Toikido talks | “Video game licensing is in the best health of any entertainment platform”

Fresh from welcoming the latest major gaming IP to the fold in the form of the British indie game developer’s multiplayer title, Gang Beasts, there’s a palpable and persistent excitement among the Toikido team right now. This was an outfit that, upon launch last year, promised to turn the toy and licensing sector on its head.

So far, having turned around a successful toy line based on one of the biggest gaming franchises of the past two years, within a record-setting six months (navigating a pandemic and shipping chaos out of China along the way), Toikido’s debut product portfolio for the Among Us IP appears to have done just that.

Straight out of the box, the Among Us toys have been subject to rave reviews online from across the markets, hitting demand in a timely fashion as retailers now begin to reap the benefits of the Toikido model. It’s why expectations are now high for the team’s follow up property, and why excitement levels are even higher; all for a game that is yet to receive an ‘official’ launch.

Licensing.biz catches up with Toikido co-founder, Darran Garnham for a quick run through of all the latest:

There was a lot of excitement around the announcement that Toikido had signed with Among Us – what has the momentum behind the signing been like in the months since – the buzz doesn’t seem to have gone away – what’s been fuelling the excitement?

The team at Innersloth and Duel Wield have managed the programme phenomenally well. Protecting their licensees and not double licensing ensures the products supply and demand is in a great balance to keep momentum. Inbound interest from fans has been incredible and great fun.

What plans have you got in place for the Among Us brand from here and for the rest of the year onwards? What categories will be key for you as you build the brand from here?

Product is just hitting shelves now with toys in market in most countries.  We have moved from contract to shelf in just six months which is amazing.  We could have been even quicker had we not had Covid & the shipping chaos out of China. The reaction from every market has been positive and we have delivered to retail ontime.

The toys will be driving the programme but design on apparel, bedding and puzzles looks really strong. The game itself has had some exciting updates so this allows us to plug into new characters / colours and ship elements.

How do audiences for gaming IP differ to other entertainment, how does it influence the licensing strategy for the brand? How do you tap into the cross-generational audiences?

The gaming community are extremely supportive and invested in the game and products and are very vocal on social media. I love that. I want the fans to tell us what we are doing right, wrong and what products are missing from the range.

Gaming content – compared to entertainment like films – is never static – i.e. subject to updates and new gaming modes etc… To what extent does this influence the licensing programme, what level of creativity or freedom does this bring to the table for you guys?

Thankfully working with digital IP is nothing new to the team at Toikido. We are set up to flex and move fast as game updates drop. We all love what we do and so the WhatsApp / Slack chat over the weekend is as busy as it is during the week.

Can you talk us through the latest gaming IP under the Toikido umbrella? What will this be bringing to the video game licensing space?

We are really proud to have added Boneloaf and the multi-award winning Gang Beasts. This is a crazy, bright character fun filled multiplayer game. I know when my kids are playing as I can hear the shouts and laughter.

We will be working closely with Boneloaf so expect a wide variety of products and some super fun toys. The game is coming to Switch this fall and so it’s great timing building on the current fanbase and expanding with Nintendo. 

 Why is this the right move for you guys, what makes this an ideal partnership and IP for Toikido?

The Boneloaf team share our values. We like working in partnership rather than just feeling like ‘another licensee’, that’s what we have with Innersloth and now with Boneloaf.

 

Is the video game licensing space in good health? What do you think of the state of innovation and creativity in the video game licensing sector? What is Toikido bringing to that space?

I think it’s in the best health of any of the entertainment platforms. I think it’s also setting positive visions of change through the #RaiseTheGame Diversity Pledge – ‘RaiseTheGame is a collaborative and high-impact pledge to improve equality, diversity and inclusion in the games industry – creating cultures where everyone belongs, voices are heard and ideas can thrive.’

It’s exciting to be working with studios to expand their fanbase, work with current fan crop and expand global opportunities for their IP.

What’s the next step for you guys?

We have three of our own IP in development, a Netflix IP launching in fall and an NFT project that I believe is very unique in this exploding space.

We will also announce an exciting strategic investor in the coming months so we not only have fuel for growth but additional IP coming into the business.

 

British gaming studio Boneloaf taps Toikido for Gang Beasts global master partnership

Toikido has struck a new major, global master partnership in the gaming space, this time partnering with the British indie games publisher Boneloaf to launch a range of toys, apparel, stationery, and more for the popular, multi-player beat ’em up party game, Gang Beasts.

The new pairing marks the second major gaming IP that Toikido has signed up since its launch last year, following the success of its Among Us toy line, a range that it currently causing a stir on the global toy and retail scene.

“We are huge fans of the Boneloaf team and have been playing Gang Beasts together and with our families for age, so to bring it into the Toikido stable is amazing,” said Darran Garnham, founder of Toikido.

The British studio, Boneloaf is currently working on a series of experimental multi-player party games, protoyping and play-testing to best identify fun new titles. Having grown up on a diet of Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye 007, the studio has set out its mission to develop titles with a similarly lively and fun feel to them.

Recently announced for release on Nintendo Switch, Gang Beasts already has a strong fanbase and a series of honours, including Honourable Mention for Excellence in Design the Friendly Fire (Best Game to Mess with Your Friends) from Curse at E3, the Gamer’s Voice Award in the Multiplayer category at SXSW, Better with Friends Steam Awards, and a BAFTA nomination in the Multiplayer category in 2018.

The first range of product from Toikido will launch in 2022, spanning categories including, but not limited to toys, apparel, stationery, and more.

Toikido is a business that “pushes the envelope of innovation” in not only the kind of toys and IP it delivers to a contemporary toy industry, but in the way the industry itself operates. Boasting an infrastructure to operate at lightning speed, the outfit brought Among Us to market in under six months from agreeing terms to hitting the shelves, a practice deemed as revolutionary to the normal route to market.

“Toikido has been born by handpicking amazing people who I have always wanted to bring together,” Darran Garnham, the businesses founder told ToyNews.

“We’ve developed an ecosystem across many disciplines and skills that are really going to shake things up a bit and I’m really very excited about the future of the business.”

British gaming studio Boneloaf taps Toikido for Gang Beasts global master partnership

Toikido has struck a new major, global master partnership in the gaming space, this time partnering with the British indie games publisher Boneloaf to launch a range of toys, apparel, stationery, and more for the popular, multi-player beat ’em up party game, Gang Beasts.

The new pairing marks the second major gaming IP that Toikido has signed up since its launch last year, following the success of its Among Us toy line, a range that it currently causing a stir on the global toy and retail scene.

“We are huge fans of the Boneloaf team and have been playing Gang Beasts together and with our families for age, so to bring it into the Toikido stable is amazing,” said Darran Garnham, founder of Toikido.

The British studio, Boneloaf is currently working on a series of experimental multi-player party games, protoyping and play-testing to best identify fun new titles. Having grown up on a diet of Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye 007, the studio has set out its mission to develop titles with a similarly lively and fun feel to them.

Recently announced for release on Nintendo Switch, Gang Beasts already has a strong fanbase and a series of honours, including Honourable Mention for Excellence in Design the Friendly Fire (Best Game to Mess with Your Friends) from Curse at E3, the Gamer’s Voice Award in the Multiplayer category at SXSW, Better with Friends Steam Awards, and a BAFTA nomination in the Multiplayer category in 2018.

The first range of product from Toikido will launch in 2022, spanning categories including, but not limited to toys, apparel, stationery, and more.

Toikido is a business that “pushes the envelope of innovation” in not only the kind of toys and IP it delivers to a contemporary toy industry, but in the way the industry itself operates. Boasting an infrastructure to operate at lightning speed, the outfit brought Among Us to market in under six months from agreeing terms to hitting the shelves, a practice deemed as revolutionary to the normal route to market.

“Toikido has been born by handpicking amazing people who I have always wanted to bring together,” Darran Garnham, the businesses founder told ToyNews.

“We’ve developed an ecosystem across many disciplines and skills that are really going to shake things up a bit and I’m really very excited about the future of the business.”

Toikido signs master toy partnership for Netflix’s feature animation Back to the Outback

Toikido has been named the master toy partner for Netflix’s upcoming feature film, Back to the Outback, an animated adventure following a ragtag group of animals and their daring escape from captivity.

With the film scheduled to make its global debut this autumn, Toikido has secured the rights to manufacture a master toy range including action figures and plush across global markets.

Tired of being locked in a reptile house where humans gawk at them like they’re monsters, Back to the Outback is centered on a group of Australia’s deadliest creatures as they plot their escape back to the Outback, a place where they’ll fit in without being judged for their scales and fangs.

Leading the group is Maddie (Isla Fisher), a poisonous snake with a heart of gold, who bands together with a self-assured Thorny Devil lizard Zoe (Miranda Tapsell), a lovelorn hairy spider Frank (Guy Pearce), and a sensitive scorpion Nigel (Angus Imrie).

When their nemesis – Pretty Boy (Tim Minchin), a cute but obnoxious koala – unexpectedly joins their escape, Maddie and the gang have no choice but to take him with them. So begins a hair-raising and hilarious road trip across Australia, as they are pursued by a zookeeper Chaz (Eric Bana) and his adventure-seeking mini-me (Diesel Cash La Torraca).

Directed by Clare Knight and Harry Cripps, Back to the Outback also featuring the voices of Rachel House, Keith Urban, Celeste Barber, Wayne Knight, Lachlan Ross Power, and Jacki Weaver.

Lead by the toy and licensing industry expert, Darran Garnham, Toikido is a London-based entertainment company boasting a global reach and ecosystem across licensing, gaming, music, and entertainment.

Darran Garnham’s Toikido launches with AmongUs global toy rights

Given the manner in which Innersloth’s hit mobile and Steam gaming title, AmongUs, has managed to capture the world’s attention over the course of 2020, it was always to be the rather fortunate firm indeed to whom the licensing and toy rights finally fell.

Launched in June 2018, it took a global pandemic to give the free multi-player game the airtime it needed, driven in popularity by a number of high-profile Twitch channels that picked it up as the ultimate antidote to Coronavirus boredom, to officially become the most downloaded game globally of the past year.

Beating other popular mobile games such as PUBG mobile, Roblox, and Call of Duty, AmongUs hit a total of 264 million downloads globally last year. 41 million of those were in the US alone.

The game fired the collective imaginations of gamers the world over and incited much chatter over who – indeed if anyone – would be the company that aligned itself with the sensibilities of its studio, Innersloth, enough to take the game into the physical consumer products space.

Toikido founder Darran Garnham

It came as little surprise then when, only last week, the toy, licensing, and entertainment industry guru, Darran Garnham, declared that the honour had fallen to him and his boundary-pushing, multi-discipline business venture, Toikido.

The big news for everyone keen on tapping into one of the biggest entertainment IPs to have emerged from the 2020 pandemic – and most likely its ongoing 2021 twinned experience – is that, with the global master toy rights to AmongUs, we can expect to see launches across a number of categories, including – “but certainly not limited to” – collectables, figures, plush, play-sets, RC, and more.

The partnership will mark the first for Toikido, a business itself born out of the last year, as it looks to “push the envelope of innovation” in not only the kind of toys and IP it delivers to a contemporary toy industry, but in the way the industry itself operates. From the outset, Toikido certainly appears to be one of the many silver linings that the children’s industry has striven for over the last 12 months.

“Toikido has been born by handpicking amazing people who I have always wanted to bring together,” Darren Garnham, the business’ founder, tells ToyNews. “We’ve developed an ecosystem across many disciplines and skills that are really going to shake things up a bit.”

First and foremost, Toikido will be doing so by partnering with existing studios as well as developing its own brands, games, and content. Secondly, states Garnham, is that Toikido has been designed from the ground up, to push the envelope of what toy companies of the 21st century look like.

“We are a young team and between us have decades of knowledge, strong relationships throughout the industry, and we are trusted,” says Garnham. “It’s a group that includes Grammy and BAFTA winners, inventors, investors, social media, IP and tech experts, and it’s this unique blend of talent and skills that will make the difference.”

A name well-known in the toy, licensing, and entertainment circles, Garnham’s career has seen him attached to some of the biggest companies across the space, including the likes of Nintendo, Pokemon, LEGO, MTW Toys, and Mind Candy as part of the team that built Moshi Monsters into a multi billion-dollar retail business. It’s an enviable CV and one – through his experience with Moshi and a tenure at Universal (where he managed over 4,000 licensees) that has given him the skills needed to run a global IP business.

“I have worked with the very best toy companies, watched how they pitch, what they pitch, how they innovate and where opportunities exist to do things even better,” says Garnham. “I have also been exposed to models well outside the toy industry and this has led us to conclude that there are untried models we can pull from other industries into the toy space and make a real difference to how business is done.”

It’s through a career as diverse as the people and talent he has met throughout it that Toikido begins to be pulled together. It’s not just a team drawing from the toy or licensing industries, but backgrounds working with some of the biggest artists (in both music and social media) in the world.

“This allows us to not only launch toys from different platforms, but also from unexpected places,” he says. “This cross-functional, cross-platform integration and knowledge is one of the things that sets us apart.”

Garnham makes it abundantly clear that Toikido is here to “turn things on their head” in the toy space. A career spent watching innovation in product give way to cost in order to meet the demands of each part of the chain, Garnham wants to prove that “it’s still possible to make amazing products that give each part of the chain what they want without having to drop the quality bar.”

“Retailers want as much margin as possible, licensors as much royalty as possible, but also the best products, and the end consumer wants value for money. The we include R&D costs, marketing, shipping and placement, and compromise and mediocrity take over. This often leads to cheap, disposable toys making innovation difficult,” Garnham says.

“But we will be delivering toys that will be kept and passed down the generations because they are great toys with great play value.”

With a hand in Mediatonic, the wellness app Calm, KidsKnowBest and SuperAwesome, Garnham makes no secret of the fact that he likes to be involved in “fast moving, disruptive companies.”

“I love the journey, the energy, the belief to win,” he explains. “I also like data driven decisions. Research and launch, but don’t be afraid to kill or pivot if required.”

As a result of such mind-set, Toikido will be partnering with kids and family market experts Kids Industries and Kids Know Best as part of its service to partners, utilising the expertise of each to drive the firm’s insight and design strategy as well as targeted marketing initiatives through influencer programmes.

So to write 2020 off as the year we’d like to forget is to do a disservice to the leaps in innovation and forward-thinking that have been taken because of it. The toy industry itself has managed to find a new stride and has given space for opportunities as it has continued to grow during the challenges presented to it.

“Personally, I have taken 50 less flights this year and spent that time with my kids, while the negative knock-on effects for business has been minimal,” says Garnham. “I think we will question the need to spend the first quarter of the year running around the globe from fair to fair. With that being said, we work in an extremely sociable sector, and I can’t wait to bump elbows with friends when we next meet.”

When that will be, who’s to say. In the meantime, Garnham and the Toikido team have enough to keep them busy. Handling toy roll-out for the biggest mobile gaming IP of the past year is no small undertaking, and it’s a tone for the future of Toikido that the team is keen to pitch right.

“We are building a culture that will support our partners, avoid cannibalisation, and as a business, dedicate itself to supporting the shared visions, rather than taking in too many IP and getting distracted,” says Garnham.

“Within the team we have experts in numerous fields, so if the licensor requires, we can help expand IP from one platform to another – bring games into movies, toys into animation, social media talent into toys or music.

“We’re a new type of toy company for a brand new type of world, and we look forward to bringing a number of you on the journey with us.”