This is a Stonemaier Games Appreciation Post

I used to be big into board games (which I hope to write about soon) but I don’t have a community to play with anymore. During that phase, I discovered Stonemaier Games’s blog by Jamey Stegmaier, which was interesting although I haven’t played any of their games.

Even with my hiatus from the hobby, I kept noticing his blog posts and the one thing I really appreciate is that he actually did the work—on multiple fronts. More specifically, he has spent many years making board games more sustainable, inclusive and accessible.

Thing is, they really don’t have to do this at all. Board games isn’t a big industry, let alone in entertainment and they could have very easily not given a shit especially since it’s just a game and they’re bigger fish to fry when it comes to all of these issues. 2020 got a lot of white people to attempt allyship and while a lot of it has faded, whether by moving on or being vehemently opposed to it, Stonemaier stuck to it. Occasionally I’d see them look for a diverse range of reviewers, looking for sustainable parts and working with others to see how they can do better.

The reason I bring this up is that I’d get annoyed whenever web sustainability is brought up because it seems like a lot of squabbling over very minor issues. Like, using renewable energy would do a lot more to reduce emissions than refusing to use the color blue because they use a lot of energy in displays. One reason I now care is that solving climate change will require a lot of systemic change which requires us to interrogate how we do things.

I mentioned him wanting to approve accessibility. I noticed an accessibility issue on his blog and I plan to write a post on how to deal with it.