Electronic Monopoly, Scrabble on horizon

NEW YORK, N.Y., Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Aiming for the so-called “casual” gamers, Hasbro and Electronic Arts plan electronic versions of Monopoly, Scrabble and other Hasbro board games and toys.

Casual games, one of the fastest growing segments of the business, are easy to play and especially attractive to women and older players, traditionally not big videogame fans.

While casual games tend to be easier to create than more-elaborate titles for high-end systems such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360, they run on everything from thousands of different mobile phones, laptops and personal computers to hand-held game players.

Casual games are expected to earn $512 million this year, a 35 percent jump over 2006, the Wall Street Journal says.