Family game night popularity increases; Games improve kids’ math skills

Here’s an interesting article published by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on Sunday. It highlights the ability of board games to bring families together. At the end of the article, there’s a snippet that mentions a study conducted by a Carnegie-Mellon professor that shows that board games can improve math skills. Certain number skills increase as much as 40%. Just one more reason to get your family board games on.

Board game sales up 10%

From time to time we like to update our readers as to the state of the board game industry in general. Recently Market Watch reported that U.S. board game sales are up 10% in the first six months of 2009. The data was collected from the NPD research group.

This helps to confirm that board games sales tend to thrive during a down economy. The value you get out of a board game, particularly in terms of hours of entertainment, far outshine most other entertainment products. Board games are a great way for the family to get together for quality, interactive entertainment on a tight budget.

I expect that board game sales will continue to grow over the next 5 years quite dramatically. The new breed of Euro-games have yet to really penetrate the mass market. When they do, growth rates should spurt.

Read the original Market Watch article