Tag: board games

Written by Russell Sztukowski. Media by Michael Trieb. For many thousands of years, cultures have entertained themselves with games. Board games have been thought to date back five or six millennia to small wooden artifacts found in the tombs of the pharaohs, to carved stone tablets found in South American ruins. While many ancient games still remain, such as Chess, Checkers, Go, Mancala, and Backgammon, since the start of the 20th century, the popularity of board games has increased dramatically. Throughout the 1900’s board games seemed to be a very popular family activity. Tons of new companies sprung up and began producing names we know and love today, such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Sorry, and many others. Into the late 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s, it seemed as if board games reached their pinnacle. New and intriguing ideas and concepts were coming out on the fly, and more complicated games were being created involving moving parts, batteries, small electronic mechanisms, and large colorful and decorated setups. One may begin to wonder where these types of games went to. Today, the, the most common games we see played are card games, classic favorites, or simple setup games, like Apples-to-Apples, Uno, Trivia Games, Monopoly and the like. Why did the board game market find a peak and taper off into a steep decline coming into the 21st century? What happened to the creativity of the game companies?