Play Creators Conference

If you could only take one toy, one game and one of your own inventions to a desert island, what would you take and why? That’s the question that WordWhizz Deej Johnson is posing to Phil Sage, Senior Director, Product Development, Design & Inventor Relations at Hasbro, in this Desert Island Picks interview.

Can an inventors’ track-record be a key factor in buying decisions? Should there be more knowledge-sharing happening between these two areas of the industry? Are publishers doing enough to shine a light on their inventor items? All these questions, and more, are tackled in this Buyers & Inventors panel session.

This panel, featuring well-known game designers Dan Klitsner of KID Group and Rob Daviau of Restoration Games, and Shail Mehta, CEO and Founder of The Last Gameboard, will discuss how they envision game design finally crossing the physical-digital divide to create enhanced gameplay and new experiences, and help grow a worldwide community of tabletop fans.

How do IP owners and licensing agents take ‘left field’ brands into the world of toys and games? This session delves into some of the challenges involved and looks at the key to successfully giving these kinds of brands the toy treatment.

This session – featuring Shane Hartley, Art Director at Ravensburger North America and Jake Breish, Graphic Designer at Ravensburger North America – delves into the incredible art direction behind the company’s smash-hit board game series, Villainous.

What goes into designing a great Funko Pop! Vinyl figure? Is any brand too obscure to get the Funko treatment? And how does curiosity help fuel creativity? Ben Butcher, SVP of Creative at Funko, shares his thoughts on all this, and more, in this interview with Mojo Nation’s Billy Langsworthy.

What can you do to give your toy or board game the best chance of success in a pitch? How do inventor relations execs nail their pitches to buyers? And which ‘P’ is most important: the person, the product or the pitch itself? All this and more is discussed in this ‘Perfect Pitch’ panel session.

This session looks at the design and invention process behind Trapped, a new series of escape room games published by Golden Bear that turns any room in your house into an escape room.

We caught up with Tim Kilpin, President at PlayMonster, to find out more about his journey in the industry to date, and why PlayMonster’s latest launch – Snap Ships – is something special.

How has Spin Master’s Toy Invention Program at Shenkar helped to create a thriving inventor scene in Israel? What’s the difference between a design course and an toy invention course? And with Spin launching a similar program in Canada last year, what does future international expansion for the course look like?