Scrabble: the game that has brought families together and caused chaotic arguments in equal measure.
But now in what will either bring music to people’s ears or cause groans of disappointment, the competitive edge of the board game could be lessened.
Mattel has launched a new way to play the game with a version of Scrabble that has a double-sided board designed so people can team up and play, completing goal cards at their chosen challenge level.
They also get helper cards that players can use throughout the game, and a quicker game with simple scoring. The aim, Mattel said, was to make it more inclusive for anyone who finds word games intimidating.
Ray Adler, vice-president and global head of games at Mattel, said: “Scrabble has truly stood the test of time as one of the most popular board games in history, and we want to ensure the game continues to be inclusive for all players. For anyone who’s ever thought ‘word games aren’t for me’, or felt a little intimidated by the classic game, Scrabble Together mode is an ideal option.”
Adler said the game still allows players to celebrate the “wonder of words” but also “brings people together”.
Brett Smitheram, 2016 world Scrabble champion, said the new game “speaks to a trend in younger people who want to avoid competitive games and sense of losing, instead favouring teamwork and collaboration working towards a fun goal together”.
Fresh research to coincide with the launch of the new game found that over half (51%) of board game players use it as a way of unplugging from social media and 65% said it helped them switch off.
The research found that each generation enjoys board games for different reasons, with half (55%) of board game players aged 34-54 doing it to relax and 69% of 25- to 34-year-olds playing to connect with friends.
When it comes to competitive gameplay, 35% of Britons think that baby boomers are the most competitive, followed by millennials (31%), with only 29% saying Gen Z is the most competitive generation.
Almost half (49%) of Scrabble players have tried to make up a new word to win, and 75% of those aged 25-34 have had to search a word to check it is real.
Scrabble has long been known for introducing new words in the official gameplay dictionary. In 2022 the Merriam-Webster dictionary released the seventh edition of its Scrabble Players Dictionary, the official referee on what words are eligible in the popular game, which had 500 new words added.
Some of the expanded lexicon included terms initially popularised in slang, such as adorbs (adorable), amirite (am I right) and bae (loosely, babe). Others stem from the world of current affairs, such as subtweet and vax.
