A new board game convention in Ballarat is aiming to bring aficionados and people looking for something more than just Monopoly together this weekend.
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Game Scene Ballarat, which begins on Friday evening at the Lydiard Wine Bar, will include sneak peeks at brand new games direct from the massive Spiel Essen trade show in Germany, as well as a library of games for people to try out.
Excitingly, Ballarat-based developers will be previewing home-made games, and enthusiasts and industry figures from across Australia, and the US, will be queuing up to have a go.
Organiser Mark Carter, who owns the GUF Ballarat games shop, said board games are big business.
As well as new spins on "gateway games" like Monopoly, classic games like Settlers of Catan, or the intricate Scythe, are becoming more popular with a broader demographic.
"The big upswing has come from parents, mostly, wanting to expose their kids to something that isn't electronic gaming, something that's screen-free time," Mr Carter explained.
"Board games are fantastic for developing strategic thinking skills, problem-solving skills, even social skills - it's a valuable thing for kids to learn about how to be a gracious winner and a good loser."
It's not just child's play though - adults are returning to offline games in greater numbers, hosting board game dinner parties, and it's not unusual to see a battered copy of Scrabble at some pubs.
"My parents used to play card games with their friends, they'd sit around and play canasta and 500, and this is just the evolution from that," he said.
"America and Germany in particular have really taken hold of this concept of playing a board game after dinner is a quality way to spend time with your family."
The tricky part is development, and Mr Carter said there's an opportunity for the City of Ballarat to jump on board early and make the city a destination for the industry - incubation spaces with software or electronic game designers, for example, would be mutually beneficial.
"The council has always been very supportive of the software industry in Ballarat, their economic development department has identified the benefits of trying to get a game design scene going in Ballarat, and I cannot see any reason why board games can't be the same sort of thing," he said.
"My pitch to the council is, it's great you're investing in software, but that has high barriers to entry and is quite challenging, while investing in the developing board game industry is a lot cheaper, and then leads into the electronic game development goals.
"I think we're super lucky with Ballarat council, they really get electronic games.
"The time is right now, and over the next couple of years the opportunities will come in, otherwise Melbourne and Brisbane will establish design hubs and it'll be too late."
To prove Mr Carter's point, most of the tickets for the Game Scene convention - which runs begins Friday from 6pm, runs until 11pm on Saturday, and ends on Sunday - are already sold out.
He said he's held onto a few tickets for anyone who's keen to check it out.
"We just wanted to have a really nice place for people from all around Australia to gather and play board games, basically," he said.
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