Do Popular Games Suck? - with Tom Vasel
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vasel. Welcome to The Dice Tower. As you're watching this, I'm now 50 years old. I'm part of the Gen X generation, and when I go back in time sometimes and show my kids things from my childhood, cartoons or toys or movies that I really loved, um they don't always go over well. In fact, I'll go back and go, "I thought He-Man was a good show." Things like that. And that happens, right? But we tend to sometimes have the same reaction to games. And why not? It's the same way with food and entertainment. It's possible to to like or love things over the course of many years, but our tastes on things change as we get older. This can be amplified if you become an expert at something. You know, if the only burger you've ever eaten your whole life is McDonald's, I think that's great, but if you go around and taste burgers from all over the world, you wouldn't even consider a McDonald's burger at that point. And but in this video, I'm specifically talking about board games. There are some immensely popular board games. If you go out and just ask someone to name a board game, they might say Monopoly, they might say Uno, they might say Scrabble, they might say chess. These are very, very popular board games.
And as the past 30, 40 years have gone by, we've seen another wave of pretty popular board games come out that even amongst our hobby have become incredibly popular. Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Codenames, Wingspan. And we can often times have a very special spot for these games because they're games that got us into the hobby. When you first played, you might have worn the game out by playing it dozens, hundreds of times. But if you're in the hobby, if you're playing board games, you might move on and find, {quote} {unquote}, better games. Now, obviously better doesn't mean objectively uh better, but we are looking we will find games that are more to our taste. And it's possible that the games that we originally played we don't like them as much anymore. It's also possible that some of those original {quote} popular games we didn't like in the first place or we actively disliked them.
So, now we are in a spot where we dislike something that is popular. So, when this happens, we tend to run into extremes. There are people who say, "Hey, leave these games alone. Never say anything bad about a popular game." You know, they go out of their way to defend these games. On the other hand, we have the people who take every chance they can to say something negative about these games, to knock these games down. As always, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, moderation. Is it okay to dislike a popular game? Of course. Anyone who tells you that if you don't like such and such a game, they're straight up incorrect. You know, this happens all the time. Someone will say, "I don't really like that game." And someone will say, "How How can you not like this game? How How?" And I get that. I get we all have that feeling when something that we love, you know, like you sit there and like watch this movie and they watch it like, "Eh."
You're like, "I don't know if we can be friends anymore." Now, we say that hopefully as a joke, but we all have our likes and dislikes and I'll happily crusade and tell people about my favorite games. And if but if you loathe those games, that's all well and good. I'm not defined by my favorite games and I can be the best of friends with people who have different tastes than me. The problem is the opposite is a little tricky sometimes. Now, if I don't like fishing, I'm not going to drive to Bass Pro Shop, you know, walk in there and just shout how stupid fishing is. I don't go to fishing forums and talk about the stupidity of fly-fishing. Side note, I don't dislike fishing. But I'm saying if there's something I don't like, I don't tend to do that. If I don't think bowling's fun, I don't drive to the bowling alley and people come in and hand out flyers telling them not to bowl.
But there's no reason for every time someone talks about a game for someone to do a drive-by, that's a real stupid game. I can't believe people don't like this game. It just It feels like this drive-by thing. Zoom. Don't like it and keep going. Uh thanks. But this also can happen for playing in person. And this is something that I have struggled with over the years. I'll walk by a table, people are playing a game that I think isn't very good, and I want to say, "Ah, I'm glad you guys like that game, but I don't like it." But I'm kind of spoiling your fun. Now, if we're really good friends, I might make a joke, but I have really worked hard to not do that as people play a game because I'm not there to harsh the game that they're having a great time. But popular games often get attacked because they're popular. I don't understand how anyone could like this game. This happens every time. Every year, the games that win the best of the year awards, the games that are number one on people's top 10 list at the end of year, the games that are clearly the most popular games of a year, people will come in and go, "I don't understand how anyone likes this game."
Well, then you need to work on that. You need to work on understanding how anyone could like the game. You don't have to like it, that's fine. But you can't throw out the fact that a lot of people do like it. You know, "Well, people are just uninformed and stupid. Game X is so much better. How can people not see that?" Now, I'm not saying we can't have a reasonable discussion of games. Yes, I think we definitely can talk back and forth, and we can have a debate about this. You can come to me and say, "So, what do you think of this game?" I'm not It's not like you come up to me and going, "What do you think of this shirt?" You know, it's you saying, "What do you think of this game?" I'm not going to sit there and go, "The worst game ever." But I'll be like, "I don't actually particularly like that game." or what have you. I think we can have that debate back and forth. But what if I think the game is actively bad for the hobby? There are games that I think are bad for the hobby. I think Cards Against Humanity is bad for the hobby. I think Monopoly, I've made videos on I think why I think Monopoly is is bad for the hobby.
And I don't know that that's a bad thing to do. So, again, especially since we have a review channel and we're talking about these things. But I think you say your piece and then move on. This is a review channel, The Dice Tower. You're going to see our opinions more. People are opposed to negative stuff in general. They don't like when we say negative stuff on. And yet the internet thrives on it. Say something negative, you'll get the views. Say, you know, uh stuff that's not positive. The vast majority of stuff here in The Dice Tower is positive. But don't think I don't notice that when we do a negative-oriented review, the views that it gets, the temptation to be negative all the time is high. The temptation to say something is bad when everyone loves it is there. I think it's okay to point things out that you don't like as a review chan- channel. And I think it's important for our channel to do it because it makes us well-rounded.
You know, that way people know, these are the things they like, these are the things they don't like. And if we think [clears throat] something's a problem, I think it's good to call that out. But there is the danger of harping. You can go on and on and on about something to the point people like, "We get it." But I also think it's disingenuous to say you can't criticize something that's popular. If I do think that there are problems, it's okay to point them out. As in all things, moderation is needed. If a group of people are sitting at a table and having a blast playing a game that I despise, that's great. That's amazing. That's fantastic. But I won't, you know, if they come to me and say, "Tom, what do you think of it?" I'm not going to lie, but I also don't think it's my without them asking, it's my business to go up there and tell them I think Monopoly is a bad game, but that doesn't erase the good times I had playing with my parents.
Someone was just asking and saying, oh, you know, Tom, you know, was talking about a game and I'm like, there are things that I played as a kid that I had an amazing time. I cannot go back and erase those amazing memories and I would not want to. But that doesn't mean that the stuff I played was good. And as a critic, when I talk about games, I need to point out the ones I think are amazing and the ones that I think are not. No one should attack a popular game because it's popular. That's nonsense. But they're not sacred cows, either. I was recently called a Debbie Downer for a negative opinion I have on a game. I don't think I'm there. I love love love love love love playing board games. Love playing board games. I really do. But I also have to be constantly checking myself to be not diminishing others enjoyments of games.
It's a tricky subject and one I think about all often, but here's the thing, at the end of the day, I'm thrilled that people love games. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. But until the next time, I'm Tom Vasel and you're watching The Dice Tower.
Hey folks, I'm Tom Vasel. Thanks for watching this video. Check out our channel. We have a lot of videos on our channel. We have live videos that go up each week from live Q&A's to videos where we take a look at the newest stuff on Kickstarter, crowd surfing, to top 10 lists and more. There's lots of stuff on this channel. We encourage you to explore it. You can find out more on our website, dicetower.com. I'm Tom Vasel. Thanks for watching another video on The Dice Tower.