BLOG: The most important year of the decade

Last week I was preparing for my Top 5 games of 2008. Each week I record a podcast here in Poland with my wife Merry and that particular weekend we decided to go with a similar topic to the one discussed by The Dice Tower lately – best games from 2008.

As I was writing my list and thinking about the games released that year I slowly started realizing that year 2008 might have been the most important year in the modern board gaming. Let me show you.

In 2008 Dominion was released. It is one of the most famous examples that once a while there is a design that introduces the brand new mechanism in board games and gives designers brand new tools of creation (like Caylus with worker placement or Risk with legacy mechanism). Dominion changed the whole industry, influenced all designers, gave a new idea and let us enjoy so many follow up designs like Star Realms, Mystic Vale, Pathfinder Adventure Game and many more. I myself used deckbuilding mechanism in my Robinson Crusoe, or lately in the Amazons expansion to Imperial Settlers. BGG lists 2460 items that use deckbuilding. Yeah, Dominion was a revelation.

But that’s just the beginning. 2008 was a year when Dixit was published. A game with almost no rules at all, with weird artwork on big cards, and wooden rabbits as player pawns. A game that looked like nothing we have ever seen before. It was not a game per see, it was a unique experience, a reason to have some laughs and discussion. Let’s face it, no one on this planet plays Dixit to actually win the game! As with Dominion, Dixit mind-blown both gamers and designers. The most famous follow up is Mysterium, the most recent is Muse, or When I dream. The dixitlike cards is part of gamers vocabulary. The game changed the whole hobby.

It was also a groundbreaking year for FFG. In 2008 they introduced LCG format. Their major CCG lines, CoC and GoT got re-released as an LCG game and everything changed. No more boosters, no more need to hunt for a card. Expansion made sens, built a narrative arc, designers were able to control the game in so much easier way. Can you imagine going back and buying Arkham Horror boosters? I doubt…

Believe me, but it is not over. The year 2008 was a year of Pandemic. In my opinion, this is one of the strongest brands in the industry. Well managed by the publisher, with very strong main title becoming the most popular co-op game on Earth and with a dozen amazing side products like Pandemic Legacy or Pandemic: the Cure. Pandemic is a full-blown product in a mass-market way, it is IP built from the scratch and raised to the highest level with a perfect management of the title and constant growth of the family. Once again, I doubt if we can imagine our hobby without Pandemic games.

Funny to say, but what Battlestar Galactica did for hidden roles and traitor genre, what Ghost Stories did for co-op games, what Say Anything did for mass-market audience seems irrelevant compared to Dominion/Dixit/LCG combo.

Looking back 10 years, I must say – 2008 might have been the best year in the modern board games history. And Carcassone: Catapult won’t change my opinion!

What’s your thoughts? Was there a better year in the past 15? What was the most important moment in our modern history?

Originally posted on BTTS Blog on BGG Forum: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/74110/most-important-year-decade