Penny Arcade is a blog/web comic for obsessive video gamers whose senses of humor tend towards the caustic. So when you see an earnest post about kids and technology you know it has to be interesting.

Gabe, one of the authors tells a story about his son’s obsession with the game Minecraft. If you aren’t familiar with the game, Minecraft is basically a multiplayer game of digital LEGOs. You make things and avoid some nebulous bad guys, but it is fundamentally a digital sandbox.

His son plays for hours a day and he is considering putting limits on the play as good parenting manuals would suggest. But he can’t, because the things his son are making are too cool. Not only is he building things in the game, but his son (Age 7) wanted to make a video of himself making things in the game so he built a “tripod” out of Legos, with an ultimate aim of sharing it online. So this 7 year old who has never read the Cognitive Surplus, thought about participatory media, or had any exposure to notions of a post TV landscape spends his time:

1. Playing a game that’s primary goal is building original structures

2. Documenting his creative process via video

3. Fashioning real world objects to meet his needs

4. Sharing his creations via the web.

If little Gabe isn’t an outlier we could be on the brink of a new wave of creativity. Of course, this should be tempered with a bit of reality. One of the smartest guys in tech pointed out that MySpace profiles tricked out with custom HTML/CSS portended the same thing, but ultimately fizzled. I’m still optimistic that this is for real and exciting days are ahead.

There have been a bunch of startup toy companies that are trying to combine physical and digital goods to create a break out business. All of them are using really exciting next generation (for toys at least) technologies as the backbone of their companies. All the founders are really smart. Not run of the mill smart, MIT Ph.D smart, ex Disney VP smart, and “Genius Level Hacker” smart. The toy market is worth over $30B and is being attacked by video games so what has the outcome been?

Failure.

Smith & Tinker

Smith & Tinker was a high profile tech toy company that raised $30MM from all-star investors. They made an awesome hand held electronics device, invented a full universe of characters, and advertised it heavily on the Cartoon Network. Even with a great product and pedigree the product failed and the company is “pivoting” into Facebook/iOS games.

Sifteo

Sifteo‘s flagship product “Sifteo Cubits” has yet to launch, but I have a bad feeling about it. Again the product is REALLY cool, the founders are REALLY smart, but a six pack of these little HCI miracles is going to run $150 and from the demos it really looks like you need more than 6 to have a good time. Will parents buy this kit or spend an extra $50 and buy junior an iPod touch with Angry Birds and hundreds of other fun apps available for pennies? Sifteo is awesome and may prevail, but I wouldn’t count on it based purely on price. Founder David Merrill hints that this is just one application of the platform so I hope to see more good things in the future.

Orbotix

Orbotix is cast from the same mold as Sifteo. Brilliant demo, brilliant founders, but its still a $99 cat toy. This is another technology that seems to have bigger applications, but is being shoe horned into the price sensitive toy market because its not clear what the bigger application is.

Nukotoys

Nukotoys seems to have learned some of the lessons of Smith & Tinker. They are developing fairly simple hardware that can scan trading cards which in turn impacts a computer based video game. This makes the entry cost into the system fairly low and provides an ongoing collectible stream that could generate revenue for years. My big concern with this is that they are spending a good deal of cash on licenses and have been in development for ~2 years. Nothing wrong with either statement, but it seems like in this world a more agile approach might make sense.

It is easy to arm chair quarterback, but I wonder if it would be smarter to start lower tech. A huge portion of iPod touches are owned by kids, could you just build of that platform instead?

Hasbro My3D

Hasbro is taking the iPod touch and making a cheap plastic accessory that turns the electronics device into a stereopticon. A next generation ViewMaster.

Hasbro is taking a long time to get a simple product to market so they aren’t doing things perfectly, but instead of  betting years of your life and millions in VC money developing proprietary technology, why not build half a dozen simple iPhone toys and see what works?

You won’t be able to do huge traditional launches with TV commercials, but Angry Birds has shown that a popular game can beget a toy line quickly. The guys who made the Glif have shown that you can make simple plastic parts quickly and inexpensively. Instead of trying to outsmart the market what about listening to it?

Electronic Arts has been heavily criticized for their recent financial performance. Most people are suggesting that they were too heavily tied into the packaged goods model and were left sleeping as Zynga et al. reshaped the market with social  game play.

There are certainly elements of truth to this critique, but there are alternatives to creating yet another set of grind based, microtransaction focused, Facebook games. Treat expertise with manufacturing and retail channels as strategic advantages, not liabilities. Make products that leverage real social networks as much as virtual ones.

Rockband and the Wii have shown that people with pay for novel hardware and interactions. If EA rethought games as experiences that take advantage of conditioned responses and social connections for a desired response rather than sport or vehicle simulations they could open up huge markets.

Two of three Americans are overweight or obese. Obesity accounts for 70% of health care costs in the US. Working out isn’t fun. Build a “game” experience that makes losing/maintaining weight enjoyable and Zynga’s revenue will seem paltry.

Integrate a pedometer, scale, and exercise bike. Tie it in with achievements, badges, and all the virtual trinkets that power social gaming. As service like Foursquare/Gowalla are showing game mechanics can be applied to a host of interactions that don’t begin with a D-Pad. Nike+ has done some work in this vein, but it isn’t their focus.

There is obviously short term value in getting into social games, but people pay for plastic and it will be a lot harder for upstarts to challenge things on the shelf at Walmart.

After reading “Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel” I am struck by the similarities of the toy industry in the 1960′s and 2000′s. Both eras were marked by the maturation of technology and increasing sophistication of customers. In the 1960′s injection molding and television advertising allowed Mattel to go from the minds of Ruth and Elliot Handler to a billion dollar Wall Street darling in the space of a couple years. Today, web-based CAD, custom manufacturing, and the social web could create an opportunity for an upstart (Smith & Tinker ?) to displace one of the market leaders in similar fashion.

A couple recent developments demonstrate the opportunities available to entrepreneurs who are willing to consider hacking bits and atoms.

Spore opens up 3D models

Spore recently opened up the ability to export characters from their proprietary game engine to the Maya modeling/rendering software. This allows you to do a few interesting things:

You can make models look amazing

The Spore game engine is limited by web connectivity. The models look good, but won’t give Pixar a run for their money. By exporting to Maya you can render graphics that are orders of magnitude better.

You can export Maya files, to STL files which can be used with 3D Printers.

Currently, if you want to print your Spore character you have to use the Spore Sculptor service offered by ZCorp. Now anyone with access to a 3D printer could print the characters. You could print a 12″ tall character (which is not permitted now), model articulated joints and create an action figure, or manipulate the models for yet unimagined purposes.

You can animate your Spore characters

Spore has the ability to make cool creatures, but can also be a decent general purpose CAD package. Budding animators today can quickly model amazing characters, create detailed props, and hone their craft animating the results rather than get hung up on character design.

The Spore game has received a lackluster reception in terms of game play, but the creative elements and the openness with which EA has shared them creates the potential for massive innovation.

Mattel Creates Augmented Reality Action Figures

Coinciding with the release of the new film Avatar, Mattel is releasing a series of action figures that come with augmented reality tags that can be scanned by web cams and display an animated character or vehicle from the movie. It is a reuse of existing technologies, but is significant since Mattel is the market leader in toys and it ties in with a blockbuster movie release. This is a major boost for the “Internet of Things” even if the product is a gimmick.

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When I meet guys who grew up with He-Man and GI Joe and tell them about 3D printers, the conversation quickly turns to how cool it would be to have your head printed on an action figure body. A couple companies are using ZCorp 3D printers to commercialize custom action figures. FigurePrints produces customized World of WarCraft statues and ZPrints produces Spore and RockBand figures based on your designs.

To benchmark the custom action figure market I compared a customized figure from each service to the closest model available at retail.

ZPrints Vs. Johnny Cash

The Johnny Cash figure on the left rings in at $19.99 while the Zprint Rock Band BandMate (Scandanavian Death Metal Edition) to the right costs $90 with shipping. The price difference is steep, but the value of having YOUR character manufactured is hard to quantify. As you can see, the 3D printed figure is a couple inches shorter and has a slightly gritty txture, but is otherwise impressive looking (see the slideshow for more detail).

3D Printers are capable of producing amazing shapes that would be impossible to cost effectively replicate with traditional injection molding and its limitations. The 3D printer is capable of reproducing tiny details like folds in fabric and fingers with great accuracy and definition. The cost and sandy finish may turn people off, but the customized Rock Band characters are well worth it for the video game or 3D printer enthusiast.

The Flickr gallery  highlights the capabilities of the 3D printer nicely.

This video demonstrates the manufacturing process:

FigurePrints Rogue vs. World of WarCraft Mage

FigurePrints use the same 3D printers as the RockBand models so the textures and capabilities are the same. The customized World of WarCraft figure costs $150 vs. $18.99 for the mass market counterpart. The nearly 10X price difference can be off putting given the limitations of the technology. However, FigurePrints has done a tremendous job with the user experience. They make it easy and fun to pose the character, try on different gear, put it in different environment and experiment in the design phase. They also took great care designing the packaging. Each FigurePrint comes in a protective glass dome mounted on a wooden base and feels like a high quality product.

The 3d printed statue is actually more poseable than the “action figure”. The toy on the right is permanently frozen in that stance with no articulation. The figure on the left is also immovable, but in the design phase you can choose from dozens of poses ranging from fierce battle stances to humorous expressions.

More images of the FigurePrint:

“When Can I Have My Head On Bobba Fett’s Body?”

Mattel and Hasbro can rest easy for a while. Customized action figures are an exciting development and the customized shopping experience is a great deal of fun, but there will need to be a good deal of improvement in 3D printer technology before they are a mainstream option.

3D printers are great at form, texture, not so much

Currently 3D printers are great at producing highly customized shapes. They are not great at surface finish or in handling subtle designs on small surfaces e.g. human faces on a 6″ statue.

This is not a problem unique to ZCorp. Every 3D printer leaves tell tale signs of “additive fabrication” manifesting as a gritty finish, stritations on a model, or a “wood grain texture”.

Scale is very important

The bigger the sculpture, the better job the 3D printer can do. If you look at the FigurePrints gallery you will notice that the larger figures look nicer. 3D printing technology uses a modified “dots per inch” metric like traditional printers. Unfortunately, we are used to pristine plastic surfaces so even a 600DPI finish produced with a Zcorp machine seems rough.

Zcorp printers are able to compensate by using color to “hint” textures. Notice the sword handle on the left. The grip texture is not physically modeled, but rather grapically represented. Contrast that with the figure on the right where lines are actually carved into the surface. It is a small detail, but makes a significant difference in perception.

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Custom manufacturing tools like 3D printers and laser cutters allow you to make anything imaginable. One of the big reasons grass roots mass customization hasn’t taken off is the lack of easy-to-learn/use CAD programs.

The new Spore Creature Creator is the most impressive consumer level CAD program I’ve ever used. Within a week of its release there were a million creatures in their online library, the Sporepedia. In three weeks, there were more creatures in Spore than on earth.

Unlike games that only allow you to tweak your avatar, Spore provides all the power of a CAD program. The true mark of a tool is when people can use it to create things the tool’s creators never imagined. The following examples are great illustrations of that principle.

Riders

The creators of the Spore tools have said that they did not expect people to create characters that looked like they were riding motorcycles or other creatures. There are a wide array of designs along this theme created by users who were experimenting with the software.

Character Designs

There is a well defined “Spore” aesthetic. Looking at any of their marketing materials you see cute, brightly colored, rounded characters that look like abstracted versions of animals or movie monsters. There are very few humanoids in the Spore universe and even fewer that have a unique, non-Spore aesthetic like these characters. These characters were created with the Spore tools, but could easily be ported into other game universes.

Unicycles

Tools lead to certain aesthetics. When creating the design tools the game creators decided to separate functionality and aesthetics for game play purposes. They wanted to let people create interesting or odd characters without suffering a game play penalty. To achieve this goal some laws of physics are ignored. These cantilevered motorcycles are possible because they exist in space irrespective of gravity. They likely would not be created if the tools followed physical laws more stringently.

Robot Insects

Many people have great ideas, but not the design training to execute them. These robotic insects are innovative designs, apply principles of aesthetics creatively, and are completely original creatures. A trained designer could create similar designs with normal CAD tools, but not as quickly or easily.

Japanese Robot Characters

Creating humanoid characters with the Spore creature creator is challenging. The design tools are specified in a way that most of the characters you create are cute and bulbous. These “Guyver” looking characters adapt components of the tools and repurpose them to create characters with planar surfaces and hard angles.

Imagination Creations

When designing something is easy it becomes possible for people with novel ideas to illustrate a story. The image on the left is intended to be a spaceship that is propelled by asteroids it latches on to. This is an interesting idea and was impeccably illustrated with these tools.

Holidays

The mark of a simple design tool is the ability to pop out thematic designs according to the season. These are fun creations easily whipped up with intuitive CAD tools.

Humans

Boing Boing

Am I crazy to think a “BoingBoing” themed expansion pack for Spore would sell a million copies? You could get Flying Spaghetti Monster components, create papercraft robots, Cthulhu‘s, and other happy mutant creations. Of course they won’t associate with a corporate juggernaut like EA and the DRM brouhaha would doom any deal, so we will have to settle for these home brew versions.

Steampunk

Speaking of BoingBoing, here are some Steampunk creations right in line with their aesthetic.

Big Characters

Another mark of a great design tool is the ability to effectively execute multiple styles. Here we have massive creatures and super thin ones, both very cool looking.

& Skinny Ones…

Horrorific Creations

Beyond proportions, you can also see a wide variety of aesthetics like these horrific creatures and their cute counterparts.

& Cute Creatures

Fantasy – Mythological Creatures

The invented universes created with the Spore design tools span “Harry Potter” fantasy style mythologies and futuristic worlds more in line with Battlestar Galactica.

Fantasy – Magical Lands

Fantasy – Fairies

Fantasy – Mega Flora

Fantasy – Butterfly Monsters

Futuristic Worlds – Spaceships

Futuristic Worlds – Mecha

Every Day Objects

Moving beyond the realm of the fantastic, more pedestrian products can also be created with the Spore tools.

Fish Tanks

One of the interesting developments in the Sporepedia is the profusion of fish tank designs. Normally a mundane object, fish tanks have been a rich ground for innovation in the Spore universe.

Birds – Naturalistic

A designer can use the Spore tools to create highly naturalistic depictions of a subject, like these birds, or their highly stylized cousins below.

Birds – Stylized

Dogs

The same principles of design have been applied to various phyla of the animal kingdom.

Dinosaurs

Insects

Pop Culture Homage – Star Wars

“Give a man a hammer and every thing looks like a nail.” Give a nerd an accessible design tool and you will get THOUSANDS of Star Wars, Simpsons, and World of WarCraft inspired characters.

Pop Culture Homage – Star Wars Vehicles

Pop Culture Homage – Cartoons

Pop Culture Homage – World of WarCraft

Cars

Boats

Planes

History – 50′s Nostalgia

The Spore tools are also very flexible in their ability to create designs that would fit in a variety of historical contexts.

History – Ancient Rome

History – Cowboys

Simple blogging software made it possible for academics, investors, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and thousands of others to share their thoughts and experiences, democratizing publishing. Simplified CAD tools coupled with mass customization technology could lead to similar outcomes in the world of product design.

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I recently tested the Spore Creature Creator/Sculptor Service which takes your game character and prints it using ZCorp 3D Printers. This was my creature from the game:

Here it is in physical form:

The final product is better than most beta launches. The manufacturing complexity makes it even more impressive, but there is a lot of room for improvement. For 3D printer nerds it is a great progress marker. If you are interested in Mass Customization/Personal Fabrication or are a big fan of your Spore character I would HIGHLY recommend you spend the $75 to have your little monster immortalized in ink sublimated plaster. I’ve been using 3D printers for a long time and this was still an awesome thing to get in the mail. If you are not one of those things I would suggest you wait for a couple key aspects of the service to be improved.

1. 3D Printing Quality

The major problem with 3D printing is the resolution. These Spore models are printed using the latest, top of the line technology that offers the highest resolution and the texture is still pronounced. Compare this to any plastic object in your house and you will see how much further the technology has to go. If you are passionate about 3D printing technology it is easy to overlook, but it disappoints a lot of people.

3D printing dust in the nooks and crannies

These models are made by depositing a mixture of ink and glue onto a white powder. When the printing process is finished a technician has to clean the part. Excess powder can stick in tight spaces permanently, leading to 3D printer toe jam.

3D printing is still awesome

While there is room for improvement, the technology is still REALLY impressive. The ribbing on the creatures horns, and the spikes on the tail are fine details that are superbly executed. Kudos to ZCorp and EA for making sure the little things translated well. Also, the “ears” are about 1.5mm thick and completely hollow, yet still sturdy. It is a small thing, but highlights the capabilities of the 3D printer.

Zcorp: Masters of Color and Detail

2. Ordering experience

The service was fast, I received my character in 4 business days. Other than that it was kind of lackluster. You can’t choose a pose for your character like the similar service FigurePrints allows. Shipping costs are high with all options over $20. The out of the box experience was lame, the character was affixed to a foam pad with two large rubber bands, again paling in comparison to the nice display dome you get from FigurePrints. Not deal breakers, but for $75 you expect a nicer experience.

The marriage of video games and 3D printing/mass customization is going to be huge and this is a great step forward, but a little early for the mass market. As an illustration I brought it into my office and all the engineers said “whoah, cool!” and everyone else said “why is it so dusty?”. If you are on the fence, buy one just so they keep improving the service.

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In the midst of all the 2008 roundups Wired magazine ‘s “GeekDad” blog released their own top 18 list. An impressive 4 out of 18 had do do with mass customization or personal fabrication:

1. Spore Launch

Possibly most hyped game launch of the year, Spore‘s premise is tantalizingly novel: create your own galactic civilization from the atoms up, develop its culture in a MMO setting, and take over the universe. Unfortunately, many players found the actual game-play to be uninspiring.

I agree that the “Creature Creator” is an amazing CAD package, but the game was lackluster. The biggest impact of this game may be most felt in the way it could change the toy industry.

2. 50th Anniversary of the LEGO Brick

“Quite possibly the most successful toy in history, LEGO allows you to build everything from knitting machines to floating castles. With 2008 marking the 50th anniversary of the orginal patent, LEGO had an opportunity to remind us why their bricks rock.

In the book Changing the Game the authors say ~10-15% of Legos are bought by adults for adults. This number seemed extraordinarily low given the amount of amazing projects that are executed by grownups.

3. RepRap Self-Duplication

“Remember when Jean-Luc first ordered an Earl Grey from a cubby in his quarters and we were like, WOAH DUDE. Now imagine if he had ordered another replicator from his replicator. While less science fictiony, the RepRap 3D printer’s revolutionary breakthrough — printing its own “child” RepRap — made a huge splash in the geek community. Still can’t print any kind of tea, though.”

I’m not sure if 3D printing and the RepRap project is the second coming of the Homebrew Computer Club or just something more akin to the evolution of supply chain management which changed business, but never made it to the hands of the consumer. Either way the RepRap project is exciting.

4. Arduino Rerelease

“Further cementing its nerd cred, the Arduino Duemilanove represents the latest edition of this rapidly evolving and expanding prototyping platform, so simple that artists and tinkerers can jump in with minimal study.”

If you love the Lego NXT platform, this lets you get another level deeper and hack hardware like you might a web app.

Techno Source produces toys that contain electronic and web-based components. One of their high profile launches has been a line of interactive jewelry powered by “Clickables” technology in partnership with Disney‘s new Pixie Hollow MMO game. When a child buys Clickables jewelry it unlocks virtual goods in the game. What makes this offering special is that kids can share these virtual goods by touching the jewelry together in the real world. Ginny McCormick, interactive director at TechnoSource, was recently interviewed by Virtual World News and shared insights into a very interesting “Web Meets World” product.

Creativity as a game mechanic

“And there’s something incredibly appealing about creating your own fairy. I’ll laugh about it with my husband: I need to do something for work, and I’ll be stuck designing a fairy for hours. There’s something magical about that process and girls really get excited about it.”

Games don’t have to be about killing monsters or racing cars. A well built tool that allows people to easily design something can be more fun and rewarding than a traditional first person shooter or racing game.

Social Networks: Facebook and Face-to-face

One of Ginny’s observations is that parents limit their children’s playtime online. In order to keep kids engaged with their brand they create offline value which allows kids to interact online or in the schoolyard. The jewelry approach is also a great way to build virality into the product since the girls will be showing it off to friends.

Enhance existing behaviors, don’t try to create new ones

“At Techno Source we always look with technology for ways to take classic play patterns that have engaged girls for decades and make them better. It’s not changing the way girls play, but using technology to enable those.”

Can toymakers build great virtual worlds?

“It depends on the toy, but building a virtual world is a full time job. It’s a mix of a lot of disciplines. One of the best things is that virtual worlds are constantly changing and evolving. Toys are manufactured and shipped in the box. I think one of the reasons Clickables are successful is that we can make updates very quickly. What’s physically programmed is a very minor experience. We have a whole lot that we can change and keep up to date.”

This is an important point. The major toymakers have become expert at offshore manufacturing, IP licensing, and television advertising at the expense of invention. These activities are invaluable, but don’t get at the core of fun which is part of the reason video games have hurt the toy industry. These new technology companies get that customers want fun, irrespective of how it is delivered, and it is often by playing with friends. Tech focused toy companies are helping kids connect rather than focusing on injection molding and 30 second commercials.

Games add long term value to toys

A lot of parents I know complain about their kids discarding toys quickly. Even something special like a Build-a-Bear custom bear might be cast aside after a few days or weeks. By adding a component that encourages repeat use and regular playtime toys gain an extra lease on life.

New shopping paradigms enabled by technology

“For example, at Toys “R” Us we have a Clickables point-of-purchase display. If you’re in the girls aisle, you’ll see a display with a Clickables sensor on it. Girls can touch their bracelet in the store and unlock something in Pixie Hollow. Because of the way the technology works, in theory we could change what’s unlocked on a weekly basis so girls are always getting something new and exciting and relevant”

This could be a great win for struggling toy retailers. It would make sense for them to create a “private label ” offering where they can make their stores destinations for new content.

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FigurePrints takes World of Warcraft characters and prints them in three dimensions. Game blog Neoseeker recently visited their headquarters. The visit and interview yielded a number of interesting insights. Definitely click through to see the video they have of the production facility.

Rapid Growth

Figureprints is significantly ramping up production going from four 3D ZCorp printers to ten, running 24 hours a day which should let them produce about 5,000 units a month.

It is interesting to see that one of the most advanced production processes around can be executed in a fairly humble environment.

$10MM/year Potential Business?

Demand currently outstrips production and customers must be selected in a lottery to have their character printed. In the last drawing only 25% of the applicants were selected and FigurePrints can produce ~1,200 figures in a month. When they expand capacity and can fulfill 5,000 orders a month at $150 a pop they will be pushing $10MM in revenue, before expanding into higher priced product categories.

Virtual Souvenirs

One idea being developed is allowing your character to be positioned in a victory pose standing triumphant over a fallen enemy. Hardcore WoW players spend hours and days raiding and trying to bring down epic bosses. This service allows you to have a keepsake from an important, if virtual, experience.

Room For Expansion?

A difficulty FigurePrints may have going forward is room for expansion into other games. EA has partnered with ZCorp to launch a service that will allow people to have their Spore or RockBand figures produced in a similar fashion. It seems like the owners of the intellectual property will have the edge and the technology could be outsourced fairly easily limiting options for FigurePrints. In any case, FigurePrints should be fairly well set with a 11.5MM subscriber base and many opportunities for product category expansion

Interesting Shopping Issues

When the new “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion came out and the new Death Knights class was released orders slowed down. FigurePrints only allows you to have your character printed with armor and swords that you have earned. Players only want their best gear represented which leads them to pushing off the purchase. This cartoon from Penny Arcade sums it up nicely:

I’m looking forward to the day that they reach full capacity so my brave dwarven hunter can be produced in full regalia to protect Azeroth and my bookshelf. Until then I’ll await the golden ticket.