I was never a board game geek, but that might have been a side effect of growing up in the 90's. I had friends who I couldn't hang out with every day, because w

I was never a board game geek, but that might have been a side effect of growing up in the 90's. I had friends who I couldn't hang out with every day, because we lived so far apart. So I ended up being killer at early video games and for the most part I still am although I rarely play the first person shooters or the RTS games anymore due to time (and, for the FPS', interest) constraints. Yet even I knew what Catan is. Even my wife does, I told her about 3 months ago that the next time we waste money on a board game we're actually going to get one I like, so I pointed it out to her. So even for me that was a sort of bizarre 'deja vu' experience. Then again, I grew up in the UK so I suppose this game probably hit the market much bigger and much sooner than in the US. I guess an addendum to your second moral is that foreign markets can act in unexpected ways.