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, 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.

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. For seniors, parlor games counteract loneliness, provide moments of joie de vivre, and can be used to prevent dementia. Therapeutic applications include the treatment of dyslexia, dyscalculia and psychosocial problems.

With around 160 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 up to 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.