Aiming at children aged 2-6, Pok Pok, and neglected children's games

When it comes to toys for children, the Ze King learning machine and an ancient GameBoy became the original opportunity for GameLook to become a game house later.

In the 21st century, adhering to the core idea that every period of a child's growth is critical, a variety of educational and inspirational game products for children have emerged, such as game programming, for 2-4 year olds, claiming to be able to learn poetry, foreign languages, and other educational games have become the object of many parents.

Parents are not afraid to look at what their children are exposed to online, regardless of nationality. Some game makers have also targeted this market and launched a number of products. Recently, Snowman Studios, which has released Alto's Odyssey and the Apple Arcade game Skate City, has released a children's game called Pok Pok Playroom (hereafter referred to as PokPok).

Here's a promotional video for Pok Pok:

Open world of digital toys

Pok Pok will be released on the App Store on May 20th, and unlike a variety of purposeful educational games, Pok Pok is more of a digital toy world. Pok Pok" is more inclined to be a kind of digital toys, many of the contents, such as drawing boards, chess boards, etc. are from the real world of toys, the game is also geared towards the players are 2-6 years old preschool children. Pok Pok is now an independent studio under the Snowman umbrella.

The idea for Pok Pok came from the mother of two young boys and Pok Pok's creative director, Weberleitz, who said, "When we started looking for a game, we had high standards for what we wanted. We didn't want any addictive content, or something that was too loud, and overstimulating. We couldn't really find software that met our criteria, so we decided to build something ourselves."

It's worth noting that the Weibelerz family is the same one featured in the promo, and that the name Pok Pok is an onomatopoeia for the sound that babies make when you poke a baby boy in the cheek.

The game's creator is both a developer and a parent, which led to the design of Pok Pok being full of ingenious ideas for younger children, most centered around the idea of open-ended play. All of the gameplay and games in Pok Pok have no concept of winners or losers, and there are no pre-designed low or high scores, but rather, they are designed to allow children to fully participate in the game and gain a sense of accomplishment.

"When kids enter Pok Pok, they are free to explore, step out of their comfort zone, think outside the box, and experiment without fear of failure." Melissa Cash, CEO of Pok Pok, had this to say, "We don't tell them what to do. It's up to them to decide what to do and how to play."

Currently Pok Pok is paid for on a subscription basis, where parents can subscribe to the game for $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year with a 14-day free trial, and the studio has said that it will continue to update the content of the toys within the game to keep it fresh.

Digital toys with benefits and drawbacks

The choice of Pok Pok, which removes the competitive nature of the game and instead pursues a sense of fulfillment in free play, is one of the reasons GameLook calls it a digital toy. To make it easier for younger children, the game also removes all text and unnecessary menus, which frees parents from having to keep an eye on their kids at all times and help with operations, allowing them to let go and let their kids entertain themselves as much as possible.

Since Pok Pok is essentially more of a toy, why don't parents go with the traditional toys such as Lego, which focus on creativity and freedom, after all, the Ministry of Education issued a statement saying that "it is recommended that young children under the age of 3 should be prohibited from using cell phones, computers, and other electronic products that use video screens, and that children between the ages of 3 and 6 should try to avoid contacting and using them". The first thing you need to do is to get a good look at what you're doing.

I believe that the scene in the Pok Pok promotional video, where the two boys are looking at the 12.9-inch IPad Pro, is enough to make a lot of parents at home and abroad shake their heads in disbelief.

It's true that physical toys like Pok Pok don't have the time constraints of playtime, don't hurt your eyes, and have the space for kids to create freely, making them great toys for kids. But digital toys like Pok Pok are not without their own merits.

The most direct is the price, similar to the "Pok Pok" this subscription system of game products, 4 U.S. dollars, about less than 30 yuan a month price, and can be canceled at any time, for a lot of people do not have so much spare money, for the child to regularly buy newer toys for the family, undoubtedly reduce a large amount of burden. In the case of LEGO, for example, which has been mentioned before, I believe that those who are familiar with it are well aware that in order to have a high-quality gaming experience, it's not enough to just buy a main body, and the amount of money that needs to be spent on the content upfront is actually quite high.

This 2,299 is just the beginning

Secondly, it is in the degree of freedom, after all, "Pok Pok" digital toys is still a game, detached from reality, it is in the creativity and expandability of the ability to inevitably higher than the reality of the toys, although many of the contents of the game from the reality of the toys already existed, but detached from the reality of the design of toys can be The game is a great way to get the most out of the game, but it's also a great way to get the most out of the game.

And, in a world where environmental issues are increasingly being emphasized, having a game that replaces all kinds of plastic and plush toys to a certain extent is also a reflection of the environmental side of the game industry.

Finally, for parents, it's important to realize that the mouths of young children are one of the most important tools in their exploration of the world, so even with some of the safer toys, parental accompaniment is almost mandatory. Aside from the aforementioned ability to let go as much as possible and let your child entertain themselves, the level of pain can be compared to stepping barefoot on your child's messy Legos, and stepping on your child's toy car and falling down is one of those items.

The underappreciated pot of gold

While Pok Pok is unique in its design, there are actually a lot of gaming products for younger children that have already appeared, such as the one previously reported by Gamelook, which has dominated 11 seats on the U.S. App Store's paid list of the Top 100. Papa's" series, and "Kiddopia", an educational game developed by Nazara, India's first publicly traded game company.

Even BabyBus, a name you'll know if you have kids at home, has developed games for kids that are regulars on foreign bestseller lists.

UNICEF released a report that back in 2017, more than 175,000 children around the world went online for the first time every day, with an average of one new child Internet user every half a second, and now that figure is only going to get faster. Data from the domestic "Youth Blue Book: China's minors Internet use report (2020)" also shows that the Internet penetration rate of minors in China has reached 99.2%, and the age of touching the Internet is decreasing year by year.

But in stark contrast to the huge market of children's Internet users, domestic developers are not very interested in this area, and in addition to BabyBus, there seems to be little in the way of latecomers; similarly, in the international market, the number of vendors who have entered this area and excelled in the field is not very large.

Of course, GameLook also understands that the country's special conditions and culture make many parents have an inherent bias against games, and even if they choose children's games, games that play under the guise of learning the 300 Tang poems in a year may be more popular than the digital toys that inspire children's creativity and have fun like Pok Pok.

And from the commercial point of view of the product, in addition to the children's groups themselves do not have the ability to take the initiative to consume, first of all, it is difficult to speculate on the needs of children, and secondly, children's games, there is a natural contradiction between the high cost of promotion and the cost of buying volume, and a limited way to make a profit. All of this has led to the current "sparsely populated" market for children's games.

The key to children's games is to gain the trust of parents

Whether it's BabyBus or Papa's, these first-time entrants have already taken their first steps, and then through cross-promotions and diversions within the product, they have gradually gained a foothold in the hearts of parents. For the latecomers, how to take the first step to get parents' recognition and trust will be the key in the key, but once the first step has been successful, the later things will also have examples to follow.

In a future where competition from other age-group games is increasing, this small, little-visited area is likely to become the place to be.