Moshi Monsters

The Toy Is the Message: Materiality, Imagination and Play Objects

Commercial play, games and media culture is undergoing rapid change in which the line between toys as physical objects and toys as virtual or networked media is eroding.

• The toy is argued to be a distinct, theoretically underexplored element of play culture that should be studied in its own right rather than subsumed under game studies.
• Hybrid developments such as videogame characters with physical peripherals, virtual pets, augmented-reality smartphone games, and the emerging Internet of Toys are blurring the boundary between physical toys and digital media.
• Journalistic, parental, and academic responses to these hybrid shifts tend to be anxious, often fearing that imaginative play is being narrowed by mechanistic, commodified products built around stereotyped characters and scenarios.