Board-wargames and their future - PART 1. My 2 cents about the matter.

Quite often, when I speak with other board-wargame players and designers, an issue comes up: What is going to be the future of board-wargames? Of course, the answer to such a question is not at all easy, and different scenarios might be taken into consideration, as the market is ever-changing and might have some unexpected surprises in store for us. I’ll try to give a personal, subjective (and consequently probably flawed) point of view on this matter. 

I’ve always thought that so far the success of board-wargaming has been strictly linked to…demography. Let me explain first what I mean by “demography.” Basically, I mean the age of most board-wargame players (or “hardcore” players) in a given period of time. If you look at the ebb and flow of board-wargaming, it’s clear how the “golden age” for this hobby, here in Europe, was the 80s. In that period wargaming became so popular that you could easily find and buy wargames at toys stores, along with Monopoli or Risiko. Something next to unconcievable nowadays, even in a board-wargamer wildest dreams! That generation (I’ll call it “the 80s kids”) ranged roughly from the early teens (13 or 14-year-old) to the early twenties (20 or 21-year-old). 

Our life (I’m one of them) was relatively easy. Most of the time, we could rely on our parents for our purchases (also, economy for most of the 80s was pretty good) and we had soooo much time to spend playing our favourite wargames with our mates. But life changes and people have this weird and inexplicable tendency to grow up (!?). The 80s kids soon had to find a job and settle down: a family, a career (maybe); those kind of things that make most of us usually spend our free time with our children (or sleeping!) rather than reading a 15-page rulebook. So, in the 90s a slow but relentless decline of wargaming (due also to the competition of videogames) started and continued well into the new millennium. Most of us 80s kids were busy doing something else, or could (willing or not) dedicate much less time and energy to wargaming anyway. Our old mates were probably in a similar situation. So, even for those willing to continue playing, finding another gamer to play with became more and more difficult…if not impossible. 

Most of us quit playing (I definitely did), played much less, or started playing solitaire games. Only a few hardcore wargamers could still play with other players. Face to face the luckiest ones, maybe attending one of those conventions that looked more and more like zoos, where endangered species are kept and preserved, or via the internet (via email at first, then via software such as Vassal or Aide de Camps). Wargamers were fewer and fewer, and the market was shrinking. Until the dawn of a new age seemed to be breaking. 

In the last ten years or so (I don’t have any statistics to refer to, but it would be very interesting to have them) what some people consider a new “golden age” has started. Don’t get me wrong, board-wargames are still a small niche business compared to other kinds of boardgame. Nevertheless, increasing interest and the number of new games yearly printed and sold hint to some kind of “rebirth” of the hobby, making some of us forsee a brighter future. But is it really so? Is it all due to a growing interest among the younger generations? I don’t think so. 

What happened is this: the 80s kids have grown older, most of them have a more or less steady job by now, their children have grown. To put it simply, they started having more free time, more money, more energy to dedicate to their old hobby. Some of those who quit playing are back, but now more than ever they can afford to spend ample time and money on wargaming, and maybe attend a few conventions. If this is true, then things are going to get even better for the hobby in the next couple of decades or so, as the 80s kids will start to retire and have even more time and money for their beloved pastime. And then? Who will replace them? A new generation of wargamers is nowhere to be seen at the moment. Young wargamers are probably scarcely enough to keep the wargame market alive, let alone making it grow by substituting the old ones in numbers. The future of this hobby is shaky at best, if not downright grim. Unless we players, designers and publishers make a real effort to change it. How? I’m going to talk about it in a future article. For the time being, happy gaming wherever you are and whatever you are playing.