At the time I would probably not have admitted to it in certain circles, but in my teens I was an enthusiastic player of role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Cyberpunk. The rule book for the latter is pictured above. Somewhat alarmingly, it was meant to take place in the “dark future of 2020”. My circle of friends (think The Big Bang Theory where everyone is Icelandic and there is no babe across the hall) also enjoyed a break from the role playing every now and then and played board games instead. Among them was Space Crusade, pictured below.
According to the board games rating site BoardGameGeek, Space Crusade was just above average in quality when it was released, in 1990, with an average score of 6.8. But these days, board games are getting better. Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight recently analyzed the ratings on BoardGameGeek and reached the conclusion that over the last decade, the average user rating for board games has been on the rise (see Designing The Best Board Game On The Planet).
And it seems to be a virtuous cycle. Board games are getting better and they are also getting more popular. The industry is in fact absolutely booming. In a recent article, Not twilight, but sunrise, the Economist reported that in America and Canada alone the board games industry is estimated to be worth $880 million, showing a double digit annual growth for the past half-decade. This year’s Spiel Tage in Germany, one of the biggest board gaming festivals in the world, expects more than 160,000 visitors over the course of four days. While I wasn’t looking, board games seem to have gone mainstream. Or as the FT reports from Spiel Tage:
Beyond the sheer number of enthusiasts, the striking thing is that they look, well, normal.
I’m quite looking forward to the time when I can introduce my daughter to board games, not only because I’m sure it will make me super popular (ehem) but also because it’s the perfect excuse to revisit the concept after a few decades break. It seems that games that I had never heard of until now, like The Settlers of Catan, could be a place to start. But since games are steadily getting better, we might have a wider range of choices when she’s old enough to start appreciating them.