Social play in order to escape screen time There are several reasons behind the renaissance of board games:

Firstly, there is a fundamental benefit of board gaming that is genuinely timeless. People are social animals, we live in/interact with other people around us. Sometimes this social interaction needs an aid or a prop to keep things fresh, to avoid any bickering or other negativity and to have fun with family and friends. This is the fundamental purpose of board games – social facilitation. Technology has not taken this benefit of board games away or delivered it any better to date.

Secondly, society and people in general are now struggling to combat the reality of excess screen time – staring at small screens all day is not such a positive thing in terms of lifestyle, social cohesion and eyesight among other things. Therefore, the toy industry as a whole and board games specifically are benefiting from their deployment as an antidote to screen time – both for our children and for ourselves! Parents nowadays struggle to get their kids off devices, in fact many children would be looking at tablets all day if left to themselves.

Board games and toys in general offer play patterns which are perceived by the majority of parents to be more worthy and more positive. The more we come to rely on/be hooked on these devices, the stronger this counter reaction becomes. In reality, that doesn’t mean parents succeed in using board games to get their children off screens, but it is a definite purchase driver, even if usage doesn’t always follow purchase!

New game concepts make games a relevant medium

Thirdly, we have a much healthier, much broader array of board games available to us today than we did say ten years ago.

The glorious fact about this massively powerful trend is that it is still in the infancy stage – look forward to many more games pushing the boundaries to come – that ‘staleness’ that permeated parts of the board games industry some time back is thankfully long gone.