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Report. Tokyo Game Market
東京ゲームマーケット
The heading looks mysterious? Well, it stands for the biggest fair for analog games in Japan, the Tokyo Game Market (TGM). What is special about this event? And in what way does it reflect elements of Japanese culture? This is what we wanted to explore on our tour across the fair.
By SYBILLE WHITEHILL
At least, analog games also attract an increasing interest, even though there is plenty of room for improvement and these games are still a long way from becoming a general cultural asset. Under these circumstances, it is remarkable that atradefairforboardandcardgamesis held twice a year, in spring and in fall— the latest one took place on the last weekend of April, at the Tokyo Big Sight conference center near Tokyo Bay, about 20 kilometers south of the center of the megalopolis.
Fourteen years ago, the organization of the TGM went from a group of volunteers into the hands of Arclight, one of the
big players among the Japanese game companies. Usually, the show in fall at- tracts more exhibitors and
visitors. But this spring,
the number of registered booths (1064) fell just short of the previous fair from last December and reached pre-Covid levels.
The exhibition area was a good 40 percent of the area of the SPIEL in Essen and consisted of three halls. About 25,000 vis- itors walked through the wide aisles to get from A to B, trying to orient themselves—despite the
labeling system of the booths, this took some getting used to and was adventur-
C
ompared to the products of the
powerful video game industry, board and card games still lead a niche existence in Japan. If you google “Tokyo Board Game Market,” you will—after just a few listings—get to the “Game Show,” which deals with electronic games, though.
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Welcome to the Tokyo Game
Market (photo above). Dojin Alisa presented the first games of her own. A torii led to the Creators’ Alley; and there even was an avowed Knizia fan (next page, from the left).