What's Old is New: Board Games are Back!
Having just come back from a holiday get-together with
family, I reflected upon the fun we had playing Scrabble, Rummikub, and The Settlers
of Catan. It was friendly competition around
the table that included all ages. For
the less competitively inclined, a puzzle was in progress on the table in the family
room.
The digital age has spawned a plethora of video games with players
singularly glued to their computers or phones often not competing with friends,
but against virtual strangers. Worried
about this isolation and lack of social interaction, I have been heartened to learn
that digital game players have started to miss the camaraderie of real people and
hanging out with friends – and that there has been a resurgence in the popularity
of table-top board games.
Continuing to rank high in popularity are the classic board
games many of us have grown up with such as Monopoly, Clue, Balderdash, Scrabble,
Risk, Trivial Pursuit, and Taboo. Newer
games such as Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, and The Settlers of Catan moved
from cult status in recent years to mainstream popularity and helped fuel the board game renaissance.
Word of mouth primarily seems to be the way that board games grow in popularity.
It’s difficult to keep up with all the newness and niches, but you might check out
the website BoardGameGeek.com for up-to-date information. They have all kinds of rankings and statistics and you can view games by categories such as
children,family, party, strategy, themes, war, and more.
I, for one, am happy that designers and publishers agree the
board game business is on a growth path.
It’s probably not huge, but it is taking us in a direction of more
satisfying social and personal interactions.
So don’t wait for the holidays to break out a board game. A friends or family game night is loads of
fun, lots of laughs, and everyone walks away feeling like a winner.
