Toca Boca, Gender Norms, and the Rise of the Digital Dollhouse
A conversation with the developers of the popular Toca Life: World prompts definitions of "real" games, why some games are marketed at girls instead of boys, and more.
Downloading a game from Google or Apple’s app stores is a potential minefield every single time. There’s a game for every conceivable topic, from mermaids to puppies, and so many claim they’re “free.” Many of those “free” games, however, are engineered to extract money from unsuspecting parents and ignorant children, between exploitative microtransactions and frustrating ads. But there are a few companies you can trust to deliver a pleasant experience for both the parent and the child, and that’s when you see the Toca Boca logo. They’re always good. They’re always nice.
Toca Hair Salon. Toca Kitchen. Toca Mystery House. But most importantly, Toca Life: World, which has been around since 2018 and comes a studio whose name means “touch the mouth” in Spanish. (It makes sense when you see the company’s logo.)
Toca Life: World has been in our family’s life for years now, a delightful dollhouse-like experience where players drag objects and people into places, like a mall or a hospital. The interactions are minimal but thoughtful. It has great art, and reasonable in-app purchases. It feels safe to hand a Toca Boca game to my kid, which is extremely rare.
“We're a big group of people that really strive for this high quality experience,” said Petter Karlsson, a senior play designer on Toca Life: World who’s been at the studio since 2015, in a recent interview. “We see what some of some of the competitors do, and it feels like ‘Okay, that's a carbon copy of this thing.’ We want to make really nice things, because we see a value in selling something that is really nice.”
On Toca Boca’s website, some of the company’s mantras stick out:
“We respect kids as people — not just little versions of people. We make high-quality products that they deserve.”
“The undeniable, irresistible, power of play. It jumpstarts the imagination and colors our world.”
“Our goal is to make sure that all our apps are built from a kid’s perspective, and that you’re using your creativity and imagination when playing,” said former Toca Boca CEO Bjorn Jeffrey in a piece where he was interviewed by an eight-year-old. “We even bring kids in, like you, to test them to make sure they pass the ultimate fun test. There are no levels, no winners and no high scores—just lots of playing and having fun!”
Toca Boca doesn’t promote towards boys or girls but for kids. (Whether they’re even “games” is itself a question.) But most people probably would assume they’re for girls.
A Crossplay mailbag discussing paths for moving kids beyond dress up games and into more traditional games offered up a response that’s stuck with me ever since:
“‘Princess Dress-Up’ type games are just as legitimate as any other type of video game, though the quality varies wildly. I’m an avid player of all kinds of games but my teens loved and still love open-ended digital “toys” more than they enjoy narrative/adventure/combat-type games. Toca Boca makes GREAT quality games.”
The person who asked this question wasn’t stomping about gender norms and trying to draw lines between “real” and “fake” gamers. They were wondering what steps other parents took as their kids became curious about games with more complexity.
“Applying labels like ‘real’ and ‘fake’ help players define the boundaries of their communities and who belongs in them,” said clinical psychologist and game designer Dr. Keli Dunlap. “Shared values are an important part of community, and games that are traditionally considered ‘real games’ often have common features such as competition, skill differentiation, and social comparison. What’s valued in these types of games is the idea of meritocracy, that if you work hard you will improve and that the best will rise to the top. In effect, ‘real games’ are a means of establishing a social hierarchy with the best players at the top.”
The way we try to categorize what is and isn’t a game, sometimes consciously and often times not, is a complicated question caught up in a lifetime of learned norms.
“We do call what we do digital toys a lot,” said Toca Life: World art director Karin Hagen in the same interview.
“Historically, we used to not talk about games at all at Toca Boca,” said Karlsson. “We were like, ‘Oh, we're digital toys.’ And then we have worked a lot with words nowadays, [and] we talk more about digital playground or digital experiences.”
“Historically, we used to not talk about games at all at Toca Boca. We were like, ‘Oh, we're digital toys.’ And then we have worked a lot with words nowadays, [and] we talk more about digital playground or digital experiences.”
On the company’s website, they don’t use the term “game,” but “app” or “toy.” It’s perhaps a distinction without a difference, but in some cases, it has consequences. The company had trouble recruiting game developers with experience building in the engine Unity, because they didn’t look at Toca Boca as a game company. Now, behind the scenes, Toca Boca will at times refer to itself as a game developer to attract talent.
“We're a really big and famous game among kids, because adults do not understand what we do, because it's so obscure,” said Karlsson. “What even is the point of this app, this game? But if you would give people a LEGO set, or Barbie Dreamhouse, physical toys, then it's ‘yeah, they play make believe, or they play dress up, or they do this thing. But it is exactly that type of play.”
I’ve had a version of this conversation with parents before, and it’s understandable.
Look at Minecraft, for example. If you asked a parent if it was okay for a child to spend two hours building LEGOs, they would almost assuredly say yes. If you asked them if it was okay for a kid to play Minecraft for two hours, the answer might change. We often associate interactions with screens as being lesser, or even actively harmful, even if the interactions happening on them can become as enriching as the real world.
Once you sit down with a game like Minecraft, or Toca Life: World, your brain shifts.
It’s a challenge for some of the people who work on the games, too. Neither Karlsson nor Hagen understood the appeal of Toca Life: World when they started at the Stockholm, Sweden-based company. If a new employee didn’t already have kids, it wasn’t until they experienced their first playtest, where you watched children play, that it all clicked. It’s also helpful, Karlsson pointed out, when newcomers are reminded that a game like Dungeons & Dragons is a version of the same roleplay—an adult dollhouse.
“There is so much to be said for games that allow for exploration and creativity without the threat of a fail state,” said research psychologist Dr. Rachel Kowert. “These spaces allow for players to explore the possibilities of what could be—not only in their own personal exploration of who they are and how they want to be in the world—but also how they want to surround themselves in their environment. They allow them to explore the limits of their own personal expression and do so in a safe, contained environment.”
When I’ve watched my kids play with Toca Life: World, they’re telling stories. Several children will surround the screen, taking turns narrating events. A dollhouse on the floor of a child’s room is a canvas for storytelling. Toca Life: World digitizes those tools.
It’s tempting to brand Toca Life: World, or more advanced takes like The Sims, as not being games. It’s what prompted this story in the first place: what’s a “real” game?
“It is natural to differentiate games into genres,” said Dr. Kowert. “It is an easy way to categorize (and humans love categories) the different mechanics of any particular game so we can easily decipher what kind of game we would like to play. But these boxes are merely guidelines and not meant to be tightly fitting boxes. I think it has become that way due to a long history of gender stereotypes and gatekeeping around games and gaming cultures.”
We commonly associate dollhouse-style experiences as “for girls,” despite not granting the same association with a child playing with action figures or dinosaurs.
“It is a challenge,” said Karlsson. “We have always at Toca Boca strived to very intentionally not [make] a pink icon. And then eight years ago, when we made a car game, we're like, ‘Okay, this game will have this appeal,’ because it shouldn't be, ‘You will get this car game because you're a boy.’ We do a silly, fun take on cars that should be relatable, if you think cars are interesting."
The path to this moment goes back decades, Dr. Dunlap argues. When Nintendo revived the video game market, it did so by marketing the NES as a toy for the whole family. But the toy aisles were different; those were split between boys and girls.
“Nintendo had to make a decision about where their product would be placed and who they would market it to,” said Dunlap. “They chose boys and men. It’s important to note that before this, especially in the hey-day of arcades and board games before them, games were marketed equally to boys and girls. [...] Because games were marketed to boys, it sent the signal that games were not for girls. Or rather, girls required their own set of special girl games separate from real games.”
A few years later, Nintendo would launch another famous product: the Game Boy.
Karlsson said the onus on Toca Boca, as a studio, to be conscious of these stereotypes and push back against them, and one way to accomplish that goal is “to keep being interesting.” At Toca Boca, Karlsson said, “inclusion” is another central mantra alongside treating children with respect, and so their goal isn’t just to break traditional stereotypes about boys and girls but gender altogether. Toca Life: World should appeal to you if you identify as non-binary, as much as if you’re a boy or girl.
“Yesterday, I had a conversation with a designer for about 30 minutes about a bucket and a mop,” joked Hagen, who started as an artist before becoming an art director.
Toca Life: World stands out because of its art. It’s a huge reason my kids are always excited to ask for a new expansion pack for it: it’s a chance to see more cool art.
“We try to stay away from doing a generic appeal to kids,” said Hagen, “where everything is teddy bears and unicorns and that kind of stuff. But more of an authentic representation of the real world—but it's not the real world. Maybe not as chaotic as the real world, but safe in a way.”
“How can kids relate to this?” said Karlsson. “A classic thing would be—we make a hospital [area for the game]. Then, we ask kids what is in the hospital or what you think should be in this hospital. And then, I also talk to professional people in the hospital and ask them, because they can have another view of what kids see and what kids talk to them about and ask about.”
The game has grown with complexity, but because it’s a game directed at children, there are limits. An older iteration of Toca Life: World, called Toca Life: Town, didn’t let you change the clothes of the characters—that came a year later. Karlsson called this limited box they’re working in to be both “a blessing and a curse.”
But in that box, it’s key to understand a child’s imagination is primed to fill in blanks.
“It's maybe an adult perspective that things need to be functional,” said Hagen. “Because if you think about a real dollhouse for example, all the little props—they were just props. But it's not in the way for the play, because you play. Even if we can add, say a kitchen appliance, maybe you cannot put an orange in there and pour juice.”
Upon saying this, she pauses.
“Or maybe we actually can do that?” she said.
“We added that [laughs],” said Karlsson.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
My kids have actually fallen off Toca Boca a bit since I started reporting this, but such is the fickle nature of kids: they move onto the next thing ruthlessly.
How do you handle conversations with your kids about gendered norms? We try to quietly reinforce that there are no things for “boys” or “girls” and instead that people should enjoy what they like, and that’s ultimately what’s really important.
It was cool to hear a developer of a kid-focused game explicitly say they were hoping to appeal to non-binary kids, as well. You don’t hear that all that often.
My child is 9 and my wife and I made the decision almost immediately to not do girl or boy things. It annoyed our families we didn't find out the sex of our kid before birth so they couldn't buy pink or blue clothes. We said they could buy whatever, it'll all be covered in spit up soon anyway.
When I get questions from them about gender norms (stores don't have an officially marked girl and boy section but they still have them), I try and explain the idea of how people have these categorizations and people are trying to move away from it but not everyone and not at the same pace.
I played Toca Boca games as an adult well into my twenties! They’re incredibly fun and they’re big spaces to explore, with lots of dimension. A lot of game-games feel railroady, but TB apps never did.