
Crowdfunding Is Driving a Board Game Renaissance - EtienneK
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/crowdfunding-is-driving-a-196-million-board-game-renaissance/?
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bradbeattie
The boardgames renaissance that I've seen grow ever the past 15 years has gone
hand in hand with the increased fickleness of video games. I can't establish
causation, but I'd wager that there's an appeal to a physical offline social
game in contrast to the mandatory online, anonymity-fueled abrasive,
potentially-unplayable-in-5-years digital games.

I like the idea that the boardgames I buy, barring physical abuse, will be
playable by future generations in 20 years time. You can't "end-of-life" a
physical product.

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giltleaf
I definitely agree with this. I miss being able to sit down with my friends
for some videogames and being able to kill bots. It recreated the experience
of multiplayer games without making you a lonely basement creature. I'm
thinking in particular about the TimeSplitters franchise.

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panzagl
The Board Game Renaissance had started before Kickstarter, but KS has been a
multiplier, and has allowed board games to outlast the usual hobby boom-bust
cycle. I guess it's still an ongoing question if board games will eventually
'crash' the way wargames, RPGs, and collectible card games did in the past or
whether the market will cool gradually and continue to support a couple big
players plus a collection of indies, similar to the current PC game market.

~~~
panglott
Yea, the analysis that Kickstarter is driving it is pretty poor, but if you
think about why board games are booming, it's a dozens of small things
multiplying.

GenCon has been growing attendance every year recently, BoardGameGeek has been
around for many years, the Dice Tower has been going for years, TableTop is
finishing season 3... There are lots of independent publishers, and
crowdfunding models have worked their way into small publishers' business
models...compare GMT Games' P500 model, for example.

Personally there's some disillusion with the state of D&D, and it's also true
that board gaming is simply better now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. There
are better games, different types of games, and people have more points of
entry.

~~~
jlees
I think there's also a spot for board games as a social outlet that requires
less commitment than D&D and is more accessible than videogaming; several
years ago I used to get together with friends and bring videogame consoles,
more recently it's board games (and they're super easy to play with new
acquaintances too). I hate to say it but games like Cards against Humanity
are, in a way, the Minecraft of board games; it starts with "party" games and
before you know it you're playing BSG :)

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jsnell
Can't really agree with the thesis or the interpretation of the data here.
First, as the top 10 chart in the article shows, the gaming money in
Kickstarter is mainly in miniatures not in board or card games. The only
exception on that list is a gimmick card game illustrated by a popular
webcomic author that for whatever reason went viral. Second, a large
proportion of the games that get funded are traditional publishers using
Kickstarter as an alternate preorder and marketing system, usually with
absolutely tiny goals. These are games that would have been published anyway.
A third decent sized chunk are reprints for old games, which while nice to
have are hardly a sign of a renaissance. What's left tends to not have much
impact, or even be any good.

The number of major games that only or even mainly exist thanks to Kickstarter
must be tiny. Yes, there's a lot of noise around crowdfunding in the board
game space. But I don't think it's actually "driving a renaissance" in any
meaningful way.

(The footnote talks of P500. It's much easier to argue that it has had a real
impact over the 20(?) years it's existed. But it's really not crowdfunding in
the way people think of it).

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jarcane
_The only exception on that list is a gimmick card game illustrated by a
popular webcomic author that for whatever reason went viral._

It went viral because said webcomic's creator is a professional SEO marketer.

The Oatmeal is basically the Buzzfeed of webcomics.

~~~
almightysmudge
Personal opinion of course, but even if you don't like The Oatmeal, a
comparison to Buzzfeed isn't really appropriate, they're very different
animals. One's a comic written, drawn and published by a guy, the other is a
couple of lists interspersed with gifs, then lazily rehashed weeks later.

~~~
jarcane
Read some of the stuff he and others have written in the past about his
process. Even the subject matter is selected based on virality more than
anything. You really think it's coincidence that all his comics seem to be
about whatever is an instant meme on reddit this week?

Nobody ever went broke on the internet by running cats and bacon into the
ground.

~~~
hullo
Now I don't read the oatmeal so am not really qualified to comment on its
content, but what you just described (content based on timely matters) seems
like the very definition of the editorial cartoons I grew up reading. I
imagine there are a large variety of non-contemporaneous comics one could also
read on the web if it's not to one's liking.

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0xbadf00d
A website that recently rekindled my love of boardgames is
[http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/](http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/)

I'm not affiliated in any way - I just really enjoyed it as an entity that is
created out of a genuine passion for the medium mixed with a great "nuts &
bolts" discussion of the mechanics of the games they review.

Enjoy!

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DanSmooth
Alternative reason: The iPhone and other smartphones. It brought games and
playing back to the general, more mature audience, which got reminded of how
much fun playing can be and then transformed their newly acquired need to play
from the digital plane to the kitchen table.

Wanna try Hearthstone offline, play Dominion or Star Realms. Wanna farm some
land, take a look at Settlers of Catan. Wanna Crush some Candy, try Set? Okay,
the last one is probably a bad example.

It also helps that a lot of popular media licenses (TV/movies) get dressed in
board game clothing (see
[http://cryptozoic.com/games](http://cryptozoic.com/games) ).

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kriro
(avid gamer here) There is most certainly a "tabletop effect" but by and large
it's not all that huge. Crowdfunding helps but that's also not the reason for
the boom imo. In fact some of the smaller campaigns have struggled a fair bit
(Incursion feels like they operated at a loss) and the large ones could be
published by other means (Zombicide etc.)

First of all games are really good these days and second of all games really
benefit from online media. There's youtube videos for pretty much all games,
online reviews and boardgamegeek as a central hub. It's really easy to get a
good feel for the quality of a game these days.

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giltleaf
Why is it that most of those kickstarter games shown in the table are for
miniatures? My understanding is that they are basically add ons for existing
rpg ish games (I'm looking at Bones in particular) and not games on their own.

~~~
mikepurvis
I can't really speak to the miniatures/RPG type games, but the folks in my
eurogaming circle have pretty much sworn off buying kickstarter games. KS's
video pitch tends to optimize for games with high visual appeal, or that are
otherwise thematically awesome (funny, clever, dark, etc), but are lacking (or
at least insufficiently tested) in actual gameplay fundamentals.

The one I got bitten by was Euphoria:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v29GYH1sb2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v29GYH1sb2g)

As above, gorgeous artwork, great theme— but it practically plays itself. The
gameplay is a notch or two above parcheesi, but with fifteen minutes of rules
explaining on the front end.

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Macsenour
I think there are two factors, 1) cheaper production costs and 2) Using
crowdfunding to not be forced to "bet the farm" on potential sales.

I've published two games and I wouldn't consider a third without crowdfunding.

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EtienneK
For anyone interested in getting started with the hobby, I usually send this
article to my friends and colleagues who express interest:
[http://www.tested.com/art/454213-modern-board-game-
bestiary/](http://www.tested.com/art/454213-modern-board-game-bestiary/)

It's a bit old, but it gives a good introduction on the new type of games and
also examples of good games in the various categories.

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comrh
Board games really had a renaissance in my life once I discovered "German-
style board games". Their rules always seem to be similar to what I find the
most fun.

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acomjean
I always liked events like fig (festival of independent games) where you can
sit down and play an indie game in various stages of development, usually
taught by the creator. A increasing number over the past few years have been
on Kickstarter.

[http://bostonfig.com/tabletop-games-showcase/](http://bostonfig.com/tabletop-
games-showcase/)

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splawn
I think the current boardgame boom is a reflection that gamers in general have
increased in number. Mix in the fact that many of them were born out of the
90's console videogame era, have families and need a multiplayer experience
that can be shared in the same room and it makes complete sense. I think this
would be the case even if crowdfunding didn't exist.

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tsmarsh
Crowdfunding is a very funny way of spelling "Will Wheaton". I know the reason
I'm funding these games is because he reminded me how much fun they can be.

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cstuder
That's not how you spell his name.

Parent is referring to the video series 'Tabletop' on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSl...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT954wz47aofSlvu0zbD4YuPOF)

