The Video Generation and the Future of Board Games

Apparently, two years ago there was a major exhibition sponsored by the Asia
Society in American museums called "Asian Games: The Art of Contest." I
have been fortunate enough to get a copy of the exhibition book. I found a
quote there that I would like you to comment on:



"We hope that this exhibition, in addition to persuading
visitors of the historical importance of games, will also stimulate an
interest in playing board games. As computer gamers sit in solitary
oblivion frantically pressing buttons to manipulate images on screens, it is
worth considering how such games could have succeeded, to a large extent, in
eclipsing real board games. The answer may be that they have appropriated
much of the best of traditional board games. But it is also worth pointing
out that the appeal of most electronic games is ephemeral. Ask a teenager
if he still plays the same game he played two years ago, and the answer will
inevitably be no. We can predict with confidence that twenty years from
now, of the electronic games currently in fashion, it is only those versions
of classic board games-chess, weiqi/go and perhaps backgammon-that will
still enjoy widespread popularity.

Does the future of chess, weiqi and backgammon, then, lie solely
in electronic media? We hope not. However convenient it may be to play
chess or weiqi on the internet, nothing can replace the face-to-face social
interaction of real games playing-and indeed the attraction of such games as
spectacle. It is no coincidence that there is a trend now among jaded
electronic games players to return to board games. This renewed interest
undoubtedly reflects the need to compete with a real (as opposed to
real-time) person. But there may be another reason for this development.
The physical satisfaction of holding a well-crafted gaming piece or die, or
of hearing the sonorous click of the pieces as they are placed on the board,
does not exist in an electronic universe. No culture better understood the
aesthetics of games than the Japanese, whose go, sugoroku, and shogi boards
were not only objects of exquisite beauty, but were also designed to enhance
the sound of piece struck against board. If, in addition to stimulating
more research on Asian games, this exhibition prompts some of its visitors
to take up chess, xiangqi, or weiqi-or even better, to work out the rules of
liubo-then we will be entirely satisfied."

Colin Mackenzie and Irving Finkel, "Preface", Asian Games: The Art of
Contest (Asia Society), p. 17






--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com