WowWee hits the runway in Roblox with My Avastars

It’s Roblox week at Kidscreen, and it starts with breaking news on a new multi-platform toy brand that merges fashion, dolls and gaming for tween/teen girls.
June 20, 2022

WowWee Toys is hitting the market with a new interconnected fashion doll line and gaming IP for tween/teen girls on Roblox.

Launching at retail throughout 2022, the My Avastars dolls have a unique look inspired by Roblox avatars. And the dolls and outfits that kids purchase IRL come with product codes for uploading them into a new role-playing game called My Avastars: RP, which was built by WowWee and LA-based developer Gamefam.

This social hub experience launches in July and will let players interact and roleplay with one another, decorating houses, dressing up characters and playing mini-games like runway shows. Then in October, the first wave of My Avastars dolls will hit North American Walmart, Target and Macy’s stores (as well as Toys R Us locations in Canada), retailing for US$24.99. 

There are three dolls in the initial range—KawaiiPie^^, A_VibeThng and Dreamer 3.0—and each one comes with two outfits and more than 50 stickers that kids can use to customize the doll’s face, clothing and hair in nearly 100 different combinations. They  can also redeem a code from the collectible card included in the doll’s packaging to import all of the clothing and stickers directly into the game.

WowWee saw the tween/teen girl demographic being largely ignored in gaming categories and felt that fashion was a good way in, says VP of brand development and creative strategy Sydney Wiseman.

“We are the first toyco to launch a brand-new IP in Roblox,” says Wiseman. “Nearly 50% of all players on the platform are girls, and we wanted to tap into that audience because dressing up avatars is one of the most popular activities.

“Most Roblox products are either action figures or blasters, but we wanted to cater to a different audience whose needs aren’t being met, with a new property,” she adds. 

Like Minecraft, Roblox caters to all kinds of users—from pure gamers, to coders, to kids who just like to dress up and hang out in the virtual world. It’s the creativity that makes it so wildly popular, Wiseman notes, and that’s the fire the company wanted to stoke with its highly customizable dolls and the virtual world they live in. 

“As much as people consume [content], there’s an equal audience of kids who want to create content on user-generated platforms like TikTok and YouTube because it’s so accessible. And now on Roblox, if you’re at all savvy in coding or programming, you can make your own clothing and sell it online in your store, or even make your own game.” 

Going forward, Gamefam and WowWee are interested in launching a server on LA-based communications platform Discord, which would allow both companies to work directly with Roblox’s community of creators to develop new content for the IP.

“It has been interesting learning how to talk and make deals with kids,” Wiseman says. “They don’t have any business experience, but we’re trying to find the balance of working together and help them understand and grow because there’s so much opportunity for them to do really cool things as UGC creators.”

Tune in tomorrow to discover how toycos have embraced Roblox as the next big toy licensing frontier, seeking success one range of consumer products at a time. 

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