Board games spin new tales

Walking around in San Francisco a few years ago, we stumbled into an airy coffee shop that looked and felt different. Instead of young couples in deep conversation with each other or with their smartphones, or software programmers hammering away at their laptops, we saw people seriously poring over their tables. We had literally stumbled upon a coffee shop that offered its patrons a variety of board games to play, unwind, bond and generally take time out of their digital/smartphone obsession. And from the looks of it, it was working. We could not find a spare table and had to walk out with our paper cups filled with hot coffee.

What happens in Silicon Valley happens soon in India, too. We now have coffee shops and board game themed lounges in Chennai (The Board Game Lounge, The Board Room), Bengaluru (Dine n Dice), Mumbai (Creeda, Pair A Dice) and Gurugram (Board’em). In addition to board game themed coffee shops, cafés and bars are also organising board games themed nights once or twice a week; Bengaluru’s Victory Point has been organising two events a week.

BBC reported that the size of the global board game market is expected to reach $11.36 billion by 2023. The size of the Indian market was estimated by Euromonitor to be around Rs 330 crore ($50 million). But experts feel that these estimates could be wildly off the mark. If you include traditional board games like Ludo, Snakes & Ladders and Chess, the Indian market may be three times this.

Like the comic industry and its Comicons, the board game industry has its own Kumbh Mela where board game creators and players congregate. Meeplecon organised in Mumbai by a group called Mumbai Board Gamers attracted thousands of participants.

The range of board games has also galloped ahead. From the simple games for kids, today there are a multitude of games available for the millennial board game enthusiast. Thousands of games are being imported from around the world and we have our own joining the party. If it is politics, there is Shasn — The Political Strategy Board Game, Mantri Cards, Manifesto or The Poll — The Great Indian Election Game. If you are an Indophile who loves reading books by Amish Tripathi, Anand Neelakantan or Devdutt Pattanaik, there is a wonderful range of Indian themed board games: Yudhbhoomi, Chariots of Chandragupta, Indus 2500BCE, Bharata 600 BC. Some of these cost upwards of Rs 5,200 and have a waiting period since the kits include handmade wooden figurines. Then there are games that help build word skills, simple arithmetic skills. For instance, The Pretty Geeky, a new company, offers a range of card-based games for 4- to 11-year-olds focused on imparting STEM skills; the promoters are committed to staying off the smartphone.

What is stirring this new wave of board game enthusiasm? Is it just a fad? Or is there something more happening here?

The global growth of board games has been driven by smart phone fatigue. Folks getting tired of playing games on their phones are looking for a different way to engage their senses and bond with friends and family. Board games provide a way of getting out of the smartphone matrix and getting into the real world, with real people. Just as comics got a new life as graphic novels, board games are getting a new life with new target audiences. In the West, there was always a nascent market for board games. Games like Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit have been popular both with the young and the old. But now we are seeing the mushrooming of a multitude of games across the world. In some sense, desktop publishing and digital technologies are probably helping expedite the design process; and custom printing has aided the creation of so many high-quality boards.

Research by Drew Altschul of the University of Edinburgh, published in The Journals of Gerontology, points to yet another benefit: For the 70-plus, playing non-digital games may help reduce cognitive decline (www.ed.ac.uk/news/2019/games-can-protect-thinking-skills-in-older-age).

Board games are even attracting billionaires. Appian CEO Matt Calkins has a collection of over 700 games. Appian, which develops software, has its own board game library.

The recent upsurge could be driven by the need for the real connections offered by board games in the social media/Covid era.

And if we include chess in the discussion, it is reported that the OTT series Queen’s Gambit has created a shortage of chess sets across Europe. In India, too, we have seen corporations step on to the chess board. In February, Tech Mahindra announced the launch of the Global Chess League and roped in Viswanathan Anand as ambassador. A fitting return for one of the oldest board games that came out of India.

Ulka Advertising’s founder, the late Bal Mundkur, had, at one time, the most elaborate collection of antique chess sets in India. No wonder the board game was played during lunch time at Ulka — probably the only ad agency to have adopted a board game well ahead of the new awakening. 

The writer is a best-selling author, brand and executive coach and founder Brand-Building.com. He can be reached at ambimgp@brand-building.com