0:00 Hi all. You are on the Zagams channel. My name is Vlad. And today we will talk about the most important board games. Those that have had the greatest impact on the industry as a whole, on authors, on players, on publishers, on the market in general, as a whole, and the foreign market as well. And today we will also have a big focus on our Russian-speaking market. Of course, we'll talk about all of this too . In general, the topic is very subjective, yes, and therefore, if you think that some games influenced you, for example, including you think that they also influenced many others, then also indicate all this below in the comments . I think, uh, I can't mention many games today because there are too many games right now. Still, too many games had an impact. There are some genres that, for example,
0:46 may not be super important to me, but they are important to you. So write games that mean a lot to these genres. Let's go. And we'll start with crowdfunding. Overall, crowdfunding is one of the main tools in the board game market that allows new publishers to emerge. One and two allows us to release some crazy projects that would never appear with classic publishers , because there is too much money, too many resources, and there is no point in doing all this . In general, these are the kind of games that can only be made with enthusiasm. Well, plus as the first games for new publishers to make a name for themselves. Well, crowdfunding, both abroad and, uh, in Russia, is exactly what is
1:33 driving the industry forward. We'll start with Europe and the USA. And this is the game Alian Frontiers. This is the first, uh, such a large crowdfunding project. This was the year 2009-2010, in my opinion, most likely the tenth. And, uh, the game, in general, right now it will play fine. It's a very solid game, but it's not that its gameplay is something that changes anything, but the fact that it showed other publishers and, uh, the general public that Kickstarter is also, uh, a completely working site, a completely, uh, such a working story. You can pay your money there, receive the game after some time, and at the same time support new publishers. And, uh, after that there
2:21 was another big game that you all know, which is ZombieCite, which, uh, just blew everything up. And now there are all these stretch goals, these are Kickstarter exclusives, a million additions, a million miniatures. That is , what we now consider a kickstarter was all done by Zombicite. Oh, and then, it was probably around the year 12, and then I would say that, ah, Jamie Stegmire Stonmer Games, ah, made it so that we slowly all developed in the direction of miniatures, in the direction of some big coffins. And then Jemmy made, uh, the usual modern board games that we are used to, yeah, like sickle and winemaking, uh, without some huge
3:07 number of miniatures, without a huge number of some stretch goals, but just regular board games, yeah, and, well , of course, with cool premium components, because Kickstarter is not going anywhere without premium components. You're already paying a lot of money in advance. Eh, then you pay huge amounts of money for delivery, customs clearance, and so on. Therefore, in general, in any case, you’d better spend money on some cool components, some exclusives, something premium, so that it all makes sense. Here. Therefore, in any case, there will be premium components, but not necessarily some huge miniatures, huge coffins. Here. That is, I believe that games like these certainly influenced crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Game Found. And if we, uh, talk about games on our
3:54 market, then this is certainly a year around 2016, Conquering Mars and Serbia, again, these are two games that, uh, firstly, gave impetus to new publishers on our market, because before that there were conditionally 2 publishers with 2 publishers, and, uh, there weren’t that many games, uh, it wasn’t necessary for those publishers to try to bring something new. Well, in general, there is more competition and more opportunities to localize some games that, uh, will not potentially be huge hits for a mass audience. That is, they are certainly there for our audience, that is, those who play a lot of board games, for them these are really important, cool games. But in general, if you look at the people
4:39 who go into a board game store, for them these games will be too difficult, too long, and so on. Therefore, uh, just bringing a print run and trying to sell it en masse is very difficult, and finding an audience in advance , and understanding what print run you need and so on, in general, this pre-order system, it allows such cool games to be brought to the market as well . And what I especially like is that this system still allows some new project to emerge, bold, very bold. That is, there are all these gloomhavens, uh, games from Avon Realms, there are a lot of text there, that is, there is a lot of content in the game. And it simply makes no sense for classical publishers to do this at all. But with crowdfunding this is possible. Or, for example, a premium partygame, right? That is, there is blood on the clock tower, who will feed the kraken. It would
5:27 also have been impossible to imagine these games without crowdfunding . That's why all this is developing and something new will appear. But these games in particular , eh, I think they had a big influence. Eurogames. And there is one game here that, in my opinion, set a clear standard. uh, what do people want in Eurogames, both in terms of components, in terms of theme and in terms of, I would say, the difficulty of gameplay, yes, that is, it is precisely this level of complexity and there is no more or less crisis level. And this game, what do you think, is Agrikova? And this is the year 2006-2007 and Alas Rosenberg, who became very popular, including after this game.
6:12 And then I made a bunch of similar games myself , and a million other games also appeared. What is important to me, yes, is that this game is not simple, it is quite complex and at the same time it does not have some huge number of rules there. That is, it is not overloaded, it is just exactly this optimal, that is, it seems to me now that this is the optimal level of complexity, yes, but in many ways it was this game that created this level of complexity, and, and in terms of components. That is, all these resources there are exactly like farming ones, yes, something that, in principle, has been played out a million times in Eurogames. Eh, and plus, eh, this story itself, that it should be such a very soulful, very homely game for an ever-game, it seems to me that this is super important. And this game
6:58 simply fixed this standard. And I thought for a long time about games like Porto Rika, for example, which was the first on BG for some time. I mean, it's right there the best game, but I wouldn't say that Porto, for example, has had any influence on other European games. Oh, and in Porto Rica there is a lot of interaction, yes, it is very interesting there. And then the games in the Eurogame moved away from this interaction, as if, well, they are all more in the spirit of Agricola than Portorica. And it's not often that you come across games that are like Portorica, even though it was the best game there for a long time. Here. Uh, so it seems to me that there is one clear game here that, uh, is a firm contender for the place of the most important European game. If you think there
7:43 are any other games, please write them in the comments below. Eh, I've been thinking about this for a long time , but I have the most objective opinion, in my opinion . Amiritsh. And here, uh, everything is quite complicated, because this genre, it takes a very, uh, long time to develop. If Eurogames are like the end of the nineties plus, then Ameritsh is like the seventies plus, that is, it is already very, very old and has been developing for a very long time. And it’s not like it’s developing rapidly, it’s just gradually, slowly, and the games that were popular back then, like Space Counter and Dune, well, most likely, they’re the two most important games, probably, and these games, they’re being played now and everyone likes them. That is, it’s
8:29 just, uh, two important games appeared then, and they are still some of the most relevant and important. Well , that is, probably yes, Dune Cosmic Encounter. By the way, both games gave us, uh, two perfect examples of strong asymmetry. And if there in space this is such a crazy strong asymmetry, then, ah, in the dune it is a closed system with a very interesting interaction between these asymmetric abilities. That is, these are two very cool types of asymmetry in general. And, probably, only Ruth proposed something new in terms of asymmetry there 50 years later. Here. So, yes, here are two such games. And if we are talking about the Ethereum market, then I would say
9:15 that there are three games that form the basis of Ethereum games. That is, the three of them cover, it seems to me, the entire spectrum of players who play such games. It's Munchkin, Game of Thrones and Eldritch Horror. Well, you could say that Horror of Arkhma should be added here too, but Ancient Horror is a more successful game there in terms of sales, in terms of e-reach to the audience. Here. That is, here are three games, that is, a cooperative game, that is, a very atmospheric one, and, uh, a game with a very high level of interaction, with a very high level of strategy, there is a high park of entry Game of Thrones and Machki as such a simpler game take cards there back and forth play a lot of
10:02 mutual interaction. That's it, basically. Three games, I think they cover everything. And some other games, they are always part of it, they added a little bit from here, they added a little bit from here. Here. And I'm especially interested in the fact that Game of Thrones, for example, is a very big game for our market. There were a lot of clubs at one time, a lot of players came from Game of Thrones. That is, they entered through it, played it for several years, and then began to look at what else was out there. Well, Munchkin, in principle, also has a lot of players who came from it. Ancient horror. In many ways, for example, this is also the game that had a very strong influence on me, and I also have n’t played it for years, I don’t know, eight years, probably, but nevertheless,
10:48 yes, it’s a super important game. At one time it was even the number two game in our top 100 people's list. Here. So, yeah, super important games. And from the latter, I would also note Nemizis as a game that set the standard, uh, for big AmiritSh games, and from a visual point of view, because in terms of gameplay, Nenimizis doesn’t really offer much that’s new. That is, we have already, in principle, seen all of this in parts. Somehow, many games were similar, but from the point of view of general production, general visuals, correspondence of the theme and gameplay and various components, Nemisis is such a very cool standard. Well, in general, VMS also sets a lot of visual standards in their other games. Here. So, yes, in my opinion, these games are the most important for Mitrash. With
11:35 pot games, in my opinion, everything is quite simple. There is one game that changed people's understanding of party games. That is, before it was something so stupid, always meaningless. One game made it so that yeah, party games can be smart, it turns out. That is, you don’t just laugh at something, but you also think and come up with some other cool things. And this is a game of code names. And I'm not really a fan of this game. I think there are a million games that are more interesting than codenames. But first of all, many people still think that code names are better. Oh, and plus I understand perfectly well that if there weren’t code names, then there wouldn’t be all these games that I don’t like. Yes. So, uh, super-super important game. Well, actually, she has a brilliant
12:22 general designer, uh, who just felt this story, that let's make something smart that had always been so meaningless and funny before. And in general, I really like this idea, this concept. I like it when they mix something that seemed unmixable before, right? That is, some setting in this genre. This has never happened before, let's mix it up. And there is this idea that there was always something stupid, let's add some thoughts here, or, on the contrary, something very serious, let's add a little bit of some lightness, fun. When something like this gets mixed together, it seems to me that something new and interesting always results . And as in the case of such smarter party games, like the decoder, because
13:07 I think it turned out really cool. And in my opinion, for many people these types of bird games have become their favorites. The next category is family games. And there are two stories here. The first story is Carson. The game that basically gave birth to, popularized such a genre as tile placement, yes, when you lay out a tile in a certain way. There are simply millions of games coming out in this genre now. Ah, and here's Carson - this is probably the first such popular game in this genre, which, uh, brought a lot of people into our hobby. And overall, Carcassonne is still, ah, one of the best games, yes, and in this genre, but overall, it’s like one of the best family
13:53 games, yes, and in general, actually, in general. And there are two more games that appeared relatively recently. This is Everell and Wings. Two games that set the standard for family gaming. Again, both of these games, they set a certain difficulty level. That is, before this, games were simpler. These same games, both games are quite complex. Ah, but at the same time, eh, how would families cope with this level of complexity , yes, globally all over the world. Among board games, this level of difficulty seemed excellent. And plus, in addition to the level of difficulty, they also set a very high bar in terms of components, so now all family games that claim to be something, they have to be super beautiful,
14:38 and they have to be very cute, with some interesting components that are nice to look at, nice to touch, and so on. This is now a very, very high standard. And, probably, since these games appeared, it’s not like family games have developed in any way, because you ca n’t really jump any higher. Here. That is, it is also quite funny that such a standard appeared recently. That is, it was only some year 2018, approximately nineteenth. That is, this just happened recently. Can you imagine what games there were before this ? Yes, it's completely unclear. There are only some Kolkspress there. Here. And then such serious, thoughtful and very beautiful family games appeared. Separately for the Russian-speaking audience, I would like to note the deck-building mechanics, which for some reason is wildly popular here. And here too, it is certainly obvious which is the
15:25 most important game - Dominion. E is the game that popularized dekbilddin. And it's actually funny that the idea of deckbuilding is, uh, absolutely identical to the idea of backbuilding, for example, which became popular 10 years later . Here. So again, this also influences everything. In general, before me, yes, with a bunch of additions there, the game, in principle, shows a lot of deckbuilding ideas in itself. And, probably, then Star Empires, uh, appeared, also expanded the audience. And this is already a game for those who prefer more direct attacking interaction. Here. Then we started adding some other elements there, we’ll add a field to the deckbuilding there, we’ll change it a little there. And now millions of games exist, and
16:11 some of the latest hits are there, like Dune of the Empire, like Arnek, for example, these are games that would not have existed if there had not been Dominion. Also, as for our market, it seems to me that these two games had a very strong influence. More precisely, not that they have already influenced, but in the process. That means they still have an impact. And it seems to me that we will see the consequences of this in the future. namely the smartphone corporation and the industry, two games by Ivan Lashin, in particular, in many ways he also influences all of this, other Russian authors who see the success of these games on the world market. These are great hits for the entire world market, not just for the Russian market. And, uh, the authors
16:56 see this and understand where they can also aim, that they are not limited there by the Russian market, uh, not limited by Russian publishers, you can show your games there and also to others, uh, European, American publishers and try to make a global product, not only to compete with these games in Russian, which periodically appear on all sorts of, uh, crowdfunding platforms, but to do something big, something truly global. Here. So, many thanks to Vanya Lashin for this, for inspiring so many Russian authors. And finally, this Hollow of Fame of board games. Games that aren't necessarily meant to be played, that is, their time has passed, but they certainly had a big impact on the industry. Overall, it
17:41 ’s hard to evaluate it, but it seems to me that if some of these games hadn’t existed, everything could have gone very differently . And these are games like chess, if we go back very far at all , uh, monopoly, risk. Oh, and from the last ones, perhaps, katanas. And it seems to me that it was precisely the end of the nineties that closed the time when there were still some really old games, but since the 2000s, all these modern board games have been coming. Here. So, uh, yeah, we give those games a big thank you for getting to play them uh- often, but they really deserve it. That's all. It was nice to see you. I'm waiting for your thoughts on other super important board games in the comments below. And see you in the next videos.
18:27 Bye bye.
