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Punta Gorda-based Pressure Games has been waiting — and working — for two years to get a new toy to market. Now the time is here: its toy, Countdown, an active hide-and-seek game that incorporates mini games into play, is scheduled to launch April 6.
For Pressure Games, the road to get to this point has included brainstorming, developing different versions of the toy, getting feedback from toy industry professionals, hosting a Kickstarter campaign and doing play testing with area children.
Pressure Games Founder and CEO Alex Andreae tells Coffee Talk the company planned to release a limited number of the toys around Christmas, but it ran into some delays with logistics and getting specific parts. The products are being shipped to the Port of Miami, and once they go through customs, they will be trucked to Punta Gorda.
Customers can buy Countdown on the company’s website, and it plans to launch on Amazon later in April. “Amazon comes along with a stamp of validity that helps prove out that we’re a real company and that it’s a real product, which really helps,” he says.
The biggest challenge will be to make sure people know Countdown is out there. The company plans to attend toy conventions and comic cons in Florida in the coming weeks and then start attending conventions in additional Southeastern states later in 2021. The events will help Pressure Games introduce the product to new audiences and sell the toy at the same time. “The toy convention scene is a really big one all across the world,” Andreae says.
Liz Hughes, chief brand officer at Pressure Games, says the company will also use influencers to promote the product. “You need that third-party validation,” she says. “We think influencers are great for that.”
In the future, Pressure Games wants to sell Countdown at big-box retail stores, maybe by early next year, but it will have to increase the volume of toys it’s making first. “At this point, our cost structure is too high,” Andreae says.
Some other toys might be ahead for the company, too, but the current focus is all Countdown. “Right now," Andreae says, "we are firmly and squarely focused on getting Countdown out there and making sure every customer is happy.”
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