This is something hobby gamers do not understand. For non-gamers, learning a new game is a chore, a HUGE barrier to our hobby. They just don't want to do it. That's why they keep playing the crap they learnt as kids, because they don't have to learn it again and again. https://twitter.com/PonchoRebound/status/1379834999466246155

And our industry totally fails to see this as a problem. They keep making the same product in the same way again and again. Rule books are horrible. They are legal documents. Not a teaching tool. Nobody teaches a game by reading the rulebook. The industry needs to improve.

Big box games need to be designed to enable learning the game first. You should open the box, and walk through the game, BE WALKED THROUGH the game. The product should be designed to show you how to play first. Then you prepare it to actually play.

What we do now is self defeating. We cannot expect to draw people into our hobby with the products designed to repel them. When you enjoy reading as a hobby, you don't have to LEARN HOW TO READ every time you open a new book.

You might learn new words, learn new structures, but the fundamentals never change. Same with movies, music, all those hobbies. Those hobbies have an extra advantage, they can all be done solo. If you want to enjoy a book, you don't need three other people reading along with you.

Boardgames have a very high barrier to entry, and the hobby and the industry blithely ignores it. The product today is identical to the product in the 1950s. The games themselves have improved, the product has not, will not until the industry recognises its core problems.