Australia’s Inside Retailing has an interesting stat about this year’s holiday shopping: close to 20% will shop for an iPad, and 33% for an iPod or other MP3 player. 45% will shop for a board game or puzzle. 45%. (source)

Chris Palmarozzi writes an interesting post comparing BGG.con (board games) with QuakeCon (video games). (source)

Holiday Promotions

Hundreds of newspapers and TV stations are promoting top toys for the holidays, and the vast majority include non-electronic games or electronic versions of non-electronic games, such as Scrabble Flash. We’ll only cover a few here; we’ve already covered some, and we’ll cover a few more in the next weeks.

If your local newspaper or TV station mentioned a game, feel free to comment on this post with a link.

The Kansas City Star promotes Perplexus, Puzzleball, Rubik’s Cube, the game store Marbles: The Brain Store, ColorKu, Posh Sudoku, Pengoloo, Sort It Out, Kwizniac, Scene It? Twilight [All three movies deluxe edition, only $10!], Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer DVD Game. (source) The post is about games that “don’t require any wires”, so it’s strange to find a few DVD and electronic games in there.

The Lincoln Journal Star promotes twists on old games, such as Monopoly Revolution, U-Build Monopoly, Game of Life 50th Anniversary, Scrabble Flash, Scruble Cube, Trivial Pursuit Bet You Know It, and various editions of Clue. (source)

The London Evening Standard promotes the Board Game Remix Kit. (source)

The Charleston Daily Mail promoted Wits & Wagers Family. (source)

Rutherford’s Daily News Journal promotes local toy and game stores. (source)

The Valley Advocate promotes cooperative games such as Forbidden Island, Pandemic, Arkham Horror, Castle Panic, and Werewolf. (source)

Cincinnati.com promotes local game design think tanks. (source)

The St Louis Post-Dispatch promotes Diplomacy and Pit. (source)