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CURRENT
The flood of new releases causes a luxury problem
The Pile of Shame
Faster, higher, better: The Olympic motto can also be applied to the board gaming industry. More than 1,200 new releases were showcased at SPIEL ’17. This is a record as well as a challenge – for pub- lishers, designers, consumers and gamers alike.
On Tinder, the dating app, the next temptation is always just one screen away: An even more
attractive lover, an even wilder adven- ture and an even greater romance are all waiting there. Millions of users firmly believe it and are wiping, scrolling, click- ing their way through the app every day – always hoping for the next kick. Gamers are well aware of the phenomenon. They are also on the lookout for the next true love, or, to put it in Tinder slang, for the perfect match, the perfect game. But it is getting increasingly hard to find. Five years ago publishers at Essen “only” pre- sented 800 new releases. In 2017 there was an increase of 50%, with presum- ably even more in the future.
I Dopamine in a box
Casual gamers browsing the shop
shelves or surfing the net end up con- fused: Which of the many boxes should they go for? Experienced gamers know the answer to that question well enough, but hardly ever find the time to try out all their recent purchases. The unplayed games end up in the stack of shame. All of us are familiar with getting stuff and then putting it aside, “Nowadays we just buy the option to use things, to have access to them. But we consume less and less, as we sadly no longer have the time – use is also time-consuming. And there is always another, even more interesting thing that we could buy next, which is why we never get around to using our purchases,” as the German weekly paper Die Zeit quotes sociologist Hartmut Rosa.
And despite their pile of shame grow- ing, many people are still happy to keep hunting for new games. “Piling activates the reward system in our brain. The hap- piness hormone Dopamine is produced and provides us with a feeling of well-be- ing,” says Professor Dr Christian Elger,
Neurologist at the Universitätsklinikum Bonn. Our
age plays an important part here. “In younger people the reward system is acti- vated faster. As we age, our enthusiasm weakens.” The flood of new releases is not only a challenge for gamers, but also for reviewers. As Martin Klein, member of the jury for the “Spiel des Jahres,” writes on their website, “All [new releases] HAVE TO be tried out often enough. No game SHOULD go under, no potential candi- date SHOULD be overlooked. If a game appears to be only remotely relevant, it MUST be played over and over again. A member of the jury HAS TO keep mus- tering new rounds of test players, and try out every variation of the game with every possible player count. This leads to games becoming compulsory, so to say.”
The flood of new releases also poses new challenges for game designers. If their games are going to hit the table more often, they must convince play- ers right from the word go. As Reiner Knizia mentioned in an interview in 2011, “Games reflect their eras. We are leading an ever more hectic life, with less time. It is therefore essential to make games as easily accessible as possible and to hit the game’s peak fast.”
If a game is to be brought to the table repeatedly, not only first impressions are key, but also second, tenth or 50th. The task is to boost re-playability so players can always experience something new or at least keep being challenged, even after
x number of rounds.
Maybe this is one reason why Pandemic Legacy has been so successful. It changes after every game. Players know that and can hardly wait to open the next box – just like children who open the little doors of an advent calendar. Another challenge is expressed by author Ulrich Blum, “I have always been keen to play games that were new to me. This sensation was heightened through my game designing job. After all, an author should keep an eye on the latest publications and assess if they could be interesting. Because of my craving to know many games, I tend to play fewer games more often.”
I Annual relaunch
to keep things warm
The flood of new releases is a chal-
lenge for publishers. They must invest more money to ensure their games get noticed in the first place. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly diffi- cult to establish classics on the market. As Abacusspiele publisher, Joe Nikisch, wrote in spielbox 2/14, “Games need time to mature. With the many new games today, this has become harder over time. But I strongly believe that a good game, both in the past and today, will always have a certain life expec- tancy.” Yet games that are already clas- sics also need pampering and attention.
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