> The computer era is revolutionizing the game again and maybe will usher in new popular variants…
It’s going to be fascinating to see. I can imagine games getting “frozen” with hard coded rules and clear Official Rules too. I expect that to happen to word spellings, for example, with most everything we write having a layer of autocorrect in the loop. Digital games could do the same, when you can’t make house rules without programming your own variant.
> Digital games could do the same, when you can’t make house rules without programming your own variant.
Or go the other way, as low-/no-code customization tools and online distribution make it easier to make and share variants than it is to do so at any scale with physical games, subject to the openness (both in design and social factors like IP status) of the base game.
It’s going to be fascinating to see. I can imagine games getting “frozen” with hard coded rules and clear Official Rules too. I expect that to happen to word spellings, for example, with most everything we write having a layer of autocorrect in the loop. Digital games could do the same, when you can’t make house rules without programming your own variant.