Design

Toys on the Edge: Playthings That Straddle the Digital/Physical Divide

If the dot-com boom a decade ago was about putting the world on the Internet, the twenty-teens are about bringing the Internet to the world. With cheaper sensors and 3-D printing, more and more people have access to tools that bridge the digital/physical divide. Of course, the new instruments are responsible for lots of serious innovation, but there’s some fun to be had, too. The era of mass customization means that we can export even our avatars from the pixilated screen to our plywood desk. Here’s a collection of those toys ready for tweaking.
  • World of Warcraft Statues by FigurePrints
  • MakieLab's Makie Dolls
  • Club Penguin's Plushies
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world-of-warcraft-statues-by-figureprints
If the dot-com boom a decade ago was about putting the world on the internet, the twenty-teens are about bringing the Internet to the world. With cheaper sensors and 3-D printing, more and more people have access to tools that bridge the digital/physical divide. Of course, the new instruments are responsible for lots of serious innovation, but there’s some fun to be had, too. The era of mass customization means that we can export even our avatars from the pixilated screen to our plywood desk. Here’s a collection of toys ready for tweaking.

World of Warcraft Statues by FigurePrints

WoW certainly wasn’t the first game to have toy tie-ins, but early options only allowed for purchase of someone else's character. FigurePrints was one of the first companies to bring your own creation to the real world. You spend hours and hours playing with a character, and FigurePrints tapped into that dedication to image. The result is a collectible more deeply personal than we might like to admit. Image courtesy of Figureprints.