what can video games learn froma board games a lot of things I would say especially when it comes to multiplayer video games those can learn a heck of a lot from just about every board game because most board games are designed to be multiplayer they evolved more than one person usually two three sometimes up to eight or even 11 even more and I'm not talking about RPGs those are their own separate thing they can achieve something that video games currently aren't able to a story that's directed on the fly by someone that's able to adapt its every facet it's every event to what the players do board games are more akin to traditional video games speakers they have fixed mechanics but then those fixed mechanics they do something that video games often do not they account for human beings being human beings if your definition of a board game is something like chutes and ladders or whatever variation you want of it that's that is a board game but it's a very basic definition of a board game if your definition of a board game is even monopoly that's still a very rudimentary not at all well-made in terms of what the concept of a board game has to offer and it's kind of the same with video games because very few of them are actually designed in such a way to take into account the players and their you know statuses being human beings and not just a substitute for a better AI controlled enemy in a video game we say that video games are a social again yet they are social they encourage people to form bonds to form communities but in themselves in their gameplay inside their core mechanics few of them actually encourage that kind of communication something that is kind of a yes if you've spent five seconds on X folks live war and csgo or in dota 2 if you have you know that your mother is a very popular person and you've also learned Russian in record time especially the swear words and you have a ceding resentment for all humanity that's generally what communication boils down to in a video game in a multiplayer video game the exception would be role-playing video games especially MMO is where people are encouraged to roleplay to act out the character to act out a scenario and again I'm setting that aside because that fits more with what tabletop RPGs do I'm referring especially to the plethora of other multiplayer games the FPS the RTS the MOBAs the shooter is the action games well just about every other thing that isn't an MMO they have very limited communication potential because that communication isn't factored into the core of the gameplay yes you may see that in Cod respect if you don't communicate with your teammates you will wind up losing because you're not informing them where the enemy is or you're not being formed of what happened to a player where the enemy was you know stuff like that but still you can succeed even without information without the req communication over a microphone or through text you can succeed if you're actually good at shooting you will succeed in a board game a good one one that has meaningful mechanics related to you know humans being humans that would not be possible because first and foremost you're not playing the mechanics of the game the mechanics are there is a frame of reference what you're playing is everyone else in the group that also tends to happen as well in situations where you're playing a cooperative game and there there isn't any player that is the enemy you're still playing the other players because you sometimes have to manage them or at least you have to cooperate with them to ensure that you're making the absolute best choices possible to resolve the situation you are faced with so for example if one of your teammates says should I risk it or not ask him what exactly are you risking like that thing you're seeing in the background called Star Trek panic because if you don't ask him what he's risking he may actually discard the card you need to win in order to draw two cards hoping that those cards may also win and then that player rage quits because he is a sore loser and also known as captain salty the cheater and when it comes to competitive games you are even more involved into playing the opposition you are required to get into their heads to understand what they're doing what they want to do and this this is something that works even online most of my board game experience with board games that aren't just playing rip offs of Monopoly has been through tabletop simulator which is the game you can find on Steam well it's in itself it's not a game it's a simulator that lets you just simulate a tabletop with pieces with even sometimes scripted rules into them but mostly you're doing everything on your own and you're communicating with other players and you're playing those games as you wouldn't real-life only you don't see each other and still you can play the people you don't you won't see tells you won't see eyes switching you won't see fidgety ticks but you will still be able to play the other players because you will know what they're thinking because you'll have to talk to you they'll have to say something voice chat is a must in these kind of games text yeah text can work but you just don't get the same reactions from text you don't get the inflection in their words you don't get their frustration out of simple text unless they type in all caps in which case they're probably angry and then rage quit competitive games especially those based around the concept of paranoia are something you seldom see in video games and board games they're everywhere there is stuff like spy for your spy that has to guess the location at which all the other players are at they don't know you to spy you don't know the location and you ask each other questions to verify that the non spy players are not spies because they know the location and that the spy player is I player because he will give answers that do not correspond the location or that make no sense for that location you'd be surprised how amazingly deep that simple concept can be it's all verbal its own the words and it is incredibly deep because you're not playing a mechanic you're playing the people you're playing every other player you have to suspect them you have to listen carefully to everything they're saying and inside if it checks out or not if it's in line with what someone who's not a spy would say and if you're honest why you just listen for every little slip-up it's the same thing with stuff like secret Hitler where you have to be Hitler and hide from deal liberals who wanna kill you or at least they want to pass enough bills nor if you win the game you don't know who your allies are because there are some other fascists and the games that will help you they know who you are you don't know who they are and you have to figure that out or Battlestar Galactica in which again one player is the traitor that has to pretend he is not one in order to just sabotage the mission to inject incorrect solutions to problems and cause disasters now these games do have the central feature of paranoia and subterfuge in them and that is a very compelling element one that is not often seen in video games it's something that should be more often used and I would say probably one of the only series that should we do them kind of right was the assist with one when they had multiplayer that allowed you to hide in a crowd - again it wasn't something that you could communicate to her place yes you did have voice chat which I don't even know what the button was for it because a lot of the people didn't use voice chat at her game but through the way you use your mechanics your lures your bodyguards your distractions you could play the other players you could use their knowledge of the game against them or their lack of knowledge or their suspicions or their paranoia you could make them play against themselves basically and that can often be one of the most satisfying moment of a board game when you get a player to a point where they're confused enough about the actual situation that they start taking actions that aren't beneficial to themselves it's sneaky underhanded but it's a lot of fun and the videogame should offer more opportunities like that ruse was interesting game to let you do that ruse let you lie about where your armies were what units you had what bases you had it's kind of dead now you know being a new piece of game and stuff but still it was a neat concept which wasn't really implemented again sadly though like I've said the Assassin's Creed series had a similar idea now I'm not saying you should introduce mandatory communication stage to csgo but still there is room for improvement in the way video games are designed to actually utilize the idea that you're playing against other human beings human beings that have ways of thinking that can be exploited and not just to make clicky clicky addictive Skinner boxes for mobile and other crap and in doing so we'll have games that better foster communication between players that encourage them to talk to each other to understand each other from within the game not just through forum pose and not just through social media but through the actual game sort of like an MMO can do world RPG can do but something that's ingrained in the mechanics not just encouraged because hey why not role play on the roleplay server instead of just grinding and tell your hair falls out it would make video games more social like in the actual gameplay though there may be one slight side effect you see video games are often accused of being extremely violent the worst they encourage people to be violent to be murderers to be completely evil and to worship Satan you know that board games are worse board games if you play with people that don't get it as in they don't get how it's played and refuse to learn that can lead to frustration that over time can really annoy your psyche like Allah you may end up saying a nasty word or lashing out at them verbally even though that's something you wouldn't do in normal day-to-day life long as you were constantly tied to someone that's a bit of an idiot and had to clean up after them constantly but also at a competitive level if your opponents or if you aren't able to limit your emotional urges in the game you may end up flipping tables rage quitting just swearing like a trucker at every little thing and possibly doing more due to their highly social element that frustration when you lose that rage that shows up when a player just destroys your tactic completely or uses you to win and even worse after that not necessarily taunts you but makes the snide remark that can send you over the edge flying board games them to have a higher potential of making you aggressive or violent if you want then video games fortunately board games to be played by people that how shall I put this are less prone to those kind of outbursts not the people I play with they they do it all time they're there mentally at a level of being 12 at best but continuing to play them eventually will foster a higher degree of understanding human beings of understanding behavior of understanding what is acceptable and what isn't I don't think we're at that point yet with video games because the basic idea is that we still have cheaters in most video games who when they get banned just by another version of the game and cheat again because they can afford it like a cheater in Rainbow six siege once told me we don't have that mechanism yet that's that's making people better and in more games you do have that because you have to interact constantly with everyone else you have to talk then you have to see them again to continue to play maybe one day we'll get to have that in video games as well and online servers won't be filled that the brain would bastards utter other big bags thank you for watching the show if you enjoyed it please consider 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