Wall Street Journal Validation

A July 2nd article in the Wall Street Journal by Weekly Standard writer Jonathan Last discusses war-strategy games. Mr. Last summarizes the history of board and computer war-strategy games (such as Sid Meier's Civilization series) and a number of Avalon Hill classics (such as Diplomacy).

The article is interesting enough, and provides a nice history of these games for the casual observor. But what I find interesting is my reaction: I immediately forwarded the article to the gaming group (including Al, Steve and Steven). Given that there isn't a thing in the article that these folks didn't know already, I asked myself "why?" And the answer I came up with is sort of interesting.

But first, let me note that this reaction isn't that unusual. Within hours, a BoardGameGeek user posted a forum message alerting other gamers to the article. Similar articles in the past have also generated a quick posting at the Geek.

I think that these types of articles provide a kind of validation to embarrassed gamers. Let's face it: non-mass-market board gamers are a relatively small group. While the Internet and places like BoardGameGeek make us feel more "plugged in" and less like social outcasts than 20 years ago, we're still a little out of the mainstream. How many people at work play golf? How many watch football? How many belong to a book group? How many play poker? Now, how many play boardgames that aren't available at Target or Wal-Mart? Most of us don't even know how to describe our hobby. "My friends and I played games on Saturday.... No not really like Monopoly or Life ... more 'adult.' .... No, not *that* kind of 'adult.' ... Oh never mind."

Now, reduce the number of people in your hobby even further by being a wargamer. Most coworkers can understand a colleague who plays a game like Settlers or Puerto Rico as being an eccentric gamer -- similar to people who play competitive Bridge or Scrabble. But I rarely discuss my wargaming hobby with my workplace friends. (The one exception would be describing Kingmaker to a coworker who asked where I learned how to navigate office politics.)

Articles like Mr. Last's confirm that we're not completely relegated to gaming in our basements and weird geek-conventions. We're right there in the mainstream (or at least on page W9 of the Friday Journal). He even used the term "grognard" in the article.

I wasn't forwarding the article to Al to let him know that Henry Kissinger played Diplomacy -- Al already knew that. I was sharing some validation of our hobby -- and us.