142 — Games, a Conversation with Tom Vasel from the Dice Tower

About this episode

Alexander Schatten converses with Tom Vasel about the significance of games in human culture and his extensive experience in board game reviewing.

In my previous episode with Prof. Daston on rules, we also talked about games. Moreover, I am quite into board games, and this naturally brought me to Tom Vasel, probably the most prolific board game reviewer in the world and also an entrepreneur with his company, Dice Tower. Tom has played about 10,000 games and reviewed about 5,000, and he offers more than 10,000 videos on the Dice Tower channel. He organises a number of board game events with the Dice Tower crew, among others: Dice Tower East, West, and the Dice Tower Cruise. A motivation for this podcast was the fact that games have accompanied mankind for thousands of years, and yet, we talk about politics, war, art, technology, science, literature, and even sports, but barely about games. Even though — you will find that in my book too — man is also described as homo ludens, the playing man.

People in this episode

Guest: Tom Vasel

Topics covered

• games
• board games
• reviewing
• entrepreneurship

Keywords

• Dice Tower
• homo ludens
• board game events

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Dice Tower

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