Kathleen Buczko, a mother of three, is the toy industry’s Grinch this year. She plans to cut her spending on toys by 25 percent.
To the video game industry, she’s more like Santa — because she’s boosting her game budget by 600 percent.
One big reason, the San Pedro resident said, is that she wants to protect her 5-year-old son from another toy crisis. Two of his favorite playthings — a Mattel Inc. die-cast car and a Thomas the Tank Engine train by RC2 Corp. — were recalled this year because of lead contamination.
“It was emotionally difficult to have to take those toys away,” Buczko said. “I know there must be thousands of kids who had to go through the same thing.”
There were, and that’s part of the reason industry analysts expect this to be a very good year for video game sales and a flat one, at best, for toy sales.
Game makers’ sales are forecast to climb 19 percent or more, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities, fueled by lower prices for consoles, a plethora of must-have games such as “Super Mario Galaxy” and the popularity of Nintendo Co.’s Wii and hand-held DS consoles, which appeal to a broad age range. At the same time, retail toy sales are expected to decline by 2 percent, to $23 billion, said Gerrick Johnson, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets.
