Video games
American Girl launched Innerstar University, an online virtual world featuring the My American Girl contemporary doll line, on July 13, 2010. Access to the online world was via a Campus Guide, bundled with the purchase of a My American Girl doll, which contained an access code for the creation of a doll avatar that then navigated to various games, shops, and challenges offered on the virtual campus of Innerstar U. In 2015, when the My American Girl line was renamed Truly Me, the Innerstar University website was shut down.
In 2023 American Girl collaborated with the Roblox development group Melonverse for a promotional event entitled American Girl World, based on the doll line and its roster of characters.
Product reception
The company has drawn criticism for the expense of the dolls, which cost as much as $135 without accessories as of June 2024 and $175 for a doll, book, and basic accessories. Buyers can easily spend more than $600 for a doll, outfits, accessories, and lunch in the company's store in New York.
One critique of the doll line is that due to the price tag and limited purchase locations, the dolls are often inaccessible to the communities they are intended to represent.
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Some aspects of the doll's characters and history have also provoked controversy. Some observers questioned why Addy, American Girl's first African-American historical character released in 1993, was portrayed first as a slave (in later stories Addy and her family gain their freedom after the Civil War), while Cecile Rey, American Girl's second black historical character, was portrayed as a well-to-do black girl in New Orleans. In 2017, American Girl released their first African-American Girl of the Year, Gabriela McBride, who is portrayed as a dancer, artist, and poet. In 2005, residents of Pilsen (a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois) criticized a passage in the book associated with the Latina-American doll Marisol, claiming it inaccurately depicted their neighborhood as dangerous. A senior public relations associate for American Girl responded to critics saying: "We feel that this brief passage has been taken out of context in the book." The 2009 limited-edition release of Gwen, an American Girl character experiencing homelessness, was also deemed as controversial.
In May 2014, the company was met with criticism on social media over its decision to discontinue four characters from the historical collection, two of them, namely African-American Cécile Rey and Chinese-American Ivy Ling, who represented ethnic minorities. They defended their move as a business decision, as they decided to "move away from the character-friend strategy within the line". The company has also drawn criticism for its recent focus on the contemporary line, specifically the Girl of the Year characters and their backstory, to which was viewed as lacking depth and more critical issues in comparison to the Historical/BeForever characters' backstories. My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series creator Lauren Faust also expressed her concern and criticism of the line in a Twitter post, stating it "was once radically positive for girls before it was homogenized for money".
The American Girl Place store in New York City was the center of a labor dispute with Actors' Equity Association (AEA). On August 3, 2006, 14 of the 18 adult actors at the store's now defunct theater went on strike together. AEA reached a two-year contract effective April 1, 2008. All American Girl Place theatres were subsequently closed in September of that year.
Permanent underwear controversy
In February 2017 the company announced that they were changing the certain doll's bodies to incorporate permanently stitched panties. Public reaction to the change—the first since the transition to flesh-colored bodies in 1991—was overwhelmingly negative, as fans of the franchise complained that it stifles customization and devalued a well-established brand "from heirloom quality to be passed down for generations to low-quality retail." The company reversed its decision in May 2017, and customers who bought a doll with permanent underwear were eligible for an exchange to have the dolls retrofitted with conventional torsos.
