Recreational furniture is one of the more unusual subsets of furniture design, but it's apparently one that people will pay good money for, judging by the plethora of flip-top gaming tables on the market. Up above you see Hammacher Schlemmer's Rotating Air Hockey to Billiards Table, a 350-pound behemoth with a built-in blower for the air hockey side. Flip the surface over and you're set up for pocket billiards (though at seven feet in length, you're not exactly in Minnesota Fats' playground).

This competing table at Hayneedle has HS beat by one game, as they've got table tennis (again, truncated at seven feet) on top of the first two games. Literally on top of them; what a difference a piece of MDF makes, huh?

That lousy giraffe that runs Toys R Us also sells a 3-in-1 gaming table, albeit a tiny one at just four feet in length.

You probably find the angle of the Toys R Us photo suspicious, as I did. I'm guessing the sides aren't enclosed, which takes some of the "magic" away, like with this model:

Quill also sells a similar triangular gaming table, this one with splayed legs for stability. But while they're billing theirs as a "7-in-1 Rotating Game Table," I think it's kind of a gyp: It's got the foosball, the air hockey, the billiards and the ping pong, rounded out by...chess, checkers and backgammon. It's not exactly an X Box.

And before you scoff at the design of any of these pieces, which admittedly are never going to make it into the MoMA, I'd have to say that the companies that produce them are fulfilling a strong market demand. Similar tables to the ones we've seen above are carried by monster retailers like Target and Walmart, for chrissakes. I sure hope those designers got royalties.

See also:

» Dungeons, Dragons & Design: Geek Chic's Gorgeous Gaming Tables
» David Roentgen's Awesome 18th Century Transforming Gaming Table
» Automatic Mahjong Tables