Nickelodeon’s Noggin streaming app is looking to make learning more personal and help kids build real-life skills with its new game world Nogginville, which launches in early December.
In Nogginville, kids can explore different locales from the Nick universe, play mini-games and meet their favorite characters. It’s launching with 15 different learning games (shopping for groceries and doing basic math to calculate the total, for example), Nick Jr. characters and avatars, branded locations and videos (some of which will be interactive). And the plan is to eventually expand the offering with additional branded locations and characters, including more Nick IPs and also potentially third-party brands, says Noggin EVP Kristen Kane.
The key goal behind Nogginville is to provide a more personalized learning experience that kids can control themselves, says Kane. Noggin has to compete with numerous kids edutainment SVODs also in the market, plus it has to stand out from other streaming services that carry Nick and Nick Jr. content, like Paramount+ and Pluto. As the platform scales, focusing on interactive content, and offering a personalized, walled-garden experience have been identified as important differentiators.
Nogginville’s game world proposition is also similar to hot platforms like Roblox and Minecraft, where kids can explore and guide their own play. But it’s built with an audience of two- to seven-year-olds in mind, which is why it’s a single-player experience that only exists within the app.
Noggin currently has more than 1,000 educational games, videos and books in its library, and it also streams Nickelodeon series such Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues, Noggin originals like Noggin Knows, and third-party acquisitions including JoJo and Gran Gran (BBC Studios Kids & Family/A Productions) and Little Bear (Nelvana).
Noggin has had success in the past with “dollhouse games” in which kids roleplay real-world skills, such as Peppa Pig: Shopkeeper. But Nogginville takes this immersive practice-makes-perfect experience a significant step further. “We like to call it a little world that helps kids prepare for the big one,” says Kane.
