2024-10-26 13:55:00
Les Grands Gamins, Les Mauvais Joueurs, Loufoque… Board game bars are multiplying in Paris, like everywhere in France. They are invaded by more or less adult troops, not always serious, but with a cheerful look. Often there is something for all tastes, the atmosphere is always the same and, with large doses of endless evenings, these places that seem timeless put our relationship with… the game to the test.
Can you be an adult and play without complexes? Can the game be serious? If so, should it be? Here are some questions that have shaken the world of philosophy several times, and are still relevant today. The repeated confinements imposed during the Covid-19 health crisis have forced everyone to review the way they spend their days. So much so that some have temporarily become bakers, others have fallen in love with writing, still others have started playing (again).
Not just children, and not just video games. If their audience is sometimes confused, these are definitely the board games we’ll be talking about, because they are far from buried. On the contrary, since 2021 the French have purchased around 30 million game boxes per year and the market is doing very well. Thanks to the great classics (Monopoly, UNO, La Bonne Paie…) and the immense more recent successes (Villainous, Seven Wonders, Code Names…). Chess has also experienced particular popularity. And, in the last two years, trading card games have also developed like never before. Certain Pokémon cards have literally become treasures, Disney has published its own game (Lorcana) thus conquering an entire audience unfamiliar with strategy games, and a new French company (Equinox) has raised as much as 6 million euros in one summer for his game’s launch has been altered.
“Go and find pleasure where it is”
In short, there is no shortage of games and players. Now there aren’t even places to go and play! Whether it’s bars, shops or both, there are more and more of them to accommodate all types of players and all types of games. Role-playing game evenings, card tournaments or free games, there are often several hundred different possibilities to have fun, with or without children, with or without grandparents, with or without experience… Facilitators guide the players and check the tricks , however they are needed. for you a good beer or a four o’clock evening.
The fact is that we all need to escape from our difficult reality from time to time. At a time when social spaces are becoming digital, where performance is paramount, the return of physical play is more than just a pastime. Paradoxically, it is perhaps even a return to reality. Playing also means claiming a certain freedom, which is not necessarily contrary to maturity. “I believe that people who think this lack open-mindedness and do not know how to seek pleasure where it is found. When I play I don’t feel less adult, but rather more in tune with a part of me that I have fewer opportunities to perform.”, confides Esther Philosophy magazine. “I still find it a little ridiculous, I feel comfortable playing and it doesn’t make me feel ‘childish’. As a psychologist, I see a lot of people trying to draw clear, hard lines between their childhood and adulthood.” It’s obviously a continuum, I already played as a child, it’s true, but now as an adult I play in a very different way.”, continues Antoine, 32 years old.
Play without pressure, know how to say no
“Man plays only where he is a man,” Schiller wrote in his Letters on the aesthetic education of mana reflection on gaming as an experience of freedom essential for all ages. Here too we find the idea of reconnection with oneself and with others. Unlike virtual relationships, interaction during a game is human and instantaneous and requires real attention. Board games promote skills that are less required today in digital daily life: cooperation, face-to-face communication, patience. And this allows you to build a bridge between your child self and your adult self, just as it connects generations.
Finally, the proliferation of gaming bars and the diversity of their clientele reflects a certain approach to leisure. Faced with individualized leisure models and increasingly digitalized lives, gaming certainly allows us to escape, but it also becomes a way of saying no. No to social isolation, no to digital, no to constant pressure, no to the artificial barriers of age… All you need is a table, a few chairs and a good game that keeps everyone entertained.
#Gaming #bars #proliferate #adults #thrive
