January 14th, 2013

Board Game Café Culture in China: Does it Have Lasting Power?

Similar to the trend of Internet cafés springing up all over China to provide gaming access to those without home computers, “board game cafés” are now gaining in popularity in a similar way. These new cafés grew from a need that people had to get out of their homes and socialise, as well as a need for space to gather in an increasingly crowded nation.

The cafés, otherwise known as “zhuoyou bas”, feature large café tables, expensive food and drinks, and a huge variety of board games that people can choose from, and were truly popular places to hang out starting in 2010. Of course, to make money the businesses charged a flat hourly rate that more than doubled on the weekends.

Despite the massive boom in popularity of board game cafés in 2011, it seems as though tabletop gamers aren’t as happy with the business model anymore. According to a major newspaper of China, at least half of the cafés that opened up in Shanghai have already closed down.

 

Source: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/the-rise-of-chinas-board-game-cafes/