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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."
"Settlers of Catan" sounds like a typo for a game about pioneers in Hell.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It should also be mentioned that board games are definitely more portable than a game console/PC. I've known a couple of people who stopped going to LAN parties simply because they were sick of dragging out 10kg worth of equipment to the four corners of the earth. And, although the difference is less prominent, a Diplomacy game box is a lot easier to carry than a PS2, four controllers, a Multi-Tap, and your copy of TimeSplitters 2.
Thus, board gaming also appeals to computer players who need their social and competitive fixes but are sick of lugging around so much equipment.
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
Hence they buy a board game instead of reading. I suspect that we will continue to see a strong correlation between the increase in tech jobs (and tech education) and board game sales.
As a person with ADHD (woohoo!), I highly recommend going beyond just strategy games into pen & paper RPGs with or without tabeltop miniatures.
The more work that you put into role-playing, the more you have to read. (For gaming alone, I end up reading history, economics, law, & political science.) You also interact with others and get your creative juices flowing.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
I've sait it before, but it's so relevant to this article I gotta say it again.
In Germany, and other parts of Europe, they make board games very unlike we do in America. We have things like Monopoly or Sorry, where the winner is determined mostly by luck. Over there, they have games where luck is a small or non-existant factor. This is why those games are awesome. Me and my friends have been playing German board games for like 2 or 3 years now. Puerto Rico and El Grande are our favorites. Settlers is just the gateway game, so if you like that then come on in. I hope one day these good games will be on the shelf next to Monopoly, rather than in the specialty shop only.
Head to http://www.boardgamegeek.com to see what I mean.
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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.
:) 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.
;)
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
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
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
I've been enjoying some of the cheap-ass games for a while. Their games are very bare-bones in their delivery, but some are pleanty involved. The less involved ones are just plain fun as well though because the game premises are so offbeat (Please pass the brain)
CheapAssGames --No it's NOT a p0rn site.
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A big problem with getting into these specialty board games is the cost of entry. Reviews help, but it's hard to really know if you're going to like a game until you buy it and try it out. You can get more bang for your buck by getting a game system, which allows you to play many games. One of my favorites is Icehouse, which enables you to play hundreds of games of different genres. Geeks love Zendo, an inductive logic game you can play with an Icehouse set.
Another option is Cheapass Games, a company specializing in selling games you can play using equipment you probably already have (dice, tokens, cards).
I've also heard good things about Piecepack games. Piecepack is a public domain gaming system, so you can buy a set from several different manufacturers or make your own.
This is something I've noticed from several of the articles here on /.: We seem to be carrying around two definitions of the word "Adult". On one hand, you have the "mature, sophisticated, intellectual" definition, and on the other, you have the "porn, alcohol, and other age-restricted materials" definition.
/., and we're supposed to be the intellectual crowd.
Tragic though it may be, it seems that the latter definition is the more common one, even here on
Enough maudlin, back to games.
On the American side of things, there's Cheapass games, Looney Labs, Out of the Box publishing, and for you linux/opensource/get-it-for-free-fans, Piecepack.
On the German side of the coin, you've got a bit of a quandry. Most German game manufacturers are GmbH, which is an abbreviation for something or another, but basically boils down to the fact that the company isn't allowed to export their products themselves. So, in order for German games to reach other shores, they must go through other companies. Among them, Mayfair Games, importers of the Catan series (pronounced cuh-tahn'), Rio Grande Games (Bohnanza is a good gateway game, while Peurto Rico and TransAmerica have been getting good attention from less casual gamers.), and on some occasions, Fantasy Flight Games, current makers of most Lord of the Rings board games.
For actually buying the games, I would suggest Funagain or Boulder Games.
Enjoy.
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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.
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