A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away families had a game night–once a week they’d pull out a stack of boxes from a closet and everyone would flex their knowledge of trivia (Trivial Pursuit), vocabulary (Scrabble), or even their real-estate management skills (Monopoly, natch). You can check the :30 second mark of this clip from The Royal Tenenbaums to remember what a game closet looked like.

With the rise of cable TV and video games in the ’80s, that tradition waned in the U.S. But in Europe, board games just evolved into complex worlds of strategy and resources. Eventually, such games gained a niche following in the U.S–games like Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, and Ticket to Ride. And now with this plethora of board games appearing on digital platforms, board games are making a comeback. “This is a renaissance of board gaming that you are seeing,” says Chip Lange, the general manager of Hasbro Studios for Electronic Arts, the division within EA that adapts Hasbro’s board games. “People love to sit around with their families and play board games. When they are on the go they take their passion for board games with them on their mobile devices.”

One of the most recognizable games from the past is Risk. For many, fond memories of long nights spent conquering continents and breaking alliances remain. Hasbro, the publishers of Risk tried ten years ago to bring Risk to video games. But it, and many other of their board game adaptations, did not find success. And so Hasbro sold off their digital business in 2001. Since then, Hasbro has reinvented the game of Risk. “Instead of you taking over the whole world, you’ve got to complete 3 objectives from a pool of objectives, and the first one to do that wins. So that was a sea change for us, and we said, ‘Great! We’re gonna do that,'” says Spencer Brooks, the producer of the digital versions of Risk for Electronic Arts.

In 2010, EA brought this quicker version to Xbox and PlayStation with an approachable cartoony art style as Risk: Factions. In mid-January, Risk: Factions debuted on Facebook, its armies of zombies and cats getting new functionality like special weapons, and bases where players create more troops and stronger weapons. Brooks said, “I think we nailed it with keeping true to the brand mechanics, keeping true to the feel of the fictional brand that we had built on the Xbox version, and also adding this sense of persistence that is so important to Facebook games.”

Risk is just one board game that has seen a surge in popularity under this Hasbro/EA partnership. Despite strong competitors in the digital realm–Words With Friends or any of the other thousands of word game apps–Monopoly, Scrabble, and the Game of Life have all taken off: all 3 games were in the top 20 for paid iPhone apps in 2011, and Monopoly and Scrabble made the top 20 paid iPad apps as well. Other classic games, like Sorry and Connect Four, have flourished as part of EA’s Family Game Night releases–a series so successful, Family Game Night 4 was recently released and a television game show of the same name was created. “When we were looking to make a major investment into the world of casual social gaming in 2007, as opposed to doing it in one-offs, we decided that there was no stronger library of family loved brands that had the kind of range and diversity that Hasbro did,” said Lange, who manages the relationship between Hasbro and Electronic Arts. With Hasbro and EA working together, these board game classics are now all over consoles, smartphones, and social networks.

One such European company who has capitalized on the board game renaissance is Days of Wonder. Their game of building train routes, Ticket to Ride, has sold 1.8 million copies since its release in 2006. “Unlike the music industry, where for the most part it has been transitioning to digital, for board games the two experiences are complimentary,” said Days of Wonder’s CEO Eric Hautemont. Where Hasbro has found success in the last few years with the EA partnership, Days went it alone. They built an online version themselves–over 27 million games have been played online, with a new game starting every 4 seconds. After a few years, they brought the game to Xbox. And last year they released it for iPad and then iPhone.

Hautemont says, “It’s because we have an install base of 1.8 million board-game players that got the iPad app off to such a good start.” Hautemont has discovered that success can be found, not by releasing a tide of products every year–some board game companies release 20 to 30 games a year–but by focusing your offerings to one new game a year that gets the company’s full attention. “We live and die by word of mouth. Our entire marketing budget is in the box when you buy it,” said Hautemon. “We spend more money than anyone with the game components. People are like, ‘How can you afford to do that?’ And I am like, ‘How can you afford not to do that?'”