Settlers of Catan uniquely engages players throughout

The argument

Proponents of this position begin from a reported rise in the popularity of board games among millennials, and from a diagnosis of what that rise is for: the appetite is said to be not for games in the abstract but for social experiences shared with other people. On that reading, the games that succeed are the ones that actually deliver social contact, and board games built around strategy do so by keeping all the players engaged rather than waiting. Settlers of Catan is held up as the clearest case. It immerses players in constant strategy — collecting resources, building roads, and conquering land in order to create cities — and, crucially, it routes that strategy through other people. Players communicate continually with one another, making deals and trading to get closer to conquering more and winning. The significance of that design, on this view, is that what a player needs cannot reliably be obtained alone: the necessary resources sit with the others, so advancing means negotiating, and negotiating means talking. Attention cannot lapse either, because a deal offered at any moment may change what is worth building next, which gives each player a reason to follow what everyone else is doing even when it is not their turn to act. The result, proponents argue, is an immersive social experience rather than a sequence of private calculations interrupted by occasional turns. The game requires constant attention and engagement from each player and repays it with conversation, bargaining and rivalry, which is precisely the shared experience millennials are said to be seeking. A game that engages its players throughout, and does so by making them deal with one another, is on this reasoning doing well the very thing board games are played for. That, supporters conclude, is why Catan is a great game, and why its popularity among millennials should be treated as earned rather than accidental.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There are plenty of other games that engage players through constant communication. This is not a unique selling point for Settlers of Catan that sets apart its popularity from other board games millennials enjoy. Also, board games that require constant attention inhibit friends from socializing while playing. A big reason behind the rise in board games is the social aspect that games allow. With a complicated social game such as Settlers of Catan, millennials won't experience the social aspect that other games involve.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A general rise in board-game sales explains the category rather than this title; the premise establishes a demand for shared social experiences without showing that Catan meets it better than the many other games riding the same boom. [Rejecting P2] "Uniquely" is the load-bearing word and it is never defended — trading, negotiation and continuous turn involvement are common to a large class of strategy games, and the argument's own emphasis on constant attention supports the counter's claim that the game crowds out conversation as readily as it supports engagement.