IS THE GOLDEN AGE OF BOARD GAMES OVER? | Have the Best Board Games Already Been Published?

Fr. Greg and Daniel discuss whether the board gaming hobby is still creatively innovative or whether all we have now is recycled ideas and is that a bad thing? Let us know your thoughts down below!
Music by creatormix.com

[@aimajica]

One of the most innovative game I've seen in recent years is "Dive". I won't play the game every day, but it's a very unique design. I love the reactions when you show this game to non-boardgamers. "Heat: Pedal to the metal" is also a very interesting case. It has been built on Flamme Rouge from the same designers, but my mind was blown away when I played it: I thought I knew what a racing game was, but the racing sensations this game gave me made me realized that I didn't. And still, the mechanics of the game are not new! it's the mash-up and the way it was implemented in this particular game, with this particular setting, that brought those unique feelings. I'm not worried; nowadays, we are having a lot of "déjà-vu" sensations, but it's because the hobby is growing. There's a bucket full of new games every week, and most of those borrow their mechanics here and there, making their own (good or bad) soup from them. There hasn't been a splashing new mechanic (like drafting or deck-building) in recent years, but personally I'm still amazed by a new game every two months or so, when I notice a fun and interesting "twist" that makes a game feel very unique. It happened recently with two simple card games by Cathala & Rivière: "Oh my brain!" and "Sea, Salt & Paper". Two very familiar games, kind of classic... until... You realize you have kind of a "waiting hand" from where you can choose and anticipate the next cards that come into your hand for the first one, and that you can bet your victory (by itself) to the risk of losing everything in the second one. Powerful twists on the recipe that make them feel very special (and great!). ;)

[@donnakeferlis1649]

Watching this again, you really struck a chord at 12:45 - you're right! It does seem like games now are more creative than innovative. Yet I fall for the classic misdirection - I get distracted by the shiny, pretty newness and fail to see what's beneath the surface... until I play it and go 🤔, this feels familiar. Not always a bad thing though (you & Bitoku, me & every Uwe Rosenberg game😜). Anyway, definitely something to keep my eye on. And this awakening just might curb my purchasing 🤞.

[@donnakeferlis1649]

Board games are definitely on an upward trajectory. They just keep getting better. My only frustration is that there are too many and I want everything! It makes me want to just give up. If I keep up with this hobby, I'll never get to fully enjoy what I already own.

[@PunchboardParty]

Yes, that’s right 😂 There is no way to keep up! You just gotta allow yourself the freedom to play what you love and enjoy the journey 😊

[@hugocruz2439]

I stopped buying games after joining a local gaming group. Now i enjoy my collection when i play with friends and play the new games other brings to the local gaming group. Is the best solution, try it out!

[@PunchboardParty]

@@hugocruz2439 that sounds like an excellent solution :)

[@longtimeninerfan1309]

Good discussion. There will mainly be mixing, matching, combinations, tweaking of what has come before with some different art and theme added, but once in awhile we’ll experience something entirely new to the hobby. That takes time and light bulb 💡 moments from designers. I have heard some 4,000+ new games are published each year nowadays. There is bound to be some games yet to come that will be amazingly innovate. In the meantime, let us continue to discover favorites from years ago and why they achieved that status.

[@PunchboardParty]

I love this! I think that’s the main point. Find games that are fun for YOU to play no matter what decade the are coming from 😎

[@shantelalbert7151]

I am loving the continual improvement on existing games. It's the same with movies ha ha. There are just SOOO many new games now every year, that's part of the fun is finding the best games for yourself. I'm primarily a solo player, so I'm loving the polishing up of older games and mechanisms that have been improved and added scenarios or ways to play like cooperative and solo.

[@PunchboardParty]

I have thought about the movie analogy a lot since posting this video. Because I like a lot of newer movie and I also like a lot of older movies and the same can be said about games as well :)

[@jamesbrazeal3847]

Standing on the shoulders of giants is a natural Development for board games. That being said I do not think we have platued or reached the end of this amazing journey. There are a ton of old and new games to explore and enjoy.

[@raymyers700]

I have to say "no"...but MAN...I wish when publishers got the big idea to crank out more, MORE, M-O-A-RRRRR...that they slowed down and refined those games. I'm hoping that will happen at some point. There were a LOT of ideas that were like slightly hot cake batter: so close to being fantastic, but the pressure to GET IT OUT AND SELL IT ASAP kinda ruined it. It's partially our fault as hobbyists too because all you needed to do was throw in some minis, metal coins, screenprinted whatever: and we'd pledge to it on Kickstarter. We taught them how to 'sell' to us and it wasn't the best way. But I'm still blown away by some designs that have come out in the last few years and I'm sure that won't change. I think using sites like BGA can REALLY help consumers make better decisions AND help publishers refine games better through much more play testing.

[@PunchboardParty]

I think the consumption dimension of this conversation. Is super important. If we played games more times before jumping to the next then publishers would have to account for those in what they produce :)

[@joeferreti9442]

For the record "Ark Nova" is not TFM 2.0. It's nothing like TFM except that it also uses a big stack of singleton cards and tags on cards.

[@PunchboardParty]

I concede there are HUGE differences! But the blueprint is there. I don’t think Ark Nova would have come along without Terraforming Mars laying the groundwork. But that’s just speculation :)

[@ragnar1233]

The majority of games that are coming out now a days are good but not better than they were were 10 to 15 years ago. Sure there will be a great game that comes out every now and then that will turn into classic but I think that most of the real great games have already been made.When I play a new worker placement game or a variation there of, I say to myself why would I pick this over Agricola. When I play a new area majority game I ask myself why wouldn’t I just play el grande. When a new party game comes out I say why play this and not times up or code names. When I new auction game with a bunch of other stuff thrown in comes out why not play Medici or Ra? New economic game… just play brass people. It’s because we all want whats new. We all want it now. Besides playing the classics will save you time and money. It seems we all want to spend hours and hours learning and teaching a game but not actually spending that much time playing games. Doesn’t anyone ever just like throwing a game on the table and playing it without looking at the rules? Spending a half hour every game session with a rules teach, no thanks… I know something better to do….it’s called playing a game!!! Get back to the classics. Dive deep into your your games… the hell with the new and in with the old.

[@ten_oclock_scholar4690]

I don't buy the idea that we're in a twilight period - quite the contrary, there's an overabundance of good games that are coming out every year, and that may be actually part of the reason for the subjective perception that games are getting less innovative. The hobby has matured to a point where new mechanisms don't get created as often, but existing mechanisms are getting explored in interesting ways. A lot of games are iterating on previous designs, but I think that makes total sense when you consider that board games themselves are essentially just a collection of mechanisms that get combined in various ways to create different kinds of experiences. If mechanisms are the vocabulary of board games, then board games are like poems: you don't need to make up new words to write a good poem, and you don't need to invent a new mechanism to make a good board game, either. Moreover, the first game that uses a mechanism isn't always the best one to use it, and if a mechanism is truly compelling, then it should allow for a significant design space that designers can explore. That's what's happening with Earth, for example, where the tableau builder is being combined with a spatial or pattern building puzzle in the vein of games like Arboretum or Cascadia. To me, a person who likes both of those styles of games, that's innovative, even if it's not entirely original. Undoubtedly, though, there's a collective bias towards the first games to use a given mechanism, and that skews the perception of games that successfully iterate on previous designs. I also think that people who crow about the lack of originality in board games would be hard pressed to come up with a list of games that are truly original in that they don't bear some resemblance to games that came before (it would be a very short list indeed). Yes, there are also a lot of games that are just copies of the same game with a different theme slapped on it, but I don't think that in itself is a sign of a lack of innovation in board games overall; my read on the situation is that (1) the market is oversaturated and (2) innovation is taking a different form as designers iterate on previous designs and publishers try to bring more consumers into the hobby through the use of non-violent themes like nature, higher production values, better art, diverse characters, etc. The upside of all of this is that the market has now grown significantly enough to accommodate an extremely wide (and deep!) range of tastes. You like deck building and dungeon crawling? There's a game for you. You like cooperation and dexterity? There's a game for you. You like cooperation, limited communication, AND deduction? Well, by golly, there's a game for you (actually there's three I can think of off the top of my head). And in a certain way, by iterating on previous designs, designers and publishers are actually just responding to what consumers want, which to my mind, is getting increasingly specific as players become more board game literate and more educated about their own tastes. I also suspect that publishers have discovered that consumers don't actually *want* games to be so totally different from other games they already know and love. Rather, they want *more* of what they *already* love, especially when previous familiarity with other titles in a series or with the mechanisms makes it so much easier to learn a game and get it to the table regularly when your hobby time and budget are limited. In short, I think the reason people think the "golden age of board games" is coming to an end is because it's harder for games to stand out among the crowd. More games are produced every year than ever before, and very few are actually bad. It may be that what we're in is a kind of pandemic board game bubble, where the market has become a little bit too saturated to accommodate the sudden rise of players during the pandemic (which has since dropped off significantly as life returns to normal), and we *may* see some publishers go the route of Days of Wonder where they slow down and decide to produce only one or two high-quality games a year. I really hope that's the case, because the rate of consumption in the hobby is so high right now that many games just drop off the face of the earth and don't get the time that they deserve-and that's not to mention the huge impact our consumption habits are having on the environment! Sorry for the essay - I find this to be an interesting discussion and wanted to think out loud a bit!

[@PunchboardParty]

I love this comment! I especially appreciate the idea that people want MORE of their favourite games. That is certainly true for me. The saturation of the market is also a very good point. Maybe the quantity of games gives the illusion of mediocrity, that wouldn’t be the case of publishers went the “Days of Wonder” route.

[@Gothbrooks420]

Fantastic discussion guys. Though I truly believe there is still plenty of space for innovation in the hobby, it is of course true that iteration rules the roost nowadays.

[@joeferreti9442]

Some are good, some are not so good. Some years are better, some are worse. It also has a lot to do with taste and mood and so on. Yes, there is a lot of repetition and similarity in the designs. The design space of board games is not that huge because there are a lot of limitations. Does that mean that there can't be new innovations and some really good new games? No. Does that mean that newer games are always better? No, hell no! Does that mean that every hyped game is good? No, hell no!

[@MisterAbysmul]

No way! The volume of great new games is outstanding! To see a downward trend you'd have to go a few years of "nothing new or special"... and that's not happened. YOU (an individual) might feel burnt out, YOU might overconsume but clearly the boardgame hobby is booming with great new content.

[@PunchboardParty]

I think that’s right although someone over on BGG did some research and found out that 2012 has the most games on the BGG top 200 by about double other years. I just found that interesting. I still agree that there are plenty of fun games to play from 2023!

[@Flip5ide]

I found this really interesting, I don't have any input as I'm new to the hobby (about 3 years in), thank you.

[@PunchboardParty]

O yeah! Awesome! Do you find yourself playing the newest games, or do you seek out games from 5-15 years ago?

[@Flip5ide]

@@PunchboardParty Good question! I have the obvious gateway games, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride and Takenoko, but after them it's just whatever takes my fancy and I know my wife and daughter will play with me, I have games in my wishlist that are older, like Alhambra or Agricola or Stone Age. Now I'm looking at my collection it's definitely mostly games from 2015 onwards with a splash of earlier and a lot of newer stuff, I've also got a few Kickstarters I'm waiting for, one is Castles of Burgundy though so it's new old 😅

[@PunchboardParty]

@@Flip5ide o yeah, that sounds like a really good spread :)

[@Bronson-_-]

Do you guys know what started the Golden Age of Board games? Like what kicked it off?

[@DeepFriedDave]

Designing great, tension filled, innovative, classical style board games is super hard. Thats why even the best and most popular designers have, in my view, only one or two great designs under their names. But hey having designed two great games is more than what most people could ask for. Most games like you said are *poor* rehashes of great games that have come before. With a retheme and small changes. Take for example the new game The White Castle by Devir. In my opinion thats just a terrible rehash than the excellent game Troyes. Board game designers and publishers now-a-days just want to sell as much cardboard and plastic in the form of minis as they can. Especially in the age of Kickstarter. Thats why you are seeing board games becoming massively more fiddly, complex just for the sake of complexity, and taking up egregious amounts of table space. One of the few designers that is actually not afraid to try risky and new things in board game design is Friedman Friese. His Game 504...which was a bunch of modules that could be combined into 504 seperate games, all with different rules, was quite avant-garde. It wasn't a great game by any means, but it has some radically new concepts in it. His game Faiyum is also a different kind of game. Its almost like a co-op yet at the same time competitive game. Everyone builds stuff but no one owns anything in order to gain favor with the Pharoh. Really interesting stuff.

[@jacobramirez5974]

No doubt new games just keep getting better. And I'm even talking about when they retool an old one and make it better. The newer better version usually comes with a solo, which I really appreciate.

[@PunchboardParty]

The solo variations have been really cool to see improve. I still wouldn’t be confident saying that the best game out there is the newest game, though. But I don’t disagree that there is good stuff coming out every day :)

[@robertvella4919]

Interesting question to ask. You mentioned Dominion and how revolutionary that game was. And yes, while change has been less rapid, games are still evolving. Dominion is actually the game that made me realise how games are evolving because I played it more the first time recently and found it to be dull and themeless compared to modern deck-builders that have figured out ways to make deck-building mechanics thematic. To me, these small iterations add up to a vast improvement. I promptly sold my copy of Dominion because the deck-builders I already owned seemed vastly superior to me, maybe also because there is no nostalgia to bias my view on it.

[@PunchboardParty]

I think these incremental changes cannot be overlooked. They are a bigger deal than I let on in the video. And taking Ark Nova and Terraforming Mars as example again, there is squarely half the game that is unique to Ark Nova, so these shifts are not always even all that small.

[@NameerHaddad]

One thing that's keeping me from trying Earth is that the theme is EXTREMELY boring; but more importantly, the main reason why I'm hesitant on this one is because of the super hype it got from the Dice Tower crew. Ark Nova is Tom Vasel's #1 game of all time; I tried a few weeks ago and the game is mediocre at best IMO; needless to mention how long it is for a multiplayer-solitaire experience. Earth might be an excellent game, but I can't stand the boring theme and the over-hype. I also played Terraforming Mars once and enjoyed it a lot and will always choose it over the over-hyped Ark Nova.

[@PunchboardParty]

I just picked up my copy of Earth 😂 But don’t get me wrong! I too agree that the theme is so BORING! I am excited about the card play and triggering actions though :) And I do enjoy Ark Nova quite a bit, so I think I am safe on that front. But yes, I would prefer a fantasy or noble houses theme myself :)

[@NameerHaddad]

@@PunchboardParty I'm not a fan of fantasy/miniatures/D&D either, but they could've used any other theme for Earth! Again, it might be an amazing game, but the sour taste that Ark Nova left in my mouth is still lingering and keeping me from trusting The Dice Tower over-hyped games or even BGG's ranking again! I really still don't understand all the hype for Ark Nova, especially how loooooooooong it is 😩 Anyway, love your channel!

[@PunchboardParty]

@@NameerHaddad I think why can forgive Ark Nova’s length is that the turns are (or should be) snappy 😂

[@NameerHaddad]

@@PunchboardParty That definitely was not our experience, but regardless of what we disagree on, I think one thing that most people agree on is that Ark Nova does NOT deserve to be in the Top 10 games of all time on BGG. Top 100, sure, but Top 10, hardly! What do you think?

[@PunchboardParty]

@@NameerHaddad 😂 I don’t think any of the games on the top 10 deserve their place. I’d have that list ordered very differently, I think. That being said I just played Ark Nova again last week and am I buying it off a buddy, so I am a little high on it right now. Hence why I am defending it; I need to justify my purchase 😂

[@Wrycon-Inc]

Feels like the pandemic boosted the optics on the hobby and brought in a lot of new fans (and prospective customers). As a result, production and marketing increased which created a healthy and competitive ecosystem. Now, in 2023, the “shine” from the pandemic has worn off and some will exit the hobby, thereby diminishing the financial viability of new games, which in turn creates a chilling effect on developers and publishers “rolling the dice” (sorry for the pun) on new ideas. There will be good new games. I don’t think there will be a glut of them as we’ve seen in the past 5 years or so.

[@PunchboardParty]

Really great observations :)

[@jacobramirez5974]

FG - apps? some neat designs? I WILL FIGHT YOU!!! (😉, for real tho, I'm just not a fan of mixing cardboard with electronics)

[@stevejones6910]

If the best game ever came out, would you recognize it for what it is?

[@joshuag7027]

creativity has definitely stagnated a bit, but there's still great games coming out, but it feels more like iteration rather than innovation.

[@PunchboardParty]

I think I agree with that completely, Josh :)