Board Games Make a Comeback, With a Few Quirks

Nov. 21, 2014, 6:45 a.m. ·

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Remember playing Monopoly and Scrabble around the dinner table? Arguing with your siblings about who gets to be the Car or the Scottish Terrier? Or whether Z-A-Q could ever be a real word? Well those days are making a comeback—with just one variation: The arguments are getting weird. Did you feed your monster properly? Can you trust her to save the world with you? It’s the revamped world of board games. And in Omaha, the largest collection in the country is now available to check out.


The Short family sits around a table at Spielbound Café in Omaha—a newly opened coffee shop/board game library with what’s believed to be the largest collection of board games in the country.

“We are trying to please the emperor by taking care of his panda and growing a most excellent garden that feeds his panda,” Justin Short explains the rules of Takenoko, a Japanese-themed board game that he’s playing with his three kids.

The Shorts come to Spielbound using their monthly family pass a lot. Justin Short has a collection of 200 board games at home, but that’s nothing compared to the 1,200 available at Spielbound, at least according to his kids.

“It's different, unique games that we don't usually play,” says Isabelle Short, 13.

“I like pretending to be something else and do something else,” adds Sabrina, 14.

And Cameron? “I like beating people,” the ten-year-old says with a laugh.

There’s a comfortable feeling about Spielbound. The tables are wooden; the booths leather. There are no TV screens, just a cozy bar that serves beer and coffees—with names like Taste of Sweet Victory and Dice Delight. Downstairs, four-foot shelves are stocked with board games. Each box is a little work of art, with titles like Arkham Horror and The Road to Canterbury, and pictures of ships, dragons and submarines.

The Short children are, well, children. So that partially explains their interest in board games. But Dad?

“I’m Dad age,” he says.

“Dad age” is pretty typical for board game fans—in that fan ages are across the board, so to speak. Board games sales are growing at a clip—15 to 20 percent a year according to industry trackers. Some of that is being driven by Millenials—20 to 30-year-olds looking to unplug from their devices. But grandparents and kids—people of all ages—are seeking these games out. Last year, the specialized board game industry—that’s not counting the Monopolies and Scrabbles—brought in $700 million dollars.

“So $700 million is still a far cry from the video game world but it's definitely grown over the years,” says Eric Martin, news editor of Board Game Geek—an online forum that draws two-and-a-half million users each month from all over the world. Martin says board games are growing the same way many other industries are—specialized and niche with small-batch runs. Like craft brews to Budweiser—or cable to broadcast television.

“Or the same thing for music or books, almost everything,” Martin says. “You think back to—you’d go to the store, and here's the mustard you're going to buy. Now there’s 30 or 40 different mustards—everyone gets to sample their own tastes and discover their own.”

Hundreds of new board games come out each year—from Europe, Japan, and increasingly, the U.S. Some of the most popular make it to big box stores like Walmart and Target. Settlers of Catan, a German, agriculture-based game came out in 1996. It’s grown in popularity ever since and spurred a host of expansions and similar, strategic games. Another popular one is Pandemic, a cooperative game where you have to stop the spread of diseases and save the world. Some games have corresponding apps. But Martin says those still translate to cardboard sales because people are seeking out the human connection.

“You get to challenge people; you get to stare at them,” he says. “Do you have the character that you say you have? Can you actually take that action? Can I trust you? Are you the hidden traitor in this game?”

“This is really where you get to figure out the people that you're playing with,” he says.

Spielbound operates a little differently than most board game cafés—a phenomenon that’s common in Europe and becoming more so in the U.S. Founded by Kaleb Michaud, Spielbound is a non-profit, library-style café. Michaud simply wanted to share his games. And that’s not even his complete collection. He has 1,600 more at home.

“I remodeled my basement so they would fit there,” Michaud says.

Michaud says he was initially drawn to board games as a way to make friends when he moved to Omaha. But when he realized how much board games have changed since the classics of his childhood, he was hooked.

“Over here is one of my favorite games of all time, it's called Agricola,” Michaud says, pointing out a colorful box that depicts a pastoral scene of a Medieval-looking farmhouse.

The name is “Latin for farming,” Michaud says. “It’s always hard to make it sound exciting, but there's a bit of tension with it—in order to feed your family on time so they don't have to go begging.”

Michaud says the popularity of board games is partly a reaction to staring at a screen all day. (That’s why there’s no TV at Spielbound—even on Husker football days.) But it’s also the quality of the games, he says—the ability to step into another world and to find the perfect world for you.

Even if it’s a game that requires you to nurture and care for a pet monster.

“You buy your monsters, and you nurture them until they’re the most fiendish monsters (they) can be,” says C.J. Percosky, explaining the premise of Dungeon Petz, which he’s playing with a group of friends. He’s enjoying it so far, although it does sound like a lot of work.

“We need to make sure we have cages for them. So we feed them, we clean up their poop—the standards of keeping track of any pet that you have.”

Why? Well, because if your monster is cared for, it’s worth more. So as long as you’re in this world, you can sell them and beat your friends.