to the consumer organization OIVO(Belgium), the Belgian market grew only 7,8% each year. Nevertheless, this is still a much higher percentage than the growth of average consumption expenses, which was only 2,1% in the past few years.

Source: http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/943/Ombudsman/article/detail/491777/2008/11/18/Belg-koopt-tot-339-euro-speelgoed-per-kind.dhtml

Lieselot D’hoop

Hasbro

“One world, one HASBRO”. What was ones a family business is now one of the world’s biggest toy companies. From a company that started in 1923 of making etuis, to toys and games producer, to an enterprise that fulfills the needs of child and man in every leisure activity you can imagine.

Hasbro is now one of the biggest manufacturers of leisure products in the entire world. “Making the world smile”. That is the number one goal of Hasbro. More than 12000 employees are doing their best to make sure that Hasbro stays the market leader with quality outstanding and fantastic products, from game plays to leisure products for young and old.

Source: http://www.hasbro.be/mcp.php/be_nl/app/company/1/index.html

Lieselot D’hoop

Three generations of building

This year, it’s the 50st anniversary of Lego on the Belgian market. In order to celebrate that fact, there’s an exhibition about the famous building bricks in the Toy Museum in Mechelen.

The point is that everybody used to play with Lego. Who didn’t? Ask your parents (or maybe even your grandparents) and you will find out that we have been playing with Lego for 3 generations! And that is exactly the main idea behind the exhibition.

But the history of Lego hasn’t always been marvellous. The Lego amusement parks haven’t made any benefits for years, and in the early nineties, even the entire company sold at loss.To cope with the competition on the toy market and the digital revolution, the company designed Lego video games, Lego computer-controlled cars and even Lego clothing.It turned out that this strategy wasn’t a great success, so the Lego company returned to their core business: designing inventive Lego-sets for children. From then on, the company renewed it’s success.

Source: http://www.deredactie.be/, http://www.speelgoedmuseum.be/

Laure Konings

Welcome to the world of gaming

In the past, children had simple toys to play with: balls and cars for boys, dolls and make up for girls. But since the 90s there has been a huge change when it comes to the world of toys. Nowadays, children of all ages are converted to the concept of... “the computer”!

To go along with that trend, the Flemish minister of economy has decided to invest 2 billion Euros in the national game industry every year from now on. Companies who are willing to do research that can be interesting for the development of new games, will be able to get a grant up to 300,000 Euros. Until this year, there are only a handful of Flemish companies in the game sector. The minister hopes that this measure will stimulate newcomers because the game industry is a very promising business.

Source: De Morgen, 08/11/2008

Laure Konings