"Video Games Vs. Board Games":The case for a [timely] Hasbro acq. of NewKidCo?
"...Wandering in pre-Christmas bliss down towering canyons of gleaming merchandise at a suburban toy store, little Stephen Wulff kept right on walking when ''Clue,'' ''Easy Money'' and other board games came into view.
These were not the 6-year-old's Holy Grail, his pot of gold, the gifts he is hoping to find beneath his Christmas tree.
''He likes video games mostly,'' sighed Stephen's mother, Stephanie Wulff. For Christmas, Stephen wants a shoot-em-up video game whose characters come from the animated movie ''Small Soldiers.''
Many baby-boomers wistfully recall sitting around a card table with their own families and bonding over a game of ''Monopoly.'' And, they complain, their own children spend way too much time alone in cyberspace and way too little time interacting with the rest of the family.
It's that nostalgia that the makers of board games are capitalizing on. Only family board games have seen increasing sales in recent years.
The traditional board game market as a whole has been left in the dust by today's high-tech games. Sales of all types of board games last year were about one-quarter of the nearly $4 billion in sales of computer and video games, according to NPD Research Group, a research marketing firm in Port Washington, N.Y.
And while the disparity is expected to grow, game makers think there is still potential for sales of board games. Hasbro (AMEX:HAS - news), which owns Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley and markets a number of CD-ROM computer games based on board games, has been running ad campaigns that aim to get more Americans to play -- and buy -- board games in their traditional format...Still, over the course of an hour at a Kay-Bee toy store in Cranston, the only people who stopped to peruse the board games were mothers, some of them with completely disinterested kids in tow...''Video games are just more exciting,'' said 12-year-old Corey Topp, who was wandering around the toy store with his older brother, 13-year-old Ryan.
The boys have about 10 board games at home, including ''Risk'' and ''Monopoly,'' and they also have about 15 video games -- mainly PlayStation products.
And the brothers gave a head-shaking ''he must be crazy'' look when asked which they play more..."
source: © 1998 By TERRENCE PETTY
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