Andersp: What does that prove? If you look at the statistics, you'll see that of the top 50 backgammon players there are a lot more paying customers than there are in the top 50 chess players.

No wonder Fencer pays attention to chess: there's more marketshare to gain. ;-)

Personally, I prefer adding more chess variants than backgammon variants. There's less variation in play with the backgammon variants than there is with the chess variants.