
Table-top games are booming in the video-game age - edward
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21669930-table-top-games-are-booming-video-game-age-not-twilight-sunrise
======
Zikes
I think the primary factors behind the growth of the tabletop industry are
increased exposure, the drive for more in-person social interaction (as
opposed to online videogames), and the introduction of a host of new complex
mechanics that keep the games fun and interesting.

Tabletop games today are leagues ahead of Monopoly and many of the other games
of old. Those classics have their place, but even with constant rebrandings (I
personally own three varieties of Star Wars Monopoly) they're still just the
same tired old mechanics with a fresh coat of paint. Nowadays we can play
tabletop games that are cooperative, even story-driven, meaning there are no
more sore losers and they're engaging enough to keep people coming back.

~~~
seabrookmx
> the drive for more in-person social interaction (as opposed to online
> videogames)

I think this is where Nintendo's marketshare is coming from as well. Local
multiplayer. Games like Mario Kart, Mario Maker, Smash Bros etc. are really
great.

You can get a group of people (gamers and non gamers), some take out, and have
a blast.

Board gaming can be a similar experience - with the added depth that comes
with many of the more advanced games.

~~~
baldfat
Yes board games are local multi player games of our youth like Golden Eye and
the other games you listed. Didn't think of that.

------
cbhl
One factor that I think has helped a lot is Kickstarter / crowdfunding, which
helps mitigate the costs of a first production run.

Another factor is DRM in video games -- why spend 4x$60 on four licenses for a
multiplayer video game and hundreds more on hardware, when you could just
spend $50 on a board game and have it support four to six people?

~~~
cletus
As someone who has been playing boardgames for 20+ years and computer games
for even longer I can tell you that neither Kickstarter nor DRM are relevant
factors here. In fact, both came much later than these trends started.

Broadly speaking, tabletop games are divided into what are called Euro games
and Ameritrash [1]. Euro games have less player-conflict and (often but not
always) less luck.

Euro games either originated in or were popularized in Germany and the
beginning of that trend is really Settlers of Catan and (later) Carcasonne.
Both of these games were and are big but for the more "serious" Euro games,
the trend really took off with Puerto Rico, which came out in 2002. Since
Puerto Rico there has been an absolute explosion of games.

In the 90s we might've had 10-20 games to choose from? Now, hundreds.

Every few years there tended to be a standout game which would propel the
industry in some way, often evidenced by the many knockoffs. Agricola (2007),
Race for the Galaxy (2007; although it was largely a rethemed San Juan (2004),
which itself was inspired by Puerto Rico) which led to Dominion (2008+), Terra
Mystica (2013), etc.

Kickstarter is really feeding off this success not the other way around.

As for DRM (including copy protection), this has been a thing most of the life
of computer gaming. Now is really no different other than DRM of the last 10+
years has moved towards always-on Internet connections or, worse, turning
single player games into games that can only save online (eg the SimCity V
fiasco).

My experience with LAN gaming was it was one of two types of games: FPSs and
RTSs.

FPSs honestly haven't changed all that much in years. Sure the graphics have
gotten better and there have been minor improvements but honestly an FPS is an
FPS.

We played LAN Warcraft 3 (eg tower defense maps). Personally I prefer turn-
based strategy games, which are a dying breed (sadly).

But what drove those early LAN gaming sessions was I think two things:

1\. Novelty; and

2\. Internet connections.

There was a time when multiplayer gaming wasn't possible with the Internet
connections of the day. Now it is. The result is less need to drag your
computers to someone elses house.

Of course the effect of that is that you can then play with anyone not just
your friends, which ironically seems to mean that you just don't do it
anymore. Anyone older the school age seems to hate online gaming with
strangers as you have to deal with cheaters and kids who have nothing better
to do than play 8+ hours a day, which is fine, but it's not fun for the casual
gamer.

See why tabletop games work is that tabletop gaming is a social exercise. You
get together with friends and play. If you just played online, even with your
friends, I don't believe it'd have anywhere near as much stickiness and
definitely less adherents.

[1]:
[http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Ameritrash](http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Ameritrash)

~~~
SingleShot
I would throw a 3rd major category in there: wargames
[https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/wargames](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/wargames).

------
chongli
As an avid player of both video games and board games, I'll say one thing:
video games have _really_ fallen afoul of the diminishing marginal utility of
interesting decisions. A 2-hour game of Agricola, to me, has far more
interesting decisions packed into it than 20 hours of Civilization V, despite
having orders of magnitude fewer options per turn and turns per game.

~~~
Paul_S
I can explain some of the reasons behind this in video games. Design is hard
and in some cases impossible because you want the game to be everything to
everyone regardless of their play style or level of competence. This is why
you get so much optional content and every decision you make has trivial or
superficial consequences. Imagine mario kart rubberband mechanic outside of
racing games. If done well it gives you the feeling of agency and achievement
whatever you do, if done poorly you feel like the game plays itself. I
remember when my innocence was shattered when I was given the task to write
code that would subtly "fix" user inputs to do the "correct" thing. Makes my
laugh today but back then it felt wrong for that reason.

~~~
eru
> I remember when my innocence was shattered when I was given the task to
> write code that would subtly "fix" user inputs to do the "correct" thing.

I had the same feeling when playing one of the newfangled Prince of Persia
games a few years ago: the 3d environment gives you the impression that you'd
be much freer. But there are not-so subtle rails that you move along when
doing acrobatics.

The original 2d game had simple understandable mechanics, so you knew exactly
what rails you were moving on. After a while you just ignored them and though
`inside the box'.

The latter style helps much more with suspension of disbelieve.

------
samatman
Given the general hackerish-nature of Go, it's perhaps not too much of a
stretch to share with you my game Chakra, which is a variant of Go played on
intersecting rings with a movement rule

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chakraboardgame/chakra-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chakraboardgame/chakra-
a-go-like-strategy-board-game)

We're working on an online playable version, which I'll share with HN once we
have the kinks ironed out. It's a good hacker game, the core player group has
barely scratched the surface of understanding the strategy involved in a good
game. Decent AI target as well... sometimes I think about multi-dimensional
versions of the game, which would be only of interest to AI, but perhaps the
kind of thing they'd appreciate.

------
fredleblanc
Recently finding myself hating staring at screens more and more, I've dove
pretty deep into the world of board games and its incredible. It reminds me a
lot of the earlier days of the web — the group is still small enough to be
niche, and there isn't competition so much as there's a general willingness
for everyone to succeed together.

People create new ideas and then other games will iterate and improve the
mechanics until you end up with some I pretty genius stuff. And if you try to
create your own games (which I am), then you'll find another sub-niche of
people that are even more awesome. Nearly everyone is friendly and really
happy to set aside generous amounts of time aside from their undoubtedly busy
schedules (because there are very few full-time game designers out there) to
help you out.

It's the same feeling I used to get from Internet stuff.

As for the games themselves, they've come a long way from the days of Monopoly
and Sorry, and they're not all games about slaying dragons or waging war.
Check out games like Scoville, where you're a pepper farmer growing new
peppers to aid chili recipes, or Camel Up, a game of racing and betting on a
wacky camel race, or Tokaido, where you're traveling on the road between Kyoto
and Tokyo trying to have the best experience along the way. _Anything_ might
make good game fodder, and people aren't scared to try it all.

Board games are so fun and low tech. It's a great way to get away from staring
into a screen and to actually find a way to be social while keeping people of
their phones for entire hours at a time.

------
colmvp
One reason why table-top games are booming amongst my friends circle is that a
lot of us aren't into drinking, yet we still want to socialize with an
activity anyone can jump into.

------
cleversoap
Tabletop games fill the niche left by typical LAN party / split-screen games
as more and more of them move to only allowing internet connected matchmaking
rather than some local network equipment / friends that won't look on your
half of the TV.

------
npsimons
I for one used to be a fairly avid computer and tabletop gamer, but dropped
them for more active hobbies. If I ever did go back to gaming, it would be
tabletop, hands down. While LAN parties were fun, the constant hardware
upgrade cycle, grind (WoW comes to mind), misogyny, and just general
belligerence of multiplayer online doesn't hold a candle to an all-nighter of
classic Civilization (and, no, I'm not talking about Sid Meier's).

~~~
simoncion
> ...the constant hardware upgrade cycle...

Console-first development -for all the violence it has done to game design-
has been a godsend in _this_ department. I'm getting a _huge_ amount of
mileage out of my ~6-year-old gaming PC.

I know that you said that you're not going back to PC gaming, but I just
_have_ to recommend a few indie PC games that I've had a lot of fun playing
with friends.

If you're ever looking for things to play with friends on the same screen, I
can personally recommend Nidhogg, [0] TowerFall Ascension, [1] Monaco, [2] and
the somewhat-recent Spelunky HD remake. [3] Also, the Let's Play folks [5]
seem to play a new same- or split-screen co-op game once every other week or
two.

[0] (A two-player, tightly-designed, reasonably deep, fast-paced side-
scrolling sword fighting game)
[http://www.nidhogggame.com/](http://www.nidhogggame.com/)

[1] (A one-to-four-player single-screen acrobatic archery combat game. This
one's a little hard to describe, but the 50% of the video on the Steam page
that's actual gameplay gives you an _okay_ idea of how it plays.)
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/251470/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/251470/)

[2] (A one-to-four-player single-screen strategy heist game with static
levels, but semi-random enemy and resource placement)
[http://www.monacoismine.com/](http://www.monacoismine.com/)

[3] (A 2D-scrolling randomly-generated-dungeon exploration and exploitation
game, that has a rather finely-tuned risk/reward mechanism, and a _really_
high skill cap. [4] However, it's _totally_ not required to get "good" at the
game. Derping around with friends is rather chaotic and _tons_ of fun.)
[http://www.spelunkyworld.com/whatis.html](http://www.spelunkyworld.com/whatis.html)
(Sadly, that page is not _so_ useful for getting a sense of the game. The 2008
version of the game is freely available [and linked on that page], so you
_can_ play a single-player-only, less polished version of the HD remake.)

[4] That is to say, there are a _bunch_ of systems in the game that can
interact in _many_ different ways. You have a much easier time with the game
if you are able to figure out many of these interactions, but doing so is
_strictly_ optional. The game is hard, but _always_ fair, and gets you back in
the game quickly after you -inevitably- fail.

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/LetsPlay/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/LetsPlay/videos)

~~~
eru
If you want to play the original GameMaker Spelunky, I suggest you apply the
latest community community patch.

------
wmil
The real issue is that Hasbro and Mattel used to have a complete lock on board
game sales in major stores.

The first wave of new board games (eg Settlers of Catan) came out of Germany
and were sold in the US by specialty stores. That is hobby shops & comic book
stores.

Even if you could self fund a production run, there was just no way to get
your product on a significant number of US store shelves.

------
anigbrowl
It will be interesting to see whether the alrger iPad pro finds use as a game
board; it loks like it's large enough for two people to comfortably play many
traditional games, like Connect 4 or suchlike. This seemed like one of the
most interesting possibilities for the ill-fated Microsoft Surface Table, but
past attempts were just too large.

~~~
rdsnsca
There are already plenty of board games ports to iOS .

[http://ipadboardgames.org](http://ipadboardgames.org)

~~~
eru
I'm looking for a game that displays common state on the tablet in the middle
of the table, and let's everyone muck around with their private state on their
mobile phone.

Eclipse on the iPad is fun in local hand-the-iPad-around mode. But since you
can't see the board while other people are mucking around, you can't plan
ahead easily during the downtime.

(I guess I'll have to write that one myself.)

~~~
rahimnathwani
The Scrabble app for iPad used to do that. There was a separate 'Tile Rack'
app for iPhone. The iPad app for Scrabble was paid ($9.99 IIRC), but only one
player had to buy it. The companion tile rack app was free. For some reason,
EA seems to have removed that functionality:

[https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/838860/scrabble-tile-
rack-a...](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/838860/scrabble-tile-rack-app-
pulled-apple-store)

[https://twitter.com/askeasupport/status/237941190538977280](https://twitter.com/askeasupport/status/237941190538977280)

------
fsiefken
For some insights on what designing an engaging table-top experience is like
read Ignacy Trzewiczek blog:
[https://boardgamesthattellstories.wordpress.com/](https://boardgamesthattellstories.wordpress.com/)
Phil Eklund's Facebook:
[https://www.facebook.com/phil.eklund](https://www.facebook.com/phil.eklund)
or Bruno Faidutti's blog
[http://faidutti.com/blog/](http://faidutti.com/blog/)

If people are up for a tabletop game through Vassal or Tabletop Simulator or
just talking about board games, e-mail me and we could arrange something
through skype/hangout/mumble. I'm in CET. The games I like are listed on my
boardgamegeek profile.
[https://boardgamegeek.com/user/fsiefken](https://boardgamegeek.com/user/fsiefken)
For example: The New Era, Greenland, Polis, Puerto Rico, Carson City, Terra
Mystica, Dvonn or Arimaa. If you like the idea of table top gaming I can also
recommend to get together a regular gaming group of friends or board gamers in
your area. Perhaps on a city level something is setup already, ask in tabletop
game shops, check meetup.com or facebook groups. I'm lucky to live in a city
with 5 gameshops and 3 regular city level board game events.

------
Paul_S
I think it's because baordgames are happy to cater to smaller niches - they
don't need big runs to break even. The number and veriety of new board games
boggle the mind. And they're more sociable.

------
lostgame
In Toronto, we have a series of massively successful tabletop game cafés -
which is a perfect, non-offensive place to go on a date, heh.

------
rokhayakebe
Got tablet, laptop, desktop, mobile phone. Still prefer paper books and print
outs for long form reading.

------
imacomputer2
We are not living in the video-game age. We are living in the nerd age. And
it's awesome!

