Board games will be plentiful at the foot of the tree this Christmas 2021 in France. Adrian de San Isidoro, journalist at 60 million consumers signed a dossier in the December magazine, on this new boom for board games in our country.
franceinfo: We are facing a very phenomenon, that’s what you write!
Adrian from San Isidoro: Absolutely, we find more and more under the tree or in the cupboards. A noticeable craze in hard cash. In 2020, the French turnover of board games jumped 11%, reaching 360 million euros, according to the NPD panelist.
So much so that there are now fun cafes, places designed to play board games with friends!
There are 200, in France alone! The principle of these playful cafes is simple: allow you to play one or several hours around a table, with your friends, at one of the board games on offer, while enjoying a drink or a pastry. Ideal places to meet when you do not have a play area available at home.
How do you explain this French craze for board games?
There are several reasons: first, the thirties and twenties of our time, have less scruples than their elders to offer more games with family or friends.
Another reason: lots of new games are easier to access. Some can, for example, be completed in barely 30 minutes, against three hours for good old Monopoly. When other games offer a collaborative experience, less off-putting than competitive titles, where every man for himself is king.
Finally, with the overdose of screens and the pandemic that has distanced us from each other, many French people today want to meet physically around a board game.
Coming back to Christmas, to our tree, how do Santa and Santa choose the right board game?
So first rule: identify the minimum age required, usually indicated on the boxes. It is not certain, for example, that a 6 year old child is able to digest the slightly technical rules of Risk.
Another tip: take a look at the games awarded by the Ace d’Or festivals and the Spiel des jahres, playful equivalents of the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlinale. In general, these board games are very well designed and addicting. Finally, the best is to push the door of one of the 700 specialized shops, to benefit from quality advice.
Fashion is also second hand. Does it exist for the board game?
Board games also have their second-hand market. The okkazeo.com site thus makes it possible to buy games in general 20 to 30% cheaper than in a traditional store. On the coludik.com site, it is also possible, against an annual subscription at the free price, to borrow one of the some 30,000 games offered by the community. The Grenier ludique application, for its part, rents its board games by the week. The prices generally vary between 4 and 8 euros.
You make a list of particularly successful games. Your favorite is “How much do you wear?”
Yes, I really like this game, because to win, you have to evaluate your knowledge from 1 to 10, on themes drawn at random, and answer correctly. The higher the number announced, the more difficult the question, but earns points. Beware of the narcissistic wound when you plant yourself on your favorite subject, it can hurt!
On the fly, to inspire Santa Claus, what other game of the moment can we mention?
Code Names are all the rage right now. Here are the rules: the first player to get their partners to guess all of their secret words, using a single concept, wins. Example, if you had to guess the words ‘rooster’, ‘egg’ and ‘straw’, what concept could you use?
Chicken coop ?
You understood everything !