These cafes are important as they are “helping manufacturers to understand the kind of games that appeal to the larger section of players” (Atrizton).ĬOVID-19 caused board game sales to increase. In the board game café Draughts in the UK, customers pay £5 to select and play one of 800 board games, including classics like Monopoly and Cluedo.
Still played on rainy days, weekends, and holidays, we now also play board games in dedicated game board cafés like the Haunted Game Café in America, the Snakes and Lattes in Canada, or the Mind Café in Singapore. Today, regardless of or because of our digital lives, we are in a “board game renaissance” (Booth 1). Similarly, the Industrial Revolution allowed for the mass production of board games, boosting their popularity across nations, class, and age (Walker 13). Chess had many variations prior to the fifteenth century. Trade, war, and science impacted on their development, as did the printing press, which allowed for the standardisation of rules. Historically, miniature versions of battles or hunts were played out in what we might recognise today as a board game. Likely board games were developed to do two things – teach and entertain. Board games have a long history not specific to one period, geography, or culture.
While on-demand television is a significant factor in this trend, for Moriaty and Kay (6), who wouldn’t “welcome chance to turn away from their screens” to seek the “warmth and connection you get from playing games with live human family and friends?” For others, playing board games can simply be about nostalgia.
The increasing popularity of board games are part of what Julie Lennett, a toy industry analyst at NPD Group, describes as the “nesting trend”: families have more access to entertainment at home and are eschewing expensive nights out (cited in Birkner 7). Since the early 2000s, and especially since the onset of COVID-19 and long periods of lockdown, board games have seen a revival in popularity.
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