As addictive fun as collectible can be, we much appreciate Fantasy Flight’s switch to the living card game format, which gives the casual player an opportunity to benefit from an expanding game world and further play options without putting so much effort (and money) in to the acquisition of cards. Now the company is further extending the benefits of its card games for the casual player, who nevertheless enjoys some friendly competition. At Gen Con, in addition to the traditional tournaments for A Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulhu, Fantasy Flight will be sponsoring alternative League play that works like this:

• Sign up at FFG HQ to receive a league ribbon and 10 tournament tokens.
• Anywhere, anytime throughout the convention weekend, see someone else with the same ribbon and challenge them to a match.
• The winner of the game takes a token from the loser.
• Return to FFG HQ by 11:00 AM Sunday.
• The player with the most tokens will win a special prize.

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A game from the Boggle brand, Body Boggle was created in 1984.

Like Twister, you use your hands and feet to touch the required locations on the playing mat, only you have to spell out words, rather than simply touch the correct extremity to the correct color.

I grew up in the eighties, but I missed out on all the fun.

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Next contender for the World X Championship: marbles.

Since 2005, the Czech Marbles Federation has hosted the World Marbles Championships, whose growth has been hampered by the niggly fact that most countries don’t have a national marbles federation. 2009’s event just took place, supposedly, but no information about participants or results is up, yet.

Thus, they are now promoting the World Marbles Federation [?] (yes, the “[?]” is right there in the title on the web site) to encourage nations to form their own groups, so that they’ll have more people with which to compete.

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While profits were up at Hasbro and Mattel, and toy sales are up around the globe, Jakks Pacific saw income drop $406.5 million in Q2, compared to a gain of $4.2 million Q2 2008. Interestingly, sales were only down a little, from $145.3 million to $144.8 million.

How can this be?

The company took a $407.1 million goodwill impairment charge loss. The company took several other impairment charge losses, most of them intangible and related to “under-utilized” licenses. I.e. Hannah Montana, WWE, Pokémon and Cabbage Patch Kids are not selling as well as would be hoped. Which is odd, since The Hannah Montana Movie was only released a few months ago.

Please note that I am not an accountant, so I probably messed that up terribly. But that’s the gist.

Anyhoo, this means that Jakks will be firing people, and has lowered its profit expectations for the rest of this year.

(source, source)

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The WBC is the most tournament-oriented of board gaming conventions, with events scheduled in 100 different games. It’s been running under the name since 1999, and since 2005 in Lancaster, PA.

Pre-tournament games start this weekend, with the actual championships starting next week.

Don’t go expecting riches, as well as fame; they only award plaques.

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Famed board game geek Rich Sommer tells us that he’s been working on getting the rest of the cast of Mad Men to play board games. (source)

Famed Mormon preacher and sci-fi author Orson Scott Card reveals that he’s also a board game geek. He talks about what makes a good trivia board game and Mormon board game, pimps Blast from the Past, and reveals that he’s played and loved The Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. (source)

The Philippine Daily Inquirer pimps Zingo, Munch Math, and Kids Battle the Grown-Ups. (source)

A report on a recent board game tournament in Bangalore. (source)

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