The last 5-10 years have seen an uptick in the trend of games having nicer and shinier bits and pieces. In my mind, the trend is best exemplified by Wingspan, which to me was a fairly average game wrapped in a beautiful package of glossy Cadbury eggs and pretty birds. I’m personally in favour of getting nicer bits and pieces for my games, but they are undeniably having an impact on prices (how much of an impact is something I’d find really interesting, let me know if any publisher has discussed the issue).
What do you think of this trend? Are you in favour of moving back to 100% cardboard chits, or do you like the newer, prettier boardgames?
I’m mostly happy with it, I like nice looking games, i like nice feeling components. In general i don’t think there’s a point in having those without great gameplay, but then again I bought Wyrmspan for the sole reason of ‘ooh pretty dragons!’ and was honestly surprised that I enjoy playing it too. Not that I expected the gameplay to be bad, I just don’t like competitive games.
I think the trend is simply game creators adapting to the market. There are more people who like and are willing to pay for nicer prettier games right now, that’s all. There are presumably also games being made that focus on mechanics only, just less than before?