Board Game - State of Play - June 2023

As a board game enthusiast, hobbyist, and modest collector, I am always on the lookout for new trends as they come to the fore. The reason is simple, I know just how expensive some of these titles are, and making a bad choice could mean getting lumped with a game you will never get to the table. Over the years, I must admit, that I have fallen victim to a few flukes that I just could not bring to the table. While in hindsight I know my decision to purchase certain titles was misguided at best, at the time of purchase I was enthusiastic and positive that the purchase was a good one.

Having said that, having indeed bought a few titles I later discovered that weren’t to my liking or playable within my social context, I learnt to look harder for any information that might help me decide on my next purchase. The internet does help in this situation, but you need to listen to competing reviews and opinions. Over time, maybe out of laziness or simply because sifting through sources can be time-consuming, I have settled on a few key sources of information. Admittedly I could do worse than refer to reviews offered by the guys at “The Dice Tower”, “Watch it Played” and “Shut Up & Sit Down”, but the truth is that their reviews can be polarising and not always in line with my own personal tastes.

To be fair the reviews and opinions I get from “The Dice Tower” feel balanced and offer a spread of opinions, which is healthy. While my own gaming tastes tend to align themselves (to some degree) with those of Tom Vasel, I find Zee Garcia’s abstract game bias and Mike Delisio’s focus on solo gaming very refreshing and eye-opening. The truth is that you need to see the same topic from different perspectives, it helps you grow.

“And why is this important to you?” you may ask me. I believe in the importance of mental health and retaining a certain degree of mental “agility” as it were, games can help achieve this goal. This is the fundamental principle behind my involvement with gaming. This and the enjoyment and socialisation derived from engaging others during face-to-face play. I am a firm believer that for a game to be worth my time, it must give me or teach me something. A good cooperative game should teach me the importance of being a team player, a legacy game should allow me to appreciate the importance of forward planning and decision-making, and solo gaming should help me develop self-motivation and consistency.

From my journey into modern board gaming, I have experienced several changes in both my unique perspective and what the market offers. My board gaming journey began a long time ago, well before the current renaissance that can be traced back to the mid-to-late 90s. Still, for the purposes of this narrative, I will focus on precisely the last fifteen to twenty years.

Back when I bought my first modern game, which was Marc Andre’s “Splendor”, I was still new to the whole Eurogame scene. The games I knew were those like Risk, Talisman, Hero Quest (the 80’s version of the game), Monopoly, Scrabble, Othello, Cluedo, Mastermind, Hasbro’s Battleships, Draughts, and the obligatory Chess. None of these has any of the elements that were to later define Eurogames, a style of gaming heralded by trailblazing titles such as Settlers of Catan, among others. It was in this scenario that I encountered the highly polished and iconic web series “Tabletop” hosted by Will Wheaton.

Being a “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fan, I knew who Will was thanks to his appearance on that beloved series. His delivery and showmanship made for a very entertaining web series; one I would look forward to watching whenever the next episode aired. It was thanks to him that I discovered several iconic games like “Lords of Waterdeep” (which I fell in love with), Sheriff of Nottingham, Tsuro, Mice & Mystics, Dixit, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Qwirkle and others. Most of the games he presented had the unique quality of being relatively easy to teach, had great table presence and almost never overstood their welcome. Most of these titles ended up in my collection by the way.

As my passion for board games gradually fanned into a roaring fire, I began to look around for other sources of inspiration for my next purchase. I found this in the Dice Tower and Watch it Played guys. As a side note, I must also include Chaz Marler’s “Pair of Dice Paradise” (which would later join forces and become part of "Watch it Played") which brought a witty brand of humour to game news and reviews that I still love to this day.

Personally, I felt that things did change a bit once Will Wheaton’s webisodes came to an end. By then the market had matured somewhat and there were more voices airing their opinions and unboxing the latest games on video. This could be both a bad and a good thing. Good in the sense that you could see what was in the box and how the rules worked, bad in that often, these reviews came with obvious biases. Furthermore, these reviews were themselves the result of the reviewers sifting through titles that interested them specifically, resulting in a somewhat blinkered perspective on what was available.

To correct this, there was and still is one thing a hobbyist like me can resort to, you need to seek out further opinions, further reviews. You need to expect that these additional reviews will at times be conflicting, or contradictory but ultimately you will have a better understanding of whether a game is for you or not. You will also discover that different reviewers will tend to focus on different board game types or characteristics, increasing your overall exposure to what is on the market.

Going back to the changing landscape in board gaming, in recent years we have seen an increase in some specific categories of board games. One such category which has grown in popularity is cooperative board games. In these games, players will often work together to achieve a common goal. These games encourage teamwork and communication and are often seen as a more inclusive and less cutthroat alternative to traditional board games. Indeed, they are also ideal in situations where you have a mixed table of experienced and casual players, with the latter finding these types of games less intimidating.

Another category of games which has gained traction over the past few years is legacy games. Legacy games are board games that evolve over time as players make decisions and progress through a campaign or story. These games often have a finite number of plays and are meant to be played over multiple sessions with the same group of people. Legacy games can create a unique and immersive gaming experience that is different from traditional board games.

While I am not particularly fond of them, Solo games have also become increasingly popular. The recent COVID-19 pandemic helped in this genre's growing popularity on account of the lockdown and social-distancing experienced in most of the Western world. In fact, many board game publishers are now releasing games that are specifically designed to be played alone. These games often feature puzzles or challenges that can be tackled independently and can be a great way for people to enjoy board gaming even when they don't have a group of players available.

Almost an extension of the above, the last few years have also seen a rise in the number of Board Game Apps. Many modern board games have been adapted into mobile apps, allowing players to enjoy the game on their phones or tablets. This trend has made board games more accessible and convenient and has also introduced the hobby to a new generation of players. I have personally acquired a significant number of these adaptations including titles like Everdell, Wingspan, Raiders of the North Sea, Lords of Waterdeep, Sagrada, Mysterium, Hive, Ascension, Star Realms, and others.

Yet nothing has had a more accentuated impact on game design and development than the onset of crowdfunding. While there does not appear to be an established link between a boardgames popularity over time, or commercial success, several of the most popular game of the last decade have been crowdfunded (e.g., Cards Against Humanity and Gloomhaven). Through crowdfunding, game designers could pitch their ideas directly to the end consumer, board game enthusiasts and hobbyists. What this meant was that now designers could be ambitious, gamifying their proposal to the market in line with the uptake of funders. The more funders committed their cash to the project the more features are unlocked as part of the final product. As a result, some of the projects become substantial, multi-box offerings, replete with an assortment of premium components and extras. Obviously, this also means the final box set will cost a pretty penny, but that comes with the territory, I guess. 

In addition, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo have allowed independent game designers to bring their ideas to market without the backing of a traditional publisher. Understandably this has led to an explosion of new board games being produced. Crowdfunding effectively allows game designers to take more risks and produce games that might not have been viable through traditional publishing channels.

Overall, the impact of crowdfunded games on the board gaming industry and its popularity depends on various factors such as the quality and appeal of the games being produced, the success of the crowdfunding campaigns, and the ability of game designers to effectively market and distribute their products. Some games produced through crowdfunding will be duds and, in some instances, some crowdfunded projects do not see it through to development and delivery. One area which appears to suffer consequences to the rather accelerated development cycle of some gaming titles is game expansions.

In the past, board game expansions were never guaranteed. If a game was successful, then the company and game designers would dig in and see if they could come up with a valid expansion idea. Expansions usually came out much after the original game was published. To an extent, this allowed for a better-quality expansion with fewer errors once published. Contrary to this, some crowdfunded games have seen expansions being rushed into production while the campaign itself was barely over. Let us say that some of these expansions are of questionable quality. 

Yet despite all the pros and cons I have listed, crowdfunded board game projects still constitute a respectable proportion of all crowdfunded projects. This appears to indicate that going forward we will see more crowdfunded board game projects not less.

Not everything is peachy however, there are aspects of the boardgame production cycle that can suffer if the network they rest upon is disrupted in some way or another. For instance, logistics play a significant role in the manufacturing and distribution of board games. The board gaming industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, with more and more games being produced and sold worldwide. This growth has led to increased pressure on manufacturers and distributors to efficiently manage the supply chain and deliver games to customers in a timely and cost-effective manner. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on logistics in the board gaming industry, with disruptions to global supply chains and shipping delays.

Manufacturers face logistical challenges in sourcing raw materials, producing games in large quantities, and ensuring quality control. Many manufacturers are in China, which can present logistical challenges due to transportation and customs issues. Distributors on the other hand also face logistical challenges in getting games from manufacturers to retailers and consumers. This can include issues such as warehousing, shipping, and managing inventory levels. Additionally, board games come in various sizes and shapes, which can make shipping and storage more complicated. Tying back to the crowdfunding board games, one can now see why the larger games with unconventional package formats can give distributors nightmares when it comes to getting them from source to destination.

Yet what I have listed here are all aspects of the gaming industry that are somehow affecting what we find available in the stores. Not only that, but also what price points we should expect and how this will, in turn, affect what we purchase, and how frequently we purchase new titles. This is because not all board game enthusiasts have deep pockets, the contrary is more often true. At the same time, many of these same hobbyists have become increasingly discerning when it comes to the quality of the products they purchase. What this means is that unless buyers purchase titles blindly, they will expect decent quality in whatever they ultimately purchase.

For instance, through personal experience, I have come to notice that KOSMOS tends to use very average materials for its products. For example, last year I bought a Reiner Knizia title I had been intrigued by called “Lost Cities”. This title was carried by KOSMOS and happened to be available at a local hobby store. I obviously went for it as the price was not prohibitive. Yet when I played a few games, I realised the card quality was poor. The cards are, in my opinion, too susceptible to being damaged while handling them. The point is that the whole game revolves around a deck of cards, so the cards are rather important. Instead of focusing on the box art, I felt they could have spent a bit more on card quality and less on the box itself which serves no purpose other than to hold the deck and a small board used to help player organise their play area.

While quality is something modern board game hobbyists expect these days, it’s not the only aspect which they look at when purchasing their new titles. There is another, equally important aspect, game mechanics. Euro-style games have evolved considerably over the first two decades of the new millennium. While player elimination games are still part of any publishing house’s portfolio, euro-style games have garnered an ever more commanding proportion of these same companies’ portfolios.

What Euro-style games brought is a focus on point scoring and doing away with player elimination altogether. Yet how this is achieved has increased and diversified substantially, leading to the creation of many new mechanisms which have gained popularity over time. Others enjoyed popularity for a time only to be absorbed into newer and perhaps more sophisticated mechanisms. So, we get gaming mechanisms such as: -

• ·         Worker placement
• ·         Action Selection
• ·         Card Drafting
• ·         Deck Building
• ·         Area Control
• ·         Action rondelles
• ·         Auctions
• ·         Leapfrogging
• ·         Set Collection
• ·         Cooperation mechanisms
• ·         Asymmetric mechanics / Variable player powers
• ·         Action programming
• ·         Story Telling
• ·         Dice rolling
• ·         Take That
• ·         Push your luck
• ·         Tile placement
• ·         Trading
• ·         Hand Management
• ·         Pickup and Deliver
• ·         Route Building

The above list is anything other than exhaustive, but it allows me to illustrate the diversity of the mechanisms that can now be found in board games. Furthermore, some of the latest titles to hit the market tend to combine two or more mechanisms to create an innovative synergy. These create more compelling and rich experiences for players. Players who have evolved to playing these latter games will find it increasingly more difficult to go back to blander, simpler titles. I’d dare say that exposure to this growing list of game mechanics has created a new type of jaded board gamers that are way harder to please, or at least surprise, and therefore equally harder to draw in.

I personally blame this emerging scenario as the main reason for the rise in complex, campaign-driven, legacy-type games. I am here referring to the heavyweights of modern board gaming like Gloomhaven and Descent, the newer Frosthaven and other similar titles. It’s almost as if, to attract this growing niche of players, designers have decided to engage in increasing the duration and complexity of the titles they come up with.

On a personal level, this amalgam of factors and the ensuing issue posed by increased costs when it comes to purchasing goods online, have further accentuated the issues I face when sourcing new titles. On the one hand, purchasing new titles from abroad has become prohibitive with final price tags twice the cost (if not more) of the board game’s retail price. On the other hand, I am faced with a stronger reliance on local shops willing to import board gaming titles. This limits my selections squarely to what they have on offer. Few of these local retailers are then willing to risk importing new titles that are nothing but sure bets, no one wants to lose money.

I feel that it is high time that something is done to address the elephant in the room. Shipping costs need to be brought down again, either through direct legislation aimed at mitigating the negative impact on the final price of products delivered, or else an increase in 3^rd party consolidated shipping agencies who can, in turn, spread the shipping costs making deliverables more affordable. While there are some local operators trying to address this, I feel that the efforts are notably disjointed and rather difficult to use effectively.

In conclusion, board gamers like me will still be purchasing new titles for their collection, while staying on the lookout for upcoming trends and new gaming mechanics. The only limitation we will continue to face is sourcing these titles at an affordable price. I feel that the first company or companies capable of achieving this will dominate the local market for such games. Let’s hope someone out there will succeed in hitting on the right strategy as I am sure it will be a godsend for the hobby and local hobbyists alike.

In the meantime, signing off from BG Haven, have a great week!