Earlier this month, Geek Native’s research suggested more than 40% of people would buy more board games this Christmas as a result of the pandemic, whereas only 4% would buy fewer.
Will we be able to play those games?
The latest survey run on the site makes it crystal clear. We’re playing more tabletop games with our family as a result of the pandemic, especially if we don’t consider ourselves to be a geek.
Geek Native’s figures come from a competition to win a prototype of the It’s Contagious! game that’s currently live on Kickstarter.
That family designed and pandemic inspired card game has even made local news TV.
Over 200 people took part in Geek Native’s competition which makes the stats more robust than the survey size cited in most shampoo ads, but yeah, I know, this isn’t a robust science. That said, it’s still fun to take a peek at the stats so let’s do that.
| Have you played more tabletop games with your family during the pandemic? | Responses |
|---|---|
| I’m a geek, and I’ve played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 40.17% |
| I’m a not geek, and I’ve played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 25.94% |
| I’m a geek, and I have not played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 22.59 |
| I’m a not geek, and I have not played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 11.30% |
Here are the figures overall. You can see that the biggest chunk of respondents consider themselves to be geeks and have been playing more board games.
Let’s break the data down into Geek vs Not a Geek.
| (Geek) Have you played more tabletop games with your family during the pandemic? | Responses |
|---|---|
| I’ve played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 64.00% |
| I have not played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 36.00% |
The boost in board gameplay is striking when looking at non-geek behaviour.
| (Not a Geek) Have you played more tabletop games with your family during the pandemic? | Responses |
|---|---|
| I’ve played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 95.38% |
| I have not played more tabletop games with my family during the pandemic. | 4.62% |
Why are non-geeks so much more inclined to play board games? There are three strong candidate responses to this.
Firstly, the headline assumption that is with families spending more time together in their homes they are being encouraged to dig out those old games and give them a shot.
Secondly, in contrast, geeky families may have been playing plenty of board games before the pandemic hit.
Thirdly, while competition sites did pick up on this giveaway, Geek Native is still a geeky blog, and I’ve written about large companies like Asmodee setting up print and play portals for their games during the crisis. People on the site are more likely to be interested in board games than not.
If you’re curious about It’s Contagious, the Kickstarter is open having started after our survey.
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