Pues allá voy:
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Spain in the global boardgaming spotlight
Events in these past few weeks have put Spain in the spotlight of the global boardgaming world. Up until recently, boardgaming-related news and activities in this country received only marginal attention - they were rare enough to have everything produced here seem like an exotic occurrence.
Lately, Spain has been talked about plenty in forums like BoardGameGeek, owing to Gamezone's infamous initiative to try and remake Heroquest - and it has not been a pretty sight. Things have gone badly enough that the Spaniards' image as wily rascals has been unfortunately furthered - we seem to be close to the point where every single Spaniard is labeled as a thief, scammer or rogue. But - is this really so? Is Gamezone a worthy representative of what the Spain boardgaming scene is like? The answer is a resounding NO.
Just a close example - next weekend (Dec. 14 and 15), the second edition of the boardgaming festival DAU will be held in Barcelona. DAU is an ambitious initiative with a clear central idea: recognizing board games as cultural creations and honoring game designers as the main drivers of those acts of creation. The most prominent activity in that vein are the DAU Awards, in which BoardGameGeek itself participates - awards which will honor the best game designers of 2013 (both novel and veteran), as chosen by the global designer community. In other words: game creators from all over the world will, thanks to BoardGameGeek and the DAU festival, have the chance to honor two of their peers.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. DAU, fortunately, is not the only boardgaming fair held in Spain; we could mention the Córdoba Board Games Festival, organized by the cultural association Jugamos Tod@s (We All Play) and in which the Spanish Game of the Year is revealed, as another example of boardgaming evangelism and of the reivindication of game designers as authors.
Even more: we could talk about game publishers in Spain. Devir, Edge, Homoludicus or Asmodèe Iberia are the largest publishers of so-called "modern" board games, but there are also smaller publishers (such as Asylum Games, 3rd Bellica Generation or Looping Games, to name a few) which endeavor to bring games from both local and foreign authors to market while respecting the ethics of the trade.
Then, there's authors: Pere Pau Listosella, Fran Diez, Chemo or Alberto Corral, to name a few, creators of games like Castaways, Polis, Banjooli Xeet or 1,2,3! Now you see me...
Games which have received acclaim from beyond our frontiers and which have been talked about here in the Geek. Or illustrators and designers - many outside Spain know about the work of Chechu Nieto or Nikolas Eskubi.
And we could not leave out the hobbyist themselves. Perhaps BGG is not their natural home because of language, but generation of contents in boardgaming related forums, blogs, podcasts... is brisk and shows no signs of slowing down. A driven community which shines because of its generosity and enthusiasm.
So there are lots of better reasons to do Spain justice in the boardgaming world. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "a map of the boardgaming world that does not include Spain is not worth even glancing at". It would be a shame if everything else was eclipsed by the whole Heroquest mess.
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Te he cambiado lo del mapa por 'spotlight' (candelero, o candelabro en las palabras inmortales de la poeta) al principio porque la frase hecha de ponerse en el mapa no es literalmente traducible (que yo sepa xD). Te añado también que el problema de la BGG es el idioma, vaya a ser que se solivianten xD (y, de hecho, el problema de la BGG es el idioma, la comunidad es de verdad espectacular).
Muy interesante el artículo, no estoy de acuerdo al 100% (sobre todo porque no comparto del todo tu visión apocalíptica sobre la "marca España" en la BGG) pero lo considero muy buena iniciativa. Sí echo de menos a Nestorgames entre los ejemplos de editoriales que pones, que además es bastante conocida.
Si quieres dar crédito por la traducción (y así echarme la culpa si algo no se entiende bien
) mi nombre en la BGG es andvaranaut, igual que aquí. Appreciated, not mandatory.
Sl2