[ Response | Lazer Tactical Action Game Message Board ]
Posted by TagFerret
on October 30, 2009, 2:32 pm, in reply to "A not so merry Christmas IMHO"
If there's one thing we at STM have seen since 1986, it's that LT as a category booms and fades, booms and fades, over and over again. The vision of the gear designers and marketing teams has something to do with that, but the pattern is so universal that I don't think we really have that much control over it.
1986-88 were boom years -- PHOTON, WOW, ESS (as gShock), all got going then. Everybody who was anybody in the toy business got into the market with a tag system, there was a ton of advertising, things were roaring along.
Then there were a couple fade years, brought on largely by the market crash but also as time would show just by the cycle of the product category.
Then in the early 90's you had a bit of a resurgence, the Galoob Lazer Pro 9000, ESS, and Sega Lock-On being noteworthy of the period.
Then came another fade period.
Then in the mid-late 90's there was another boom with Laser Challenge, Laser Command, and TLT being the larger brand names.
That faded again in the early 2000's.
In 2004-2006 there was another boom fueled by LTTO, JPLC, Laser MAD, etc.
I would characterize 2007-2009 as fade years. 2008 might have been better with LTX, but the economy and $80 price tag took care of that (this is another recurring theme in the LT cycle).
2010-2012 have a lot of potential for new gear now that the economy seems to be picking up and oil prices seem to have stabilized.
The one thing that has remained constant through all of this has been that there have always been local clubs and enthusiast groups who keep playing and advancing the game even when the toy companies are not doing much (or anything) with it.
I attribute a lot of this pattern to younger people first starting to play in junior high or so, but "outgrowing" the game during their later high school years. Then once they get out to college or work they remember how much fun it was and pick it up again with a couple friends, then they grow that group into a more organized school/company event, then form a club to hold games regularly, and then get folks from the local community into it.
Anything toy-driven is going to suffer from loss of "trendiness" in the core demographic after a couple years -- kids just don't tend to lock onto something for very long as any parent has seen. But LT is such a natural form of play that it has tremendous staying power and a huge hold on the imagination, so after it fades it soon comes back in force again.
The gear is so inherently tied to advancing technology that every couple of years you get a whole new generation being possible. This attracts a whole new group of first-time players who have just become old enough to appreciate the game, as well as players from previous generations who are delighted to see what advances have been made in an old favorite pastime.
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