Youth are not the future of tabletop sports games and sims as we know them

In my graduating high school class of 1984 of about 150 to 200 kids, I could count maybe five or 10 who even knew about the Avalon Hill war games or stats-based sports games I played — much less liked or played them. Those types of games were a fairly solitary pursuit to many of us. And while we had exposure to the earliest video-based arcade, console and handheld games, we were still firmly rooted in cards, dice and boards. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the tidal wave of digital technology took gaming to realms unimagined — and youth (and adults) followed in droves.

Without having (yet) attempted to compile significant amounts of demographic gaming data, there is plenty of anecdotal and experiential evidence to suggest that youth of today and future decades will be even more likely to gravitate to digital/video games first, perhaps evolving into more esoteric cards-and-dice style sports games as they mature and are inclined to take the time to delve more deeply into the incredible history of sports in the U.S. and around the world. That said, a new generation of Euro-style gateway games like Bottom of the 9th baseball, Baseball Highlights 2045, Sandlot Stars and others seem poised to whet the appetite of current and future young players who, IMHO, will gravitate to visually appealing products first before maturing into more chart-based games. Or, perhaps those chart-based games evolve into a combination of Euro-style visuals overlaying a stats-based foundation — ‪@PLAAYGamesYT‬ being the clear leader in that respect.

A couple of tips for putting sports tims in the hands of young players:

• Teachers, create a lesson plan (as allowed) that somehow incorporates sports figures of the past, perhaps as part of a broader lesson plan about some aspect or era of history.

• For toy drives, buy a tabletop sports game or two and contribute.

• Share a tabletop sports game or two in your local leave a book/take a book.

• Donate some tabletop sports games to your local library.

• Play your tabletop sports games at parks and rec centers and offer to show the ropes to folks who might be interested.

• Ask about tabletop sports games at your local game lounge/cafe and see if you can gather up enough folks to explore our brand of sports sims alongside today's very colorful and creative games.

Whatcha think?