Words With Friends is TechCrunch's 'Best Time Sink' of 2011

If you've yet to play Words With Friends, then it's fair to say you either A. don't own a smartphone, which is unfortunate, or B. don't have an Internet connection, and aren't reading this anyway. Zynga With Friends' mega hit social game took 2011 by storm with releases for Android, Facebook and even mobile web browsers via HTML5. It also became rather popular in Hollywood, too.

At TechCrunch's fifth annual Crunchies in San Francisco, the blog honors the more notable achievements in the tech world of the past year. But techies like to have fun, too, hence the "Best Time Sink" award, which this year went to none other than Zynga's immensely popular take on Scrabble. Get this: The game beat out Skyrim, one of the most gripping and critically-acclaimed role-playing games of 2011 by Bethesda, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the biggest shooter of the year.

The other worthy nominees were social network Quora and social music player Turntable.fm, both of which have served this writer in particular rather well. At any rate, this is a sign of the times if nothing else. When a social game based on a 64-year-old board game (that cost a couple hundred thousand dollars to make tops) beats two of the best (and most expensive) games of 2011, you know that games will never be the same.

Are you surprised at all that Words With Friends scored this award? What do you think acknowledgments like this mean for the games industry? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.