"Everything has to be tasteless" - A Refutation

Recently Senator Barnes made the following statement: "Oh wait, it's the games business...and it's being sold to gamers...so everything has to be tasteless, tacky and overdone."

This post is designed to be a refutation of that belief.

Now I do not claim to have the 2 year associates degree in Art History from the local Junior College or whatever it is that grants you the wisdom and vision to become a taste maker and arbiter of what is worthy of The Enlightened and not merely dross for the rabble but the following list of games are just some of the ones that I own or have owned. In my own plebeian way, I suggest that they are neither tasteless, tacky nor overdone.

1) Napoleon's Triumph:



2) Diplomacy:



3) War of the Ring



4) Omen: A Reign of War



5) Paths of Glory



6) Sekigahara



7) Crokinole



8) Letters from Whitechapel



9) Wings of War



10) Pente

Need more context for that quote.

If it's in the context of all of the goddamn Kickstarter dross that seems to be the predominant flotsam of board game product these days, then that quote makes perfect sense.

With the notable exception of Omen: Reign of War, the other titles have all gone through traditional production channels.

Barnes' comments definitely constitute a sweeping overgeneralization but these aren't particularly convincing counterexamples, either. That being said, I'm struggling to think of very many games in my collection that I'd characterize as objets d'arte. The majority of games I encounter have pleasantly bland graphics (that isn't really meant in a disparaging way), and in most cases the best I can ask for from board game art is that it reinforces the theme or setting without being, like, embarrassing to look at.

That being said, there are plenty of refutations to your refutation:

-Pretty much everything Flying Frog has ever done (haven't seen Shadows of Brimstone in person yet)

-The whole of Twilight Creations' ouevre

-90% of everything FFG produced up until the GoT board game (some of their early games, like 1st & 2nd edition TI, Battlemist, the early small-box games, etc. were tacky as hell)

-A LOT of latter-day Euros

-Anything with John Kovalic art

-Most of the stuff I look at on Kickstarter

That Wings of War photo is great.

Yeah, Cyclades, Kemet, and several dozen others that I could, sadly, pull out of my ass in list form pretty much quash that statement. That said, it's pretty obvious passive-aggressive sarcasm, so it's not like anyone took it seriously....or did they?

Like Lou Reed says in the "Take no prisonner" live album : "Who said I was tasteful ? I never said I was Tasteful !"

We're talking games about Dracula, pulp litterature, comics, etc... Why do they have to be full of good artistic good taste ? I don't get it...

Who in the world will say the original "Warhammer 40k rogue trader" original was tasteful when it was released ? Yet it was games workshop at their top. Hammer movies were certainly not considered good taste when they were released, they were trashy entertainement.

So let's be careful when we use the words "taste", "art" in such context...

Yet I agree that some games are better looking than others. The "Talisman" 2nd edition art by Gary Chalk is a beauty, recently, the "Andor" games and their extensions are stunning...

As far as the "Fury of Dracula" is concerned, the news was published because there was a leak and the game won't be released before winter. So we may hope that it's not a definitive one. The rest of the game seems alright to me.

The better looking version is definitively the first english one, with the athmospheric light on the cover. Pure gothic horror. It may be because it was made by english people who understand this kind of gothic horror better than anybody else...

@Motorik: oh by no means am I making the argument that there aren't some games that fall into the tasteless category nor that the ones I've listed should be on display behind glass. What I am saying is that there are plenty of examples of games that look good set up and aren't without aesthetic appeal.

Now you may not agree with all my choices, I wanted to choose only games I do or have owned, but I'm sure you could name a game or two in your own collection that rise above the level of "tacky and tasteless".

Games themselves out on the table don't look all that tacky or overdone to me. The vast majority of box art is atrocious though. At first, I may have missed it if it weren't for my wife who explained the details on how most box art is bad and why. Now I can't un-see it. It's as if the gaming community is a bunch of neanderthals who will by anything that's put in front of them. The bar is set so, so low.

Actually, Chaos in the Old World, with it's original black box, is the opposite. Great box, fucking awful on the table. Love the game but goddamn is it ugly. And I'm not just talking about what was intentionally ugly.

SuperflyTNT wrote: ....That said, it's pretty obvious passive-aggressive sarcasm, so it's not like anyone took it seriously....or did they?

Apparently some uptight game connoisseur did, Barnes must have shit on his doorstep (literally) after a late night gaming & drinking session.

Well, everything (not quite everything obviously, but damn close) is tasteless, tacky and overdone in the games world. There's no doubt about it. We may think that random old maps look awesome or seeing a cool mini looks kick ass but it's not going to win any design awards any time soon, it's not going to end up on some show about how to decorate your home. It is tasteless, the closest thing to good design up there is probably the Crokinole board and I don't think that some game Mennonites discovered in the nineteenth century really fairly represents gamer culture, which in all honesty is tasteless, tacky and overdone... but who cares. In moderate amounts I like those things.

Eurogame design did pretty much everything it could to be the opposite of that, it desperately fought against being seen as a game and Eurogame boxes look even worse, they look ashamed of their own purpose. They look confused about their purpose.

What's the antithesis of tasteless, tacky and overdone anyway? Because I don't think I'd care for that either.

I don't mind Barnes saying that... playing Earth Reborn lately and it pretty much encapsulates that criticism but it does it so boldly I'll cut it some slack.

If we want to get meta about it, most of society probably considers a bookcase full of board games in any room to be tacky and tasteless. Its all perspective.

Geez, can't believe you fell in this... when you put more effort refuting something that comes out off his ass, he already won.

Mad Dog wrote: If we want to get meta about it, most of society probably considers a bookcase full of board games in any room to be tacky and tasteless. Its all perspective.

The reaction I get when folks walk into my game room is often priceless.

Recently we went on vacation and one of my wife's co-workers came by while we were gone to feed our cat. She later incredulously asked my wife--"What are those? Puzzles of some kind?" When my wife told her they were board games, I think comprehension decreased even more.

My cousin's wife just stood slack-jawed in front of the bookcases, as though she's just read the second act of The King in Yellow.

"90% of everything is crap."

Heroscape is pretty damn ugly. But my god does it play well.

Thurns & Taxis . . . now THAT is a gorgeous game. Need more games like Thurn & Taxis.

thats quite a few wargames and abstracts stacking up that list. In the world of sci fi and fantasy it seems most publishers go for an art direction inspired by the low point in D&Ds back catalogue. You do get exceptions like Fantastica or the rather minimalist Impulse but he majority go for anime+goof. Some euros look reasonably tasteful.