All Games Are Political
Board games aren’t just escapist — they play a unique role in helping us imagine new worlds and different ways of working together. Recent games like Pandemic and Daybreak put the crises of our time on the table and ask us to solve them.
The board game industry is biased toward “apolitical” games. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Why was the winner of the world’s most prestigious prize for board game makers banned immediately after the ceremony by the very organization that awarded him?
Palestine.
When Daybreak won the Spiel des Jahres (SdJ, or “Game of the Year”) for the best “expert” board game, it affirmed what many reviewers and players knew: the game, which models geopolitical blocs cooperating to solve the climate crisis, broke new ground and showed that board games can be important tools for reimagining urgent social issues.
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