Boy did Playmobil miss a trick on this set, bigtime. BIG.
It's a nice enough set including two figures, one in yellow/white, the other in a blue/white uniform, and the equipment for three sports, baseball, ice hockey and (American) football. They look very appropriate, and the set comes in a blue box that could easily be used to transport a whole team.
So far so good. What's wrong?
The players have numbers printed on them, 18 for yellow guy, 21 for blue/white). Printed. If you've ever watched one of these sports (presumably the set designers hadn't) then you'd know that a team of eleven players (on the field) will have different numbers on each player. Not the same number. Different. In this set the numbers only appear on the front of the figures. If you've ever watched one of these sports (presumably the set designer hadn't) then you'd know that the numbers appear on the front AND back, for easy recognition.
This is an instance where stickers would have made much more sense. A set of 0-9, small for the front and large for the back, so the customer could, with multiple sets, create any shirt number from 1 to 99. Playmobil did stickers for the European football players a few years ago, so we know it's within their scope to include a sheet of stickers with numbers on. OK, the stickers get worn eventually, but only after many many hours of loving play.
If stickers had been included I'd have bought enough sets (eleven) to create two full teams, and I could stage my own tabletop matches. As it is, I only bought one set, to sit on the shelf showing what might have been if someone in the design team had envisaged the play potential of this set.
Way to go set designers. Next time think just a little harder, and you might increase your sales 1100% with a tiny change to the set contents.
