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lot of boxed games have hit the
shelves for the holiday season.
Among them, adult games — usu-
ally defined as games where at least
half the players are over age 18 — are plen-
tiful. Just about every game manufacturer is
touting new titles along with old standards.
But, unlike the mid-1980s, when Trivial Pur-
suit became the Cabbage Patch doll of the
board game industry, no "must have" game
has emerged this year.
It's possible, of course, that one game will
become a major hit. "It is very hard to
predict the success of board games," says Ed
Roth, vice president for two services of the
N.P.D. Group, a Long Island, N.Y., market
research firm that monitors consumer
items, including toys and games. "It's like
the fashion industry. You are never sure
what is going to happen."
Why one game captures the public's fancy
and another languishes in stores is a ques-
tion game inventors and would-be inventors
wrestle with every working day. Lee
Gelber, vice president and national sales
manager for the Games Gang, which markets
Pictionary, a continuing best seller since
it was introduced in 1986, focuses on four
elements.
"The chief purpose of the game has to be
to amuse; it has to be fun," says Mr. Gelber.
"Then, it can't be too specialized; it needs to
have a certain packaging style, and I'd say
the retail price shouldn't exceed $29.95."
And, unlike many products where a major
advertising campaign promotes stardom,
games rely heavily on word-of-mouth ex-
posure. "You have someone over and play a
game," adds Mr. Gelber. "They like it and
they have to have it, too. Or, people go into a
store and ask for a good game to play after
cocktails and dinner." Good public relations
help as well as unintentional celebrity con-

Some games soar
to popularity.
Others languish on
store shelves.
Game makers dance
to a tune of a
fickle public.

■

BETH SMITH

Special to The Jewish News

nections. When Johnny Carson played the
Scruples game on his television show, sales
soared.
Occasionally, companies actively market
games, particularly in the big game-buying
months of the year — October through Mar-
ch. The Games Gang is currently promoting
a new game called Songburst in selected
cities. In Songburst, players put the
finishing touches on the lyrics to the great
oldies-but-goodies songs from the '50s and
'60s; the less help in finishing the lyrics, the
more points.
Avalon Hill, a company with one of the
largest game lines in the country, is about
to launch a major campaign for a new game
called Adel Verpflichtet. Originally
manufactured by a German publishing
house, it involves the buying and selling of
antiques and paintings. The radio promo-

tion will promise "a free game for anyone
who can pronounce the title," says Phyllis
Opolko, marketing manager.
Timing is important to the success of a
game. Mr. Gelber has a theory that all the
really blockbuster games hit the market
when times were tough. "Monopoly came
out in 1935 at the height of the Great
Depression, and then Scrabble, the next big
rage, was the hottest game going during the
Eisenhower recession of the mid-1950s," he
says. "MasterMind caught on during the
fuel crisis of the 1970s, and the Trivial Pur-
suit craze hit just about the same time as
the economic downturn of the early Reagan
administration."
Mr. Gelber hypothesizes that people
gravitate to board games when life looks
gloomy because they just don't have the
money for glitzy entertaining and/or they
just like the warm, comforting feeling of
gathering around in a group to play a game.
Given the current economic climate —
and the great numbers of baby boomers who
have reached an age where staying home on
Saturday night looks pretty good, a major
game range should hit any day not — accord-
ing to Mr. Gelber's theory. So far, though,
adult board games, with retail sales totall-
ing $130 million, are just a blip in the $14 to
$17 billion toy market.
However, a different picture emerges in
the traditional game market, which is gen-
erally leveling off or losing ground due to
the popularity of video and electronic
games. Here, the "adult segment of the
market is one area of growth," says Frank
Reysen, editor of Playthings, a trade maga-
zine for the toy and game industry. He
doesn't know exactly why, but he thinks it's
aging baby boomers looking for in-home in-
expensive, family-oriented entertainment.
Based on sales from January through

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS