The Ups and Downs of Board Gaming

 I originally wrote this post on Boardgamegeek last year. Thought it might have crossover appeal here! I plan to add more board game content, so please feel free to keep tabs on my blog! 

I recently wrote about my first impressions on Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and the overriding theme was of up’s and down’s. This got me thinking about board gaming as a whole, which I consider to be quite unique, with its highs, lows, foibles and eccentricities. I’m trying to get more writing done in preparation for an upcoming course, so I decided to explore the hobby in a little depth, and completely self indulgently, return to my early days of gaming and think about what impact it has had on my gaming life going forward, as well as how things have changed.

When I was ten, I started my gaming journey. Board games and fantasy gaming were quite popular commercially, and board gaming, at least for kids of my age, was not split into sub groups as much as it is now. I remember playing with equal enthusiasm, Heroquest, Go For Broke, The Ghost Castle, and even Monopoly. I loved games that would be regarded today as a waste of matches if you wanted to burn them. I would play with my friends, siblings, grandparents and visitors to the house and everybody would have fun. As far as I knew, to society as a whole, these games were all just ‘board games’, and needed no differentiation between ‘traditional’ and ‘hobby’ and this was something that everybody just did without otherthinking it too much. I’m not sure how adults regarded board games in 1986, but in our games we looked to all be lost in the game, laughing together and being as equal as any group of people could ever hope to be. Especially for younger folk it was very much a time where you could just play a game you fancied playing, regardless of its status among it’s peers, and I really miss that feeling. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; I do slightly regret chewing the heads off my Heroquest miniatures.

The rise in computer and video gaming that ran alongside the development of increasingly innovative and unique board gaming created a very healthy environment for people that enjoyed fantasy, escapism, competition and cooperation. That environment (co-dependency between electronic and board gaming) still exists today but feels different. This could be because I’m being an old duffer and shaking my walking stick at the young whippersnappers, but I really do get a sense that this process has been over commoditized and diluted. Necessity breeds invention, and the modern resources that designers can draw from, be it Kickstarter, computer aided design or the internet, perhaps provides a double edged sword when it comes to ingenuity. Many, many great games are produced, as well as many, many bad ones, and the saturation that this creates surely muddies the waters if nothing else. Finding a diamond in the rough, becomes more potent perhaps, but finding a flawless diamond amongst the sea of rough diamonds is perhaps a more accurate analogy.

In life the beginning of something often presents a potential that is difficult to live up to. Board gaming and computer gaming share another trait in this respect, in that their artwork, particularly the cover art advertises an experience that is often a tall order to find within. I have no evidence for it, but this is arguably a factor in fomo (fear of missing out) comes from; the never ending quest for what is promised on the box. Fomo is one of the worst elements of boardgaming and is an ironic twist, considering the abundance of resources that I mentioned previously. It encourages things like materialism, price gouging, exploitation and addiction. We certainly live in a corporate dictated, grabby world and almost uniquely, board gaming absorbs the worst elements of this. Ironically, the nature of board gaming manufacture makes many games ‘limited editions’ by default, and games that fell under the radar to some extent on production and later gain more respect create a demand that can’t be met, so the lack of a thing creates an anti consumerism, being the opposite of what consumerism usually means, i.e the abundance of something, making it cheaper, more accessible and friendly for the consumer. In another irony; in a hobby all about competition, competing to own games creates profound social problems for a minority, whether that be addiction or obsession. There is also an undoubted dual culture of snobbery and reverse snobbery within board gaming, with the Ameritrash vs Euro debates, arguments about what constitutes a real board game, and even fierce, toxic wars or words on whether drinks can be on tables while gaming. Just like the cover art of hero’s defeating enemies, or the tranquil field on which you will send your workers, when I started gaming, I quickly found that the ‘cover art’ of board gaming inside my mind, of like minded people having fun around a table, wasn’t an entirely accurate description of what was inside the box. It is a hobby that relies on community but so often tries to separate and fracture it’s community like so many other communities today, and that is incredibly frustrating. With both instances, it isn’t the artist's responsibility to make the box art more accurate, but the game's (or gamer’s) responsibility to make the experience match the promise.

I currently have ‘long covid’. I contracted the virus in September 2020 and am still struggling. Often I can’t breath, and I have felt like I have had perhaps a light flu for six months and have developed mild kidney disease.. Board gaming has, without a doubt, prevented me spiralling into a deep depression. The escapism that board gaming offers is separate from any other form that I enjoy, such as films, or video games. There is something amazingly ‘real’ about playing a board game. I think it’s a perfect middle ground between a video game and a pen and paper RPG. I love to live in a fantasy world, often being drawn to create my own, but most of the time I find the full on ‘pretending’ of D&D for example, a step too far and more of a leap of imagination than my brain can manage. A great game can momentarily transport you to another world, and when that heady mix of tactics and imagination blends into another life, it is nothing short of magical. Recently Spirit Island has been a highlight. The feeling that I had when learning the game reminded me of the first time I played Pandemic when getting into the hobby more seriously. It is like a curtain being pulled aside, and you suddenly see the potential of what games can do, to a whole other level. You get excited, and have butterflies about the slick mechanisms that drive the engines of the game, and on top of that, you are strategizing and experiencing the highs and lows of what it is to work alongside your fellow human. Four strangers or friends, coming from different experiences, backgrounds, upbringings and cultures come together to overcome a shared problem; a magical experience. Quite unexpectedly, Spirit Island gave me that feeling, despite the fact that I was playing on my own.

Board gaming can (should?) be an activity where everyone comes together,not just physically but emotionally supportively, but it’s community can equally (shouldn't?) be one that drives people apart. My personal journey started as one of pure childlike joy and contentment, has involved me withdrawing from it entirely for a year at one stage due to it’s toxicity. However,it has drawn me back and has saved my sanity in a distressing and universally difficult time, and I believe my journey is somewhat symbolic of the ups and downs of gaming.
To me, the common factors in today's divisive society are an unrestrained internet combined with a societal bias towards the individual over the community as a whole, but it could well be about entirely different things. I don’t intend this to be the starting point for a debate, rather a prompt for people to examine within themselves, what they can do personally to make gaming even better. Whatever the cause of gaming's problems, I very much wish that gamers were the trailblazers when it comes to tolerance, acceptance and togetherness. Gaming gets ever more popular and its community as a golden opportunity to turn things around, at least for a decent chunk of society. Board gaming is now and has always been a rare example where ten years olds and eighty year olds of all backgrounds can sit around a table and feel like true equals.