Scott Tortorice
Senior Member
One of the things that I am finding so fascinating about the current board game / minis scene is how fecund it all is! When I left board games in the early to mid 90s, the board game world was in dire straits. Giants like Avalon Hill, GDW, and others were all cashing in their chips. Of course, this was about then PC gaming and the early consoles were starting to gather momentum, so that probably had a lot to do with it. Still, it was very depressing. Now...wow, what a difference a few decades make! I think the board game and minis scene is now outpacing the world of video games in terms of sheer diversity. From garage studios self publishing via PDFs, to high quality shops like FFG and LnL, there is something for every budget and taste! Amazing!
I recently came across this article in the Boston Globe that made a similar observation:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/11/26/board-games-are-back-and-boston-player/tMzvNNO1BlGo8J598Q3PZI/story.html
I found this particularly interesting:
All I know is that I am getting a kick playing against myself again. Not having to struggle against a mercurial / brain dead AI or another person is nice. And I am also enjoying being in total control of the execution of the game. Lastly, just getting out from under the "shadow of the phosphor screen" is refreshing! There is definitely something to be said for old school gaming.
I recently came across this article in the Boston Globe that made a similar observation:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/11/26/board-games-are-back-and-boston-player/tMzvNNO1BlGo8J598Q3PZI/story.html
I found this particularly interesting:
The part I put in bold is what really caught my attention. As I blogged about last year (and this year, if not as vociferously ) I feel like I am being driven out of video games by awful or nonexistent quality control (i.e., bug-ridden, incomplete games), by "iteration not innovation" (i.e., more of the same), by the often poisonous and juvenile community that collects around games (particularly MP games), and so on. Do you think this trend away from video games towards board games is a reflection of other people feeling the same?“For several years now, we have been seeing a secular trend in gaming away from games played on a screen and toward tabletop games played in person with other players,” Milton Griepp, CEO and founder of ICv2, says by e-mail. ICv2 covers the business of pop-culture retail via a website and magazine. “There are no signs that this trend is abating.”
Non-digital games and puzzles racked up $1.9 billion in sales in the United States in 2013, according to the Toy Industry Association Inc., up 3 percent over 2012. The more focused “hobby game” market — which includes card games like 7 Wonders, dice games like King of Tokyo, and tabletop miniatures games like Warhammer 40,000 — has grown 15 percent a year on average for the past five years, and that segment was worth $700 million in 2013, according to ICv2. The toy and game giant Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, saw sales rise 23 percent in 2013 for its Wizards of the Coast division, which publishes Magic: The Gathering and the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Mainstream board-game sales — of the Scrabble and Taboo variety — are also up. According to NPD Group Inc., a market research company, sales of family board and action games, such as Sorry and Life, grew 5 percent in 2012 and 14 percent in 2013. In short, you might say we’re in the middle of a Golden Age for board games.
All I know is that I am getting a kick playing against myself again. Not having to struggle against a mercurial / brain dead AI or another person is nice. And I am also enjoying being in total control of the execution of the game. Lastly, just getting out from under the "shadow of the phosphor screen" is refreshing! There is definitely something to be said for old school gaming.