The last 5-10 years have seen an uptick in the trend of games having nicer and shinier bits and pieces. In my mind, the trend is best exemplified by Wingspan, which to me was a fairly average game wrapped in a beautiful package of glossy Cadbury eggs and pretty birds. I’m personally in favour of getting nicer bits and pieces for my games, but they are undeniably having an impact on prices (how much of an impact is something I’d find really interesting, let me know if any publisher has discussed the issue).
What do you think of this trend? Are you in favour of moving back to 100% cardboard chits, or do you like the newer, prettier boardgames?
I personally think of board games as a graphic design expression. I know there are good games hidden underneath bad or dry art, but I can’t interact with them if they don’t look good to me.
Regarding pieces, I don’t care much for plastic or wooden pieces, I care for things that make sense in terms of readability of the state of the board, and if a game comes with ultra-detailed miniatures but they are all gray, I’d rather have cardboard stand ins that help me differentiate them.