by F1Fan » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:38 am
Well done Carrera, I for one applaud your efforts to try and give the slot car hobby a broader and wider appeal.
The fact is that Carrera and other slot car companies competes against many other interest for time and money in the "play-time" and "play-budget" space. The fact is that slot cars and slot car tracks do not currently list high on the "must have" items for the Gen Z and it is more likely to be seen as a hobby that "my dad" or "my grandpa" once took part in.
If Carrera succeeds in marrying the reality of actual cars with the virtual world of being in that car, it could broaden the audience and the market. This could also open the market for others, to build on this and capture a piece of the action and drive development. Not unlike Fly drove the scale accuracy of slot cars that ran on Scalextric or SCX tracks, and not unlike the way Slot.It improved on the engineering of RTR slot cars. There would have been no significant market for Slot.It or Fly if it was not for the likes of Scalextric that sold miles of plastic track for these cars to race on.
Earlier this year I saw K'nex with a new product that allows you to "ride" the rollercoaster that you built with a VR headset and a camera in the car. Again a company trying to stretch their product lifespan and market. Lego has done an amazing job with their Duplo, Lego, Lego Architecture and Technic lines of products that almost take their clients from cradle to grave. Digital slot cars has been an attempt to broaden the appeal, the VR world could take this a few steps further.
Combining traditional toys with modern and updated technology is perhaps outside the comfort zone of some, but I think it is a must if the category wants to survive long term. Finding the budget and having the patience to develop these new categories for the likes of Carrera will however be hard. Attracting a new kind of buyer in this space and marketing to them will be a significant challenge.
Chris