Scrabble Is Still A Great Board Game!Posted by Wynn Nieves on May 19th, 2021 Scrabble is one of the most popular board games around. It is a word game where two to four players use individual lettered tiles to form words on a game board marked with a 15x15 grid. Additional hints are each worth a particular amount of points, and the points are added around obtain the player's score for that round. Additionally, there are Additional hints on the board that double or triple the points of the tile placed there. The overall game was invented by an architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, in 1938. He wished to create a new game, and analyzed what kinds of games were available. He discovered they fell virtually into three categories: number games, such as bingo, dice;and dominoes; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams. Butts decided to make a game combining chance and skill, so he used features of crossword puzzles and anagrams to make his game. To create his new game, he combined elements of doing anagrams and partly how you work a crossword puzzle. To decide on letter distribution, Butts studied the front page of THE BRAND NEW York Times and did painstaking calculations of letter frequency. His basic cryptographic analysis of English, together with the original tile distribution he exercised to match the letter frequency continue to be valid after all these years. His first word game was called Lexiko. Later he decided to create a variation with the board and crossword-type game play and named it "Criss-Crosswords". Bonza Word Puzzle featured a game board manufactured from architectural blueprint paper glued onto a vintage chess board. Although Butts made a few sets of the overall game himself, he didn't have much luck selling the game, no major game manufacturer would buy his invention. Later, around 1948, he met James Brunot. He owned one of the original Criss-Crosswords games, and bought the rights to manufacture the game from Butts in trade for a royalty on the sale of the games. Although he left almost all of the game the same, he did change the rules to make it easier to play. He also slightly rearranged the premium squares and changed the name to Scrabble. The game was not an instant success. Butts and his family made 2,400 sets of the game that first year, and lost money carrying it out. However, the overall game steadily grew in popularity. Then in the first 1950s, the president of Macy's tried the overall game while on vacation and liked it so much, he ordered it to sell in his store. That was the tipping point, and inside a year, Scrabble was so popular the games were being rationed to stores around the country. As Scrabble grew in popularity, it found the point Brunot could no more meet up with the demand, so he sold the manufacturing rights to Long Island-based Selchow and Righter (one of many manufacturers who, like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected the game). Selchow & Righter bought the trademark to the game in 1972. In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold the game to Coleco, who immediately after went bankrupt. The business's assets, including Scrabble and Parcheesi, were purchased by Hasbro. Today Scrabble is really a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the usa and Canada and of Mattel elsewhere. This game is indeed popular, it is sold in 121 countries in 29 different language versions. One hundred and fifty million sets have been sold worldwide, and sets are located in one out of every three American homes. It will come in a typical, Deluxe and Junior edition, and also a travel edition. There is a Spanish and a French version. It might be played on computers, Sony PSP, and the Nintendo DS.Like it? Share it! More by this author |