The Kidulting Strategy

The people who are going to win are having the most fun

I keep talking about the barbell: On one side, AI is exploding. Agents, automation, AR, VR, live shopping, all of it. Technology is moving faster every day. On the other hand, I believe analog is going to explode too. Real life. Real people. Real places. Things you can touch. Experiences you can actually feel. That is the barbell.

The more digital the world becomes, the more valuable the physical world becomes. The more automated the world becomes, the more valuable human connection becomes. The more serious and stressful the world feels, the more valuable play becomes.

That is why I am paying attention to kidulting.

Kidulting is not just adults buying toys. It is not just nostalgia. It’s adults giving themselves permission to play again.

I think this is much bigger than people realize. The term goes back to the 50’s and 60’s, originally used to describe adults who were fans of things like superhero cartoons. Today, it has become a real industry across toys, games, collectibles, nostalgia, fandom, and live experiences.

A Circana reported that adults 18 and older spent more than $1.5 billion on toys in Q1 2024, making adults the highest-spending age group in toys during that period. They also found that 43% of adults had bought a toy for themselves in the previous year, with enjoyment, socialization, and collecting among the top reasons.

Then in Q1 2025, a Circana reported adult toy sales grew 12% year over year and reached $1.8 billion.

The Toy Association separately found that 58% of adults bought toys/games for themselves in the past year, with board games emerging as the single most popular category among self-purchasers at 65%

Adults Need More Play

I am 50 years old, and I feel lighter. I feel more joyous. I feel more playful. I feel more silly. I think I am a preview of where a lot of people are going.

People are stressed. People are lonely. People are anxious. And when stress accelerates, the need for release accelerates too.

APA’s 2025 Stress in America report found that 54% of U.S. adults said they have felt isolated from others, 50% said they have felt left out, and 50% said they have lacked companionship often or some of the time. Gallup found that 20% of U.S. adults reported feeling lonely “a lot of the day yesterday,” representing an estimated 52 million adults.

Sports have held this place for adults for a long time. I believe concerts have too. You go to a concert, and even if you didn’t think about this consciously before, you’ve probably felt it — you watch your parents or grandparents at a show and they get a little silly. A little more childish, in the best way. I think there’s a lot more room for that to show up in companies. And I think humans are going to start yearning for it even more.

There is so much more room for that energy.

We see adults play sports, but we do not see enough adults simply play. We do not see enough 40-, 50-, or 60-year-olds playing tag. We do not see enough adults playing hopscotch. We do not see enough people doing something that has no point other than joy.

The Business Opportunity

The business opportunity around kidulting is very real. Board games. Collectibles. Pickleball. Trading cards. Fandom. Nostalgia. 70s, 80s, and 90s culture. Anything that gives adults permission to feel lighter has opportunity.

And just recently, in 2026, Circana reported that the global toy market hit $123 billion in annual sales in 2025, up 8%, with recipients ages 15 and older representing nearly 20% of global toy sales and spending more than doubling since 2020. Party games specifically were estimated at roughly $7.8–8.5 billion globally in 2024 with 7–8% annual growth projected.

A Note on Market Data: The market-sizing reports available (Fortune Business Insights, Mordor Intelligence, Technavio, etc.) disagree with each other on the overall board game market’s exact size — placing it anywhere from $12 billion to $20 billion for the same year, depending on methodology and what’s included.

What’s consistent across every source, though, is the direction: adult-targeted games are growing faster.

The most direct early evidence comes from a 2016 NBC News piece quoting the CEO of toy-review site TTPM: sales in the adult party game segment jumped 138 percent in 2016 through November compared to the same period the year before. He attributed that surge specifically to Cards Against Humanity’s success.

Cards Against Humanity started as a Kickstarter campaign that raised roughly $15,500, launched in May 2011, and became Amazon’s #1 game within a month. The Chicago Sun-Times estimated CAH earned at least $12 million in profit in its early years alone, and one industry source states its peak annual revenue around $50 million with over 12 million copies sold since 2011 across 40+ expansions.

In 2024, Hasbro’s SVP of board games told Fox Business that adult party games in the like Cards Against Humanity are a key growth driver. Separately, Hasbro’s CEO has said adults already drive about 40%- 60% of Hasbro’s revenue.

Nostalgia Is Underpriced

I am in the restaurant business with VCR Group, and as I think about this, I can imagine a restaurant built around this exact idea of kidulting. A high-end restaurant for 40-, 50-, and 60-year-olds that feels like an elevated arcade, gym, and playground. Board games and Bordeaux…A crazy wine list, unbelievable steaks, and an environment that feels somewhere between a beautiful hotel game room and Chuck E. Cheese.

That distinction matters because nostalgia is underpriced.

When people are stressed, angry, anxious, or overwhelmed, they gravitate toward mental lanes where life felt lighter. For a lot of people, childhood felt lighter because there fewer responsibilities. Not everybody had a good childhood, and that is important to say, but the emotional pull of youth, play, and simplicity is real.