Rant: Overheard a guy at the game store say 'real gamers' only play heavy euros

I was at The Dragon's Hoard yesterday picking up a new expansion, and this guy was talking loud to his friend. He said, 'If you're not playing games with a 4.5 weight on BGG, you're just playing with toys.' It really got under my skin. My favorite game night includes stuff like Just One and Wavelength, and we have a BLAST. It felt so gatekeepy, like fun has a complexity minimum. Who made him the boss of what counts? I've been in this hobby for eight years, and that attitude just pushes new people away. Has anyone else run into this kind of snobbery at their local spots?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy329d ago

That attitude is the exact reason some of my friends won't try board games. They hear that and assume the whole hobby is a homework assignment. A game's job is to get people together and have fun, full stop. The weight rating on a website doesn't measure laughter or the stories you tell later. Pushing that complexity as the only real way to play just makes the table smaller for everyone. It misses the whole point of why most of us started playing in the first place.

burns.brooke29d ago

Right? Why do we treat fun like it's a math problem. My best game nights are the messy ones where we barely follow the rules. The gatekeeping just makes everyone miss out.