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December 29, 03 Reader Services |
Dr. Ifay Chang demonstrates "Scrammble," a letter card game he invented and has begun marketing. Game inventor sees success in the cards If you're looking for a card game to while away the hours before New Year's, Dr. Ifay Chang has a suggestion - a game he invented that combines word play, speed and the portability of a deck of cards. Chang's "Scrammble" game uses 136 cards or "tiles," each featuring a letter of the alphabet and its point score. The most commonly used letters like E and T appear on more cards, but command fewer points than letters like X and Z, which appear in the deck only once. Players take turns flipping a card from the deck, then trying to form a word from the exposed letters. The first player who forms a new word collects points - but loses them when the next player takes a card and forms a larger word using that letter and the others. Play continues until every card in the deck is flipped open. The one with the most points is the winner. Chang began marketing Scrammble (www.mwsearch.com/scrammblescrabble.html) this holiday season, at $15 a game. He hopes someday to distribute the game widely enough to make it as familiar to word-game players as Scrabble and UpWords. And like Scrabble, Chang has created variations of his game based around two other card games, mahjong and poker. "With Scrabble, you're playing part of the time, the rest of the time you wait. Here, every second is exciting. You just let go. There's no dull moment in this game," said Chang, the chief executive officer of Internet telephony business IPO2U.com Inc and TLC Information Services, whose menu of information services include Medical World Search (www.mwsearch.com). Both businesses are based in Katonah. Behind the fun of Scrammble, Chang says, is some serious business thinking. The retired Polytechnic University dean hopes someday to make enough money from the game to fund IPO2U and his other tech businesses - such as Magic Mart, an online shopping site that features more than 180 retailers, including national powerhouses like Wal-Mart and Macy's. It was Macy's that helped make Scrabble a household game in the 1950s. Back then Macy's chairman, Jack Strauss, liked it so much he ordered it be stocked in every department store. Chang is hoping for similar magic for his own game, both from game companies willing to partner with him, and from potential buyers - namely, Magic Mart shoppers who use his interactive CD-ROM "Mi-Cards" (short for "magic information" cards) where the game is being promoted. "Naturally, there will be a mutual boost in online activities which no doubt will benefit Scrammble. Will Macy's repeat the history of Scrabble with Scrammble? It would be interesting if history repeated itself," Chang said.
HARDLY CHILD'S PLAY Chang is among the thousands of game inventors eager to crack the $31 billion-a-year toy industry now dominated by a handful of giants like Hasbro - home to Scrabble and UpWords seller Milton Bradley - and Mattel, the home of Barbie and Hot Wheels. "The toy industry is one of the most accessible industries to new ideas. With that said, it also sees a lot of product," said Carol Rehtmeyer, president of both the nonprofit Toy and Game Industry Foundation and Rehtmeyer Inc., an agency representing toy inventors. Both are based in Naperville, Ill. Card games, she said, are harder to merchandise because their small size makes them harder to display on store shelves, absent a tie-in to a hit property like "Pokemon." Rehtmeyer advises game inventors to seek novel outlets for their products - a strategy used by two former Microsoft executives when they created Cranium in 1998, then rolled it out at Starbucks coffee houses nationwide. Chang said he began developing the game with family fun, not business, in mind in the 1980s, during a day at the beach in Singapore. After the tech bubble burst in 2000, Chang said, he began seeing the card game as a means to fund new ventures. Chang applied last year for a U.S. patent for Scrammble, and is also seeking an international patent for the game that would cover 121 countries. If Chang's wife, six children and other family members are any indication, Scrammble is on its way to success: "My kids really love it."
- By ALEX PHILIPPIDIS |
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Copyright 2003, Westfair Communications Inc. |