Millennials are increasingly moving away from the cities

The argument

This argument explains the popularity of Settlers of Catan among millennials by pointing to what the generation appears to want from where it lives, and noting that the game offers a version of the same thing. The starting observation is demographic: studies show that millennials have been moving away from cities into rural areas. The reason given is not cost or commuting but appeal — millennials have found more to like in the agricultural settings of rural areas. Combine that with an inclination towards board games as a way of socialising, and the argument holds that a game set in the countryside is particularly well placed to catch on. What Catan offers matches the description closely. The game places players in an uninhabited land where they must settle and build in order to gain the points that win the game. The rural appeal comes from the central activity, which is strategising about how best to use the natural resources of that land. That is an agricultural problem rather than an industrial or urban one, and it is the whole substance of play. The setting reinforces it. The board features vast grasslands, hills, forests and mountain ranges: an unbuilt landscape in which the player's task is to establish a foothold rather than to navigate an existing city. It captures an uninhabited rural dream away from the city, which is the same thing the generation is described as seeking in its actual moves. The two halves fit together — the taste for rural life on one side, the fondness for board games on the other, and a rural board game at the intersection. Because millennials are increasingly moving away from cities toward the appeal of the simple life, the argument concludes, Settlers of Catan is the perfect board game for them.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A millennial moving outside the city may not be doing so happily. Studies show that millennials are leaving the cities because of the increasing costs of housing. For this reason, millennials feel forced to relocate to more rural areas. Since it is not a willing choice, millennials would not enjoy rural themed board games like Settlers of Catan. In addition, Settlers of Catan is categorized more as a strategy game rather than an agricultural game. The island setting of the game is only the template for players to industrialize the area with settlements and roads. There are plenty of other board games that players define as farming games, and Settlers of Catan is not included.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise supplies a motive the studies do not: rising housing costs are the reason usually given for the move, which makes rural relocation a constraint rather than an attraction to agricultural life. [Rejecting P2] The island is a board for industrialising territory with roads, settlements and cities; the game is classed as trading and strategy rather than farming, so its landscape is scenery rather than the source of the appeal. [Rejecting P3] Even granting that millennials are relocating and also playing board games, the premise offers nothing connecting the two beyond their coincidence.