Germany’s board games guru says happy to lose

With a treasure trove of over 20,000 board games, including a discontinued Trump property game, Germany’s Tom Werneck has turned a lifelong passion for rolling the dice and passing go into one of the world’s biggest collections. And if the 79-year-old has learned anything along the way, it’s that winning comes second -- and sometimes it’s ok to bend the rules. Walking past endless rows of games stacked up to the ceiling in a Bavarian basement, Werneck chuckles as he pulls out “Trump: The Game” and points to the gold-lettered tagline on the box, picked up in Trump Tower in the late 1980s.

“It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win!”, it reads, above a picture of the future US president. To Werneck, nothing could be further from the truth. “Playing is about connecting with people. I want to play with you, look you in the eyes. You’re the real aim of the game. I couldn’t care less whether I win or lose,” he tells AFP. It’s a sentiment that increasingly resonates in today’s digital world, where a desire to turn off our screens and have real-life interactions has fuelled a global board games boom. The market for table-top games, which includes puzzles and card games, grew six per cent globally in 2017, according to the NPD research group, and the trend shows no sign of abating. The German industry alone generates some 500 million euros ($568 million) in annual revenues, the DVSI toy federation said, accounting for a sizeable chunk of the country’s three-billion-euro toy market.