The businessmen would turn our kids to stone if they could make a profit off it

"The best toy is 90 percent child and 10 percent toy," says Susan Linn, a Harvard University psychiatry instructor and cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "The [perfect] toy's meaning and its use changes at the child's behest."

At the same time, a large percentage of children's toys are based on media characters – Transformers, for instance, were top sellers this past holiday season.

The problem with this, says Diane Levin, an education professor at Wheelock College in Boston, is that when a child plays with a toy that already has a character description, the play tends to be limited; the child doesn't invent the figure's personality or actions because those characteristics are already determined.

"One of the reasons that creative play has been diminishing in the United States is that it's not lucrative," Dr. Linn says. "Companies make less money when children play creatively. Children who play creatively need less stuff"

Toy makers adjust as children find new games to play | Alaska Dispatch