Board games first became widely popular among the general population early in the 20th century when the rise of the middle class with disposable income and leisure time made them a receptive audience to such games. This popularity expanded after the Second World War, a period from which many classic board games date.
The modern board game industry is rife with corporate mergers and acquisitions, with large companies such as Hasbro owning many subsidiaries and selling products under a variety of brand names. It is difficult to successfully market a new board game to the mass market. Retailers tend to be conservative about stocking games of untested popularity, and most large board game companies have established criteria that a game must meet in order to be produced. If, for instance, Monopoly were introduced as a new game today, it would not meet the criteria for production.
Classic games time-line:
1860 Milton Bradley starts a lithography business
1867 Parcheesi appears
1883 Parker Bros.’ George S. Parker publishes Banking
1901 Tiddly Winks appears
1934 Sorry!
1935 Monopoly
1948 Scrabble
1949 Clue and Candyland
1956 Yahtzee
1959 Risk
1960 The Game of Life
1965 Operation
1966 Twister
1967 Battleship
1974 Connect Four
1978 Hungry Hungry Hippos
1982 Trivial Pursuit
1986 Jenga
1990 Taboo
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