Hype in board games

The cure is worse than the disease. There exists a disease at the core of the online board gaming community. It festers, changes its form and function to elude diagnosis, and grows parasitically off of us. It drains the fun, the lifeblood of board games, from us slowly but surely. It's a cancer that we need to excise.

I'll stop bullshitting around the point. It's hype. Hype is the disease. You probably figured that out. Moreover, not only do we not have a cure, we willfully infect ourselves with it. It's addictive. It's harmful, and the only treatment most people use is another dose. And in a particularly insidious twist of the needle we aren't even getting high on our own supply.

We are constantly assaulted by manufactured hype. Moreso than any other hobby industry I've been a part of, the online board game hobbyist experience often entails immersing yourself in the advertising network of publishers. This is quite unique. In video games, film, television, and other hobbies it falls to them to reach you. You may have favorite genres or elements to track and seek out, but generally speaking you would prefer not to be bombarded with endless advertisements. Why, then, do so many people willfully subject themselves to this marketing and attempt to engage?

That was a segue. The engagment is the reason. With some exceptions, board gaming is a much smaller space with much smaller engagement numbers than the types of entertainment I mentioned above. Engagement sells, but more importantly, engagement fosters a connection. A face to the label. A sense of personal involvement and ownership. A rep at a convention who's wonderful at demoing. A charismatic, if eccentric designer. A game-previewer who may or may not be paid to do exactly what they've already succeeded at - sell you a box.

Board game media is incestuous. Many of us personally know people that are somehow involved in the making and selling of games. I do. You probably do. That's ok. I'm not saying your friendships aren't real. If you hang out with that person in real life, enjoy their company, and don't end up handing them money in order to do so, that's excellent. But the majority of board game internet interactions not only aren't that, but in some cases are borderline predatory. Pleasant interactions sell boxes. Quick forum responses sell boxes. Social media likes from official accounts on fan posts sell boxes. Happiness, however hollow, sells boxes. Sell boxes, sell boxes, sell boxes.

So you purchase the box. You feel compelled. It's only fair that you do, after all. That's how social interaction works, right?

Hype is poison. It seeps in and consumes people with minimal, if any, resistance to it. It's addicitive and feeds people who crave engagement. It preys on those who seek validation, and to some extent everyone does. No one is truly immune. I'm certainly not. The worst thing is that I don't have a solution to offer for it. I do, however, have some treatment options.

Unfollow and unsubscribe from at least some of your direct publisher feeds. Engage more with other players. Find an area of the community that isn't focused on discussing recent purchases or sharing pictures of hauls. Play the games you already have and talk about them with people. Do the thing we all initially came here to do - engage with humans around a table. It will hurt, but you will feel better for it in the long run. You can help grow a board game community that's truly built around a love of play.

Or you can close this tab, refresh the Gone Cardboard widget on BGG, and keep farming those publisher likes on Twitter. Up to you.