Forbes: Board Games Are Back

July 10, 2009

NEW YORK (Fortune) — Mattel is betting on Blokus.

For the uninitiated, that’s a quick strategy game that bears just about no resemblance to the mainstream big sellers such as Uno for which Mattel (MAT, Fortune 500) is known. But when the company acquired Blokus earlier this year, it was to capitalize on the growing cachet hobby games have with twentysomethings — a demographic that Mattel’s aggressively pursuing, says Geoff Walker, Mattel’s senior vice president of Wheels, Games and Radica.

It may seem like an odd move, but not only have hobby games like Blokus taken hold with the next generation, board games on the whole have seen a bounce in the past year. In 2008, board game sales climbed 23.5% to about $808 million, and they’re expected to grow more this year…

For full details go to:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/10/news/economy/board_games_resurgence.fortune/