Vent: Board game nights used to be about friends, now it's all about the hype

I was digging through my old photos and found pics from our game nights around 2010. We'd just grab some snacks, pull out Catan or Ticket to Ride, and spend hours laughing and talking. Nobody cared about having the newest game or knowing every rule by heart. These days, when my group meets, it feels like a showroom. Someone always has a huge box of a game that just came out, with a fifty page rulebook. We spend half the night reading instructions instead of playing. The chat is full of news about kickstarters and rare editions. I miss when the fun came from being together, not from having the latest thing. It's like we turned into collectors more than players.

2 comments

2 Comments

paige363d ago

My shelf of shame is just games I bought because the box looked cool. Tried to learn one last week, spent an hour on setup and then we all just ordered pizza instead. I’m that friend who brings the hype game and then has to ask what a worker placement is halfway through, lol.

the_patricia3d ago

Ugh, yes. Last month my friend showed up with a game that had three rulebooks and a tutorial video we had to watch. We played one round in three hours. I miss when the box said ages 10 and up and you could actually figure it out by age 10. Now it feels like a job to learn the game, and half the fun was just messing around while you played something simple. It's turned into a contest of who has the fanciest stuff instead of who's having the best time.