Board Games Click With Adults

Thanks to the Washington Post for their article discussing the rise of sophisticated, adult-aimed board games. According to the piece, "sales of non-electronic specialty games... have nearly quadrupled since 1995, [and] one of the fastest-growing areas, industry experts say, is the adult strategy game." But although "the specialty market is still dwarfed by mass-marketed games", excluding a few break-out specialty titles like Settlers Of Catan, the article claims that "board-game sales have always increased during economic slumps", and, "in a sign of just how hungry people are for smarter board games, adult-education programs in Fairfax and Arlington now offer classes that introduce strategy-oriented [boardgame] titles."

Comments

Community & Communication

[neglige]

The benefit of board games is that you can play them with friends and family and they are relatively easy to learn. After a round or two you normally know the rules and develop basic strategies. And you have an excellent opportunity to communicate and create a sense of community. Compare this to a networked FPS: the rules are simple enough, but a new player will die faster than you can say "frag" causing massive demotivation.

Of course adults need more elaborate games than children. Just rolling a die gets boring quickly, so a good games challenges you mentally (or lets you challenge the other players).

If you lose all the time, try a different style of play: try to lose from the beginning, announce it, and act accordingly :) Go wild. With Settlers of Catan, give your cards away for free (to anyone, of course). With Monopoly, try to go bankrupt as fast as possible. Bring in some humor.

I've noticed that you will win, despite your best effords to lose. Oh, and don't overdo it. One or two rounds are fun, after that it wears off and becomes tiresome, ultimately annoying everyone else ;)

Return on investment

[ajrs]

I think the return on investment I've gotten for Settles of Catan far exceedes just about every thing else except a deck of cards. There are a number of expansions available that don't get as much play, but are still pretty good.

Re:German Board Games

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Yes, one of my favorite games is called "Scotland Yard", where you try to track down the suspect by tracing their moves. I believe it is German. Quite fun, in fact, and virtually no luck involved.

America does have board games that aren't all luck, though. Monopoly has a lot of luck, but there's also quite a bit of strategy. And Clue contains little luck as well. Risk also contains strategy, although once you understand it it can be a little simplistic.

American games contain luck for one reason: luck makes the game "fair". Ever play against someone on the internet who keeps beeting you because they play 8 hours a day? It's no fun when you don't have a chance to win. That's why I believe that luck is an important part of a game. Monopoly is one such example. You try to dupe others into selling you properties for too little. But anyone can hit it big by landing on Park Place and rolling snake eyes (one on each die, which puts you on Boardwalk). It's also fun because games of luck can have sudden changes at any time. One roll of the dice can change the entire course of a Monopoly game. That's exciting.

By "American Board Games", I think that you are referring to popular board games. But those aren't the only games we have. In my local mall, there are literally more than 100 different board games, including many German games.

Talk about your viral marketing

[SnowDog_2112]

A college buddy introduced me to Settlers, then to Carcassone and Puerto Rico.

We've introduced probably 10 people to Carcassone (very low learning curve).

And it continues. You have someone over, say, "Want to play a board game?"

They expect Monolopy and out comes one of these great games that has a lot of the planning and strategy of a computer game but all the social interaction of a tabletop game. Of course they want to know where they can buy it (there's the rub!).

Once they realize there's a whole genre of these games, it's like you've introduced them to a new world.

Settlers, Europe, and Some Links

[ShannonA]

European board games have indeed matured greatly in the last 10 years and have been making great in-roads into the U.S. for 5 are so. I think this has as much to do with a new adultness in their designs as the economic cycles.

Here's some useful links:

• My Analysis of Settler's Gameplay
• University of Catan website
• Reviews of mostly European Games