4 Reasons to Play More Board Games

I realize that many people aren’t interested in board games, which is unfortunate. Board gaming is a hobby that has many great benefits. Here are 4 reasons you should play more board games!

1. It’s cheap entertainment.

The games may be expensive to buy (unless you get some of the games from our list of cheap board games)…but then you can play them over and over again. When I first got into blogging, I started a budgeting blog. One great way to slash your spending is to stop paying for monthly subscriptions (cable, certain online video games, large data plans for cell phones, etc.) and just get a one-time-payment form of entertainment. Board games!

The problem is that we live in the “Golden Age” of board gaming right now. So there are always a ton of new games coming out.

We’ve run out of space to store them all…. -_-

2. It’s a great way to spend time together.

Zach and I, like most couples, find ourselves drifting from each other from time to time. Playing a board game together forces us to be present and refocus on actually spending time together. It also gives us something more to talk about.

Co-op games are particularly good for this, because they force us to act as a team against the board. Plus if you have a partner who gets unattractively competitive, co-op is the way to go.

3. It’s a great way to instill values in your kids. 

You can find life lessons in board games that range anywhere from encouraging honesty, building a team-player attitude, to even showing them that losing is a fact of life and the best way to handle it is to learn from it and try again.

That last one is actually really important for a lot of the co-op games Zach and I play. Winning is fairly rare and you really have to work for it.

4. It helps you meet people!

When Zach and I moved to Georgia, we obviously knew no one. And then one day, we gathered up some of our games and drove one town over to hang out at a game store. They host board game days a couple times a week, but no one was really showing up.

So we played some games together and, slowly, a couple more people trickled in. This happened for a few weeks. People filtered in and our until a few started making regular appearances.

Now we have a group of roughly 8 people who meet once a week for games. They’ve introduced us to what eventually became some of our favorite games. And they’re open-minded enough to try some of the games we bring, as well. (Which is great, because many of our games sound boring, but wind up being some group favorites.)

There’s also another group Zach meets with who has bonfires and goes to movies, so now we get plenty of social interaction. 😛

The great part about the board games–especially if meeting new people makes you anxious–is that the games do all the talking for you, so you don’t have to put yourself out there as much.

What are some other great reasons to play board games?