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Barbie (Origin & History of IP (Barbie is an iconic doll that was made…
Barbie
Origin & History of IP
Barbie is an iconic doll that was made specifically with girls in mind. The doll was created after the co- founder, Ruth Handler, who in 1956 came across a German doll called Bild Lilli, who was originally marketed to men as a racy gift. This German doll was later then made popular by girls who would enjoy dressing up the doll in small outfits (Lord, 2020).
Barbie was first introduced to the world in 1959, where she made her first appearance at the American Toy Fair that is located in New York City (Holland, 2019).
The toy company, Mattel,that created Barbie was co-founded by Ruth and Elliot Handler in 1945. According to Holland (2019), '[I]nspired by watching her daughter play with make-believe paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls to imagine the future.'
This allowed Ruth to tap into a market where girls could imagine their futures through these dolls and they could also properly dress them with fabrics instead of paper clothes.
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Insights
a) Researching and gaining a more broad understanding of the Barbie brand and how Mattel created her into the doll that she is now will helped inspire me. Barbie is a doll that has been around for more than sixty years and has inspired many imaginations and play times for many children around the world. But in recent years as technology is on the rise, younger generations are focusing more on TV shows, child friendly videos and games which takes away from the once fun-filled Barbie doll playtime older generations grew up with.
Perhaps creating a game concept that is more aimed towards the more mature audience to help older generations perhaps reminisce on their younger years. Seeing through with the Survival Barbie idea could include actual survival elements that younger children won't connect with.This could also help persuade the older generation into introducing their old past time toy to their children.
b) Mattel and Barbie are very child orientated and aim to create more educational and imaginative Barbie games that cater to a child's development. The Barbie website offers a wide range of games for children to play such as puzzles and spot the difference, dress up and other games that show Barbie doing different jobs. Barbie games can be seen as a idle the genre, puzzle genre and adventure genre. These games are obviously created with very young children in mind so the game play and actions within the game cannot be outside of what a three to six, or older, year old child is capable of logically and developmentally speaking.
But sticking to perhaps designing a game with the older generations in mind, those who have played with Barbie when they were younger. The types of genres that might grab their attention might be slightly different. These can be anywhere from action games, role-playing games to strategy games. Anything that is on a higher logical and developmental level would be suited to the older generations.
c) Considering the four Bartle's player types it can be deduced that the audience for the Barbie online games will most likely be the Explorer and Achiever player types. Smaller children feel accomplished when getting encouragement so achieving and earning a badge or points to encourage their play will be an incentive to play more games. The much younger children will also most likely not understand the basics of a game through the traditional on- screen prompts if they aren't shown and guided easily by their physical guardian. This can easily lead to them wanting to explore the game on their own instead of being told what to do by the game.
d) Taking into consideration of perhaps creating a game concept that is more aimed towards the more mature audience. Obviously the mature concept will not be suitable for the much younger child audiences such as the online Barbie games are. The age rating would be aimed towards a more mature audience, so ideally for those either 17 or 18 and above.
e) When Ruth Handler designed the doll was that she felt there was a lack of toys for girls that allowed them to imagine their future outside of being stay at home moms. The core of Barbie is to inspire girls into doing anything they can believe. This core could inspire my game by also perhaps allowing the target audience to believe in their future. This could be done in the game environment through giving the player a multitude of options that can lead to different instances of their characters future.
f) The experience that I would like to offer the players is for them to perhaps create perhaps a thriller like environment for them to fully immerse themselves into. Perhaps creating the sense of trying to survive within the game world where players need to think about how certain choices could affect their current survival living situations.
g) The audience values the Barbie doll because she has been around for sixty plus year and still continues to inspires positivity among young girls through positive body image and positive attitude towards building a successful career.
Correctly portraying these connections will be challenging but perhaps having a wide range of female characters that have different body types to positively reinforce the values of the Mattel Barbie doll.
h) The game can appeal to those who aren't familiar with the Barbie franchise as there won't be any heavy Barbie related themes that players would need to know in order to enjoy and understand the game. Ideally the game would probably be more aimed towards people who have grown up with Barbie as they perhaps would want to reminisce about their Barbie playing past.