Analog game culture

Analog games have a tradition dating back thousands of years and are a community-building force across cultures and generations. Regardless of age, gender, education, and cultural and social background, games promote social cohesion. They have an integrative effect with their power to unite generations, they activate mental flexibility and stimulate the fantasy. Games promote concentration, stamina and logical thinking as well as the ability to compromise and act in a team, self-care and interaction skills. Thus, they contribute to personality development and are an indispensable educational medium. As cultural artifacts, analog games also receive and transform a wide variety of topics. As cultural artifacts, analog games also receive and transform a wide variety of topics. Games are therefore also an important element in the social discussion process and in dialog with the world. In this way, they contribute to understanding and accepting democratic principles and implementing them in real life.

For children, playing games is an elementary form of learning to promote their emotional, social, cognitive, and motor skills, as well as methodological competence and acceptance of rules. Families use board games for analog " quality time" and thus strengthen family cohesion. Young people and students benefit from the emotional opening in the game and from the intensification of their direct social contacts. Across the generations, board games have an anti-loneliness effect and create moments of joie de vivre. Therapeutic applications include dementia prevention, the treatment of dyslexia, dyscalculia and psychosocial problems.

With over 180 game publishers, Germany is an important cultural and economic location from which - also internationally - significant impulses for the further development of this cultural medium have emanated and continue to emanate. The Spiel des Jahres jury, which awards the internationally acclaimed Spiel des Jahres critics' prize, also contributes to this. The world's largest public fair SPIEL, with almost 1,000 exhibitors and over 200,000 visitors, is held annually in Essen for analog games, where the public prize "Deutscher Spielepreis" is awarded.

Unfortunately, analog game culture in Germany has been severely neglected so far in the implementation of legal requirements as well as in funding. Analog games are just as important and therefore indispensable a cultural asset and educational medium as literature, digital media, art, music and theater. It is therefore necessary to promote analog game culture in such a way that it can play an appropriate role in society and education policy.

The following link to The Full History of Board Games gives an interesting overview to this millennial old culture.