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Games Magazine Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008

GiftTRAP wins GAMES Magazine’s “Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008”

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Click here to find out how we’ve turned gift giving into a hilarious social experience

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Puts your gifts to the test!

GiftTRAP is the hilarious new game that’s taking the gaming world by storm and putting the social back into board games.

The goal is to really get to know your friends and family.

You win by knowing your friends and choosing the right gifts, but most of all it’s just fun to play and gets you talking about things that matter.

• 3-8 Players, 5+
• Playtime 45-75 mins
• Learn in 10 mins

• 1 full size game board
• 640 Gift Ideas
• Rules
• 8 Organza Gift Bags containing; scoring markers, gift & choice tokens plus advanced strategy cards

Love to play Trivial Pursuit, Cranium or Apples to Apples - You will love this family party game.

GiftTRAP is all the fun of Secret Santa without needing to shop or wrap.

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What kind of Gift Giver are you?

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Speaking an indie board game publisher of an award winning game called GiftTRAP I find this baffling.

I’d be happy if someone was creating half a million conversations about my brand every day and I’m sure many other “indie” game companies would agree.

I’ve created my own Facebook app to promote my game about exchanging virtual gifts a bit like Secret Santa, so I have total respect for the Scrabulous guys.

Creating a loyal active following like Scrabulous is an impressive achievement, and something I doubt that Hasbro/Mattel will recreate, especially when their efforts divide the globe. This is so “old school” and so “lawyer-driven”.

I can understand that Hasbro was forced into this simply by the argument that they had to be seen to enforce their IP or they were creating nightmares down the road, but acquisition or some kind of deal for an undisclosed sum could have kept everyone happy.

Scrabulous was “edgy” because of it’s obvious illegality and in support of the small guys. The two brothers from India vs Hasbro and Mattel makes such a great “Davids and Golliaths” story it’s easy to see why the app and the story has spread.

Having Habsbro and Mattel in on the game can’t be a simply deal to strike for anyone.

It’s got to be hard when sites like Adonomics.com as putting huge values on the Scrabulous app.

I just can’t help wonder what a PR company would have charged to create this much noise!

As a board game publisher, I know lots of independent board game publishers who, like me, would jump at the chance of getting 500k users per day playing and talking about your game even if you didn’t own the site that’s collecting $25k/month in ad revenue.

Hasbro and Mattel have both benefited from sales increases due to the born again popularity of their cash-cow game. They sell over a million copies a year when really nobody really needs another copy.

Scrabble is a board game that’s not turn based. Scrabulous is an online game. There are as many differences as there are similarities. Scrabulous defined the bar for an online word game. I think they may regret having copied the board so precisely.

Scrabulous have made the game work online and generated a dedicated crowd and this is no small task,

Now, as a follower, Hasbro with all the fuss has only managed 10k users per day, which isnt too impressive.

Isn’t Scrabulous just a better Mouse Trap they didnt copy an online version, as Scrabble didnt have one. There are other copies too and I bet they arenҒt being sued, simply because they havent created the attention or the dedicated crowd.

There are many other “copycat” game apps on Facebook and they aren’t getting sued.

I have total respect for the Scrabulous guys. We created a Facebook app in the vein of Free Gifts to help promote our game but getting your social app moving is no mean feat.  Translating a board game to an online game is far from obvious.

The Free Gifts apps get 100k daily active users on Facebook, which is pretty cool. Our game precedes Free Gifts, but you cant fight the viral nature and youve got to be first on the right platform.

Check out our app here; http://apps.new.facebook.com/gifttrap/

Unlike the Free Gifts app your friend gets to choose their own gift, the question is will you match. We have turned virtual gifts into a game.

The GiftTRAP board game is on sale in Barnes and Noble right now which is pretty cool (no doubt next to Scrabble). I’m just a few million copies behind them but gaining fast, but then we do have some pretty cool awards to our name.

I hope Facebook doesn’t drop Scrabulous. My sense is they will, but it’s hard to call.

This is a very smart move for Bananagrams, but why announce without their Facebook app being live (or at least in pre-register mode).

Bananagrams in Barnes and Noble along GiftTRAP , in fact we share the same distributor

I’m sure Bananagrams and Majesco have been thinking about grabbing some a bunch of users from Scrabulous before Hasbro munches it up.

They must have been taken by surprise by the lawsuit, but in many ways its a great time for them to announce, but they should have had their press machine ready and waiting for Hasbro’s law suit.

Bananagrams may even be a simpler quicker more Facebook friendly game. I can’t wait to see it.

We created a Facebook app in the vein of Free Gifts to help promote our award winning board game but getting your social app moving is no mean feat. Translating a board game to an online game is far from obvious. The scrabulous guys did a good job. I hope Bananagrams do an equally good job.

The Free Gifts apps get 100k daily active users on Facebook, which is pretty cool. Our game precedes Free Gifts and the whole “Virtual Gift” trend, but were happy it exists to promote the idea of giving gifts for fun. Free Gifts and Secret Santa have made our job of explaining a new type of game much simpler.

Bananagrams has Scrabble to thank for making their job of selling a word game so much easier.

Check out our app here; http://apps.new.facebook.com/gifttrap/

Unlike the Free Gifts app your friend gets to choose their own gift, the question is will you match. We have turned virtual gifts into a game.

I hope Facebook doesn’t drop Scrabulous. My sense is they will, but it’s hard to call. Either way I’m sure Scrabulous will pick up a good number of users.

As Black Friday looms and the bargain choices abound for the shopping season, the shackles of etiquette can make all of us experience “giftburn” - the fear of giving or receiving the “not so perfect” gift. According to research at gifttrap.com, giftburn costs more than personal angst. Over the course of a lifetime, each consumer will spend an estimated $8,000 or more in giving unwanted gifts.

Kelowna, BC November 21, 2007—Can you pick the perfect present from all the bargains? and will opening Grandma’s gift cause you to lie again this year?

As Black Friday looms and the bargain choices abound for the shopping season, the shackles of etiquette can make all of us experience “giftburn” - the fear of giving or receiving the “not so perfect” gift.

According to research at gifttrap.com, giftburn costs more than personal angst. Over the course of a lifetime, each consumer will spend an estimated $8,000 or more in giving unwanted gifts.

“Bad gifts cause stress, waste money and consume time and space in our busy lives,” according to Nick Kellet, CCA, Chief Conversational Architect at GiftTRAP. “Our hearts tell us giving is good, but when it comes to choosing the gift to give, especially when you are up against a deadline like Christmas, our heads should be telling us the opposite.”

Kellet suggests taking the anxiety and the expense out of shopping for gifts by practicing. He says, “Prevent giftburn this holiday by playing GiftTRAP, the new virtual gift-exchange game.”

GiftTRAP, the hilarious, new, award-winning board game that turns social etiquette upside down, is played by giving “virtual” gift ideas to your loved ones BEFORE you spend the cash on the gift for real. “It’s like taking your gift ideas for a test drive,” Kellet explains. “With GiftTRAP you can be honest, have fun and get everyone talking about things that matter in their lives. Players find out what really makes people tick and learning more about people’s interests.” After playing GiftTRAP, players will have a much better chance at matching the right gift to the right friend.

So far, the experts in the games world agree that GiftTRAP (MSRP $29.99, for 3-8 players, ages 8 and up) is a great idea for a game and a great gift idea, especially for anyone who has experienced giftburn. The new game has already been honored with six different product awards including Games Magazine’s 2008 “Best Party Game of The Year.”

About GIFTTRAP:
GiftTRAP is a tech-savvy independent board game company based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, that is focused on engineering great conversation and fun social experiences. The company is a talented team of experienced professionals with a track record of launching new products to meet emerging trends. The company says that “At 30,000 feet, all the trends are the same. The same trends influence gaming, fashion, high-tech and society at large.” GiftTRAP and its patent pending concepts are consistent with any number of current trends around the paradox of choice, the emergence of right brain thinking, and the rise of emotional intelligence.

The company describes its inaugural product, GiftTRAP as BoardGame 2.0; a social, collaborative experience built from user-created content; enabling friends to exchange virtual gifts either online or in the physical game. Uniquely GiftTRAP is not about winning per se, but it is about you. There are not any teams to hide behind. To win the game, it doesn’t require any specific knowledge, but rather, people skills and strong intuition. The good news is that anyone who play GiftTRAP can improve his or her overall gift giving with practice. In fact once you play the game, you really never stop. It has an effect of making people more attentive to the needs of others and to explore different preferences.

The mission of GiftTRAP is to rid the world of unwanted gifts.

Currently, the company supports charity donations directly as well as through the content of the game. GiftTRAP is a strong supporter of Creative Commons and sources appropriately licensed images from Flickr.com to continually refine and refresh its gift ideas to reflect the current choices in a consumer’s world. 

It’s been a busy week or two in GiftTRAP land, so I’ve not been quite so active on the PAAS research as I’d have liked.

I posted a question on LinkedIn seeking example of PAAS companies and got some great responses, (on a side note I’m a huge LinkedIn fan and LinkedIn user - feel free to invite me to connect.)

Here’s a quick selection from the companies I was recommended, I’ve tried to cluster them into related groups.

Companies working on getting things made/delivered to the right place for less cost/effort

1. http://www.ponoko.com - (3D Printing or production of designs around the globe)
2. http://www.postful.com - (Local printing and delivery of mail around the globe)
3. http://www.bongous.com - (Package Forwarding and Mail Forwarding Services)
4. http://www.moo.com - (Physical printing from online resources such as Flickr)

Games or gaming companies mixing up virtual life and real life

1. http://www.perplexcity.com - (Online game that was accompanied/driven by sale of in-store collectible cards - neat re-implementation of the best selling book “Masquerade” by Kit Williams)
2. http://www.monopoly.co.uk - (Hasbro has been using crowd sourcing to reinvigorate and update their classic game by getting players to vote for which city should be included in the updated game)
3. http://www.streetwars.net - Real world implementation of MMOG scenarios
4. http://www.chorewars.com - Gain virtual Kudos for tidying up the real world
5. http://www.motionbased.com - Integrating geo-coding with Google Maps - new sport or Geocaching

Several examples of the reinvention of Radio - Sirius and XM are perfect examples of PAAS. I don’t think Last.FM has any physical retail connections

1. http://www.last.fm/
2. http://www.sirius.com/
3. http://www.xmradio.com

Crowd-sourced T-Shirt printing companies. I’m not sure these qualify from a retail perspective, but that perhaps just needs more research

1. http://www.threadless.com
2. http://www.lafraise.com
3. http://www.cafepress.com

1. http://www.zlio.com - (Here’s an example of a virtual store - perhaps it qualifies)

Innovations around the connection of real world and virtual worlds

1. Google AdWords - I think you can now have your online ads appear on real world billboard and the like (more investigation required)
2. http://irent2u.com - new service to let you rent your spare physical resources

In addition to these companies I’ve been directed to a number of business to business products with complimenting online services

For now I’ve simply included the name/website and a single comment in brackets. There are many more examples than I’d expected and I suspect there are many more.

I’m not really commenting here on these, more gathering a list of potential companies. I’ve found that blogging about these companies has caused other people to contact me and to further extend my research and my conclusions.

I recently watched a great video by Jane McGonigal about Web 2.0 and how Virtual Life is more proving more satisfying for many folk than real life. People are “Checking out” of real life in favor of time spent in virtual worlds - something that can’t ultimately be good for society.

Jane suggests that we can perhaps implement many of the benefits/features of “Virtual Worlds” to improve the quality of our real lives in the real world. It got me thinking that perhaps PAAS as I’ve defined it isn’t broad enough to explain the emerging trend - perhaps the bigger trend is that virtual and reality are working to become one. Perhaps the bigger trend is “Reality 2.0” - the reinvention of our physical world augmented by integated online services to provide more instant and gratuitous feedback of real life performance.

Prior to watching this video I’d thought of PAAS as a “go to market play” by complimenting a Product with an Online Service or complimenting an Online Service with a Physical Product sold in real stores. This partnership of virtual services and real world stores, I’d been arguing, was a cost effective way to dramatically extend the reach of you combined offering simply because it takes you to new markets and it gets new players to care about your success as company.

Now in the light of Jane’s suggestion I’m trying to grasp with rethinking these ideas to seek out one master trend where perhaps PAAS is a sub feature or implementation tactic to ensure the commercial success of your venture.

If you are involved with or have experiences with the companies I mention please get in touch or if you can suggest other companies that fit with this trend that I’m trying to describe. Contact me at “nick at gift trap dot com”

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