Introduction:

For those of you who haven’t heard of the name Skylanders before, or have been hit with a wave of nostalgia upon hearing the name, let me break it down for you. Skylanders is an character playable action game, that was developed by Toys for Bob and is owned by Activision. The game encompasses the idea of “Toys for life”, and became its biggest selling factor. The Skylander toys were actual figures of plastic, which players needed to buy in order to play the game. They would then place the Skylander on a “Portal of Power” which would read the code off the bottom of the figure, and transfer that Skylander into the video game for them to play.

First Release: Spyros Adventure

Skylanders first actual game was released in 2011, dubbed “Spyros Adventure”. The idea of “Toys to Life” was revolutionary, as many kids with childhood fantasies have probably wished to bring their toys to life. In fact, the hype for this game was so huge that in 2012, Activision revelaed that their console video game had become the most best-selling game worldwide.

Later Releases

Later on in Skylanders rise, they also introduced lots of other games with new types of featured Skylanders.

-Skylanders Giants (2012) introduced gigantic versions of Skylanders, which were capable of doing in-game tasks that normal Skylanders could not.

• Skylanders Swap Force (2013) introduced Skylanders with swappable bottoms and tops, allowing for 256 different swappable combinations
• Skylanders Trap Team (2014) introduced a special kind of “Traptanium Skylanders”, which were significantly flashier and powerful than normal Skylanders.

By now, the entire franchise had generated around three billion dollars in revenue and sold over 250 million Skylander figures.

The Fall

Despite its huge success, the Skylander franchise were still struggling with a few concerns.

1. “Too much of a good thing”: With all of their new major releases which introduced new gimmicks and styles, this may have been appealing to kids, but not their parents. This would mean buying the new game, new “Portals of Power” and new Skylanders, which cost around $9.99 each. The series was becoming oversaturated.
2. Competition: Around this time, mobile gaming had also become a game, and with new video games such as Minecraft and Roblox which were easily accessible and free-to-play, Skylanders just couldn’t keep up.
3. Fatigue: In spite of the franchise trying to introduce new features, the overall idea of “Toys to Life” was becoming too bland and the initial hype of the game, was starting to lose its colour.

Eventually in 2017 after releasing its final game “Skylanders Imaginators”, Activision announced that there would be no new console games that would follow, and slowly but surely, Skylander toys started disappearing off the shelves and the franchise was no more.

The Legacy (Conclusion)

Although the series only lasted for about six years, it still managed to leave an unerasable mark on the history of video games. It was the first of its kind to introduce “Toys to Life” and paved the path for games like Lego Dimensions and amiibo figures. It also changed the way how figures were looked at. Figures were not only collectibles or pieces of plastic, they became part of the video game. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and I hope that I’ve taught you something, or sparked that old feeling of nostalgia into you.