How your board games have changed in the past 10 years & more topics | Board Game Q&A

hello and welcome to another question and answer show here on watch it played my name is Matthew and together with a bunch of your help let's Endeavor to answer all of the internet's burning board game [Music] questions our first question this month is how many games do you own that you could teach and play without looking at the rule book ooh I consider myself a board game professional I know that isn't what others have been saying that feels like something I should be able to do something that should just be natural I just go I can play that game yeah I love that game I played it many times but there's a confidence that comes with saying and I don't need the rule book at all I've had a look around my room here at the games that I own and I have come up with a short list I'm going to go with probably about 15 maybe that's not a lot you know even like caran you know a game I've played many times and I feel like I know the rules to would I say I don't need to look at the rule book I just need to make sure this one thing you know and sometimes you had a house roll in and sometimes is that part of the rule book and do we actually is that allowed or how does this happen how many points is it I I want to say more than that though I mean l cities I'm playing without the rule book need the rule book for Lost Cities seven wers duel I do not need the rule book for there's LLY games where all the rules are on the cards that's certainly true but like the castles of burgundy I could probably teach and play there's chin just just here I could definitely play but the other question I had for myself when I was posed this and saw this and people really taking this very seriously is why why why it is an interesting thought experiment how many games do you really know so well and what type of games are they right does it say anything about the game itself that once learned you can just spend your time on mastering the game I don't know if it really is the biggest badge of honor that that it needs to be something I could definitely do is there's probably hundreds of games that I could reread the rule book once and then teach that game perfectly I I do think that is a skill that I have and I think a lot of us board gamers have that where I can just read through something it's 12 pages and for the next 24 hours that is in my mind that's probably the extent of it cuz after it's been played gone again completely just vanished but I have got so many games are like that I mean there is a great wonderful ease to thinking I could just whack a game out and just play it and I am so impressed when I see people do that they go I'll teach this and they just don't need anything they just know the rules you ask them a question they got it how many games do you think that you own do you think you could just whack off the shelf play everyone's got questions no one's ever played before for you got the answers you don't need the rule book the next question I think it might be slightly controversial it's have you seen the price of Kickstarter lately it just made me chuckle crowdfunding games have got more expensive haven't they and it's not necessarily been the most incremental but it has in a way crowdfunding's been with us for over 10 years now maybe maybe it's the fact that the big crowdfunded games that we see and are promoted and maybe you know are going to buy ad going to literally I mean I was on YouTube the other day and I got a literal just an advert which I was in for a crowdfunding thing I was never asked I say that much I was like I'm what's happening here I'm in this advert anyway that's a whole different thing and it was for you know crowdfunding and they they've got the money to make these projects and often they've got these big backings behind them like they're doing a video game so EA behind them or Disney is behind them right so there's a lot of money coming in there and on the flip side they need to make a bunch money and you see maybe those big kickstarters are just the ones we hear about more so much more promotion for those has the average price of all Kickstarter projects let's just use Kickstarter as an example there game found n vaka kit and others you know has the average cost of all of the games gone up other than out of out of line and out of sync with inflation in general I don't know if that's maybe the case I still see lots of games and I go oh that's a really good game and the price was entirely reasonable to me one that comes to mind and they haven't sponsored anything that was just one that I'm thinking about was the moon rollers game we did a we actually did do a playthrough of moon rollers on the channel on our twitch Channel and I went over to the kickstarter went oh this is 30 bucks that sounds about right that sounds fair obviously there's shipping let's not even consider shipping on kickstarters cuz it's just never a fun experience there are lots of projects where the price is kind of just normal except able reasonable sometimes a good deal but then you get those massive projects and the prices do seem to be going higher and higher and higher and my only thing to say to that is if people keep on buying them the companies are going to keep on making them you can't say that the price is too high if they keep on selling you can only say that that game was not being sold to you that's the way I look at it you know I see a big Kickstarter maybe it's a game I'm really interested in and I go oh this game isn't for me I want to play the game I want to own the game but this game is not being marketed to me and people like me this is being marketed to people with much more money and there seems to be enough of those people in the hobby to justify them making that and you go well they've sold 3,000 copies of this game at $400 but they weren't going to sell one to me that's just not not going to happen I think there are a lot of kickstarters that I've just been priced out of and yeah I could probably buy it but I can't justify buying it really I think a lot of what it comes down to is people in the hobby taking owners for their own actions and taking a bit of responsibility upon themselves if you really believe the price of these things has gone up and up and up too much then hopefully enough people will just not purchase it that has happened I've seen it happen where people gone no I remember Imagine The Gatherings 30y year anniversary where they did these exclusive booster packs and they were like £1,000 like $1,000 or something stupid and the product failed it's possible for the will of the people to work out in those regards to give a message to people saying great game this is too much money cuz often those companies have other options they've got a game they think we need to make this Kickstarter and what does that mean kick starter I feel like we all think of it needs Deluxe components it needs Miniatures even if the game doesn't need Miniatures it needs this it needs this it needs exclusives it needs this and all of that is to generate bus to generate people excitement for people to be talking about it and all of those things incur a cost we are driving this engine cuz we've asked for this and the companies are often just providing what we've asked for they want Minis want this perfect insert they want this well the price is going to go up I feel sometimes the price of kickstarters is just ludicrous on its face but sometimes the price of kickstarters is like well we need to make this Deluxe because people are need we want to stand out in the crowd so that people back in in general but undoubtedly the price of Kickstarter has increased I think it's certainly a lot of these projects at a faster rate than the price of games what do we do about it not back the games stand up and say I'm not getting this and then see the kickstarter succeed anyway without you it's difficult but I think we have developed as a whole we've developed a community that gets away with it maybe the wrong way to put it but certainly expects these projects to be all out I think what we can do with these projects is just say I'm going to sit this one out and wait for retail or wait for it to be sold on the secondhand Market but you have to also accept that these companies are trying to make something and I just don't think that a lot of Publishers are out there trying to rip everyone off they're out there trying to make a profit obviously but I think they want to provide a good quality product for a price that makes it possible for them to make it and that comes with a big cost sometimes and the final question I have this month is how have games changed in the last 10 years years like I said 10 years is pretty much as long as I've been properly in the hobby industry and we've just mentioned one big change the way games have changed it's that crowdfunding is such a hugely more important part of the culture of board games but I think in general there are a few things I've noticed personally about how games themselves have changed in the last 10 years first of all there are way more of them there's just more games every year seems to be a new record set pandemics you know aside every year there seems to be a new record set on how many games were at s and how many games were released at Gen Con how many games were added to Ball Game Geek more and more and more games is that good is that bad does it provide us a breadth of different things and themes does it provide us with way too much oversaturation I don't know but definitely there's more games and I would also say that on average I've noticed in the last 10 years production values have gone up artwork in games has become much more of a taboo to just not do a good job on the production value of the pieces the cards and of course again not in every game nothing is going to be a blanket rule for everything because there's thousands of games but I feel like nowadays you buy a board games the production of it is going to be better than 10 years ago on average two things I've noticed about the space that board games in habit is that you're able to play those games online that's something that's really always been around but over the last 10 years the amount of places you can play these games online has just blown up and the amount of games on those places like ball game arena and sovereignty things like that which I think is fantastic and another thing I've noticed in the last 10 years I'm sure you have too is that the game that you want to buy that game you're thinking about there's a lot more content on that game there's so many more people making board game content than 10 years ago I think that's a good thing for the hobby because it means that you've got lots of extra different um viewpoints about a game you know you're going to spend 50 Quid on a game it's nice to have more than one person's opinion on the game now you can find 10 people's opinions on the game and we've been through all the phases and Trends we've had the micro game Trend we had the Legacy game I mean the First Legacy game came out in what 2011 but you know over the last 10 years really well that was Risk Legacy wasn't it over the last 10 years we've had like we've had more Legacy games come out we've been through zombies we made our way through anthropomorphic animals we're now in a I think the trick-taking Revival which I maintain I was the one who called that first I refused to accept anyone else saw that coming before me anyway that's not what this is about but how have the actual games themselves changed not a lot on average I would argue that games are getting better I think the average game today is probably better than the average game 10 years ago and the reason most people can't realize that is because the games that we think of from 10 years ago are the not the average games they're the ones that stood out and stood the test of time you go oh no this game came out this year and this game and this game they're all amazing it's like yeah they were the 10 top games of that year but you don't remember all the average games you can't even picture them in your mind but I think when it really comes down to it if you were to take some great games from 10 years ago some great games from today how have games changed they haven't really there's a few extra things but when was the last time deck building got invented again you know we have these Monumental shifts in an idea but I can't think of much other than deck building that has been a fundamental um Benchmark mechanism in a game that's really been invented in the last 10 years so any game that came out now probably could have come out 10 years ago I mean I guess key Forge was something that was a big change like using AI using uh procedurally generated cards and stuff like that what do you think do you think games really have fundamentally changed in the last 10 years do you think the games that come out now are just so far and above better than they used to be or do you think games are so much worse now and maybe I'm just thinking about the Euro board game Space maybe in uh aera thrash type of games there really has been some great innovation in war games there's really been fantastic Innovation I do think one thing that has happened that has been a change is the amount of games that are trying to introduce you to things like war games that try to help you get your foot in the door so that you can start playing heavier and heavier the barrier to entry to some of these really big heavy games those have been broken down a bit by having these intermediate steps maybe that's a great thing that's happened in the last 10 years and i' I'd argue it is let me know what do you think to this and all the questions that was been posed this episode I'd love to hear everything that you have to say about it and I'll see you in the comments below thanks for watching everybody I hope you're having a great month and until next month I'll see you then [Music] bye

Channel: Watch It Played

Views: 7,337

Keywords: Watch It Played, Board Games, Card Games, Tabletop, Miniatures, Board Game, Matthew Answers The Internet, Remembering Rules, Crowdfunding, Evolving Games

Id: UuWuKVVmL0A

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024