Barrett is a graduate educated professor, performer and academically published writer. A lover of table top RPGs, board and card games alike, he’s been an enthusiast of the hobby for the past few decades.
A rhetorical gauntlet was thrown into geek culture last week when Simon Pegg denounced the ascendancy of science fiction fantasy among mainstream consumers: “Nerd culture is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy, designed to infantalize the consumer as a means of non-aggressive control.” Though Pegg himself subsequently “walked back” his comments in a recent Blog post, the provocation has already rippled through the message boards and Twitter feeds of “Otaku” social media, stimulating and inciting arguments about the merits (and admitted flaws) of the surplus films, television shows and even board games associated with science fiction fantasy. Criticism of “mainstream” science fiction fantasy by no means originated with Simon Pegg. In its own assessment of the 2009 Star Trek reboot, Red Letter Media asserted the recent explosion of reboots, sequels and adaptations heavily derives from market trends. The sheer volume of new films and television shows available to consumers necessitates gravitating towards product recognition, even if the translation of the intellectual property bears little resemblance to its source material.
So what does this have to do with board games?
It is nigh incontestable that geek culture in general and board games in particular have enjoyed an unprecedented zenith in the last several decades. Films, television shows and even theme parks now cater to what was once an isolated and often maligned co-culture. At once, legitimizing geek culture has also rendered its survival increasingly reliant upon intellectual properties that appeal to larger demographics.
This observation can clearly be seen in the market trends concerning contemporary board game design. Several decades ago, board game enthusiasts rarely offered shrift to intellectual properties associated with well-known film and television series. How could one compare, (for example) the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game with more challenging titles like Swords and Sorcery from the same era? The former bears only superficial resemblance to its source material and seems to condescend rather than celebrate the translation of Tolkien’s narrative into strategy gaming. Today, industry leaders like Reiner Knizia are regularly commissioned to adapt properties like The Hobbit into viable, stimulating board and card games that appeal to an array of audiences.
But even welcome trends bear a cost. Venerable voices inside and outside the board game industry will needs must strike a balance between mainstream acceptance and innovation to maintain the hobby’s quality control. Increasingly, intellectual properties have become not only the norm but precedent for financial success. Intellectual properties easily recognized by consumers add security to projects not otherwise acquired through conventional means – design, layout, positive criticism. In the past several months, Rollin’ Dice has already lamented the (over) saturation of Kickstarter with titles that seem bent towards capturing nostalgia rather than generating interest on their own design merits. Indeed, the most backed Kickstarter of all time both affirms the popularity
of board games and cements their reliance on antecedent products.
This does not presume that intellectual property based titles should be rendered suspect by shrewd board game consumers. On the contrary, many tie-in projects have found both commercial and critical success among aficionados and amateurs. As I type this article, many well-known intellectual properties – Star Wars, DC Comics, Lord of the Rings – fill the ranks of Boardgame Geek’s “Hotness.” What would the current miniature landscape be without pre-painted product lines like Heroclix and Star Wars Armada? Would Hasbro have ever “pulled the trigger” on Heroscape if not for the early success of Star Wars: Epic Duels?
Temperance, not abstinence, proves the watchword. Wise voices within the greater board game community must continue to permit intellectual properties to populate its front lines while still allowing innovative designs to elevate hobby standards. Even the most self-righteous film buff can accept video game summer blockbuster adaptions so long as the industry still opens the door for the occasional District 9 or Mad Max: Fury Road. Likewise, leaders within the board game industry should accept and even embrace intellectual property titles that draw new enthusiasts and faithfully adapt the energy of their antecedents. The trick derives from also finding space within an admittedly boutique industry for independent designers to carve out their own niche.
The New Yorker recently published an inspirational profile of Klaus Teuber, designer of the groundbreaking title, Settlers of Catan. The article recounts the hours Teuber spent in his basement workshop, escaping the drudgery of the workaday world by developing a game now synonymous with the hobby’s renaissance. Even now, Teuber evades comparisons between his own contribution to board game design and more propagated titles like Monopoly. His innovation is matched only by his modesty and abiding love for the board game hobby. At the risk of being accused of alarmist rhetoric, one wonders whether designers like Teuber will find easy inroads in an industry that has become increasingly less reliant on elegant mechanics and more dependent on instantaneous product recognition.
