When did board games first come into existence? No one knows for sure, but conventional wisdom suggests that traditional board games have their roots in games that were played before language was even spoken. This wisdom was gained by studying excavation sites, and reviewing old artifacts and documents.

 

Board games have a long history that can be traced through many cultures and societies. The most of important of these include: Senet has been found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt, c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively. Senet is the oldest board game known to have existed.

 

Of course, the term "board game" is applied rather loosely. A board game is any game played on a premarked surface that utilizes counters or pieces of some sort, most often to mark placement. Simple board games are often seen as ideal "family entertainment" as they can provide entertainment for all ages. Some board games, such as chess or Go, have intense strategic value and have become lasting classics.

In 1903, Elizabeth Magie applied for a patent on a game called The Landlord's Game. She designed the game to demonstrate the evils of land monopolies. The object of the game was to show that rents enriched the property owners and impoverished the tenants. She realized that some people would find it hard to understand the logic behind the property rental system and thought that if put into game form, it might be easier to demonstrate.

As with most of these games it has recently seen a few changes. There are Internet versions and even local variations. As with many things a noticeable change in the modern game is a decrease in size, in this case of the board, and a decline in the quality of the extras, such as money and playing pieces.

What distinguishes a Eurogame from a typical American board game? Unlike many American games which are net sum (you gain by taking directly from other players) in Eurogames players are generally competing against the game itself. They may compete for limited resources or the best action, but rarely do the spoils come directly from an opponent, but instead from the game itself -- usually in the form of victory points. German games are generally shorter to play, ranging from 20-90 minutes. There is usually a good social aspect to the game as well. Players are almost never eliminated from the game, for example.

One of the more interesting and controversial popular board games stories revolves around Monopoly. Ruth Hoskins learned the game and took it back to Atlantic City. Hoskins made a new board with Atlantic City street names and taught it to a group of local Quakers. The Quakers refashioned the game into anti-monopoly, where cooperative play was encoruaged.

 

At the same time, the Atlantic City game was the one taught to Charles Todd, who in turn taught Esther Darrow, wife of Charles Darrow. After learning how to play the Monopoly game, Darrow then began distributing the game himself. When the demand for the game increased, Darrow commisioned Patterson and White, a printing company, to print the square boards.

The Game of Go ("Wei-qi" in its original Chinese form) enjoys a special place in board game history, because not only is it one of the oldest games known, it has kept essentially the same rules for longer than any other board game out there. After its origins in China perhaps as far back as 2300 B.C.E., Wei-qi spread into Korea in the second century (where it was called Pa-tok, now Baduk or Badug), and finally, when it traveled to Japan via trade routes sometime around the year 700 A.D. -- it developed into a most sophisticated game unlike just about any other class of games -- and the rules have not varied significantly since that time.

Because Go is really a game about capturing territory, it falls outside all the usual classifications of games: alignment games, war games, capture games, hunt games, race games -- though it has hints of some of these in it. Though capture is a part of Go, and it is often considered a war game, capture is just one aspect, and it is not so much about aspects of war (generals and soldiers and war equipment) as it is about defining who owns what spaces on the board. The pieces have no differing powers at all -- they simply serve to mark the borders of territory.

Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization is a computer version of the board game, but does not require the board game version. The rules are slightly modified from the board version for computer play. Of all the many games devised over the centuries, the backgammon board game must rank as one of the most successful. Its long history, and its continued popularity with a wide age group testifies to how easy it is to understand the backgammon instructions.

Board games first became widely popular among the general population early in the 20th century when the rise of the middle class with disposable income and leisure time made them a receptive audience to such games. This popularity expanded after the Second World War, a period from which many classic board games date. 

The modern board game industry is rife with corporate mergers and acquisitions, with large companies such as Hasbro owning many subsidiaries and selling products under a variety of brand names. It is difficult to successfully market a new board game to the mass market. Retailers tend to be conservative about stocking games of untested popularity, and most large board game companies have established criteria that a game must meet in order to be produced. If, for instance, Monopoly were introduced as a new game today, it would not meet the criteria for production.