Say it ain't so..........................

................................the end of toys?  Or just the end of toy stores?

This week, Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. finally died. ...

Seeking a cause for its demise, Toys ‘R’ Us has cast the blame upon its competitors -- particularly Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart -- which is a little like saying I’d have won the golf tournament if not for all those guys with the lower scores. ...

But the chain’s biggest foe was neither nimbler retailers nor that heavy debt load. It was the undermining of the very concept of the toy. For most of recorded history, toys have been physical things with which children play and create, telling themselves stories about the world and their place in it. ...

Well, toys that talk and blink a chain could still stock, albeit at a fearsome discount to compete with online retailers. But when a toy as a tangible thing to be manipulated yielded to a toy as a digital presence with which a child interacted via a multipurpose device, the idea of a toy store was in its death throes. As we learned from the demise of video and record chains, that which is downloadable needs no physical presence to be sold. And nowadays even very young children prefer the touchable screen to the touchable toy. Apart from a niche here and there, toy stores no longer serve any discernible function.

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