![]() I’m not privy to the details of the psychological studies the marketing experts read before they turn Hasbro’s products into clones of cereal boxes. The games industry might want to define good box art, for example, as whatever grabs the attention of customers long enough to make sales. The real issue is whether, for those of us who care about design, good design can be identified or even defined. I think such quibbling is a disguised non-issue: there is no such thing as “the thing,” and persons like me who are distracted by bad equipment and inspired by good design can’t be said to be on the periphery of a hobby that has no single center in the first place. There are some players for whom the physical complement to the rules and basic layout is even an enormous irrelevancy: I have seen inserted into more than one game review the words, “the graphics wouldn’t win any prizes, but then, the game’s the thing,” meaning that equipment design is a cosmetic superfluity to play mechanics, for which any dedicated hobbyist has targeted the cost of the game. So I’m not optimistic about getting the reader on my side when I start laying out my preferences and hopes for the physical design of games. We game players are used to a lack of consensus on the play value of any given game, to name a third. ![]() There is much disagreement about the merits of any crafted objects-just look at movies and presidential candidates, to name just two. ![]()
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