Business Blog: Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Anyone for a game of Monopoly? Or maybe Halo 3?

Whether they’re played on a brightly colored piece of cardboard or an even brighter HD screen, games take center stage for many children over the holiday season. My own kids’ pipe dream of a Christmas gift is a Nintendo Wii system, which is still selling rings around the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony Playstation 3 a year and a half after its release. In fact, the Wii has been so popular this season that Nintendo has launched a “raincheck” program to pacify shoppers who haven’t been able to lay hands on one. (No comment on whether Santa will be delivering a Wii to the Walker household this year.)

Whether their kids receive a big video game console, a handheld unit like the Nintendo DS or the Playstation Portable, or a board game like the new Simpsons version of Monopoly, many parents will find themselves playing games for the first time in ages during the weeks their children stay home from school around the holidays. (If you have children of the age to play Candyland and the weather keeps everyone indoors in this month, you have my sympathies.)

Board Games Regain Popularity

Your options for games to play are endless. After some ups and downs over the past 20 years,* many classic board games that I grew up with are still going strong, starting with titans like Monopoly and Scrabble. (Both Parker Brothers, which makes Monopoly, and Milton Bradley, which makes Scrabble, are owned by Hasbro.) After playing The Game of LIFE at my sister’s house over the Thanksgiving holiday, my kids pooled their money to buy an updated spinoff from the game called LIFE Twists and Turns. In the game, each player gets a faux credit card that is used with an electronic controller that keeps track of debts, assets, and the “Life Points” each player earns for experiences like having children or taking trips abroad.

Video Games Continue to Dominate

Even stronger is the market for video games, which in recent years has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry larger than the theatrical movie business. We’ve talked before about the ongoing rivalry between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, in which the industry’s mighty mite — Nintendo — continues to school is much larger rivals. While the Wii continues its blockbuster run and the Xbox 360 gains traction in the market, Sony’s PS3 continues to struggle; this holiday shopping season looms large in the history of the PS3, which needs to make more inroads among serious gamers if Sony wants to stay strong in the video game business.

For an expert take on the games available for all of the Big Three’s systems, check out this buyer’s guide from IGN.

Free Online Games Galore

Maybe the holidays will leave you with time on your hands while you’re at the computer. (I’m not saying it’s going to be boring in your office, but just in case it turns out to be . . .) Here are a few of my own favorites from the countless free games available online:

• Planarity: Just untangle the lines by moving the dots. Deceptively simple — at first.
• Blueprint: Move the components so the ball hits the target. Elementary physics meets addictive fun.
• The Left Brain/Right Brain Crossword Puzzle: Seems like a standard British-style crossword puzzle until you grasp the point of the game. Highly thought-provoking. (By the way, the Militant Platypus site has hundreds of free games available across several categories. You could easily blow a whole weekend rummaging around there.)
• If you like Tetris and you want to exercise your US geographic knowledge, try Stateris. (Other versions available for other countries.)
• Scrabulous: Play Scrabble against other people online in real time. You just sign up, then either join a game or start your own. Also available as an extra-addictive Facebook add-in.
• Babble: Works just like Scrabulous — you play against other people online — but with a different, and possibly even more addictive, word game.
• 50 Brain Puzzles from SharpBrains. Something for everyone.
• Interactive Sudoku from The Times of London. Various newspapers and other sites offer free interactive Sudoku, but this page from the Times is the best one I’ve found. Watch out, though, when they say a puzzle is “Fiendish,” they mean it!

That’s plenty to get you going. Let the holiday-season games begin!

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Previous posts about gaming:

• How will Halo help Microsoft?
• The best thing I’ve read about Nintendo’s Wii.
• The Wii little dragon-slayer of the video game industry.

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* For more on the resurgence of board games in this era of video-game dominance, check out this Boston Globe article:

Low-tech gamers remain loyal to the board

. . . round-the-table gaming remains a prominent American pastime, and recently, board games have enjoyed a revival.

Sales have more than doubled in the past nine years, according to market research firm NPD Group. In 1998, nationwide sales were roughly $314 million; last year, they grew to $802.2 million, an increase of 13 percent over 2005.

Analysts and fans attribute the comeback to a “cocooning” effect in the early 2000s, during which more people stayed home with their families. Others credit the Internet with helping board game lovers find one another and start groups.

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