A strange little side quest
One reason fashion and style keeps producing good game ideas around Polly's Pool Party is that its history is full of strange turns. Barbie Fashion Designer became a major software hit in 1996, selling more than 500,000 copies in two months and proving there was a large audience for fashion-focused computer play. Another piece of context lands nicely beside it: Street Fighter II, released in 1991, turned head-to-head arcade fighting into a worldwide phenomenon and helped define the modern fighting-game genre. Not bad for a few facts hiding behind a Play button.
