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Games Entertainment

Board Games Click With Adults 71

Posted by simoniker from the been-playing-them-since-19xx dept.
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."
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Board Games Click With Adults More

Board Games Click With Adults

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  • From the article:

    The Game Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group, estimates that sales of non-electronic specialty games, which exclude best-selling standbys like Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Connect Four, have nearly quadrupled since 1995, from $700 million to $2.7 billion. Some of those sales include popular children's card games such as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but one of the fastest-growing areas, industry experts say, is the adult strategy game.

    Some of those sales include Pokemon and Yu-

  • Settlers of Satan (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:18AM (#6919913)
    "Settlers of Catan" sounds like a typo for a game about pioneers in Hell.
    • Catan is pronounced Katan.
    • Reminds me of a story (sorta on-topic since it involves a "board game"). Friend of mine and I had a oujia (sp?) board that we wanted to scare some of our more gullible friends with (we were like 12 years old).

      So we went to the local graveyard and started using it.

      S....

      A....

      T.... .....

      For some damn reason, he decides to start pulling towards the "I" as I tried to pull towards the "A."

      Needless to say, not a whole lot of people were freaked out by a visit from the Lord of the Underworld, Satin himself!

      S

  • Portability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Momomoto ( 118483 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:19AM (#6919920) Homepage
    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.
    • It should also be mentioned that board games are definitely more portable than a game console/PC.

      Maybe, but I've never spilled all the letters out of my GameCube. I can't say as much about Scrabble.

      Come to think of it, a GameCube is pretty portable. I think you can even get backpacks for them. Then again, it's probably really wierd being the only person over 12 at a GameCube LAN party. ;-)
      • The GameCube is a special case, really, since it is backpack-sized as long as you don't include the four controllers you have to port around.

        It's a good thing it's so portable, too, because I'd rather play Mario Golf over almost any multiplayer game out there.

        Except for Power Stone 2.
    • Portability isn't the only reason. There are a lot of people, myself included, who spend the better part of every work day staring at a computer screen. When I get home at night I don't always want to stare at another computer screen, even if it's to play a game. I find the occasional board game to be a nice change of pace.

  • When you're young, you play Chutes and Ladders and Hi-ho-cherry-o

    When you're older, you play them too. Many games are fun for couples, and nothing's better than Jenga+drunks

  • Possible reason (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gazbo ( 517111 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:26AM (#6919964)
    With the increase in tech workers over the years has been the correlated increase in cases of ADD amongst adults. Whereas in the past people may have watched TV or read a book in their spare time, it's not surprising that these people find it too boring and their attention drifts quickly.

    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.

  • One Word (Score:2, Informative)

    by goochman ( 303570 )
    Talisman
    • The game which I have been looking for, for years. And not willing to shell out $100 for a decent 2nd edition game.

      An old friend owned it, best game ever. Too bad the 3rd edition just sucks ;/
    • Talisman is a game for adolescents, not adults. You want to have a friendly evening with your adult pals and not frustrate them, you don't pull out a one-to-twelve-hour game full of design-by-accretion.

  • German Board Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:53AM (#6920164) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • I concur. Puerto Rico is indeed an excellent game.

    • Re:German Board Games (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @10:59AM (#6922005)
      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.
      • There's not a whole lot of strategy in Monopoly. You buy when you can. If you'd like to play a similar game that has lots of strategy facets, check out Fast Food Franchise. [boardgamegeek.com]

        Don't let Parker Bros. get a monopoly on board games!
        • Yeah, I know the whole "Quaker Game Stolen and repackaged".

          The strategy in Monopoly revolves around three things:

          1: Knowing what to trade, for what, and when. Which is more valuable? Would you trade New York for Park Place? It depends on how much cash your opponents have.
          2: Knowing what to pass up. In some situations, Baltic/Medeterraian/The Railroads/Utilities can be a good value. Sometimes the're junk.
          3: Knowing when to build. Do you hold on to your moeny or use it to build on your properties.

      • Re:German Board Games (Score:2, Informative)

        by Arkhan ( 240130 )
        I too love Scotland Yard, but it isn't a very good choice for this particular argument.

        It may actually be German, for all I know, but I bought it as a child around 1980 from a mainstream toy store in the U.S. There was no indication that it was an import or remake.

        So it looks like the American market at least *used* to get the right games, one way or another.

    • Re:German Board Games (Score:3, Informative)

      by harrkev ( 623093 )
      I don't mean to sound like a shill, but one great site for buying games is www.funagain.com [funagain.com]. An awesome site. They even have some pretty good review and give suggestions like "best party games for three people", "best kid's games", etc.

  • Community & Communication (Score:5, Interesting)

    by neglige ( 641101 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @07:56AM (#6920186)
    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 ;)

  • Some goofy fun.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by p4ul13 ( 560810 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @08:25AM (#6920417) Homepage
    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 [cheapass.com] --No it's NOT a p0rn site.
    • I agree, the CA games are for the most part quite good, although I have run across a few where the rules didn't quite work. Mind you, the games are so cheap that if you do manage to get a dud, you won't feel bad about it.

      Also, for those of you outside the States, I have hear of these games being stopped at customs due to the companys unique name, not for the contents. This is odd because I can buy these games at my local gaming shop here in Canada.

      • Quoth cybergrue:
        Also, for those of you outside the States, I have hear of these games being stopped at customs due to the companys unique name, not for the contents.
        I wouldn't put too much faith in the rumour.... CA games are available here in .au too.
        • I wouldn't put too much faith in the rumour.... CA games are available here in .au too.

          Its not a rumour, it happened to a friend of mine who was el'Presedente of a University gaming club at the time. She ordered a few games on-line because the local gaming store didn't have those particular ones, and she thought that she could save a little money by ordering directly from the source.

          Needless to say, we have very little respect for Canadian Customs (who have been known to seize books at the border that w

  • Cheap Options (Score:4, Informative)

    by JonBob ( 556956 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @08:26AM (#6920430)

    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 [wunderland.com], which enables you to play hundreds of games of different genres. Geeks love Zendo [wunderland.com], an inductive logic game you can play with an Icehouse set.

    Another option is Cheapass Games [cheapass.com], 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 [piecepack.org] games. Piecepack is a public domain gaming system, so you can buy a set from several different manufacturers or make your own.

    • Use top seller lists. Like the top sellers at FunAgainGames [funagaingames.com]. I own nine of the ten listed there today, and they are indeed some of the best.

      Bohnanza is an amazing game. I've never met anyone who didn't enjoy playing it, and yet it's still a highly strategic game.

  • Dual definition of "Adult"... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Thedalek ( 473015 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @08:38AM (#6920527)
    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.

    Tragic though it may be, it seems that the latter definition is the more common one, even here on /., and we're supposed to be the intellectual crowd.

    Enough maudlin, back to games.

    On the American side of things, there's Cheapass games [cheapass.com], Looney Labs [wunderland.com], Out of the Box publishing [otb-games.com], and for you linux/opensource/get-it-for-free-fans, Piecepack [piecepack.org].

    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 [mayfairgames.com], importers of the Catan series (pronounced cuh-tahn'), Rio Grande Games [riograndegames.com] (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 [fantasyflightgames.com], current makers of most Lord of the Rings board games.

    For actually buying the games, I would suggest Funagain [funagain.com] or Boulder Games [bouldergames.com].

    Enjoy.
  • How much more sophisticated can "Bottoms Up" be? :P

  • Return on investment (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ajrs ( 186276 )
    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.
  • One of the best boardgames ever produced, was the Games Workshop Masterpece "Talisman". It was pricy, even when it was plentiful, $50 for the base set and like another $30 for each of the 3 expansions, but I am yet to meet a person that has played it and not loved it. It's a simple fantasy boardgame that even non-gamers can understand and enjoy, but there is enough depth to it that there are a lot of subtle strategies that keep the game from being completely random.

    Complete sets of this game used to go f
    • I'll second Steve Jackson games. Although I'm probably preaching to the choir here at /.

      I'm trying to get my friend to pick up a copy of Munchkin Fu [sjgames.com]. I mean who doesn't like a Karate Squid [sjgames.com]

      I also highly recommend Carcassonne [boardgamegeek.com]

      -prator
      • I'll second Steve Jackson games. Although I'm probably preaching to the choir here at /.

        I just got Strange Synergy [sjgames.com] yesterday. I hear it's quite fun, but really I'm just a big Phil Foglio whore.

    • zOMBIES!!! is a broken game out of the box. One that gets worse with every expansion pack. The list of problems is endless, which is unfortunate because it's a fun premise. I enjoy swapping alternate rules with people, but have yet to find a rule set that really makes for suspenseful, strategic play.
      • What did you find so broken about Zombies? Other than the fact that getting to the Helipad is usually never accomplished, we always end up with someone killing 25 zombies first.

        • Well that is one big reason. the fact that there's no REAL strategy. It's all luck. The cards are useless as they don't come into play often enough and you can only have 3 at a time. Playing with less than 5-6 people is pointless since you'll be creating this huge map with tons of zombies that you'll never explore/fight before someone wins. Unless you start out there you'll never get to the expansion pack maps, which isn't even the point really. No adverse predicaments or schadenfreude stratregies other tha
          • Don't really have anything I would say is an alternate rule, though one thing that we do, which we infered from the written rules, is that when we kill a zombie, we keep the miniature as a counter. If there are no more miniatures in the pool, then no new zombies can be added, i.e. new tiles lack zombies, cards which add zombies to the map can only add as many zombies as there are miniatures in the pool, etc. We didn't do this the first time we played, and it really screwed the game, we ended up with the map
            • We're not being 'unimaginative' with the cards. When you've only got 3 a round and you're saving one or 2 to pull something off a round or 2 down the road, it doesn't leave a lot of room for immediate results. That's strategy. It does rely too heavily on the random roll of the die in a fight. We use the zombie pieces as tokens (of course) but since we have the added zombie pack, we'd never run out. So those changes wouldn't work too well. We could use less, but that really rather spoils the point of having
  • Zombies!!! [twilightcreationsinc.com] by Twilight Creations [twilightcreationsinc.com] is a great game that can be played through in an hour or less. There are elements of both strategy and luck, and this game has one serious "screw your friends" factor. I believe that there are also two expansions.
    • BROKEN! This game is totally broken out of the box and gets worse with every expansion pack.
      • The only bitch I really have with the game is some of the cards are a bit vague. This leaves much room for rules interpretation- which if you play with a group of people resembling mine, is a bad thing. I wouldn't consider it broken. Every game I've played has gone quite smoothly. I can't vouch for the expansions because I haven't used them yet.
        • You're absolutely right about the cards. They're terrible. One should never have to refer to the manufacturer's site for card clarifications. Rule clarification sure. But not pieces.
  • No mention of Cranium? The absolutely funnest most cream-pie-tastic game in the fucking universe?

    Hmph. Journalism indeed...

  • I'm surprised I haven't seen someone extolling the virtues and replayability of Illuminati [sjgames.com]. My buddy introduced me to this game back in the early 90's and I've been hooked. Great fun for 3 or more players, highly addictive, great party fun and I've found the girls we hang out with get a kick out of it too (it doesn't take a lot of logic or cutthroat intuition, and there's a bit of diplomacy as well).

    --trb
    • Illuminati is a special case. Some people love it, some people find it involves too much backstabbing and mistrust. My girlfriend refused to play it again after I screwed her and my dad over in a game.

  • Talk about your viral marketing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SnowDog_2112 ( 23900 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @11:23AM (#6922329) Homepage
    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.
    • The only problem I and some friends have had with this is that we tell someone, hey, you want to play a board game? They look at us apprehensively and ask what game. We tell them it's Advanced Civilization, and they say, uhhh... what's that? We explain the basic principles of the game and they sound interested, but then they say, when do you want to play? We say, uh, well, actually we were thinking of playing half on Saturday and the other half on Sunday, because it takes so frickin' long to play.

      They
  • There are quite a variety of boardgames out there, and opinions are quite varied among the various boards devoted to them. The important thread for some is competition, for others it's social interaction. Personally, i find who you play with to be as or more important than what you play. YMMV. Don't be put off by the discussion of cost either, there are many good games at minimal expense with excellent replay value, such as Carcassone ($13 online). Some may consider Talisman worth tremendous sums, but
  • 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:

  • Allow me to take a minute to pray that strategy wargames may resurface if this is true.

    I sure miss Sixth Fleet, the Tank Leader series, Starfleet Battles... ah, good times, good times.
  • A great alternative to Monopoly is The Farming Game [farmgame.com]. It's a little depressing to play since you start out $20,000 in debt, but I guess that's realistic.

    You know it's a good game when they've actually bought it in Russia to teach people about farming.
  • I enjoy picking up new games even if it's just to play them once. I'll try one every once in a while on a whim for like $16-20 and spend an evening with my friends trying it out. If four friends pitch in $4 each then it's cheaper than going to dinner or a movie, it's social, interactive, and it's an interesting diversion.

    While you're at it, see if you can find a copy of Burn Rate - with a theme based on the dot-com collapse.

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