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I am an iPad owner. I love the thing. Aside from long-form writing, a bit of coding, and some PC gaming, it's by far my preferred computer.
Naturally, as a gamer, I have quite a few great board game apps on my iPad. Ticket to Ride, Small World, Agricola, Le Havre, Eclipse... they're all wonderful board game ports.
What I've found is that playing games electronically loses something important. It loses that face-to-face interaction among players, the physical twiddling of bits, the watching of the other player while they're thinking, the conversation and trash talk.
What's gained, then, is the lack of bookkeeping. You click a button and the game is ready to go. There's no setup and there's no picking up. There's also no management of the game state necessary - it's all done for you.
Is it worth it? I think it depends on the game.
Through the Ages, for example, has become a game that I simply prefer to play electronically. The weight of the bookkeeping in this game when playing it on the table makes the electronic version flow much more smoothly. I do miss out on face-to-face interactions, but I don't miss moving around dozens and dozens of tic-tacs and cards.
On the other hand, I only play games like Ticket to Ride or Small World on the app because I don't happen to have an opponent ready to go. It's simply a substitute in those cases. If I have friends around, the reduction in interaction from the app is a far bigger drawback than the "cost" of setting up the game and playing it.
Will the iPad replace board games? Perhaps for ultra-complex games - but even in those cases, it may just be a supplement. For shorter games, it's a great substitute when you have people around, but it's certainly not better than the real thing.
I am an iPad owner. I love the thing. Aside from long-form writing, a bit of coding, and some PC gaming, it's by far my preferred computer.
Naturally, as a gamer, I have quite a few great board game apps on my iPad. Ticket to Ride, Small World, Agricola, Le Havre, Eclipse... they're all wonderful board game ports.
What I've found is that playing games electronically loses something important. It loses that face-to-face interaction among players, the physical twiddling of bits, the watching of the other player while they're thinking, the conversation and trash talk.
What's gained, then, is the lack of bookkeeping. You click a button and the game is ready to go. There's no setup and there's no picking up. There's also no management of the game state necessary - it's all done for you.
Is it worth it? I think it depends on the game.
Through the Ages, for example, has become a game that I simply prefer to play electronically. The weight of the bookkeeping in this game when playing it on the table makes the electronic version flow much more smoothly. I do miss out on face-to-face interactions, but I don't miss moving around dozens and dozens of tic-tacs and cards.
On the other hand, I only play games like Ticket to Ride or Small World on the app because I don't happen to have an opponent ready to go. It's simply a substitute in those cases. If I have friends around, the reduction in interaction from the app is a far bigger drawback than the "cost" of setting up the game and playing it.
Will the iPad replace board games? Perhaps for ultra-complex games - but even in those cases, it may just be a supplement. For shorter games, it's a great substitute when you have people around, but it's certainly not better than the real thing.
