Thursday, September 10, 2009

New Family Night Centers at your local Walmart

I've been disgustingly busy at work for the past month or so, but the following article just caught my eye:

Walmart Adds 'Family Night Center' in All Stores for Creating a Night of Activities...
BENTONVILLE, Ark., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to moms' rising
interest in more affordable entertainment activities at home, Walmart is
featuring a new "Family Night Center" in all stores this month. The area aims
to help customers find new ideas for memorable family time activities and
savings on popular items from Hasbro and Disney among others in a convenient
"one-stop" area.
Now, at first I thought they meant they were actually setting up tables for people to come play at, and that was a LOT more intriguing than the reality. This is just another marketing tactic to push their existing products for people to buy and take home.

It mentions that board game sales are up 10% for the first half of 2009 vs. the same time period for 2008. I like that Walmart is putting a focus on board games as a family activity, but I question how much of that sales bump was a result of Chutes and Ladders vs. Catan and friends, who, at least in this article, have been left out in the cold like Sneetches with no stars on their bellies.

What's it going to take for designer games to get an invite to the party? They're certainly more mainstream than they were even just 6 months ago, in my opinion.

1 comment:

  1. You know, I didn't know what it was, but I saw this at Walmart over the weekend. It is basically a big section in or near the toys, where they have featured some main stream games. They have some shelves that stand out and they have the games paired up with candy, soad and chips. It definitely stood out.

    Travis R

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