Lazer Tag is a brand name for the pursuit game using infrared

toy gun Toy guns are toys which imitate gun, real guns, but are designed for recreational sport or casual play by children. From hand-carved wooden replicas to factory-produced pop guns and cap guns, toy guns come in all sizes, prices and materials suc ...

s, generically known as " laser tag". It was developed by Worlds of Wonder and launched in 1986. As one of America's top hit toys of 1986-1987, Lazer Tag was aggressively leveraged by Worlds of Wonder's retail sales network in an ultimatum to force the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

into retail stores, allowing its smash hit nationwide launch, which prompted

Nintendo of America is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi founded the company to p ...

to lead the nation's recovery from the 1983 video game crash and dominate the industry. The Lazer Tag brand is currently a subsidiary of

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herma ...

Nerf Nerf is a toy brand formed by Parker Brothers and currently owned by Hasbro. Most of the toys are a variety of Foam weapon, foam-based weaponry, with other Nerf products including balls for sports such as American football, basketball, an ...

toy line.

History

Lazer Tag was created by Paul Rago at the toy company Worlds of Wonder in 1986, launching that year at approximately the same time as the home version of Entertech's

Photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can ...

brand. With reported revenue of $23 million on sales of $320 million for fiscal year 1986, WoW had $800 million in back orders for the Christmas season, mainly for Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag. From 1986 to 1987, the young startup

contracted Worlds of Wonder for use of its retail distribution and sales network, in the nationwide launch of the

. The hit toys of 1986-1987, Lazer Tag and Teddy Ruxpin, were aggressively leveraged by Worlds of Wonder sales staff to force the NES

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

into reluctant nationwide retail stores which were still recovering from the disastrous 1983 video game crash. Retailers who balked at hearing the words "video game" received the ultimatum, "if you want to sell Teddy Ruxpin and you want to sell Lazer Tag, you're gonna sell Nintendo as well. And if you feel that strongly about it, then you ought to just resign the line now." Lazer Tag entered the nationwide controversy over the role of

s in violent crime and mistaken shootings by police. On April 7, 1987, 19-year-old Leonard Joseph Falcon was shot and killed in

Rancho Cucamonga, California Rancho Cucamonga ( ) is a city located just south of the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and Angeles National Forest in San Bernardino County, California, United States. About east of Downtown Los Angeles, Rancho Cucamonga is the List ...

by sheriff's deputy Daniel Durrant after witnesses saw him and several friends playing Lazer Tag, mistaking the toys for real guns. The deputy soon quit his job. According to some sources, the negative publicity associated with the incident contributed to Worlds of Wonder's bankruptcy and dissolution in 1988.

Shoot the Moon

Shoot the Moon Products of

Pleasanton, California Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is an upscale suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 cens ...

acquired the Lazer Tag brand name after Worlds of Wonder ceased operations in late 1990. The brand name was licensed to

Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) is an American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld electronic games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as '' Brain Warp'' and the ...

from 1996 to 1998, and to Hasbro following its acquisition of Tiger. Tiger released a variety of Lazer Tag-branded products in the mid-1990s, and a series of ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

''-themed blasters, culminating in a toy collection themed for the 1999 release of '' Star Wars Episode 1''. Tiger discontinued the poorly selling line.

Lazer Tag Team Ops

With a ground-up redesign, Shoot the Moon licensed its next generation product to Tiger Electronics. Released at Toy Fair 2004, Lazer Tag Team Ops (LTTO) features a double-barreled design allowing a tagger to identify targets and confirm hits at a distance, and the ability to self-host timed games of up to three teams with various rules and scenarios, following the game with debriefing and score review. All Lazer Tag-branded products since 2004 are

backward compatible In telecommunications and computing, backward compatibility (or backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, software, real-world product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with inpu ...

and can join LTTO-hosted games, each with various capabilities and limitations.

Nerf

branding replaced the now-defunct

labeling on all products in production beginning in 2012. In August 2012, Hasbro released an all-new Lazer Tag line, which allows users to integrate an

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

3GS, 4, 4S, or

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

unit with the blasters. The associated Lazer Tag app converts the smartphone into a HUD unit, which displays power levels and an online leaderboard. The app offers

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

, unlockable attacks, and gear.

Legacy

Like the ''

'' animated TV series, Worlds of Wonder's Lazer Tag brand inspired '' Lazer Tag Academy''. It was produced by

Ruby-Spears Productions Ruby-Spears Productions (also known as Ruby-Spears Enterprises) was an American entertainment production company founded by veteran writers and ''Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!'' creators, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, in 1977, before closing in 1996. Spec ...

, with one season airing on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

from 1986 to 1987. Three ''

Choose Your Own Adventure ''Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actio ...

''-style books are based on the game. The ''Lazer Tag'' video game was released in the late 1980s for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spec ...

, and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

. As one of America's top hit toys of 1986-1987, Lazer Tag was leveraged by Worlds of Wonder in an ultimatum to force the

into nationwide retail stores, allowing

to soon lead the country's recovery from the disastrous 1983 video game crash and dominate the industry.

References