For the July issue, Toy World spoke to senior director of Games at Funko, Stephan Brissaud, about the reimagination of Cranium games and what he hopes it will bring to players, the brand and Funko Games.
In January this year, Hasbro and Funko Games announced a multi-year partnership to introduce Cranium to a new audience of millennials and their families for the game’s 25th anniversary. The relaunch of Cranium, as well as its extension games Hullabaloo and Hoopla, officially took place at the UK Games Expo last month.
Cranium was first introduced to the market in 1998. Its clever design combines several popular party game activities across art, trivia, language and performance into one game, creating an experience where ‘everyone shines’. The one-of-a-kind game became a near-instant success at launch, becoming profitable in just six months before taking the title of the fastest-selling independent board game ever in 2001. The game and its iconic Creative Cat, Data Head, Word Worm and Star Performer characters spawned half-a-dozen other sub-brands in just 10 years before being sold to Hasbro in 2008.
Along with the Cranium boardgame reinvention, Funko Games has rebooted Hoopla and Hullabaloo and also created a brand-new puzzle game Big Brain, in which kids need to search for different Cranium characters.
Cranium: 25th Anniversary Edition had been well received by the games industry even before the launch at the Games Expo.
To read what Stephan had to say about the reinvention, how Funko has tied in Cranium’s interesting history with the launch marketing and the future of Funko, click here for the full feature.
