The Obscure & Random

wilwheaton:

While they may seem quaint in the era of mobile games like Angry Birds, the category of board games, card games and puzzles has had year-over-year growth in two of the last four years, and totaled $2.2 billion in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, according to Euromonitor International, a market research and data firm.

A Web series hosted by the actor Wil Wheaton, “TableTop,” features Mr. Wheaton and celebrity guests playing board games, which may sound less than riveting but has been popular. The first episode, featuring the actress and writer Jenna Busch, Grant Imahara of the television show “Mythbusters,” and Sean Plott, a webcaster known as Day[9], playing Small World (a Days of Wonder game), has garnered more than 1.1 million views on YouTube.

Matthew Hudak, a research analyst with Euromonitor who tracks toys and games, said board games, which traditionally had been marketed to mothers as family entertainment, had gained traction with consumers in their late teens and 20s in recent years, as evidenced by game nights on campuses and bars.

The strategy by Match.com to feature board games in events “is a decent idea because it’s following the trend of the popularity of games with millennials,” said Mr. Hudak, “who are in college or just out of college.”

Just, you know, the show I created being talked about in the business section of the New York Times.