August 1, 2005 - Broomfield, Colorado USA - Game enthusiasts throughout the world are starting to plan to celebrate National Games Week™ 2005 (NGW). NGW takes place the fourth week of November each year. This year that's November 20-26. The main events occur in people's homes, schools, churches, and community centers, as well as in thousands of specialty game stores.
This year NGW kicks off at the official game convention of NGW, Gencon SoCal, at the Anaheim convention center in California. Many of the NGW's 120+ participating game publishers will attend and showcase their games at Gencon.
National Games Week has become an international celebration of non-electronic games � the social kind, that you play with family and friends, including board, card, party, family, educational, traditional, miniatures and many more types of games. Major sponsors include Wizards of the Coast (a division of Hasbro), Eagle Games, Nintendo of America and Pok�mon USA.
National Games Week started in 2004. Last year over 2,600 events took place, and 31,800 web pages worldwide noted it. NGW's founder is Mark Simmons, publisher of Games Quarterly and longtime advocate of games as positive, social entertainment. Stated Mr. Simmons "Games are a great entertainment alternative. In today's electronic world, where people have less face to face interaction than they used to, games play their small but important part in regaining our sociability while challenging us to think."
Anyone can join, at www.nationalgamesweek.net. The expanded web site launched today. Over the next few months it will keep growing, as game stores schedule events, and more resources become available.
