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Faltering economy is good news for makers of popular board games
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Oscar Haider graduated college, started a family, lost his accounting job, became a lawyer, bought a house and sued his sister, Aliza, for $100,000 ... all in the span of an hour.
Haider, 7, recently played the board game Life with a handful of children at the Atlantic County Library's Brigantine branch. It was the library's third board and electronic game day this year.
During the two-hour event, the library's basement filled with the click-clack of die and ch-ch-ch-ch-ch of a spinning wheel and laughter from a group of children who, for a moment or two, could be anyone or do everything they desired ... even sue their sister for $100,000.
"You have the most money," Oscar Haider told Aliza, justifying his decision.
According to the research firm NPD Group, U.S. families bought $794 million worth of board games in 2008, a 6 percent ($45 million) increase over the previous year. This came in a year when overall toy sales dropped 3 percent. Due to the economy and all of its subplots, family game night is back.
Gina Husta and her husband divorced years ago, and board games allow her to spend more time with her children. The Brigantine family often plays games on Fridays.
"It's nice for us to do something together," Husta said.
Husta's 11-year-old son, Cody, loves Monopoly. His older siblings taught him how to play. He enjoys the concept of property and rent and luxury tax, as well as some less glamorous parts of the game.
"It's fun because you get to deal with money and go to jail," Cody Husta said.
Joe Sequino is the vice president of marketing for Winning Moves, a company that produces Monopoly: the Mega Edition and Super Scrabble and the board games you see in mall kiosks.
One of Winning Moves' biggest sellers is a remake of the 1959 version of Risk. The board is thicker, the game pieces wooden. The game brings back memories for people. Sequino says nostalgia is a major selling point for board games.
"When young adults become new parents and they want to teach their children a board game, they reach for Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders because they remember playing it during their own childhood," Sequino said. "It's a big reason why it's difficult to introduce something brand new."
Gina Lemon's family is trying to buck that trend. Last year, in the worst economic climate in at least a generation, her family founded Lemon Tree Games, a Minnesota-based board game company. The gaming venture pulled from a dream of her father-in-law's - he envisioned a traditional backyard game of hide-and-seek on a board, so the family drew hide-and-seek paths in a shoebox and followed the paths with stick pins.
Then they drew the game to scale and pasted it atop a Monopoly board.
The Lemons found an artist and publisher. A company in China produced the game boards. They ordered 1,000 copies of "Hide and Seek." More than 200 of those games are being enjoyed in 15- to 45-minute blocks.
The family's goal is to produce one board game a year. For now, that's still in the dream stage.
"The pie in the sky for us would be to have a bigger company buy the game because it's so popular," Lemon said.
Sequino says the current board game popularity makes sense. For $20, you can buy a board game that will provide hours upon hours of family enjoyment, or for the same price you can go to a movie theater and watch a 90-minute movie. And chomp $6 popcorn and sip a gigantic $5 soda.
Sequino says board games' biggest threat is video games, they of online multiplayer gaming and crisp action and first-person perspective. At the Brigantine library event, chess and Clue Jr. and the Ladybug Game gathered in piles on brown folding tables. Across the room, a Nintendo Wii video game system was hooked into a television, a perfect juxtaposition of technology and simplicity.
Sit around a table or go virtual bowling?
One boy chose the bowling. He stood in front of the TV waving the Wii wand about, rolling gutter balls and splits until he worked up a sweat. In the meantime, Oscar Haider visited an old soldiers' home and earned a LIFE tile.
According to the NPD Group, a firm that tracks video game industry sales, Americans bought $21 billion worth of video games last year - 26 times the amount of board game sales. But the board game spike suggests the two can co-exist.
"Video games and board games certainly have overlap in their reach and consumer interests, but there's still nothing that will replace people sitting down at a table, playing a game and laughing it up," he said.
Oscar Haider maneuvered his car-shaped pawn through the LIFE board's twists and turns, over the hills, through the pitfalls of marriage. Eventually a pink chip stood inside the car next to his blue chip, but somewhere between his mid-life crisis and suing his sister, Oscar's pink chip fell out of the car. He tried to wedge it back in with the tips of his fingers, but that didn't quite work to plan.
"There's your wife, her name is Betty, and you dropped Betty on the floor," said Lesa Keener, the library employee who organized the board game event.
Ah, the beauty of board games. You can drop your wife on the ground without retribution and sue your sister and everyone laughs about it.
E-mail Dan Good:
Changing tastes in gaming
Posted in LIFE on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 6:15 am Updated: 6:37 am.
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