Links: The Wall Street Journal and BBC Discover Modern Games, TableTop Pushes Others to Play & Six Games That Ruin Gaming

[Hautemont] doesn't want to publish more than a game a year — a go-slow strategy designed to help the designers focus on quality. Typically, board game companies publish dozens of new games a year. "When you only do one board game a year, you'd better make it right," he says.

Going slow helps him spend time on small details that game buyers might not initially notice, such as the shape and feel of the pieces.... It all adds up to a less-is-more approach. "The most challenging part of my job is to say no," says Mr. Hautemont. "The best way to create quality is to do fewer things."

"The reputation of people who did this kind of thing was that we were a bit sad, but it's socially acceptable now," says Mr Lister.

Games are important. Even tiger cubs play games, because they help develop abilities for real life. Snakes and Ladders trains you for a really shitty life: You're sitting there doing the same thing again and again, and things go wrong through no fault of your own. You're not rewarded for effort or punished for laziness; your only job is to turn up and keep rolling the dice until it's all over. Or spin the spinner, if you paid extra for something else you didn't need, elevating the satire of modern life to terrifying levels.

If you're playing with total psychopaths, they'll insist on the rule where you have to roll the exact number to land on the final square. Moving faster than you need to isn't just unnecessary, it's now actively punished with teeth-grinding frustration as you're held back, waiting for all the slower children to catch up so that your achievement doesn't hurt their precious feelings. Which is the one lesson children are guaranteed to learn in school anyway.