Scott Nicholson, a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Kitchener, runs the institution’s game design and development program. He argues the proliferation of board games in the digital age came about not in spite of the Internet, but largely because of it.

In an era when smart phones, social media and videogames dominate social interaction and digital sales charts, how have board games not only survived but thrived?

We’re physical beings and we like touch and we like that tangibility, especially when engaging in shared activities. Companies are trying to replicate that by creating screens that vibrate when you touch them to try to give the person some sort of tactile feedback, but in a tabletop world you have that feedback right away. Handing someone cards, rolling dice, moving pieces on a board — these bring that game to life in a way that never happens if it’s just on the screen.

Related: Burgeoning board-game café culture makes Toronto king of analogue play

What about the face-to-face social aspect of board games?

It’s a more human form of engagement than screens. And social elements make odds-based games a lot more fun, like how poker has bluffing. A key part is that most German, or “Eurogames” (a style of tabletop strategy game like Catan with simpler rules, shorter playing time and indirect player competition), do not have player elimination. That’s unlike the more combative, longer, luck-dependent games that are in the “Ameritrash” vein (like Risk or Axis & Allies). If you think of Monopoly, you play until everyone but one person is eliminated. That’s not very fun for a social activity.

What sparked the board game renaissance of the past 15 years?

Settlers of Catan was the breakout game. For whatever reason, it became the magic that launched people into realizing that there were games out there that were not these sort of standard, destroy-everyone, player-elimination games that they had been used to.

How has the Internet affected this evolution?

Before the web, I was using Usenet, which was like a discussion board, to learn about new games, to import them from Germany, to get rules and begin to play them. Because of the Internet in the 1990s, we began to see more crossover and getting games over from Germany.

Is there an app for that now?

Actually, the second wave of innovation has occurred because of tablets, tablet gaming and apps. Games like Ticket to Ride and other tabletop games have had app-based distribution. These are allowing people to try out the games at a much lower price point than to buy them in cardboard. The app might be $5 to $10; the game in cardboard might be $50. These companies that are putting up apps are actually seeing an uptick in their tabletop game sales.

What else has contributed to board games’ popularity?

The designs behind the board game have made them more accessible. New styles of games in the German mode have opened up co-operative gaming, so you can be working with everyone against the game. Or team-based games, where you’re working in a team against another team. People often come into a cafe looking to play their childhood favourites — Clue, Scrabble, Connect Four, Sorry, Pictionary — but then kind of graduate to newer games.

Germany keeps popping up as integral to board game development. Can you elaborate?

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After World War II, Germany didn’t encourage military toys for their kids, so they began to create games that were more based on economics, trading and other ways of engaging with each other. And in the U.S., they were getting very strong in creating military games.

The Spiel Des Jahres (Game of the Year) award, where the media vote on which game families should buy for Christmas, came about in Germany and got designers focused on games for families to enjoy. Through the ’80s and ’90s there was great improvement in board game design in Germany, while in North America we were very stagnant and creating more of the same — Scrabble, Clue, those sorts of things.

Top games

The most popular board games are still the classics, with the exception of the made-to-shock runaway success Cards Against Humanity, according to Snakes & Lattes. Here’s their nonscientific run-down of games enjoying peak popularity.

Top game: Cards Against Humanity

Top game among hobbyists: Catan

Top Canadian-designed game: Lanterns