Alternative reason: The iPhone and other smartphones. It brought games and playing back to the general, more mature audience, which got reminded of how much fun

Alternative reason: The iPhone and other smartphones. It brought games and playing back to the general, more mature audience, which got reminded of how much fun playing can be and then transformed their newly acquired need to play from the digital plane to the kitchen table. Wanna try Hearthstone offline, play Dominion or Star Realms. Wanna farm some land, take a look at Settlers of Catan. Wanna Crush some Candy, try Set? Okay, the last one is probably a bad example. It also helps that a lot of popular media licenses (TV/movies) get dressed in board game clothing (see http://cryptozoic.com/games http://cryptozoic.com/games ).