Joined: 09/05/2011(UTC) Posts: 2,986 Location: Somewhere, But Nowhere Near Manchester, England
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This is an interesting topic, and I would disagree that there is no interest in model trains from todays children, during my recent trip to Europe I visited three MRR venues, and I can definitely say that each one of these was busting at the seams with excited children running around, and I cannot believe that if they had a model railway at home, they would not play with it.
In is my opinion, that we live in a society where people expect to be entertained, and do not see the need to have to put any effort it, they want instant gratification without any effort. The games console has resulted in almost instant gratification linked to a CGI generated world that is almost real means children can come home and almost instantaneously enter a world of entertainment, with no effort.
When I was younger, I played with model cars, scaletrix, action man, I made models, read books, played board games, went into the woods and build a secret base in the bushes and trees, sometimes even played charades, how many children do you see today doing any of these things? There are some but they are few. Todays children have almost given up on imagination for substitute electronic games. For the most part the next generation of kids will not be able to build anything, because they have never built anything.
Sadly MRR requires time and commitment to build a layout and you cannot simply play with it out of the box (carpetbahns excluded). Yet if you take the children to a completed purpose built layout , the kids are almost as excited as they are with the electronic games.
Furthermore, when I was growing up, I enjoyed a lot of father and son time, we built our model railway together, we build models together, we played scaletrix together, etc, but I observe that of my sons current friends, not a lot of parents seem to do the things we do together, and a lot of kids are simply left to their own devices or to their games consoles.
Finally, in the UK, I believe a lot of modern homes are not hobby friendly, and lack the space to enjoy a reasonable hobby like MRR or scaletrix, and this dissuades a lot of people from even making a start.
I agree with Kweekalot in that after a while the kids become bored with the electronic games, and will be interested in other things, if there is a genuine interest shown in spending time with them and introducing them to something else. There is no reason why electronic games and MRR cannot be shred hobbies by children of today, I know my son does. I can say then the interest level without a layout was low, even during the building phase of our current layout the interest level was not exciting, but now it has finished and he has a few trains of his own, he now comes and asks if we can go and play on the layout, and so I now know it is not me influencing him, he has put away his Xbox and made an effort to ask, because he wants to, and I am sure there are other children the same who would be interested.
As an observation Marklin may not have to do much, because I am unsure where the modern electronic games are going, they have games for everything now, and CGI is already 'life like' in HD, so it might be that in a few years time, people are again looking for alternatives to electronic games, and a well developed digital product like Marklin with it's history and backward compatibility might not be such a bad option. It is true that some of the modern stuff is expensive, but you can still go to a show like Eurospoor and children can still buy older coaches and freight stock with their pocket money. And they are certainly a lot cheaper than the new games.
I hope that Marklin just do not abandon their core support which is the serious modeller, I would also note that all these gamer children will one day grow up, and not all of them will continue to play games, some will look for other more challenging pursuits, I think we should not underestimate the 'I did that' or the 'I built that' factor, which exists in a lot of people, but they just do not always have to opportunity to develop it, if their parents are not interested.
I do not mind what Marklin do with the My World range, but I believe embracing the digital world and all it has to offer to make the locos more realistic with wide ranging control options, in cab video so you can see the train running along the tracks, this will offer a real alternative to the electronic game world. Something you can build, and have pride in, but still sufficient electronic to offer ready-made simple entertainment.
BR
Glenn
PS: To Danlake I would observe on his observation that the UK MRR scene survives on cheaper offerings from Hornby and Bachmann, in my opinion has done more to harm the scene in the UK than it has to engender a future, and I think the UK market misses a quality product like Marklin. I have a number of friends who were interested in MRR when younger but gave up because Hornby et al., were so cheap and did not stay on the tracks, and when they see my Marklin steam locos running, with sound and smoke effect they are genuinely interested and many comment, I wish they had this kind of quality when I was interested. |
Don't look back, your not heading that way. |