Activision-owned Toys for Bob has donated a sizable selection of Skylanders paraphernalia to The Strong museum, including hundreds of pre-production figures and nearly one thousand pages of internal records.
The donation bolsters the museum’s catalog of video game history (which already included artifacts from Wargaming, River Raid creator Carol Shaw, and Interplay Entertainment) while also chronicling the game that kicked off the big toys-to-life trend.
All in all, the Toys for Bob donation includes over 200 pre-production figures and portals (some hand-sculpted), in-house molds and testing tools, almost 1,000 pages of archival records like artwork concepts and production schedules, hundreds of Skylanders figures, and recorded interviews between The Strong staff and with Toys for Bob team members.
“We are very proud to have The Strong museum preserve the many stories and artifacts that went into developing Skylanders. This collection exposes Toys for Bob’s unique maker culture and the scrappy inventiveness that went into trailblazing this unconventional marriage of physical toys and video games,” said Activision chief creative officer Paul Yan in a statement. “Our hope is that making this history publicly available will inspire radical new ways to experience fun and joy.”