As many of you are aware, GANZ has not announced any new Webkinz plush pets in the past few months. The last new plush was the beautifully crafted Narwhal. We can now officially state that there will be no new Webkinz plush in 2019 and that the Narwhal will be the final plush toy of the “first generation” of Webkinz plush.
Our reasons for making this decision are three-fold:
- For any toy to be produced at an appropriate price, a minimum number need to be produced. Our retail orders for our new styles, even great ones like the Narwhal, had fallen below this minimum.
- Our attempts to move plush sales online through the eStore and Amazon did not meet our goals.
- After 14 years and over 500 unique pets, this generation of the toy line had run its course.
The reality is that at times every toy brand needs to take a break, evolve and reinvent. Many of the biggest toy brands in the world – My Little Pony, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake – have had times where there were no toys on retail shelves.
Will this impact Webkinz.com? Not at all. One of the big developments in the past few years is the acceptance of online purchasing. When we launched Ganz eStore in 2008, many players didn’t understand the idea of buying “purely” virtual pets. Now we’re all used to buying virtual items and we’re happy to say eStore use has been going up! Many of our new eStore virtual pets have been well received and are among our best looking pets ever! As we’ve said elsewhere, GANZ is committed to Webkinz.com and with our desktop version coming soon, the future of the game is strong.
Will Webkinz plush be back? Definitely. GANZ was born as a plush toy company and lovable plush will always be near to our hearts. We have had many discussions about future products and how best to bring those products to market. We can’t say anything more about this at this time, but we do hope to have some more announcements later in the year.
In the meantime, you can still find Webkinz plush at Ganz eStore, and through other online retailers. All available plush are “while quantities last,” so if there is a specific pet you’d like, you will want to order it soon.
We’ve all had great experiences with our Webkinz plush and have those favorites that we feel closest to. While we may be taking a break from making new styles, our incredible range of amazing plush toys will forever be a core part of Webkinz World.
GANZ
I hope the plush toys come back soon! Without a plush toy, I see no use for online-only pets, as they’re not quite as huggable as a plush toy.
I agree. I have only used plush pet codes to add another year to my account so it wont expire. Hope Ganz comes out with some more plush soon that i will be able to add another year to my account in the future :(
Accounts are worthless for people who don’t buy virtual things like pets.
ANY update on when the next gen of webkinz pets will be released?
i sincerely hope there’s good news for the future of webkinz toys.. i’ve grown up with webkinz since i was a very young child and i actively am continuing to grow my collection! it’s hard to find decently priced webkinz sometimes though, i’d like if some older toys could be brought back someday (with more reasonable prices lol). regardless, i’m still going to continue to collect as many plushies as i can and will support whatever comes to webkinz in the future! :)
I hope there is more soon! I wish I could afford to get the virtual webkinz I want but my family isn’t really rich. I hope to find more plushies soon! My mom does too we play together on Webkinz all the time. I just wish I could get more Estore Points to be able to get the webkinz I really want! My birthday is in April I wish I could get Estore Points on my birthday!
Edit: I only have the starter pet and a few plushies that the codes were used sadly before I got them :(
is this permanent? :(
Well, at least it’s 2020 so there will be more plushes!
YEAH!
Any word on when a new announcement regarding the future of Webkinz plush will be released? Anytime soon?
Hope we hear word about this soon! I’m kind of concerned that they haven’t said anything since last spring ‘^^ Don’t give up on the plushes, Ganz!
I agree
I would love to see re-releases of older webkinz plush that are nostalgic to long time players like myself and friends who lost plushies over the year that we would like to re-collect! Maybe retired plushies or classics like the cheeky pets, etc. I would rather buy them directly from the source versus trying to find them on ebay. I know this is just wishful thinking but I would love to be able to continue to buy webkinz plush for years to come, not just for myself but also for my kiddos! And yes I really do still have friends that have been playing for as long as I have!! We want plushies! I have multiple accounts including my original account from 2008 haha. Thank you GANZ for all of the years of fun <3 Don't give up!
I think ganz should take the pets from the e store and turn them in to plush pets every month or so.
and take ideas from the design a pet contest and work off from there. :)
I think that’d be a great idea! Personally, I’d love to see the sugar glider, t-rex, and blue avenue cat as plush toys ;) After all, they were able to turn the sabtertooth tiger and gingerbread puppy into plushies. Why not those?
I meant to say “sabertooth”
Yeah! I think that is a great idea, TaffyKitty12!
YES! I’d love that!
:(
Does “first generation of Webkinz” mean that there could be a another round of plush way farther in the future?
i hope so
I also hope they don’t end up looking like beanie boos :/
I hope they don’t look super different lol
Yeah I hope they won’t look totally different haha. Hopefully they will have slightly evolved instead of changing them completely.