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Interview
5 April 2020 2.00 h

Xavier Moratonas

Founder and Head of Lu2

“Playing with the family helps us to communicate again”

Xavier’s work involves playing games and using them as a tool for learning and for improving communication skills, social skills, problem-solving and critical thinking

What’s spe­cial about board games?
They bring peo­ple to­gether in one place and at one time. On­line games allow you to share time but not the same space. Re­lat­ing to other peo­ple is very im­por­tant. It helps us es­cape screens, es­pe­cially now we’re all con­fined to home.
What’s the best al­ter­na­tive to screens?
First look to see what you have in your cup­boards. We can take ad­van­tage of what’s there. Play­ing the Game of the Goose or Ludo can be great. If you have a pack of cards, there are many games suit­able for all ages.
And what if we’re bored with them?
You can make your own games, for ex­am­ple, Scrab­ble. All you need is to make the let­ters and a board. There are lots of games that use im­ages we can get from old mag­a­zines. For ex­am­ple, games guess­ing who fa­mous peo­ple are. You can also change clas­sic games. If we’re play­ing with small chil­dren, we can make each token a char­ac­ter from their favourite se­ries and each can have a spe­cial power. We can use boards and make up our own rules. Chil­dren have lots of imag­i­na­tion and eas­ily in­vent new rules. Let them sug­gest the rules and see if they work.
And if your chil­dren are not so small?
Play­ing with teenagers is a good chance to re­store per­sonal con­tact with them. When we play as a fam­ily, con­ver­sa­tion top­ics crop up, and dur­ing a game we can talk more eas­ily about is­sues that can be hard to raise.
And with el­derly peo­ple?
My mother has Alzheimer’s and so play­ing the Game of the Goose with her is hard be­cause she can’t even count. But it’s im­por­tant that old peo­ple are not left alone in front of the TV. Maybe they can’t play domi­noes now but you can play a game stack­ing them on top of one an­other until they fall over. You can prac­tise skills with them and if they have a cog­ni­tive prob­lem play­ing games can help.
Are the clas­sic games still the most pop­u­lar?
The games that still sell the best are the likes of Mo­nop­oly, be­cause they’re what peo­ple know. Yet, every year thou­sands of new games come out. You have to look at what’s out there and choose what suits best.
How many are there to choose from?
There’s a web­site that lists in­for­ma­tion on 100,000 games from all eras. I have about 250 but at home we only play about 20.
What’s the best ever board game?
It de­pends on who you want to play with. Some peo­ple say they don’t like board games, but there’s some­thing for every­one. It’s about find­ing what each per­son likes.
Are co­op­er­a­tive games more ed­u­ca­tional than com­pet­i­tive games?
Co­op­er­a­tive games are fine. It’s one way of play­ing but not the only one. In life there are times when you have to co­op­er­ate and oth­ers when you must com­pete. We need to know how to do both things. They’re dif­fer­ent skills. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion and team­work needed for co­op­er­a­tive games are im­por­tant, but so are com­pet­i­tive skills.
Are screens the end of board games?
No. In fact, the board game mar­ket is in good shape right now, al­though the fig­ures are nowhere near those for dig­i­tal games, where one game can make more than many board games put to­gether. I work a lot with schools and they’re aware of the value of board games. We find that kids don’t play them at home. There are things that kids used to know, such as re­spect­ing turns. Be­fore, when grand­par­ents lived with fam­i­lies, chil­dren used to play more board games.

in­ter­view

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