I know there are a lot of variables to take into consideration, but generally speaking, are word games popular at all? I would really like to do a word game (and not just a ripoff of scrabble ;)) but I want to be sure of the commercial viability of such a project.

Is the word game market sewn up by electronic versions of the few highly recognisable board games (scrabble, boggle, etc.)?

Also would asking the subscribers of your newsletter for their opinion on the genre of your next game be a good idea? On the one hand it might make them feel good about being able to give their opinion. But on the other hand it might make them lose confidence thinking you don't know what you're doing :)

Opinions? Advice? Yes please! :)

According to the guys at Pogo, word games are extremely popular. I'm sure this varies by audience though. I have a friend who has a new game in beta at Popcap (Word Stalk - you can play it on their site), where they also think this will be popular. Their game "Book Worm" is also supposed to be extremely popular.

I've been thinking a lot about this recently, frankly trying to avoid doing a word game. One big reason for the popularity, I think, is that in simple games (for casual players) you need to have a small number of interactions and operators, and yet you want to allow for interesting, non-trivial interactions between the operators. Well, in a word game you get 26 operators for free that most everyone is already familiar with. Not only that, but they interact in a gazillion different ways. If you attach a dictionary to the game, you not only have the reward states set for you, but you have the rules for valid operator interaction set for you!

There are a lot of games still to be made in this space, moving beyond Scrabble-like clones. And I think these will continue to be popular for many casual players. OTOH, I think this section of the market is quickly going to become glutted with different sorts of word games, which is one reason why I'm trying to avoid it.