This year the Internationale Spieletage in Essen (as Spiel is called by its full regal name) have been replaced by SPIEL.digital. Now that it‘s behind us, it‘s time to reflect on the experience. Let‘s start with the blindingly obvious: Spiel is not what it used to be.

It did not take me all that long to get there. There were no hallways packed with people. You didn‘t have to carry bulking bags full of games out of the halls. Instead there was a website that visitors had to slowly learn how to maneuver in. Naturally some reacted with the expected loud proclamations of disappointment and bitter disillusionment. If you’re familiar with the responses to the Spiel-des-Jahres nominations and winner reveals, you’ll probably recognize this song. Every decisions was wrong and misguided. Everyone can see what should have been done instead. Everyone knew all along how this was going to be a spectacular failure.

But even the response to that, follows a familiar pattern. These people are just nerds who are completely out of touch with the rest of the world, and treat their first world problems as intolerable injustices. They are neckbearded neophobes who reject anything that doesn’t fit into the old, familiar patterns they’re used to. SPIEL.digital is the inevitable march of progress and there were more successes than failures here.

It’d be rather convenient to simply say that the truth is somewhere in the middle. But I don’t think that’s the case. I’d say that both sides are right in their own way. But which argument carries more weight is ultimately down to your own expectations of what Spiel.Digital is supposed to be about.

Spiel has many facets to it, which every visitor experiences somewhat differently. For starters, it’s a novelty show. It’s a place where the passionate gaming enthusiast can find out what the next 6-8 months might bring. But it is also a giant playground, where you can try out new games and old (i.e. those that you could buy as far back as two years ago!). A playground in which the wealth of new ideas never fails to delight and entertain. But it is also a sales fair, in which traders and publishers can make great, even company-saving profits. (The recurring cases of stolen cash registers notwithstanding. Although I’d like to imagine that these skidmarks in human form responsible for those robberies are having a spectacularly bad time this year.) But Spiel is also a business event in which future collaborations are established, and friends and competitors get to meet and interact with each other. On top of all that, it’s a big communal experience that can shape a board gamer’s identity in a way that only disappearing in a huge mass of like-minded people can achieve. Being at Spiel has always felt like four days in which you were exactly where you are supposed to be.

As I said, Spiel is many different things to different people. But with Spiel.Digital it’s not how it used to be.

Plainly put, as a sales fair Spiel has regressed. One publisher or another may have ended in the black, but those who relied on international sales were most likely disappointed. This was, in part, because Spiel.Digital lacked the infrastructure that would have otherwise encouraged impulse buying, which anyone could profit from in years past. Where once a nice cover, a tempting discount or a friendly chat at the booth was enough to lead to a sale, Spiel.Digital had people jump through quite a few hoops to get there. A surprising number of games weren’t available to purchase or only up for pre-order. Some were only available as imports, and even those could rarely be bundled with other games. If you dared to order more than three games internationally, you ended up paying shipping costs that amounted to the price of a shrink-wrapped copy of Gloomhaven – Jaws of the Lion. This was often enough to quell the typical shopping spree that Spiel would often induce in its visitors.

The novelty fair side of Spiel was similarly limited, but no less interesting than in past years. Quite a number of publishers came well-prepared with rules videos, articles and digital gaming tables to somewhat try out the new releases. Which made the cases, in which enthusiastic buyers were asked to wait 3-4 months for their copy to arrive, even more agonizing. Especially publishers who reached out to content creators early on, managed to leave a highly professional and competent impression on visitors. Those who didn’t or couldn’t, need to take advantage of the fact that the website will still be operational for the rest of the year, and add new content and purchasing options to their virtual booths.

In fact, if there is one thing that’s become obvious with Spiel 2020 is that it’s been the year of board game content creators. Where in the past the wealth of purchasable games pushed gamers into spending deliriously on new releases, shaping our memories of the fair, it is now the experiences surrounding the live streams that we remember Spiel by. Instead of an endless scroll of slightly tacky “loot pics” on social media, it’s singular moments that stay with us. Were you there when “Team Knuffig” was born? Did you hear the phrases “Are we still live?” and “Do you mean I should push this bu- ?” Do you remember when Manu couldn’t for the life of him remember the name of Klemens Franz?

This year’s Spiel FOMO isn’t about games you didn’t play or buy, but about the authentic and very human moments of boardgamer silliness, you could be part of despite ample physical distance.

My Spiel.Digital experience was almost exclusively positive. There was always a sense of community after four days spent with friends at the fair, that would follow me home, and still stick with me for weeks afterwards. This year I realize that the experience of intensely engaging with games and the people who are similarly passionate about them continues to electrify me. I continue to get carried away talking about games on social media channels. I’m planning and weighing which new releases I should consider picking up post-Spiel. I’m still beaming with pride, that Beeple Radio, which I participated in, was so well received by so many people.

But I also realise that Spiel.Digital still has much to improve for next year. Especially international and internationally-minded players missed out this year. I find little use in armchair analyzing the reasons for it. Still it’s always been the international quality of Spiel that has turned it into the most important four days of the year. I hope that this aspiration towards internationality will return in full-force in 2021. In order to do that there needs to be infrastructure that brings publishers and buyers closer together. Some wrinkles of the website’s user interface need to be ironed out, too. So it won’t just be an easy time for those fluent in all manners digital, but also encourage the type of occasional gamer who would be happy walking out of the halls carrying a copy of Monopoly Essen and a copy of Menara.

For that to happen the industry needs to acknowledge that the presence at Spiel.Digital is not measured by the size of the hexagonal tile and the many places linking to in the database. It’s the skill of the livestreams (video or audio) that draws people’s attention to games that they can buy right here and right now.

It’s when Spiel.Digital coalesced to lead visitors from a fun shared experience to an easily acquired game, that it felt like Spiel the way it used to be.