Hasbro Hopes Virus-Killing Game, Pox, Is Infectious
If the games unveiled at the nation’s largest toy show are any indication, kids have outgrown battles with Pokemon monsters and space invaders and are ready to play against a more realistic threat: infectious disease.
And although germ warfare for children might upset some parents, psychologists said at least the play-killing of viruses is better than the play-killing of people.
In fact, people play a background role in what will probably be the biggest of these games. Pox by Hasbro Inc. involves a series of killer alien viruses that can be taken out only by other, more powerful combinations of alien germs.
Gamers try to develop the strongest Pox, or viruses, by defeating a germ in battle and then harvesting its powers for use in a new organism that will carry on the fight.
Though children are instructed to focus on the disease rather than a potential victim, psychologists said the consequences of “infecting” an opponent’s game device still will be clear to the player.
“It sounds to me like it’s just a killing game they’re trying to make more palatable to adults by making it sound scientific,” said Joyce Hopkins, an expert in child development and an associate professor of child psychology at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology. “It’s still, in the most basic sense, a search-and-destroy mission.”
The $25 game, which will be aimed at boys 8 and older, is designed for play as quiet and insidious as the transmission of germs. When switched to multi-user play, a hand-held Pox unit automatically seeks out other units up to 30 feet away and goes into battle via radio frequency, even from inside a backpack, desk or car.
Later, gamers can replay battles they’ve missed to check wins, losses and strategies on each device’s black-and-white screen. And like real infections, players won’t necessarily know where the infection came from.
“The best you can say for it is that it’s better they’re attacking viruses than people,” Hopkins said. “But I don’t think it has any redeeming social value.”
Somewhat akin to a computer virus, Pox, said one toy expert, is a new twist on the old game of pretend warfare.
“It’s kind of like a virtual pet, but instead of nurturing them, you’re fighting them,” said Melissa Comer Williams, a toy industry analyst with research investment bank Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co. in New York.
Pox isn’t next Christmas’ only super-bug.
Trendmasters Inc. will come out with a line of items from “Osmosis Jones,” a Warner Bros. movie set for release this summer about an infection-fighting hero. Included in the product array are a “hemotrooper” police car that can travel through the bloodstream, a germ-melting water gun and pop-open “Cold Capsule Critters.”
Pox will be backed by one of Hasbro’s biggest marketing efforts. A Web site for the product exhorts, “Be sure to catch it,” along with the following description:
“They know no boundaries . . . their numbers are unstoppable . . . they strike without warning . . . AND THEY’RE AT YOUR COMMAND!”
Hasbro is hoping to build the game’s appeal through so-called viral marketing, in which a trend is passed along from user to user like a cold. In addition to taking on the difficult job of trying to create a craze, Hasbro also faces the whims of a fickle audience, which could reject the product that took two years to develop.
“I haven’t seen a promotion like this in the 17 years I’ve been in the industry,” said Jim Silver, publisher of trade monthly Toy Book. “At the end of the day, if the game is good, it will work. If the game is not good, it won’t. In this industry, you can fool the consumer for a month; you can’t fool him for a year.”
But an academic who studies the toy business said he thinks the game’s biggest challenge will be disinterest from kids rather than opposition from parents.
“Even the Ninja Turtles toys upset people,” said M. Eric Johnson, a professor of management at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. “My guess is that there will be some grumbling, but it won’t derail the idea. This will either fly or not fly in spite of the disease angle.”
Starting in Chicago in May, Hasbro will combine a campaign of TV, Internet and print advertising with game giveaways. The company has declined to reveal the marketing budget for the device, but sources put it in the multimillion-dollar range--a huge sum in the mostly low-profit toy business.
With parents’ permission, Hasbro will send Pox kits to 1,500 kids identified as school trendsetters. In addition to temporary tattoos, T-shirts, hats and other items, the kits contain 10 Pox games for the recipients’ friends, so the game’s best function, group play, is instantly available.
At the same time, Hasbro will send a “Pox-mobile” to children’s gathering places to let kids try the games and give them Pox apparel and accessories.
“What we want to do in Chicago is create a successful story that is then communicated outward,” said John Chandler, senior vice president of Hasbro Games. “Then, as we move to other cities, we start not from scratch but from having high interest and awareness.”
In August, Hasbro plans to take Pox kits to nine other cities--San Francisco, Dallas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Tampa and Miami. A full national roll-out is expected to begin in November, Chandler said.
Kids in other areas will be able to buy the game online at https://www.p-o-x.com, but Hasbro won’t promote the site that way, preferring that kids wait until the product is widely available in order to get the best use out of the game.
“This could work. I like the idea,” said longtime toy watcher Sean McGowan, director of research at Gerard Klauer Mattison. “But the concept that you can engineer something as unpredictable as mass popularity is laughable. It doesn’t work for movies, it doesn’t work for books or music or any other toy product.
“Hasbro may succeed, but it won’t be because somebody planned it.”
With each win, the gamer captures the defeated virus and can incorporate its powers into new germ fighters. The viruses, made up of three interchangeable pieces with different powers, act differently depending upon the combination of parts chosen.
Chandler said some of the more unusual features of playing Pox come from research into middle-school boys’ self-esteem and their reluctance to fail in front of peers. Part of the advertising campaign will stress the message, “Play silently, lose quietly and win loudly.”
When a player overpowers another’s Pox, the winner sees only the Pox he has won--not who made it or devised the Pox’s strategy.
Hopkins scoffed at the notion that boys involved in sports and other contests would be more sensitive when it comes to losing an electronic game.
“That’s a total misuse of developmental principles,” Hopkins said. “Half the fun of a game is to talk about it. Especially since games teach social interaction, there’s nothing wrong with losing. This conveys the idea that winning is so important that if you lose, you should keep it quiet.”
