Board Gaming in the Digital Age: What Happens When the Tabletop Goes Online?
What’s the number one reason you enjoy playing board and tabletop games so much? Is it the game itself, or is it the interaction involved in playing the actual game? After all, cooperation or competition is the heart of most board games—without at least one other player involved, the thing itself rarely gets to happen…
Nowadays, most of our beloved games have made the transition to the digital space, which means our interactions have shifted to taking place over broadband connections and via video chat. But how has all that impacted their playability?
Sure, there are some things that have been lost in this shift, but you might be surprised to learn just how much has been gained from the digitization of classic games. Digital hasn’t killed board gaming… it’s challenging it to evolve.
Curious to see how? Well, just keep on reading!
Shared Experience Still Drives Play
The thing is, the shared understanding involved in board games—you know, agreeing with your team or opponents to play by the rules, sharing a common objective, etc.—doesn’t vanish when they’re played online… rather, it changes shape.
Now, we have digital experiences that strip away some of the rule debates and bookkeeping involved in play, and ramp up the tension instead.
RNGs, asynchronous turns, and speedy matchmaking take care of game management, leaving space for decision-making and timing to come to the forefront. You’re free to just play, and focus 100% on what you’ll do next. Exciting, right?
Why Some Classic Games Thrive Online?
Whether you can’t get enough of playing Gloomhaven Online or remain ever so skeptical about gaming apps and platforms, there’s no denying that some classic tabletop games are thriving in the digital realm. Technology has offered a lifeline to these traditional pastimes, some of which are centuries old in concept.
Case in point: casino table games like roulette and blackjack, the latter of which has been played with paper cards since the 1700s.
For these games—and we’ll include the ubiquitous slot machine here too—shifting online solved a basic friction problem. Sure, you can always reach for a pack of cards with your besties and nominate a dealer, but if you really want to enjoy everything casino games have to offer, you have to actually play in a casino. And that takes time, travel, membership (assuming that you even have a local venue in the first place!).
Here in the digital age, though, you can spin the roulette wheel to your heart’s content without having to leave the house. An online casino platform like Ozoon brings multiple games into a centralized hub, allowing you to move between experiences instantly. There are no queues and no dress codes to impede play.
Of course, the games themselves stay true to their core mechanics—probability, pacing, risk vs. reward—but in a format that fits modern life.
Access is constant, while learning curves are supported with clear UI and guided play. iGaming is a textbook example of how traditional table games can improve without losing their identity.
When the Digital Improves on the Original?
So, how are digital games stacking up against their physical counterparts? Pretty well, actually. There are even some that—gasp!—improve on their original iterations, all because of the changes they had to go through to successfully transition online.
Take Monopoly. In “real life,” everyone’s favourite real estate game is infamous for its long playtimes (and often the source of family feuds!). Even if you’re buying up Park Lane and have collected $200 more than once, after a while, the fatigue tends to set in.
Playing Monopoly Go, though, is a whole other kettle of fish. You can jump in for five minutes or fifty, make meaningful progress, and walk away without the table descending into chaos.
Crucially, this mobile version automates the admin that really bogs the board game down, so no more banking disputes or forgotten rents.
This might be a controversial opinion, but Catan (aka The Settlers of Catan) fares even better as a digital game than it does as a tabletop staple.
The original game is legendary as a social experience, and who among us doesn’t reach for it when they have friends over and a few hours to spare? But, as rewarding as it is to play, it’s equally frustrating—all because of a thing called trading.
Miraculously, the Catan Universe app takes all that away with its automated trade market. So, instead of spending hours begging for one more brick or dealing with an awkward player who won’t trade you the wood you need, you’re free to crack on with building your empire.
What’s Next for Digital Board Games?
Here’s the really exciting part: the digital transformation of board games has far from peaked. Technology isn’t exactly known for standing still, and there’s still plenty more development and innovation to come for our old tabletop faithfuls.
Conversations around Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, for instance, might drift into hype when applied to other sectors, but for board gaming, the implications are very real.
Player-driven ecosystems and ownership ecologies will support the transfer of assets and collections across platforms, while the spectatorship element still present in digital chess could expand to strategy board games. We may even start inhabiting persistent digital worlds hosting living game tables before too long.
