Bop It toys are a line of audio games. By following a series of commands issued through voice recordings produced by a speaker by the toy, which has multiple inputs including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheels, flickable switches, the player progresses and the pace of the game increases.
Based on concepts originally patented by Dan Klitsner,[3][4] Bop It was licensed to Hasbro[5][6] and further developed there by a number of designers including Bob Welch.[3] With newer versions, additional inputs have been added or altered such that units like the 2010 Bop-It! Bounce shares no inputs in common with the original 1996 Bop It.
Bop It has been identified as some of the more popular children's games on the market,[7] and toy and game development researchers have pointed to the natural interactions between player and toy,[8] and the ability of players to use the toy to revert computer gaming processes back into those that resemble non-mediated object play.[9] Other studies have shown that it is the Bop It's ability to mimic engagement in social behavior that has led to its commercial successes.[7] Bop It has been released in many foreign languages since its re-release in 2008. With all models by KID Group, the team have managed to find voice actors to record the voice for the most popular languages in the world such as French, German, Italian, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, Danish and Portuguese. There was also a Japanese version released. When the manufacturer accesses the hidden diagnostic test mode the English voice announces what version of Bop It the country is linked to. So if it is a Latin American Spanish Bop It from 2016, the English voice will say "Latin America 3".
Since 2008, the voice of Bop It has been Buddy Rubino. Rubino has voiced all the modern Bop It games which include: Bop It!, Bop It! XT, Bop It! Smash, Bop It! Tetris, Bop It! Micro (original recordings from Bop It!), Bop It! New Moves and Bop It! Maker. Rubino was unaware of Bop It when recording the voice, and was advised to do it "really excited".[10] Bop It has sold over 30 million units worldwide.[11]
- ^ "BATR Electronic Game of the Year Award 2003". 2010-11-30. Archived from the original on 2010-11-30.
- ^ "BATR Electronic Game of the Year 2005 Award 2005". 2010-11-30. Archived from the original on 2010-11-30.
- ^ a b US 6086478, Klitsner, Daniel B. & Welch, Robert M., "Hand-held voice game", published 2000-07-11, assigned to Hasbro Inc.
- ^ US 6210278, Klitsner, Daniel B., "Hand-held voice game", published 2001-04-03, assigned to Klitsner Industrial Design LLC
- ^ Bop It! [Rules & Instructions]. Hasbro 1997.
- ^ Philip Orbanes (2004). The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers From Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit. Harvard Business School Press. p. iv. ISBN 9781591392699.
- ^ a b Szymanski, Marianne, "The Use of Focus Groups in Toy Testing" (PDF), Advertising & Marketing to Children, vol. 1, no. 2, Winthrop Publications, p. 162, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-14
- ^ De Götzen, Amalia; Serafin, Stefania (July 11–13, 2007). Prolegomena to Sonic Toys (PDF). Proceedings SMC'07, 4th Sound and Music Computing Conference. Lefkada, Greece. p. 174. Retrieved 2009-06-23.
- ^ Tony Tulathimutte (2004). "Controller Mediation in Human-Computer Play" (DOC). Stanford University: 91. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Virtue, Graeme (2016-06-13). "How we made Bop It!". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-08-13.
- ^ Klara, Robert. "Bop It! Was Supposed to Be a Riff on the Remote Control". www.adweek.com. Retrieved 2019-09-19.