Playtoy Industries

Playtoy Industries was a Canada-based toy company founded by 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, with president Jerry Smith[1][2][3][4] and vice-presidents Stephen Morris and Ron Burke.[5][6] In 1997, it moved to Concord, Ontario.[7] They went out of business in mid 1999.[7]

Playtoy both developed its own games, and licensed from others. Most often, they licensed from Pressman Toy Corporation. Playtoy Industries would then translate the product into French in order to ship a bilingual product.[8] Playtoy introduced three new Canadian games each year.[9] They licensed some of these to Pressman Toy Corporation, as in the case of IQ2000. The company also distributed a range of games in Canada for the Sega Genesis.

Games were manufactured both locally at their combined offices/factory and overseas. The most notable exceptions were hoolahoops[2] and some other plastic products which were assembled by ARC Industries (a sheltered workshop for adults with a developmental disability).

Playtoy also manufactured games based on TV game shows, such as La Guerre des clans from TQS, and other shows from CBC Television and some other Canadian channels. They were Johnson & Johnson's infant toys distributor in Canada (and responsible for the French translation).

Playtoy's mass manufactured Co-Operative Game line was licensed from Jim Deacove[8][6] (Family Pastimes), who continued to manufacture the same games in small batches. Thus the same games, with the same titles, were sold in two forms at the same time.