Reviews: Sociology of play

671

Author biography
Walter Bartl works as a postdoctoral research associate at the Sociology Department at Martin-
Luther-University. His research interests include sociology of population, sociology of organiza-
tions, sociology of sport, and social structure analysis. He also has some experience in rock climb-
ing and distance running. Address: Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle,
Germany. Email: walter.bartl@soziologie.uni-halle.de

Stewart Woods,
Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games, McFarland: Jefferson,
NC, 2012; 262 pp.: ISBN 9780786467976, US$29.95 (pbk)

Reviewed by: Piotr Konieczny, Hanyang University, South Korea

Keywords
Board gaming, games, leisure, ludology, socialization

Over the past half a century or so, the study of leisure in general, and gaming in particu-
lar, has become more and more common. At the same time, the field of ludology has
become significantly skewed towards, if not to say obsessed, with video games – one can
see this from the proliferation of various journals of video gaming, although we would
be hard pressed to name any respectable publication devoted to tabletop games.
While scholars keep exploring virtual worlds, tabletop gaming is becoming a more
and more popular pastime, a fact that has already been noticed by mainstream press, as a
number of newspaper articles in the past few years have begun to talk of a new Golden
Age of tabletop gaming. Unfortunately, as Woods notes, the scene of tabletop gaming
still suffers from the old stigma observed by Goffman and others, namely of being seen
as a ‘kid’s hobby,’ one not worthy of attention from serious scholars, nor is it ‘cool’ like
the study of video games.
Woods’ book is therefore the first in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of modern tab-
letop gaming (or hobby gaming, the term the author prefers), a field composed of a number
of subgenres, such as role-playing games, war simulation games, collectible card games
(CCGs), and board games, the last being the central focus of the book. The author is
approaching this from an ethnographic standpoint of a complete participant, having spent
nearly a decade observing and participating in this scene, through his data are also strength-
ened on the quantitative level by a number of surveys and accompanying statistics.
The book starts with several chapters dedicated to the history of board games, describ-
ing how social forces in the United States and Europe (in particular, Germany) have led
to the creation of a new and vibrant leisure scene. Through a detailed overview of the last
century or so of board game development in its first few chapters, the book describes the
rise of ‘euro games,’ a type of board game developed in Germany, and since popularized
around the world; defined by Woods as ‘characterized by accessible themes, simple
rules, constrained playing times and a strong emphasis on comparative performance
through non-confrontational interaction.’ The stress on the lack of conflict (not to be
confused with the lack of competition) can be traced to the post-Second World War
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stigmatization of conflict by the German culture (an amusing anecdote in the book
recounts how in late 20th-century Germany, American-style wargames were sometimes
sold by hobby stores as under-the-counter, controversial merchandise). One of Woods’
most interesting insights here is that the development of modern board games was not a
result of some coherent commercial strategy –instead, virtually all major innovations and
milestones were a result of actions of hobbyists, popularized not through marketing, but
by fanzines and word-of-mouth; a fact that has remained unchanged today, because the
hobby is still a domain of small companies, fueled by crowdfunding (e.g., Kickstarter),
and the community’s favorite digital hangout is a fan-ran portal sustained by donations
(BoardGameGeek.com, known throughout the board game community as the BGG).
In the subsequent chapters, the author describes the hobby participants – tabletop
gamers. One of the chapters provides extensive information on their demographics (in
short, they are highly educated males); though this is unfortunately limited to the English-
speaking scene, understandably limited by the authors’ methodology (direct observations
in Australia and online surveys on the English BGG website). Another chapter focuses
on their motivations – and here Woods stresses what may be counterintuitive to many
unfamiliar with the social scene of tabletop gaming: people engage in tabletop gaming
not to win, but because it is the social aspect of play (face-to-face interactions) that pro-
vides the principal form of pleasure. Even though this, by itself, is not a novel discovery,
it reinforces a crucial difference between the video game and tabletop gaming scenes,
particularly because, as Woods notes, the theory behind much of our understanding of
video games gives primacy to the desire to win. Further, Woods does devote considerable
time and effort to the analysis of how tabletop gamers balance those ‘ostensibly incom-
parable motivations,’ i.e., competition (enforced by the structure of the game) and socia-
bility (which provides the main source of enjoyment in tabletop game play), and how this
is enabled by ‘interpersonal psychology and social negotiations’ embedded in the rulesets
of modern board games, which results in the blurring of the boundary between the game
and social interaction much more than what most video games allow for (here Woods
also challenges Juul’s classic game model, which purports to explain all games, but suf-
fers from its focus on video games). One example of those differences is the fact that
when faced with new players, unfamiliar with rules and strategy, tabletop gamers are
much more willing to explain the rules, or to self-handicap themselves to make the play-
ing field more balanced and enjoyable to all, whereas many video game players would
prefer to take advantage to crush the ‘newbies’ and win. Woods concludes that majority
of tabletop players do not consider winning, the theoretically ‘best’ outcome, to be a
significant, not to mention sole, element of their enjoyment. Instead, tabletop gaming
cultivates key social values such as ‘fair play’ that are much less often found in the vir-
tual environment.
In the end, Woods takes classic observations by leisure-study pioneers such as
Goffman and Huizinga, and applies them innovatively to illuminate an understudied
social scene that since the book’s publication four years ago, has become even more
prominent. This book is therefore a timely contribution to the fields of leisure studies and
ludology, reminding us that video games are not the only gaming-related pastime worth
discussing. I hope more scholars of leisure and ludology will notice this as much remains
to be done: from international comparisons, through understanding the field’s gender
Reviews: Sociology of play 673

imbalance, to proper studies of related nonvideo game scenes, such as those of wargames
or CCGs, there are still plenty of topics related to the tabletop gaming leisure scene that
are not well understood. We may live in a Digital Age, but Woods reminds us there is still
plenty to focus on in the nondigital world, too.

Author biography
Piotr Konieczny is an assistant professor at the Department of Informational Sociology of Hanyang
University. He is interested in the sociology of the Internet and social movements; free culture
movement; leisure and socialization; and teaching with new media. Address: Hanyang University,
55 Hanyangdaehak-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan, 426-791, Republic of Korea. Email: piotr.koniec-
zny@gmail.com