• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, February 14, 2012

Apparently, nothing is safe from the great app-ification of American life. At this week’s Toy Fair in New York, some of the most beloved playthings are going app-happy as toymakers try to plug into the mobile momentum. According to reports, toy sales were off this past holiday. The industry thinks there may be an app for that problem.

Mattel has an “Apptivity” line that includes teeny-tiny Hot Wheels that run across an iPad screen. Oh, but it gets weirder. The Laugh & Learn Apptivity Monkey is a plush toy for babies. Squeezing the monkey’s hands and feet somehow interacts with the apps, which then can teach your newbie about colors, numbers and animals. Well, yeah -- if it doesn’t totally screw with his baby head.

Hasbro is offering “appcessories” to board games. Some of the usual functions for the “Game of Life zAPPed” will move to a mobile app, while others remain on a physical board.  Yeah -- you put the iPad onto the Game of Life board and it becomes a spinner. “Battleship zAPPed” puts tiny playing pieces onto the iPad. And “Monopoly zAPPed” virtualizes the money functions.  

It almost goes without saying that augmented reality is an irresistible platform for toys. Puzzle maker Ravensberger uses a downloadable app to superimpose animations on four thousand-piece puzzles of Paris rooftops, undersea scenes, African animals and Lofoten, Norway. A robot toymaker WowWee is releasing a line of AppGear AR apps that interact with physical objects to create experiences like first-person shooters that occur through the phone camera.

Is tying mobile media to physical toy experiences going just an app too far? Yeah, probably. Not that it isn’t worth trying. Having an AR animation pay you off for the tedium of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle isn’t too bad an idea. But you have to wonder if anyone focus-grouped some of this other stuff. Are parents really going to lend the iPad to a room full of kids in high competitive mode?

Like all other aspects of physical and analog media, digital play, of course, changes older behaviors. But appifying games seems as daft as Time Inc’s original Pathfinder online newsstand scheme or all the bad early attempts to license film properties into crappy games.

Like film, newspapers and magazines before them, game makers need to figure out not only how to play on the digital field -- but what kinds of analog play experiences a new world of video games and apps make more distinct. Digital media doesn’t kill old styles of play, but it likely narrows the market and forces the industry to rediscover its core value propositions. And perhaps it invests in digital play some of the bright minds that have been working for decades to make life a bit more fun.

Instead of designing yet another Monopoly and Boggle version for the ASUS tablet or PlayStation Vita, how about putting some of that energy into innovating rather than reiterating? After all, Pokemon had a pretty smooth transition from physical card game to handheld RPG that truly altered the experience. More Pikachu.