So… the Superplexus is an amazing 3D maze toy, where you navigate a ball bearing along a plastic track by turning the whole toy in every axis of rotation. It was designed by an art professor named Michael McGinnis, and is a project that he worked on in fits and starts from childhood through adulthood, until he developed the final model, and sold the design to Hasbro. Hasbro added a completely superfluous electronic timer and annoying-music player to it, and proceeded to run the idea into the ground by marketing it to small children who were much too young, clumsy, and videogame-oriented to appreciate it. Right around the time that Hasbro discontinued production of the Superplexus, the kinds of adults who are the proper market for such a thing discovered it, and were overjoyed to find that they were available on clearance for $5 at Toys R Us. Once they snatched them all up, however, they were gone forever.
Earlier this month, ThinkGeek added the 360 Puzzle Sphere to their catalog, which is identical to the Superplexus, minus the extraneous, tacked-on electronics, and with a less elegant seam between the two clear plastic domes of its case. After a few emails from various potential customers (including me) asking if this model had the designer’s approval, ThinkGeek did a little digging, came to the realization that it is a Chinese knockoff, and have stopped selling it. Meanwhile, in the comments of this BoingBoing post about it, someone quotes the designer as saying that he only made 33 cents on each Superplexus sold by Hasbro, but didn’t mind because he was more interested in getting it into peoples’ hands than he was in getting rich off of it.
So, the dilemma is this: knowing that this knock-off exists (it is sold elsewhere as the “Magicel Internect Ball” (sic)), and knowing that the designer was getting peanuts from the “real” version and wasn’t doing it for the money anyway, should you buy one, knowing as you do so that you’re supporting a manufacturer who is ripping-off an artist’s life’s work?
EDIT 4-30-2011: McGinnis is a little hazy on the details, but it looks like he discovered the Magicel Internect Ball, contacted the manufacturers, and they’re now working together to make a licensed version called the Perplexus! Hooray!
