Toys and Games Editing and Proofreading Services

A grandparent buys a game marked 8+ for a seven-year-old who is a strong reader, because the number looks like a reading requirement. The game needs the ability to plan two moves ahead and to lose without minding, neither of which the child has yet. It is played once, badly, and put in a cupboard. The box gave a number and no reason.

We edit what toy and game retailers and publishers produce — age recommendations and their explanations, box and packaging copy within the constraints that apply, rules and instruction text, safety warnings and their placement, what's-needed and assembly information, gift guidance and category descriptions, and the online product copy that has to work without the box in somebody's hands. Our editors work on a purchase made by an adult for a child they may not know well.

The age recommendation is the most consulted and least explained thing on a toy, and its failure is a number that conflates safety, skill and interest. Three different things wear the same badge. We work through these so the safety element is stated separately and unambiguously, since a small-parts warning is not a suggestion and must not be blurred into a developmental recommendation; so the skill actually required is named — reading, counting, fine motor control, planning ahead, taking turns, coping with losing — because a buyer can assess a specific child against a specific ability and cannot assess them against a number; so the interest range is given as its own figure where it differs, given that a game may be playable at seven and interesting until fourteen and both facts help; so what makes it too easy is stated as well as what makes it too hard, as a bored ten-year-old is as much a failed purchase as a baffled six-year-old; so the number of players and the real playing time are given honestly, since a "30 minutes" game that takes ninety with children is the commonest complaint; so adult involvement is stated plainly — whether an adult must play, may play, or is not needed; so what else is required is listed, including batteries, a table of a certain size and anything to be bought separately; and so the rules are written to be read aloud by somebody who has not played. Copy written this way produces a toy that gets played with.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including unreleased products, testing information and supplier material. We are editors rather than child development, safety or standards specialists, and we offer no view on age suitability, safety or compliance. What we can do is say what the number is actually about.