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Released: August 03, 2010

Big bucks in online social games

Source: Michael Rosenwald, Washington Post (Free Registration)

The most-used function on Angela Shields’s iPhone is not the phone. Or e-mail. Or the Web browser. It’s a game called Words With Friends, and she taps it open more than 10 times a day, anxious about her next move.

Shields, a clinical social worker in the District, doesn’t consider herself a gamer, a term that conjures images of 26-year-old men slaying aliens in their parents’ basements. She is 31 and funny and has many real-world friends, yet she often catches up with them in the Scrabble-like game’s chat room while pecking out 36-point words.

“Some friends and I communicate through the app more than we do through e-mail,” Shields said. “It’s a lot more fun than e-mail. I mean, you can kick their butt while we catch up about our lives.”

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