The board gameMonopoly is licensed in 103 countries and printed in 37 languages.[1]Young girls playing a board game in theIisalmi library in Finland, 2016
Aboard game is a type oftabletop game that involves small objects (game pieces) that are placed and/or moved in particular ways on a patterned board (game board),[2][3][4][5][6] potentially including other components, e.g. dice.[4]
Many board games feature a competition between two or more players, but there are growing numbers of single-player board games andcooperative board games as well. To give a few examples: incheckers (British English name 'draughts'), a player wins by capturing all opposing pieces, whileEurogames often end with a calculation of final scores.Pandemic is a cooperative game where players all win or lose as a team, andpeg solitaire is apuzzle for one person.
There are many varieties of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, such ascheckers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such asCluedo. Rules can range from the very simple, such as insnakes and ladders; to deeply complex, as inAdvanced Squad Leader. Play components now often include custom figures or shaped counters, and distinctively shaped player pieces commonly known asmeeples as well as traditional cards and dice.
The time required to learn or mastergameplay varies greatly from game to game, but is not necessarily related to the number or complexity of rules; for example,chess orGo possess relatively simplerulesets but have great strategic depth.[7]
This timeline was made with information from the Wikipedia articles on Board Game, Hasbro, Board Game Cafe, Tabletop Simulator, and Monopoly. All information on this timeline was from those Wikipedia pages as they were on November 24th, 2024
Classical board games are divided into four categories: race games (such aspachisi), space games (such asnoughts and crosses), chase games (such ashnefatafl), and games of displacement (such aschess).[8]
Board games have a long tradition in Europe. The oldest records of board gaming in Europe date back toHomer'sIliad (written in the 8th century BC), in which he mentions the Ancient Greek game ofpetteia.[22] This game ofpetteia would later evolve into the Romanludus latrunculorum.[22] Board gaming in ancient Europe was not unique to the Greco-Roman world, with records estimating that the ancient Norse game ofhnefatafl was developed sometime before 400AD.[23] In ancient Ireland, the game offidchell orficheall, is said to date back to at least 144 AD,[24] though this is likely an anachronism. A fidchell board dating from the 10th century has been uncovered in Co. Westmeath, Ireland.[25]
In the United Kingdom, association of dice and cards with gambling led to all dice games except backgammon being treated as lotteries by dice in the Gaming Acts of1710 and1845.[26] Early board game producers in the second half of the eighteenth century were mapmakers. The global popularization of board games, with special themes and branding, coincided with the formation of the global dominance of theBritish Empire.[27]John Wallis was an English board game publisher, bookseller, map/chart seller, printseller, music seller, andcartographer. With his sons John Wallis Jr. and Edward Wallis, he was one of the most prolific publishers of board games of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.[28] John Betts'A Tour of the British Colonies and Foreign Possessions[29] and William Spooner'sA Voyage of Discovery[30] were popular in the British empire.Kriegsspiel is a genre of wargaming developed in 19th centuryPrussia to teach battle tactics to officers.[31]
Achilles and Ajax playing a board game overseen by Athena, Attic black-figure neck amphora,c. 510 BCE
The board gameTravellers' Tour Through the United States and its sister gameTraveller's Tour Through Europe were published by New York City bookseller F. & R. Lockwood in 1822 and claim the distinction of being the first board games published in the United States.[21]
Margaret Hofer described the period of the 1880s–1920s as "The Golden Age" of board gaming in America.[32] Board game popularity was boosted, like that of many items, throughmass production, which made them cheaper and more easily available.
Different traditional board games are popular in Asian and African countries. In China,Go and many variations of chess are popular. In Africa and the Middle East,mancala is a popular board game archetype with many regional variations. In India, a community game calledCarrom is popular.[33] A board game of flicking stones (Alkkagi) became popular among people inSouth Korea after variousKorean variety shows demonstrated its gameplay on television.[34]
The number of board games published by year (1944–2017), as listed onBoardGameGeek. Expansion sets for existing games are marked in orange.
In the late 1990s, companies began producing more new games to serve a growing worldwide market.[35][36] In the 2010s, several publications said board games were amid a new Golden Age or "renaissance".[35][37][38] Board game venues also grew in popularity; in 2016 alone, more than 5,000board game cafés opened in the U.S.,[39] and they were reported to be very popular in China as well.[40]
Some games, such as chess, depend completely on player skill, while many children's games such asCandy Land andsnakes and ladders require no decisions by the players and are decided purely by luck.[42]
Two Qataris playing the traditional board game ofdamah
Many games require some level of both skill and luck. A player may be hampered by bad luck inbackgammon,Monopoly, orRisk; but over many games, a skilled player will win more often.[43] The elements of luck can also make for more excitement at times, and allow for more diverse and multifaceted strategies, as concepts such asexpected value andrisk management must be considered.[44]
Luck may be introduced into a game by several methods. The use ofdice of various sorts goes back to theearliest board games. These can decide everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as inMonopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, as inRisk, or which resources a player gains, as inCatan. Other games such asSorry! use a deck of specialcards that, when shuffled, create randomness.Scrabble creates a similar effect using randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness.German-style board games are notable for often having fewer elements of luck than many North American board games.[45] Luck may be reduced in favour of skill by introducing symmetry between players. For example, in a dice game such asLudo, by giving each player the choice of rolling the dice or using the previous player's roll.
Another important aspect of some games is diplomacy, that is, players, making deals with one another. Negotiation generally features only in games with three or more players,cooperative games being the exception. An important facet ofCatan, for example, is convincing players to trade with you rather than with opponents. InRisk, two or more players may team up against others.Easy diplomacy involves convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against.Advanced diplomacy (e.g., in the aptly named gameDiplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with the possibility of betrayal.[46]
Inperfect information games, such as chess, each player has complete information on the state of the game, but in other games, such asTigris and Euphrates orStratego, some information is hidden from players.[47] This makes finding the best move more difficult and may involve estimating probabilities by the opponents.[48]
Many board games are now available as video games. These are aptly termed digital board games, and their distinguishing characteristic compared to traditional board games is they can now be playedonline against a computer or other players. Some websites (such as boardgamearena.com, yucata.de, etc.)[49] allow play inreal time and immediately show the opponents' moves, while others use email to notify the players after each move.[50] The Internet and cheaper home printing has also influenced board games via print-and-play games that may be purchased and printed.[51] Some games use external media such as audio cassettes or DVDs in accompaniment to the game.[52][53]
There are alsovirtual tabletop programs that allow online players to play a variety of existing and new board games through tools needed to manipulate the game board but do not necessarily enforce the game's rules, leaving this up to the players. There are generalized programs such asVassal,Tabletop Simulator andTabletopia that can be used to play any board or card game, while programs likeRoll20 andFantasy Grounds are more specialized for role-playing games.[54][55] Some of these virtual tabletops have worked with the license holders to allow for use of their game's assets within the program; for example,Fantasy Grounds has licenses for bothDungeons & Dragons andPathfinder materials, whileTabletop Simulator allows game publishers to providepaid downloadable content for their games.[56][57] However, as these games offer the ability to add in the content throughuser modifications, there are also unlicensed uses of board game assets available through these programs.[58]
The modern German board gameCatan is printed in 30 languages and sold 15 million by 2009.
While the board gaming market is estimated to be smaller than that forvideo games, it has also experienced significant growth from the late 1990s.[37] A 2012 article inThe Guardian described board games as "making a comeback".[59] Other expert sources suggest that board games never went away, and that board games have remained a popular leisure activity which has only grown over time.[60] Another from 2014 gave an estimate that put the growth of the board game market at "between 25% and 40% annually" since 2010, and described the current time as the "golden era for board games".[37] The rise in board game popularity has been attributed to quality improvement (more elegantmechanics,components, artwork, and graphics) as well as increased availability thanks to sales through the Internet.[37]Crowd-sourcing for board games is a large facet of the market, with $233 million raised on Kickstarter in 2020.[61]
A 1991 estimate for the global board game market was over $1.2 billion.[62] A 2001 estimate for the United States "board games and puzzle" market gave a value of under $400 million, and for United Kingdom, of about £50 million.[63] A 2009 estimate for the Korean market was put at 800 million won,[64] and another estimate for the American board game market for the same year was at about $800 million.[65] A 2011 estimate for the Chinese board game market was at over 10 billionyuan.[66] A 2013 estimate put the size of the German toy market at 2.7 billion euros (out of which the board games and puzzle market is worth about 375 million euros), and Polish markets at 2 billion and 280 millionzlotys, respectively.[67] In 2009, Germany was considered to be the best market per capita, with the highest number of games sold per individual.[68]
Some academics, such as Erica Price and Marco Arnaudo, have differentiated "hobby" board games and gamers from other board games and gamers.[69][70] A 2014 estimate placed the U.S. and Canada market for hobby board games (games produced for a "gamer" market) at only $75 million, with the total size of what it defined as the "hobby game market" ("the market for those games regardless of whether they're sold in the hobby channel or other channels,") at over $700 million.[71] A similar 2015 estimate suggested a hobby game market value of almost $900 million.[72]
Board games serve diverse interests.Left:kōnane for studious competition.Right: kōnane for lighthearted fun.
A dedicated field of research into gaming exists, known asgame studies or ludology.[73]
While there has been a fair amount of scientific research on the psychology of older board games (e.g.,chess,Go,mancala), less has been done on contemporary board games such asMonopoly,Scrabble, andRisk,[74] and especially modern board games such asCatan,Agricola, andPandemic. Much research has been carried out on chess, partly because many tournament players are publicly ranked in national and international lists, which makes it possible to compare their levels of expertise. The works ofAdriaan de Groot, William Chase,Herbert A. Simon, andFernand Gobet have established that knowledge, more than the ability to anticipate moves, plays an essential role in chess-playing ability.[75]
Linearly arranged board games have improved children's spatial numerical understanding. This is because the game is similar to anumber line in that they promote a linear understanding of numbers rather than the innate logarithmic one.[76]
Research studies show that board games such asSnakes and Ladders result in children showing significant improvements in aspects of basic number skills such as counting, recognizing numbers, numerical estimation, and number comprehension. They also practice fine motor skills each time they grasp a game piece.[77] Playing board games has also been tied to improving children'sexecutive functions[78] and help reduce risks of dementia for the elderly.[79][80] Related to this is a growing academic interest in the topic of game accessibility, culminating in the development of guidelines for assessing the accessibility of modern tabletop games[81] and the extent to which they are playable for people with disabilities.[82]
With crime you deal with every basic human emotion and also have enough elements to combine action with melodrama. The player's imagination is fired as they plan to rob the train. Because of the gamble, they take in the early stage of the game there is a build-up of tension, which is immediately released once the train is robbed. Release of tension is therapeutic and useful in our society because most jobs are boring and repetitive.[83]
Playing games has been suggested as a viable addition to the traditional educational curriculum if the content is appropriate and the gameplay informs students on the curriculum content.[84][85]
There are several ways in which board games can be classified, and considerable overlap may exist, so that a game belongs to several categories.[21]
Thenamesake of the board game,game boards would seem to be anecessary and sufficient condition of thegenre, though card games that do not use a standard deck of cards (as well as games that use neither cards nor a game board) are often colloquially included, with some scholars therefore referring to said genre as that of "table and board games" or "tabletop games", or seeing board games as a subgenre of tabletop games.[86]: 5 [87]: 1
H. J. R. Murray'sA History of Board Games Other Than Chess (1952) has been called the first attempt to develop a "scheme for the classification of board games".[88]David Parlett'sOxford History of Board Games (1999) defines four primary categories:race games (where the goal is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the final destination),space games (in which the object is to arrange the pieces into some special configuration),chase games (asymmetrical games, where players start the game with different sets of pieces and objectives) anddisplace games (where the main objective is the capture the opponents' pieces). Parlett also distinguishes betweenabstract andthematic games, the latter having a specific theme or frame narrative (ex. regular chess versus, for example,Star Wars-themed chess).[88]
The following is a list of some of the most common game categories:
Although many board games have ajargon all their own, there is a generalizedterminology to describe concepts applicable to basicgame mechanics and attributes common to nearly all board games.
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^ab"Board game".Oxford Learners Dictionary (www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com).Archived from the original on 8 August 2023. Retrieved1 January 2025.
^"Board game".Collins Dictionary (www.collinsdictionary.com).Archived from the original on 3 January 2025. Retrieved1 January 2025.
^"Board Game".Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com).Archived from the original on 7 January 2025. Retrieved7 January 2025.
^Pritchard, D.B. (1994).The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Games & Puzzles Publications. p. 84.ISBN978-0-9524142-0-9.Chess itself is a simple game to learn but its resulting strategy is profound.
^Sfetcu, Nicolae (4 May 2014).Game Preview. Nicolae Sfetcu.
^Kirkpatrick, Karen (27 April 2015)."What's a German-style board game?".HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved20 July 2021.They feature little or no luck, and economic, not military, themes. In addition, all players stay in the game until it's over.
^Scanlon, Jennifer (2001)."Board games". In Browne, Ray Broadus; Browne, Pat (eds.).The Guide to United States Popular Culture. Popular Press. p. 103.ISBN978-0-87972-821-2.
^Fernández-Vara, Clara (3 January 2014),"Adventure",The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies:232–240,doi:10.4324/9780203114261-33, archived fromthe original on 21 August 2022, retrieved21 August 2022
Rollefson, Gary O., "A Neolithic Game Board from Ain Ghazal, Jordan", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 286. (May 1992), pp. 1–5.
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