Changing the Game

From the launch of the Magnavox Odyssey and Atari in the 1970s to the ongoing battle between Xbox and PlayStation users, gamers’ lifelong love of video games has grown for generations. 

With the birth of fandoms surrounding Super Mario Bros., Call of Duty, Minecraft, and more, merch makers have had a wealth of licenses to choose from to craft collectibles, apparel, and other merchandise. 

Pokémon has been a staple for manufacturers for decades. From collaborations with hot brands including Loungefly, ColourPop, and Jazwares to all of the exclusive merch regularly sold on pokemoncenter.com, Pokémon fans have it made when it comes to their collections. 

“The Pokémon brand is rooted in play, adventure, and friendship; these are the characteristics that fans look for in any Pokémon experience and we work diligently with our knowledgeable partners to incorporate this spirit in all offerings,” says Amy Sachtleben, senior director of licensing and promotions at The Pokémon Co. International. “This allows Trainers to stay fully immersed in the Pokémon world regardless of how they’re choosing to engage with the brand, resulting in a robust and unique licensing program.”

The Pokémon franchise umbrella covers more than just video games; it also has the iconic trading card game and more than 26 seasons of TV content. Not every video game franchise has such an established foothold in the sphere of visual media, but when these games do make the leap to theaters or the TV screen, the merch game goes to a whole new level for both the companies that make it and the collectors who love it.

In April, Amazon MGM Studios launched one of the latest hit TV series based on a video game franchise: Fallout. According to The Hollywood Reporter, gamers and new viewers watched Fallout for a total of 2.9 billion minutes in its first week on Amazon Prime, the biggest debut for an Amazon original series to date. 

Since the launch, the Fallout video games have also experienced a surge in popularity, with Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 jumping from Nos. 87 and 159 to Nos. 5 and 8, respectively, on Circana’s charts for best-selling video games from April 7-May 4. 

Merch makers have taken full advantage of Fallout’s new level of pop-culture awareness. In the past few months, new Fallout collectibles, apparel, accessories, and more have hit stores. Some highlights of the licensing program include flavored coffee from Bones Coffee Co., a line of figures featuring the iconic smiling eyes from Youtooz, statues from Dark Horse Direct, and a life-size replica of the Pip-Boy from The Wand Co.

Good ratings and great merch are a perfect pairing for manufacturers and production studios, but it’s important that the longtime fans love the final product. Bronwyn Timmons, a Fallout fan and cosplayer who runs the Instagram account @radiation.baby, was apprehensive about the Fallout TV series, but her fears were dashed upon watching.

“I absolutely loved it,” Timmons says. “I felt like they perfectly captured the feeling of the games in a show format, and it felt very obvious to me that every single person who worked on that show — whether they were designing costumes, writing dialogue — they played the games and they love ’em.”

Amazon MGM aimed to stay true to Fallout’s themes through every step of the process, from making the show to creating merch to go along with it. 

“I think authenticity is incredibly important,” says Jamie Kampel, head of consumer products and interactive licensing at Amazon MGM Studios. “The level of detail that went into building the world is evident in many of our licensed products ... A lot of our partners are passionate fans of the franchise, and I think that translates to the products they develop and manufacture. Fallout is futuristic and post-apocalyptic, dark, but also humorous. Our licensed product collection stays true to those themes.”

The first live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film debuted in February 2020, and despite being one of the last flicks to hit the big screen before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down cinemas nationwide, the movie took home more than $300 million at the box office, according to Deadline. Two years later, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 earned even more than that. 

The launch of the Sonic movies, along with the recent Knuckles TV series on Paramount+, brought new fans to the franchise, but it also has been a great experience for longtime fans like Courtney Calvert, a Sonic collector who goes by @sonic_collects on Instagram.

“They’re so popular and I love them,” Calvert says. “The movies, they’ve handled the story so well, and the Knuckles show was really good. I thought it was just really entertaining and the story is fun and silly, but they make it enjoyable.”

Since the launch of the first Sonic movie, SEGA has launched new collaborations with tons of fan-favorite brands, including LEGO, BoxLunch, Dark Horse Direct, Funko, Her Universe, Bioworld, JAKKS Pacific, and more. 

“With Sonic, we always aspire to advance the franchise in ways that bring unique experiences to new and longtime fans alike,” says Alex Gomez, senior director of Sonic licensing at SEGA. “The TV show, animation, and films have opened many doors for collaborations, and we’ve had incredible opportunities to expand past our traditional verticals to broaden Sonic’s audience.”

And fans have a lot to look forward to with the third installment in the film franchise hitting screens later this year, along with the launch of the game Sonic X Shadow Generations this fall.

JAKKS Pacific also launched a full wave of toys and collectibles with the launch of The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year. Lars van Klaveren, a collector with thousands of pieces of Mario merch and games in his collection and known as @mario.collectors.world on Instagram, got his hands on the company’s Super Mario Bros. collection as soon as he could. When The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened at his local movie theater in the Netherlands, van Klaveren got a special opportunity to show off his collection to the community.

“I contacted them and they said they wanted to make something really cool for the movie, and they said, ‘OK, you can make something like a museum here at the movie theater,’” van Klaveren says. “My whole collection was there at the movie theater, so everybody could see it.”

Naturally, he loved the movie: “Because I did (the museum), I went three or four times for free to the movie. I also took my whole family. At one point, we were there in the movie theater with 15 people, only my family. I watched it a lot of times and I really, really enjoyed it. I think they did a really good job. I cannot wait for the second one,” he says.

While it has been difficult to get The Super Mario Bros. Movie merchandise in Europe, van Klaveren managed to add new products to his collection, including iam8bit’s pressing of the movie’s soundtrack, Monopoly: The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie Hot Wheels, and more. 

In addition to mainstays like Super Mario Bros., there are dozens more pop-culture powerhouses with video game roots, including classics like Pac-Man and modern marvels like Call of Duty. CD Projekt Red‘s The Witcher has been turned into a Netflix smash hit, and Naughty Dog‘s lone-wolf-and-cub story The Last of Us pivoted to an ultra-successful series on Max, with a 96% Rotten Tomatoes critic’s score. And — you guessed it — there are huge merch collections for all of these entertainment mainstays, from apparel and prop replicas to home goods and gaming accessories.

Originally developed by Midway Games in 1992, Mortal Kombat has more than a dozen sequels and spin-offs, from arcade cabinets to mobile games — not to mention multiple animated series and live-action films. Released last year, Mortal Kombat 1 marks the series’ second reboot, and Funko just debuted a range of new Pop! vinyl figures based on the game, including iconic characters like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, and Mileena.

"Mortal Kombat has a unique blend of elements that have kept fans coming back year after year with its intense and dynamic gameplay that sets it apart in the fighting game genre," said Preston Kevin Lewis, head of consumer products and retail strategy for the Americas at Warner Bros. Discovery. "This franchise has never shied away from pushing the boundaries, which keeps fans engaged, excited, and eager for more. There are fans who love the franchise because it gives them a sense of nostalgia but also an entirely new fanbase that is intrigued by the rich, evolving storytelling and memorable characters."

While new film and TV content proves to help expansion in a large-scale way, video game franchises will continue to be a popular category for merch makers on their own. According to a survey of more than 10,000 people conducted by Statista this spring, almost 70% of respondents say they played video games of any type for at least an hour a week, with 42% playing for more than six hours a week. 

“It’s great to see the IP of video games being treated with the care and attention they deserve on the big screen,” says Melissa Lomax, director of e-commerce at Dark Horse Direct. “The fans of these properties have dedicated such an enormous amount of time and dedication to completing their journey through each game that these experiences become embedded in their identity to a certain degree. To see those storylines get the dramatic elevation of movies and television makes it all the more exciting for us to create a physical representation of a person’s fandom that they can
carry with them and display in their everyday life.”

No matter if fans are consuming their video game content on their console or at the cinema, these fandoms aren’t going anywhere.