Cult Of The New

Are Gamers Buying More and Playing Less?

- Eric Huemmer

You may have noticed it before: A whisper on the forums, some shifty looks at your local game store. Whether it started with the consumers or the publishers, no one knows. The signs are there if you look—an incredible title with outstanding reviews heading for game of the year, only to be quickly discarded for a different season’s must-buy a few weeks later. Popular games flying off the shelves one month, only to be shelved the next. It’s as if there’s some Cult of the New that needs to buy the latest and greatest, play it once or twice, then sacrifice it to the dusty shelf of obscurity…

All right. Maybe it’s not as dramatic as robed figures, evil plots and insidious chants of “evergreen,” but there has been a definite shift in buyer trends over the past couple of years. As the board game industry and community grow, the market longevity of games seems to shrink, as if the attention spans of gamers are eroding. Are consumers really buying more and playing less? What has changed with the board game markets to explain this shift?

No Chutes, All Ladders

For those following board games as a hobby, it can be argued that the industry has been entering a bit of a renaissance. Thousands of new games are being released annually, filling a growing variety of genres and niche markets that didn’t previously exist. From unique titles to modern remakes of old classics, board game sales have been trending upward across the board.

According to Board Game Geek, an estimated 3,900 new board games were released in 2016 alone. These include games released by large publishers, small designers, and individual passion projects; new games to existing titles receiving expansions, reskins, and updated rules.