Apps - yes. Addictive electronic entertainment has taken over. I imagine many other parents also have a few piles of toys that were cool / must have / licensed

Apps - yes. Addictive electronic entertainment has taken over. I imagine many other parents also have a few piles of toys that were cool / must have / licensed by the popular things, that just sit in that pile and take up space while phones / tablets / consoles other addictive electronics get used constantly. Why waste money on things that get an initial "wow!" - only to be tossed into a pile and never used, when there are tons of privacy stealing ad supported free things that take all the time and attention. Last holiday I looked through the TUS online and offline catalogues for 10-12 age range, found 2 things that may be interesting to the youngin' here; one was a watch. Strangely card based games like pokemon yugio mtg can actually get groups of kids involved without the need for electronics, but I don't think those alone would keep a large warehouse in business. I am also not driving across town when target has the card packs a mile from here, and specialized card shops are all over town. I did see TUS expand it's electronics section, but the ad supported freemium models don't sell many games, just hardware once every so often. Sad to see TUS go, unlike GP commenter, I don't think the author is crazy, I believe that shareholders often influence places to make decisions that may raise profits in the short term yet lose the war after a couple of years. It may not be the only reason, but I'd wager it's one of the main ones out of the top 10 perhaps.