So, many moons ago on a planet not so far away because you are on it also, I watched a YouTube video from Will Wheaton talking about board games. This turned out to be TableTop on Geek and Sundry and I was hooked, I think the first one I watched was on the classic game Gloom and that following evening I had bought myself a copy of the game.
Not long after buying Gloom I looked around at other videos on TableTop and watched Panic Castle (I still want this game and still have not bought it), Munchkin, Smallworld, and a few more and I set about expanding my collection! Before I knew it I had myself a nice little collection but was struggling to find people to play my games with. I looked around but there were no gaming clubs where I was from and soon my hobby faded away. It is sad when you have a passion for a hobby but no one to play them with! My mates had moved away and they were the ones I gamed with and my games were unhappy collecting dust. Many more moons passed and I moved in with a school friend and we were soon back to the board gaming ways! I invested more money into the hobby and bought a few more Munchkin games (we both really liked Munchkin) plus a few different games. Sadly once again this was not meant to last and I moved out and so did he and the hobby once again died a death.
I then started seeing someone and her and her friends liked board games too and the hobby was back on, but it turned out they only really liked the boring games like cards against humanity and those style of games.
I mean I was happy the hobby had started again but at the same time was dying inside that I could not play amazing games like Smallworld and so on, they just wanted to play games where once the novelty wore of you wanted to blow out your own brains.
Then to make it worse they got hooked on exploding kittens and this is one of the games I really hate with a passion, I honestly can not understand how that game did so well and yet is so boring! But that never worked out and I ended up finding people who wanted to play board games and my hobby exploded! I mean after 3 months I went from around 50 board games to 102 haha I even met someone I am with who loved board games and is always wanting to play them, maybe even more than I want to play them! Now the real question is what is the big fuss? Why do I spend a lot of my time playing games, writing reviews, posting about them, watching videos on them, and literally eating, breathing, and loving them? It is the fact one minute you can be managing a space base, then taking part in an epic WW2 battle, followed by taking over a galaxy, and finally just making a stained glass window.
No two games ever feel the same, you can also play the same game a million times and it can always have a different outcome and feel exciting. There are a million reasons why people should play more! I hate it when people say oh so you spent 5 hours playing board games, why? Because I want to? What did you do? Spent 5 hours watching crappy TV? I know what I would rather be doing.
It is a great hobby for people to start but can be a tough one too if anyone plays the wrong game to start with they can be scarred for life, I mean could you imagine your first board game been twilight imperium? You would have a melt down haha
The board game community is fantastic, however, there are gaming veterans who can be a little snobbish when it comes to games. I have had someone tell me that I can not be a true gamer because I love connect 4? Why not? I also love Arkham horror, twilight imperium? I can like what I like. People also get funny if you like Monopoly because it is a commercial game, well news flash they all are because you pay for them. At the end of the day for a hobby to thrive you have to let new people in, you have to respect them, and most of all not put them off the hobby because they might like a game that you think is s**t.
That said there are a lot of people who encourage people, post videos on how to play games which helps a lot! The community is full of amazing gems and this is what I also love, the fact that it is mostly a very welcoming community who will do what they can to help you if you are stuck with rules, how something should work, what to buy, or just want a chat!
In my own very wise words, board games are for life and not just for Christmas, remember this :P
That is all I will shut up now!