The idea of designer games comes from the European board game market. Because a good brand name is the biggest driver of sales in the American board game market, innovation has become less important and games continue to grow stale as a result. However, in the European market, the biggest driver of sales are prestigious game design contests. These contests led to competition, which has caused huge growth in board games in Europe. The growth in the European board game market led to an emerging group of full-time professional board game designers, which in turn resulted in a significant increase in the quality of European board games. Many Europeans would now rather play a designer game than go to a movie, play video games, or go out to a bar because the designer games are that much more fun! Many of these European games are just starting to grow popular in the U.S., leading more and more Americans to appreciate designer games.
