Why Scrabble Is Making A Comeback

Board games are a given in many social gatherings all over the word. Whether or not they’re played at a party, a weekly get-together of friends or are just seen as a solution for boredom or for any of the myriad of other excuses that there are, board games have remained to be popular in spite of the changing entertainment opportunities which are given to consumers by technology.

Many of these games come and go, however there are some that persist through time and have really become classics. Monopoly, Life and a one or two others come to mind. However one that truly sticks out is Scrabble. The only board games that have sold more than Scrabble are Checkers, Chess and Backgammon, largely owing to the abundant licensing of those particular products. However why is Scrabble so popular and persistent?

Scrabble Began With A Crash

Sadly, there were many victims of America’s Great Depression in 1929. However in 1933 an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts invented a game which would lift the spirits of millions.

Coming from Poughkeepsie, New York, Butts had taken to analysing popular games, defining three different categories: number games, for example dice and bingo; move games, for example chess and checkers; and word games, for example anagrams. Also, he noted, “…there is one thing that makes sure that word games are not as popular as card games: these have no score.”

In an attempt to combine the thrill of chance and skill, Butts intertwined the aspects of anagrams and the traditional crossword puzzle into a scoring word game that was first called LEXIKO. This was then perfected during the early 1930s and 1940s to become CRISS CROSS WORDS.

A Mathematical Based Letters Game

Legend has it Butts analysed the front page of “The New York Times” in order to make his calculations for the distribution of letters in the game. This skilled, cryptographic analysis of our language was the basis of the original tile distribution, which has stayed constant through nearly three generations and billions of games.

Nonetheless, established game manufacturers simultaneously slammed the door on Butts’ invention. It was only when Butts happened to meet James Brunot, who was a game-loving entrepreneur, that the idea became a commercial reality.

Together these two men refined the rules and design and then, most significantly, came up with the name SCRABBLE – which is a word defined as ‘to grasp, collect, or hold on to something’; and a word which truly captured the essence of this remarkable concept.

An Eye Opener

Just like when you play at Philippines mobile casinos, if you play sufficient games of Scrabble you will come to view the world around you in a very different manner. You will look at risk in a different way. You will look at opportunities in a different way. Entrepreneurs dream up ideas which are different enough from the competition to be successful. Playing mind-bending games such as Scrabble may even help you to keep your wits about you as you get older. There are axioms that are embedded in the principles of the game of Scrabble which are relevant to quotidian life and to life in the business world.