<<Internet Games, Province of Youth,
Are Turning a Little Gray in Spots
By JOSEPH PEREIRA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Bill Brumley is hunched over the computer in his study, playing spades on the Internet. Each time he clicks the mouse, a card falls from his virtual hand onto a pea-green virtual table.
It is 2 a.m. The floor is littered with empty potato-chip bags and discarded Evian bottles. The next move will be Mr. Brumley's 1,951st turn. He has been at it for more than 14 hours straight.
"This is sick," says the 52-year-old retiree, echoing sentiments sometimes expressed by his wife, children and cognitive therapist. "But, hey, I've got nothing better to do."
Cyberpunk, meet Cyberpops. The online-games domain, once the realm of tireless adolescents, is fast becoming the realm of tireless older guys.
Aging Demographics
Between 10 million and 20 million people over 45 are playing games on the Internet, according to the major site sponsors -- far outnumbering the young action-game players, who were the pioneers but number only about one million. Monikers such as Deathstalker, DoomGal and BeastFeast can still be found on game sites. But log on some nights, and you're more likely to find players with screen names like Woodstock69, RingoFan and Troubledwaters. Sheila Havensburg, a 57-year-old in St. Paul, Minn., plays on MSN's Zone site as Grandma87. She needed the number because so many other grandmas were registered ahead of her.
Join the Discussion: Will online role-playing communities prove to be the future of gaming?
Old blood has infused new life into a number of Internet game companies. San Francisco's Total Entertainment Network typifies the trend. Started in 1996, it originally featured copyrighted action games such as Duke Nukem, Quake and Doom. Players had to buy maybe $40 worth of software to get started, and pay monthly fees to play online. But subscriptions hit a wall at about 25,000, too small a market to survive.
Two years ago, the company reincarnated itself as Pogo.com Inc. -- a name chosen to remind players of the old comic strip and the pogo stick of yesteryear. Like other sites, Pogo (www.pogo.com) picked up card games and amusements such as chess, checkers and backgammon, which are in the public domain and could be carried -- and played -- free of charge. The business model shifted toward advertising and away from usage fees. Pogo users have since multiplied to more than 2.6 million, with 10,000 new visitors signing up every month.
The retooling has also meant revival for the old card game spades. Night after night, spades draws as many as 50,000 competitors at big sites, including Pogo, Zone, Yahoo!, Won.Net and Mplayer.
Spade Work
The game originated in Cincinnati in the late 1930s, according to Joseph Andrews, a card researcher and author of the book "Win at Spades." It became a GI favorite during World War II because it could be learned -- and wagered on -- easily, with fast-paced hands that end quickly so the game "could be interrupted at any time, especially during battle conditions," says Mr. Andrews.
A rounds game like hearts or pinochle with some similarities to bridge, spades is played by four paired players, who bid, or try to predict how many of the 13 plays they will win in each hand. Each win, or trick, counts as 10 points. The duo that wins is the first to reach 500. A couple of devilish twists -- including a penalty for exceeding bids, and a 100-point bonus for successfully predicting that you will take no tricks in a hand -- puts some deftness into the game.
The social aspects of the online version are a big attraction. Chats about the weather, family and food can take up about as much time as the play itself.
Last year, Noreen Davis, a 69-year-old Floridian, came to the aid of pregnant mother Jennifer Logan, 34, who went into labor at home near St. Louis during a game. "I called for an ambulance and stayed with her on the Internet while help arrived to keep her from panicking," says Ms. Davis "There was no one at home with her at the time." Ms. Logan gave birth to a healthy baby girl, now four months old.
Jack Nieblas, of Minneapolis, recalls a game last fall when everyone paused for a minute of silence after learning that a fellow online spades player had died. Kary Kost and Noreen Manvell met playing spades online and now live together in Nashville, Tenn. The two have set up a spades Web site and organize tournaments around the country.
On the major sites, players are ranked daily, with their standings posted for all to see. It can become an obsession, as Mr. Brumley, a former telephone company technician in San Diego, has learned.
Last fall, when an area of Southern California desert was rocked by a 7.1-grade earthquake at about 2 in the morning, "my computer monitor started to blink and my partner in Pasadena went offline," he recalls. The game resumed -- after about a 20-minute delay.
Last year, Mr. Brumley got a call from his daughter in college in Chicago asking him to come visit. Laurie Champion, Mr. Brumley's wife, figured that that would mean a welcome break from spades. But soon after Mr. Brumley arrived in Chicago, he bought a new computer, claiming that he wanted his daughter to have access to the Internet, says Ms. Champion, an English professor at San Diego State University.
"Next thing, my daughter's calling me in disbelief, saying, 'Mother, Dad's on the Internet all the time,' " says Ms. Champion. " 'He sits there in front of the computer all night punching on the keyboard and laughing.' "
Mr. Brumley, whose nom de guerre is "Fizban99," has set up a bed next to his computer so he doesn't wake his wife late at night when he is ready to go to sleep. After an intense round of night games, "I'll look out the window and realize, 'Wow, it's daylight already,' " he says. The computer is used only for playing spades and receiving e-mail.
Ms. Champion is philosophical about her husband's pursuit, which has therapeutic value since he suffered a stroke two years ago and now has trouble doing crossword puzzles.
But online, Mr. Brumley has become a contender. The week of March 27, he was ranked No. 4 among 2,630 Yahoo spades players tracked by Case's Ladder, a ranking system that follows online competition.
Ms. Champion, who has published several short stories, is planning to write a novel using spades as a metaphor. In the book, a character based on her husband will be nicknamed Jack of Spades. The card is outranked, of course, by others. "But at least the Jack will always be there for you. That's what Bill is," says Ms. Champion. "He'll always be there." Besides, she adds, "Bill's such a good source of material, I could never leave him>>
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