Food & Drink

Now you can play beer pong with your 2-year-old

Toy executives did a double take at one of the booths at Toy Fair, where three bottles of Corona beer were on display promoting a 2-year-old board game.

In a venue chock-a-block with kids’ games, plush toys and little princess dolls, it’s not exactly what you expect to see at the $22 billion toy industry’s sprawling trade show at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

But toys are not just for kids.

Buffalo Games & Puzzles is promoting Mini Pong, a word play on a decades-old game otherwise known as “beer pong” — a rite of passage for most college kids.

Natan Dvir
“People would get halfway past our booth and say, ‘What the heck?’ ” said Ben Jamesson, vice president of sales and marketing for the Buffalo, NY, company bringing the game to Target this summer for $30 a pop.

Founded by a pair of college friends in Minneapolis, Mini Pong inked a licensing deal with Buffalo Games & Puzzles this year to take the game to mass marketers. It had been sold for the past couple of years on Amazon.com and uncommongoods.com.

Though Mini Pong will be in the adult game section at Target, Jamesson insists consumers can fill the little cups with apple juice and play with kids.

“We are backing off from calling it beer in the title,” Jamesson said, adding that he’s placed the game in bars and coffee shops across the country.