The long, strange summer of 2020 brought me a lot more work than expected. I’m currently working on handling an unusually high volume of client work for the Pangea Marketing Agency. I won’t deny for a second that it’s a problem of privilege, especially in this grueling and unfair economy. Nevertheless, responsibilities are accumulating, and I must attend to them.

Yet I still want to keep posts going on this blog. That’s why over the next few weeks, my wife, Maria, will be writing a handful of posts. The theme of this short series will be “board games, seen by a non-gamer.”

Despite playing Twilight Struggle and Terraforming Mars with me, Maria doesn’t exactly see herself as a board gamer. At least not in the “always watching Kickstarter, painting minis, and 500 games on the shelf” sense. Instead, she’s somewhere in the middle ground between the diehard board gamers I just described and the “I used to love Monopoly as a kid” crowd.

Board games have been growing for the last decade, and I feel like, at least based on what I’ve seen, they’ve become a mainstream part of Millennial / Generation Z life. My friends would play Codenames in college around 2015. Even after my graduation, I didn’t have to go to the game shop to find people to play Pandemic before the pandemic.

For this reason, I think Maria’s point of view will echo the feelings of many people who are quiet fans of board games. Remember: board gaming is big, but hobby board gaming is relatively small. Taking a moment to consider other perspectives may help you to build a business in the long run.

So readers, stay tuned for what will prove to an enlightening short series of articles. And Maria – thank you for giving me a chance to catch my breath!