Avalon Hill in the late 70s and early 80s did lots of adult boardgames, i.e. games designed to entertain adults as opposed to obsessed wargamers and fantasy battle fans.
 
Most were either sports based, or based on books or films, or simulated politics or legal court cases.
 
Those few I had or played were of mixed quality and of little interest to the casual player or the board game fan.

Quote from: Lawbag;477602Avalon Hill in the late 70s and early 80s did lots of adult boardgames, i.e. games designed to entertain adults as opposed to obsessed wargamers and fantasy battle fans.
 
Most were either sports based, or based on books or films, or simulated politics or legal court cases.
 
Those few I had or played were of mixed quality and of little interest to the casual player or the board game fan.

I have dozens and dozens of board games and some, like TV Wars, are shit, some like Shogun, have design flaws others like Supremacy or Civilisation are excellent. I mean I love me a bit of scrabble but when you get the family round its Scrabble, Articulate, Boggle or Pass the bomb that get the nod over Arkham Horror or Axis and Allies.
So I guess the question is why are some games 'family' games whereas others are geeky games. Its not just complexity, though that is a factor. Also I have mates that will play Space Hulk but wouldn't play a Warhammer 40K RPG.

Quote from: jibbajibba;477613So I guess the question is why are some games 'family' games whereas others are geeky games. Its not just complexity [...]

Yes, it is.

Quote from: jibbajibba;477600I agree with you to a degreee, but there is a growing boardgame 'movement' amongst adults and adult party games like articulate, Cranium etc and a lot of adults now openly enjoy console games, dancing round their lounge, or hunting down rogue terrorists in fcitional former Soviet republics,  and MMOs like WoW have millions of adult players.
Then you look at the boom in Poker, both online and face to face and the continued success of MtG,  all games.
Then I look at my Murder mystery business. I have been asked to do a charity Regency Murder mystery for a large corporate. None of those people will be roleplayers but all of them are prepared to engage in what is basically a LARP for 6 hours and pay a chunk of change for the priviledge.
I run a monthly poker night for my work mates. About 8 guys will turn up and play cards for 4 hours, now we are playing for very very low stakes (£5 worth of chips each) such that the snacks and beers cost more than the money on the table but they are still willing to play. I am tempted to see if they will make the move from Poker to Arkham Horror or Tannhauser and then see if there is an RPG opportunity but I doubt there would be from their personalities.

The reason why you want to sell things to adults is cos they have money to buy them. Selling games to kids you really have 2 options, make it a buzz that the kids want o spend their own money on, like Moshi Monsters, or make it a product that appeals to their parents, aunts and uncles, like Monopoly, so they get bought sets as a gift and then develop their own interest. The days when RPGs were this new buzz are long gone and I think RPGs as collectibles are out of the reach of most kids so they will spend their $10 a week on comics, moshlings, pokemon cards etc etc and no look to buy an RPG product a month, so you are really looking at the gift market and that almost feels like a trick. You have to trick the kids into playing by getting their relatives to buy them something that 'gets them away from those bloody game consoles'.

Plus, the experience of "being" someone in a fantasy or sci-fi (or whatever) world is much more easily filled by computer games. I know, the experience isn't the same, but it's similar enough, and much easier to get into once the console or computer is acquired. It can be played anytime one wants, even with other players if one wishes. They're pretty, and challenging, without having to deal with other folks directly. They are not the same, but video games are still the RPG's biggest competition with young and older alike. A game has to be pretty fun to convince the players to spend time and money playing it instead of the video games. Thing is, seems to me that folks who like video games are most likely to also enjoy RPGs. It's not absolute of course, but that kind of escapism and immersion are similar enough.

Quote from: jibbajibba;477613I have dozens and dozens of board games and some, like TV Wars, are shit, some like Shogun, have design flaws others like Supremacy or Civilisation are excellent. I mean I love me a bit of scrabble but when you get the family round its Scrabble, Articulate, Boggle or Pass the bomb that get the nod over Arkham Horror or Axis and Allies.
So I guess the question is why are some games 'family' games whereas others are geeky games. Its not just complexity, though that is a factor. Also I have mates that will play Space Hulk but wouldn't play a Warhammer 40K RPG.

Maybe it's the buy-in. Also, I'd guess that some games are "family" and some not based on the perceived subject matter and/or abstraction. RISK is less directly a war game (more abstracted), so it's "ok", I guess. Makes very little sense to me, but looking at the design of "family" games it's all I can come up with. I personally, would rather play Gettysburg or Richard III than RISK any day of the week, but then I'm not who we're talking about.

Quote from: daniel_ream;477614Yes, it is.

No I don't think it is. Maxi Bourse is a complex game aimed a family rather than a geek subset. Similarly Carrasonne whilst loved by gamers is also a family game.
Totopoly (a horse breeding game where you breed a strain of race horses then have an actual race with them by flipping over the board) is a complex family game I played when I was a kid.

Riddlemaster is a simple game but the actual ask, solving complicated riddles, is far from simple.

Chess, Go, Stratego, etc etc

Quote from: jibbajibba;477622No I don't think it is. Maxi Bourse is a complex game aimed a family rather than a geek subset. Similarly Carrasonne whilst loved by gamers is also a family game.
Totopoly (a horse breeding game where you breed a strain of race horses then have an actual race with them by flipping over the board) is a complex family game I played when I was a kid.

Riddlemaster is a simple game but the actual ask, solving complicated riddles, is far from simple.

Chess, Go, Stratego, etc etc

I can't speak for Daniel, but the impression I got was that he was agreeing with you about that being the question, not that he didn't agree about the complexity. I could be wrong however.

No, I'm saying that it absolutely is the complexity that divides geek games from family games.

Virtually all the games jibbajabba listed as family games have rules that can be taught in under five minutes and without needing to reference a rulebook.

Quote from: daniel_ream;477659No, I'm saying that it absolutely is the complexity that divides geek games from family games.

Virtually all the games jibbajabba listed as family games have rules that can be taught in under five minutes and without needing to reference a rulebook.

I stand corrected, I completely misread your post then, so glad you clarified.