As longtime Cracked LCD readers might remember, back at the beginning of 2009 I made an obligatory list of resolutions that I resolutely broke throughout the course of the year. So to ring in 2010, I thought I’d take a different route altogether. Instead of making a bunch of empty promises about playing games more in public (not a good one for a reclusive misanthrope anyway) and completing my eternally delayed game design, I’m going to present the gaming hobby with a single demand that I want to see fulfilled throughout 2010, or else. I don’t know what “else” entails, but I’ve got a good twelve months to sort that out. 2010 is the future, and the future is now. So what I want to see transpire over the course of the new year in gaming is for tabletop hobby gaming to get with the program.

And by ‘the program’ I mean the digital era, information age, or whatever. Embrace the electronic. I want to see 2010 become the year that board games cross the digital divide and become relevant to all gamers across the entire spectrum of what that word entails at a time when online gaming has stolen the human interaction thunder of tabletop gaming.

And I’m not talking about using online databases to track irrelevant information about board games or discussing esoteric hobby issues ad infinitum. Those activities are really hobbies unto themselves that are completely separate from playing and enjoying games with friends and family. I’m talking about making electronics and digital devices: hardware, software, game consoles, mobile devices and so on- part of the media of hobby gaming. Out there in the Cracked LCD readership, there’s probably a few people already balking at this idea because board games are supposed to be cardboard and plastic, and probably a few who are expressing active distaste at the idea of sullying the “olde worlde charme” of board games by implementing Satanic electronic media and devices.

Hobby gaming has always had an almost luddite streak. From the romanticized, apparently rebellious idea of “gaming unplugged” to the routine condescension of hobby gamers who look down their noses at “immature” video gamers while playing games about crapping donkeys and/or elves, there has been a regular reluctance and even refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that hobby gaming is in many ways behind the times and continually in danger of being completely outstripped and left in the dust by electronic gaming formats. Now, I love hobby games and the particularities that make them something very distinct from video games, but I’m also not of the belief that cardboard and plastic can’t be enhanced by bringing in new design and gameplay concepts that electronic media and devices could possibly enable.

This is not a new concept, but one that has lain dormant. The obvious examples of the chocolate-and-peanut butter combination that electronics could represent are older mass-market games like DARK TOWER and THE OMEGA VIRUS- games that used electronics to manage rules, probability, and structure. But they also used electronics to create atmosphere and immersion in a way that all the flavor text in the world can not. The sounds of DARK TOWER are still with anyone who’s ever played it, and the haranguing voice of the Omega Virus is equally unforgettable and endearing. In the 1980s and 1990s, many attempts were made to put some ones and zeros under the board, so to speak, as mass market board games were trying to compete with first and second generation video game consoles.

There are other incidences, like the fairly obscure STAR SAGA ONE that required an IBM PC to moderate gameplay. There have been a few kids’ games over the years like CHAOTIC and EYE OF JUDGMENT that have attempted to incorporate electronic media, but again, more as a novelty than anything else. And there are games like the most recent edition of LIFE that have brought in “debit card” readers and there’s an edition of CLUE that sends you text messages throughout the game. Maybe that sounds corny, but it’s more forward-thinking than what the hobby market is doing by sticking to its cardboard guns. It’s almost as if somewhere along the way, hobby games just gave up and retreated into a regressive, defiantly ludditic posture.

The most recent example in the hobby market was Reiner Knizia’s KING ARTHUR, a “talking” game that used microchips to sense where pieces were on the board and their statuses. It was never published in the US and has been mostly forgotten seven years on. SPACE ALERT used a CD to control the game, but given the kind of mobile technology available today in almost everyone’s pocket, it’s a pretty low-tech implementation.

Over the past decade, there has been a lot of amateur-level, fan-based implementation of computers into the gaming hobby. Programs like Vassal and Cyberboard have very detailed, complete modules that allow players to play a wide selection of board games and war games by email or in real-time. I’d bet that more people are playing games like ADVANCED SQUAD LEADER that way than face to face these days. It’s also become pretty common for roleplayers to replace the graph paper and DM screens with laptops, and the iPhone appstore has several apps for hobby gaming like die rollers and stats trackers- there’s even a SPACE HULK timer called “Space Clock”. But this still all falls short of what I want to see happening. What I want to see is for digital media to become an actual part of games, not as an adjunct or support tool.