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David Y
United States
Tulsa
Oklahoma
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I’m not a technology hater.
If I make fun of your iPad today, rest assured that it’s simply because I do not have one yet.
I have posted in the past about my lack of a technology chromosome – I arrive late on the scene of new and trendy consumer electronics and I am fundamentally uninformed about the newest tech available. (Now, I may be the last to arrive at a party, but I still like to shake my booty when I get there.) Hopefully by the time I get an iPad, the rest of the world’s population won’t have already migrated to the next generation 3D, holographic, thinkPad. Sigh.
I remember when MTV debuted in 1981 with the song “Video Killed the Radio Star”. They, of course, were wrong -- Video made the radio star a mega star. MTV helped buy lots of booze, cars and guitars for the likes of Steven Tyler and Tommy Lee.
But, I also remember buying Steve Miller Band’s “Book of Dreams” on 8-track tape. Many people here on BGG won’t appreciate how cool 8-tracks were. For the first time, you could take hi-fidelity music of your choice right into your Ford Bronco. Amazing! And, at the push of a button, you were no farther than 10 minutes from your favorite song.
But then, cassette tape killed 8-tracks (Thankfully. Remember that awful fade out and program change right in the middle of your favorite song?)
Years later, CD’s killed cassette tape. (Also a good thing. Cassettes didn’t stand up well to the Oklahoma summer heat when left on the dash of your pickup truck).
Now, MP3 players are doing a number on CD sales. Are the days of audio CDs numbered? Probably.
Nobody doubts that the internet is killing traditional print media like newspapers and magazines. If you inherited your Grandma’s stock in the local Times, you ought to sell it quickly, unless said Times has a good website.
Savvy people are now even predicting that book sales will falter and eventually die, thanks to reading devices like the iPad and Kindle. The death of books? Really? You say “that will never happen”.
Maybe.
But that’s what they used to say about Milkmen too. “Son, don’t you worry about goin’ to college. Folks is always gonna need a milkman. You can always make a living takin’ good folks their milk.”
When was the last time you saw a milkman? Fridgidaire killed the milkman.
This weekend one of the guys at game night showed me the newest app (yes, I know what an ‘app’ is - are you impressed?) for his iPhone. It was Carcassonne. Then this morning, I saw the video on BGG of the 2-year-old playing Carc on an iPad. Now, if I had an iPhone, or an iPad, trust me, I would run to wherever the heck you get such things and buy it up. Carcassonne on an i-anything looks really cool.
But, it also makes me kind of sad.
One of the things I love most about board games is that they take me away from technology.
I love the feel of cardboard, plastic, and wooden game components in my hands. I like unboxing complex games and setting up the boards. I enjoy the personal interaction with real people sitting across a table from me. I like the tension of watching other people plot and sweat out their moves. The feel of paper money, the sound of dice rolling and cards riffling, the smell of ink and paper, moving pieces and measuring distances –- all of these things don’t come across in any video format.
I don’t want to play board games on anything but a table.
It's not that I believe technology will kill board gaming. I’m just not sure this trend of producing board games in electronic formats is good for the hobby. That’s just my opinion.
I guess the bright side is that maybe more people will get exposed to supposedly obscure games (like Carcassonne) through their iPhones and be intrigued enough to check out the originals. I hope so.
Don’t hate on me. I don’t think the good-old-days were better. I dig my electric lights and air conditioning and I love modern technology that makes life better. But board games enhance my life too.
And that I don’t want to change.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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james collins
United States
rockport
Texas
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I think will enhance by making it more attractive to some non-gamers. You can take it and play while traveling or in a place where space and others gamers aren't avaliable. As for will it change you as in how you play your favorite games? That happens when you allow it. Just my 2 copper coins
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Don't worry, the iPad (and all other electrical devices) will be destroyed during the next massive solar storm. Unfortunately, this also goes for Dark Tower.
Solar storm of 1859:
"In early September in 1859, telegraph wires suddenly shorted out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. The event ... was three times more powerful than the strongest space storm in modern memory, one that cut power to an entire Canadian province in 1989."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_031027....
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Brett Doull
Australia
Queanbeyan
NSW
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Desktop computers posed a much bigger threat to board games, especially wargames with heavy rule sets, but boardgames have survived and thrived in the face of computerised board gaming for several reasons; their tactile and social nature you pointed out playing a large part.
Further, I don't think the iPad itself is going to reach anything near desktop computing levels of ubiquity. It's a neat gadget that people into tech will buy, not a world changing device so revolutionary as to make it an essential part of most people's life. So if desktops couldn't kill board games I highly doubt iPads will.
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David F
United States
Emeryville
California
Set up a lot of the PBF framework for BSG, Runewars, Small World, The Devil's Castle. PBF in Gears of War, Death Angel, A Game of Thrones. Currently playing Twilight Struggle, Middle-Earth Quest and Eclipse on Vassal.
I'm anal about using the right terms to describe games and have posted an alternative glossary to the inconsistent sprawl in BGG's database and lexicon that is clear, accurate and simple. I care big time about my reviews, ratings and comments.
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The iPad will kill board games as utterly as video games did.
That is, nothing. I have a bunch of games on my iPhone and they're a terrible alternative to board games. I use them only to learn new games. The people who prefer playing board games on iPad to real board games probably already left when they picked up their first X360/PS3/DS/gaming mouse.
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Jeff King
United States
Austin
Minnesota
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Well, I recently sold a copy or Ticket To Ride to a couple that only knew about it because they played it on the Xbox 360. I also just introduced my girlfriend to Carcassonne on the 360 as well, and she really enjoyed it and asked questions about it.
So that shows that there is hope for additional exposure and for people to pick up the board game versions of the "video game."
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Mike Jones
United States
Gainesville
Florida
Yeah it's here! Really it's right here.
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Gaming has always been a 'niche' market (at least in the US). The i-pad is more of a 'mass-market' thing. If anything it may enhance the board gaming community with greater exposure.
I was at a con this weekend and there were only two i=pads and quite a few people with you every day cell phone WITHOUT a key board. In fact, I was at a table of gamers making fun of a guy that had an i-phone instead of a 'real phone'.
Just because the mass market has games now doesn't mean the 'niche' will go away.
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I think electronics have already killed board games as dead as they're going to be. Physical board games aren't competing with computer board games -- they're competing with MMORPGs, Xbox, Playstation, Starcraft, etc. etc. And that battle is over. That's why we're still a relatively small community compared to the billions made by computer and video games.
But we've survived! And I can only see computer versions of board games as helping our cause. Unless every single board game ever made gets converted into an iPad app, what's going to happen is that somebody is going to try Carcassonne on an iPad, like it, and ask a friend, "What's similar to this?" The right answer will not be another iPad app; it'll be a physical board game.
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Mike Kollross
Canada
Carvel
Alberta
Pew pew pew!!!
I'm a member of the Game Artisans of Canada
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The iPad is a broken laptop. The iPad won't do squat. Its a curiosity at best. The next gen of such personal devices may do something but that's way off.
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Board games addict
United States
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Individual physical books will still be around a good long time I'd say.
And the Ipad won't do anything to the popularity of boardgames in my opinion.
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Brad Jones
United States
West Palm Beach
Florida
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I'm waiting for the table-sized iPad. Although electronic games may never simulate the tactile satisfaction of boardgames, think of the enhancements a huge iPad could bring to something such as a wargame:
Set up a scenario instantaneously
Identify illegal actions automatically
Record turns and then step back and forth through the game
Bring up windows showing different types of information
Zoom in for battles, zoom out for a strategic view
And best of all, save the game and put your iPad away to resume later!
If you could put a hundred games on your iPad, think of all the shelf space you could save.
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fishhaid
United States
Downers Grove
Illinois
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I think it will make it easier to play board games. Hear me out. The worst things to me about gaming are the record keeping, set up time, rules monitoring, and clean up (to set up the next game, hopefully). Imagine the iPad on a grand scale someday. A big table top console (remember the centipede game in the bars in the early 80's?) and the ability to add a game cartridge of say TtR. Plug the cartridge in, the game sets up for 3 players, tracks the points (no more - did you count that route? I forget, start over), shuffles the imaginary cards to each player via a hand held device (bigger than an iTouch, but smaller than an iPad) and starts the game. At the end of the game, the machine tells everyone their score and we're done. Now we want to play, or continue playing Arkham Horror from the week before, it recalls it from memory and away we go.
Any question regarding rules are inforced without missing a beat or looking it up in convuluted rules. We played Hare and Tortoise over the weekend and having not played it in over 4 years, missed a very important rule (I'm not saying which one, since it was my job to remember the rules, and I still feel stupid for missing such an obvious one). The machine wouldn't have let us miss any rule.
And like a electronic chess board where the pieces are tapped down to indicate where you've moved to, imagine playing Monsterpocalypse on it. Your pieces are coded and the machine knows which ones which, so it can monitor movement, and record positions for review later.
I'm looking forward to this next stage in gaming. I've got high hopes that it will be great and attract others to our niche hobby. If it doesn't, or it takes too long, I've still got my games to play and I'll keep them along with my cassette tapes....
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Luke Morris
Japan
Nagoya
Aichi
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Nowt.
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Craig Somerton
Australia
North Ryde
NSW
This text unintentionally left blank
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Meh. I like video games, but what appeals to me is the tactile nature of boardgames themselves. The feel of the pieces, the roll of real dice, the turn of a friendly card.
But most of all for me, boardgames symbolise the interaction with your friends and family. Not just staring at a screen, which I do find difficult now my eyesight is growing worse.
I will sometimes still play electronic games, but they will never truly replace the classic feel of boardgames.
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More of the same about the iPad replacing board games.
Have computers replaced board games? No.
Has the internet killed board games? No.
Why should the iPad kill board games? Because 0.1% of the apps are board game related?
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Matt Kruczek
United Kingdom
Colchester
Essex
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I bought you from the game store back in '82
Lying awake intent on learning all the rules
Those funny dice and hex-based maps that were so cool.
Wo-ah, wo-ah.
They took the visions of Sid, Reiner and Klaus T.
Rewritten for touch-screen and WiFi and 3G.
Using facebook as we trade off wood for sheep.
Wo-ah, wo-ah
The Meeples' children
Wo-ah, wo-ah
Icons and "Press Send"
Video killed the boardgaming stars:
Miniatures, tiles, wooden cubes and cards.
Apple came took your part.
Ohh, wa-ah, oh-ah-oh...
And now we play with smartphone apps while on the go
We think of rule-sheets and it seems so long ago
And we remember those dice you had to throw...
Ohh-wa Ohh-wa.
We rolled for first turn.
Ohh-wa Ohh-wa.
We've rolled our last turn?
Video killed the boardgaming stars:
Miniatures, tiles, wooden cubes and cards.
In my hand and in my car, I can't Undo once I press Start
Ohh, wa-ah, oh-ah-oh
Ohh, wa-ah, oh-ah-oh
Video killed the boardgaming stars:
Miniatures, tiles, wooden cubes and cards.
In my head and in my heart, we can't undo we've come this far
iPads came and took their part, next to dice and tiles and cards...
You are...
The boardgaming star...
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Kevin Taylor
United Kingdom
Cambridge
CAMBS
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 Nice! Much spare time? Let me guess, you're supposed to be working? Me too!
My consoles get hit hard during the week but it's getting together with a mate over a few drinks and some board games on a Friday night that I really enjoy.
How many other board gamers have converted from Video games? Probably quite a few? So, I can't see as Video game versions are going to sway that many people away from the hobby but it might attract people to have a go at a few 'real' games.
A gamer is a gamer after all.
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Will rate 10 for Cash
Belgium
BRUSSELS
Saint - Gilles
'Accepting cash stuffed brown envelopes since 1980'
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I want to play through the ages on an electronic surface that will shuffle my counters for me...
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Richard Dewsbery
United Kingdom
Sutton Coldfield
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jayg wrote: MK-Ultra71 wrote: The iPad is a broken laptop. The iPad won't do squat. Its a curiosity at best. The next gen of such personal devices may do something but that's way off. Damn, I had 15 posts before the first dumbass dropped in for the pool... and you had to get in at 10.
Except that he's right.
A table-sized iPad I have a use for - in fact, I'd go so far as to say almost everyone has a use for such an item (so long as it's sturdy/durable enough). But an iPad does nothing that I can't already do with my laptop, won't replace my iPhone, and is being released at a time when many of us are feeling (or are going to feel) an economic squeeze. The iPad won't kill boardgames (an iTable might); it's got more of a chance of killing Apple.
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Pieter
Netherlands
Maastricht
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There is no reason that you have to forfeit the tactile feeling of boardgames when they get placed on an iPad. Not the tiny device that it is now, of course. But if you have one the size of a table, a logical next step is to sell software, including game pieces, which are placed on top of the game that is played. That actually means that game software would not be pirated (at least not easily), because you also need playing pieces.
This is what I imagine. You have a digital table, an iTable. You go into a store and you buy a copy of, let's say, Agricola. The box contains, besides a CD with the game (or a code that lets you download the game from a website), 25 playing pieces in the shape of farmers in five colors. The pieces contain an RFID code that the iTable can recognize, and when they are placed on the iTable it will know where they are.
You load the digital version of Agricola in your iTable, and start up the game. Players take the farmers of their color, and place them in their playing area (their farm). The iTable recognizes the number of players and where they are seated (as the players place their two starting farmers in their wooden huts), and the only thing one needs to do is tap a "start" button which is in the middle of the playing area.
From that point on, players play the game by moving their farmers to their selected actions. All bookkeeping is done by the game. Naturally, players will have to use their fingers on the table to, for instance, move food onto the farmers' tables when it is feeding time, or to move their grain to fields when they are sowing.
And what about hidden information, such as the cards? Each player has his own iPad, which the iTable knows of, and it will use those to display the players cards on. A good iTable will, of course, have a border with slots in which an iPad can be placed upright.
The iTable Agricola can be written in such a way that playing pieces are not required. It would be a good copy protection, but I predict that even if these playing pieces are optional, the software will still sell because players love these pieces.
I think this is the future of boardgaming, and I predict that such tables will be commercially available for a reasonable price within 5 years. They already exist (though not as advanced as I describe now), but they are far too expensive. Unfortunately, the current generation of such tables is aimed at bars (you can order your drinks right from your seat) and offices (virtual desktop). I think the next step that we will see in that respect is virtual airhockey and applications like that, and board games will be far behind. But I personally will start writing boardgaming applications for the iTable as soon as I get a chance to.
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After seeing the scratches my cats leave on my solid wooden table I am quite sure that I will never buy an iTable. [edit: not to mention that glass (or worse: plastic) tables are complete crap]
After seeing how often I drop my mobile (which it survives since it is an old brick) I am quite sure that I will never buy an iPhone.
After seeing how often I accidently sit down on my bag/briefcase I am quite sure that I will never buy a iPad/laptop/netbook.
When the times comes that I can open a bootle of good ol' Beck's with "smart" devices, then I will "upgrade". Everythign else is just a downgrade.
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Thomas Staudt
Germany
Rutesheim
Baden-Württemberg
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Show me 10 good games that could have been boardgames but are developed as iPad exclusives, and I will start thinking about the subject again.
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Andreas Krüger
Germany
Krefeld
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Books will not die before a waterproof, dustproof, shockproof reading device with non-reflecting high contrast display for < 100$ exists.
Boardgames will last even longer, although people will probably not accept flimsy counters any more. These games may be converted to electronic platforms. Today, Vassal is already a huge platform, so it will not be a real change actually.
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Bruno D.
United States
New York
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First of all, thanks for thinking this through. Reading it really made me visualize how this could work. Unfortunately, I have to say that, in general, I don't see the point and would much rather prefer to play with "real" boardgames/pieces, etc. Yes, bookkeeping would be a breeze, yes, you could save valuable shelf-space, yes, you could save a game in progress and continue it later (all good valuable features) But all in all, I just don't see it becoming very popular, at least among the current generation of boardgamers.
One thing that intrigues me, though, is the possibility of remote playing on "iTables", that is, when it is not possible to get together and play face-to-face, then this would be a better option over the current BSW's, yucata's, etc.
Flyboy Connor wrote: There is no reason that you have to forfeit the tactile feeling of boardgames when they get placed on an iPad. Not the tiny device that it is now, of course. But if you have one the size of a table, a logical next step is to sell software, including game pieces, which are placed on top of the game that is played. That actually means that game software would not be pirated (at least not easily), because you also need playing pieces.
This is what I imagine. You have a digital table, an iTable. You go into a store and you buy a copy of, let's say, Agricola. The box contains, besides a CD with the game (or a code that lets you download the game from a website), 25 playing pieces in the shape of farmers in five colors. The pieces contain an RFID code that the iTable can recognize, and when they are placed on the iTable it will know where they are.
You load the digital version of Agricola in your iTable, and start up the game. Players take the farmers of their color, and place them in their playing area (their farm). The iTable recognizes the number of players and where they are seated (as the players place their two starting farmers in their wooden huts), and the only thing one needs to do is tap a "start" button which is in the middle of the playing area.
From that point on, players play the game by moving their farmers to their selected actions. All bookkeeping is done by the game. Naturally, players will have to use their fingers on the table to, for instance, move food onto the farmers' tables when it is feeding time, or to move their grain to fields when they are sowing.
And what about hidden information, such as the cards? Each player has his own iPad, which the iTable knows of, and it will use those to display the players cards on. A good iTable will, of course, have a border with slots in which an iPad can be placed upright.
The iTable Agricola can be written in such a way that playing pieces are not required. It would be a good copy protection, but I predict that even if these playing pieces are optional, the software will still sell because players love these pieces.
I think this is the future of boardgaming, and I predict that such tables will be commercially available for a reasonable price within 5 years. They already exist (though not as advanced as I describe now), but they are far too expensive. Unfortunately, the current generation of such tables is aimed at bars (you can order your drinks right from your seat) and offices (virtual desktop). I think the next step that we will see in that respect is virtual airhockey and applications like that, and board games will be far behind. But I personally will start writing boardgaming applications for the iTable as soon as I get a chance to.
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dan schnake
United States
Indiana
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Ipads and their descendants will certainly facilitate solo and travel play of "boardgamelike" games.
Dunno about this Itable dream, though. It's a dedicated gaming and video watching table, not for say... dinner? That a big space grab to ask in many homes. The ergonomics of the viewing angle seem inferior to portable pads, computer screens, TV's, etc.
I can imagine a sophisticated Itable, but I'm unconvinced about the market.
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