We’re in a golden age of board games
I love board games. I started playing board games in 1995, have a little over 600 now, and have run all kinds of events over the years.<p>We are not in a golden age.<p>Back in 2013 I was invited to a dinner with the Asmodee brass during Toy Fair. They laid out their plans for the company and industry. It all came to pass very quickly. By Gen Con 2016 you could feel that the wheels were coming off. The opening moments of Gen Con 2016 were hectic. This was the first year where you could pay $10 to get into the show floor a little early and the people who didn’t know were furious. Seafall, Cry Havoc, and Scythe were getting their pre-releases and when the gates opened it was the usual stampede but what was different were the lines. People were pretty rude, it was rough. I watched a YouTuber walk perpendicular into the Scythe line, which was blocking the walkway, shout at the people in the line, and then start physically moving people apart when they didn’t get out of the way fast enough..<p>And here’s the thing. None of those games were very good. We can argue the point on Scythe, but Seafall is considered a massive failure and Cry Havoc was rethemed to the point of illegibility before release. A gaggle of people being rude over terrible games they were told they “needed” to buy was the end of the “Golden Age” for me.<p>Every year since has felt worse. Asmodee gobbled up some of the best companies and now it’s changed hands multiple times. The studios are just logos on a box now, they’re shells of what they were.<p>I’ve played dozens of games over the past two years and they aren’t like they used to be. If they’re not outright dull or poorly designed, they usually feel like copies of imitations of better games.<p>I’ve had a subscription to Game Trade Magazine forever. Each month I tear out the blurbs of the games I want to buy. For the past two years I’ve been tearing out fewer and fewer ads. I tore out one page in the December 2022 issue. The game didn’t even look that good.<p>I’ve basically stopped buying new games. The ideas just aren’t there.<p>Board games aren’t going away, but this isn’t 2000-2015 either.<p>But also, who cares? The excitement is draining from board games and RPGs but other things like Warhammer and GMT&#x2F;historical war games are getting more interesting. RPGs and board games are just overexposed and need to rest for a bit.