Board games are the hot new entertainment choice

Will Meadows brandishes an unopened, newly released card game called FlipToons and begins explaining the rules. His wife, Sara, sits next to him on their living room couch and next to her, their friend Ryan. But Meadows, 43, isn’t talking to either of them. Instead, he’s addressing a camera live-streaming the game-play to a handful of viewers online.

Those viewers come to Meadows’ platform, Tantrum House, for trustworthy reviews of new hobby games, a market that has exploded in the past 10 years. The pandemic lockdowns gave the industry its first big boost. Now phone-weary consumers are searching for face-to-face interaction, and hobby games are meeting that need in cost-effective ways.

Hobby, or tabletop, games include board games like Monopoly as well as trading card games like Pokemon and role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. According to market research firm IMARC Group, the global board game market is worth $18.53 billion and is expected to jump another $5.17 billion over the next four years.

Unlike many other forms of entertainment, the tabletop game industry thrived during the pandemic as people were confined to their homes with family and close friends.

“A lot of people went to the internet to find out what games they should buy and have sent to their family so that they could entertain everybody,” Meadows said.

Meadows, his wife, and three other couples loved playing games long before that. Together they launched Tantrum House in 2014 with the initial goal of publishing their own games.

“It turned out to be a ton of work trying to fulfill international orders with custom boxes and child safety testing and all the things that go with international fulfillment,” Meadows said.

Instead, the Tantrum House team began to review games. With a newfound audience in 2020, Tantrum House became a trusted source.

“We had publishers sending us games,” Meadows said. “It was like Christmas. Every other day, two or three games would show up in the mail.”

Long before the cameras rolled, this group of four couples gathered regularly to play. Date nights out had become unaffordable, with the cost of dinner, a movie, and babysitting fees. A new board game cost a fraction of that. So once the kids were in bed and the “tantrums were settled down,” the games could begin. Hence the name Tantrum House.

The team quickly learned there is much more to the tabletop game world than Monopoly, which Meadows calls mostly a game of luck.

New games require skill and come with unexpected benefits. For example, Meadows has noticed his memory has improved, something he attributes to regularly learning new rules. Studies show playing board games can slow down cognitive decline and maybe even prevent dementia. Meadows’ teenage sons also developed new skills—good and bad.

“My kids love social deduction games, which typically involve having secret information and having to keep it a secret,” he said. “And so they’re really, really good liars. “

A stack of new games sent to Tantrum House
Photo by Caleb Bailey

The idea of exercising skill isn’t new to the tabletop game world. Chess, for example, is known for its challenging strategy. But Meadows notes new games are immersive and beautiful.

Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder of Stonemaier Games, made his mark on the industry with Wingspan, published in 2019. It features lavish, realistic bird illustrations by career artists.

“I think it’s nice to have an excuse to turn off the screens for a while, whether you’re playing games with other people or solo,” Stegmaier wrote in 2019.

Although Tantrum House didn’t find success publishing new games, other amateur creators have, thanks in part to the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. In 2024, supporters pledged $220 million to successful tabletop game campaigns on the site.

That’s one place John Emery goes to stock his store’s shelves. Emery is the founder and co-owner of Boardwalk in Greenville, S.C. When he opened the store 41 years ago, board games were considered a children’s activity.

“Now it is social and thinky,” he said.

Emery attributes the robust tabletop game industry to the success of a few pioneers. The first edition of Trivial Pursuit in 1981 was one. Melody Loder, who co-owns Boardwalk and is a few decades younger than Emery, points to the German-made Settlers of Catan as a big boost for the industry.

And many of those older games are rebranding with new editions to appeal to modern audiences with an appetite for visuals and a shorter attention span.

Emery and Loder also stock their shelves with new games they discover at North America’s annual board game convention, Gen Con, held in Indianapolis over the summer. The Tantrum House team also attended the event, along with a sold-out crowd of 72,000 and more than 575 exhibitors.

Will Meadows says he’s noticed the demographics change at these conventions over the past 15 years to include men and women of all ages. It just goes to show that today there’s a board game for everyone.

“Once you get into the hobby, part of the fun is finding the perfect game for a friend of yours,” he said.