One path to take is taking and presenting game seriously. Talking about how old it is, how deep and complicated it is. And you need to study a lot, do tsumego before you can understand anything. Stressing hard to master part targeting tryhards who might be interested in this sort of thing.
Another path to take is taking game less seriously. Talk more about casual play, easy to learn rules, maybe go variants to spice things up. Stressing easy to learn part and targeting a wide population of people who although might not be as interested in serious play or long-term playing at all.
There’s a certain assumption embedded here - that the game of Go has enough gameplay elements to lure casual gamers in and keep them entertained. I’m not sure I agree.
I’ve tried many times to introduce this game to kids and casual gamers and - immediately - from the very first description, they can tell tell that this game is going to throw more at them than they’re ready for. They may be willing to humor me because they can tell I’m excited about it, but very few of them ever latch on, or pursue it on their own. I think if your advertising does find gamers who are sold on your 2nd premise, they’ll come back very soon demanding their money back :\
Make them play quickly, even if a short presentation doesn’t hurt.
It’s more about affinity with the game as being dumb. More to find these people as to convince more to play.
Where’s the option that it’s a deep profound game for the common idiot? Isn’t that nearer to the founding myth?
“the legendary Emperor Yao invented Go to enlighten his son, Dan Zhu.” https://www.britgo.org/intro/history
[BTW I misclicked and voted by mistake while checking the text of the poll. I didn’t actually want to view but now don’t seem to be any to unvote…]
I voted for “Fun game for a common idiot” because I believe that promoting go as an easy to pick up game is the way to go in order to increase the player base. But I do not agree with the “idiot” part.
I believe that first and foremost it’s important to have somebody to play and have fun with. From among many people who try the game, from my experience usually a couple emerge that keep playing.
So I personally don’t see any benefit to promoting go as a game for the “intellectual elite”.
I am common idiot, so if i would try advertise it as “game for intellctual elite”, my friends would ask “then howcome you’re playing it?” …
I would avertise it by saying “its really easy game to play, but really hard to get good at”
I can’t vote, none of the two choices is correct. Go is for everybody, whether you want to reach a deep understanding of the game, or whether you want to play casually and have fun with friends.
I think that both the groups should be targets, and advertise to them according to their individual characteristics. You never know where a rough diamond might be hiding*.
Notes:
-I’ve seen Go frequently related to gambling. There’s some untapped potential there. Gambling can be casual game of luck in the street corner or it can be complicated variant games, and I’m sure Go could curve its own place. Gamblers can be highly intelligent people who love math and stuff, so why not. It’s very easy to learn (deceptively easy to learn ), so it’s a cool lure.
-Overachieving parents are also a hot target group. The child might or might not take it up seriously, but make Go an “en vogue” hobby like piano for top class kids, and watch its popularity skyrocket. If I could bribe (with a heavy heart) Goop to promote Go on her site, I would side with satan and make Go the New Hot Trend.
-Personally, I have this secret dream that I would one day become a successful CEO, my employees would learn about my secret hobby, peaking at my floor goban in my corner office, and they would take up Go to suck up to me, even starting a company Go club. Sucking up to me would make no difference, but I would enjoy the outcome of their incentives.
*Seriously, though, I think Go attracts a certain type of people, as in the way their mind works. It might or might not translate to their everyday life, as in “college or bar”, because this is dependent on many factors. I imagine one of my late grandma’s late sisters, an illiterate simple peasant who had an unusual (for the times) knack for numbers and navigation (still discussed in the family) would make a great target for this kind of game.
I think making cheap go sets available in big toy shops would go a long way to making go more popular.
The amount of cheap wooden and plastic chess sets available means it’s pretty easy to get into chess, and likely somebody already has a chess board if you wanted to play with a friend.
Cheap go boards probably need to be bought on Amazon or some equivalent, and I don’t imagine people who barely know what the game is want to spend like 100 euro buying a set or all the parts (boards stones…) individually, or on a specialist site.
I think it’d help to be just there where you look in book shops or games/hobby shops etc, where you would typically find a chess board.
I think it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. In many parts of the world, go sets are not as widely available (compared to chess sets), because go is less popular than chess. Stores are less likely to stock something, if they feel they will have a tougher time selling it. It takes initiative for a store to try to popularize a game.
This is one of the things I noticed when I first started playing go. I went to a toy store and got the only go board and stones that they had, a cheap wooden one and cheap glass stones in plastic containers. But even that is a bit expensive and kind of fancy when you think that there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a cardboard board and simple plastic counters like the ones they use in snakes and ladders and other simple games.
You can leave go sets in bars, guesthouses, tea house, waiting rooms, …
Now don’t expect too much as in 99% of times, people will play wuziqi (5 in a row)
Two years ago, I took my wife and son skiing,but I decided not to ski because I had recently aggravated an old knee injury. So, I brought a few 9x9/13x13 combo boards and some stones to the ski lodge. I setup a little sign that said “Want to Learn to Play Go (Weiqi, Baduk, Igo)? Kids and adults are welcome. It takes about 5 minutes to learn the rules.”
I ended up showing the game and playing with 3 young kids (< 7), 2 teenagers, and a 60+ fellow over the course of the day.
I’ve considered making some extra-large 9x9 outdoor sets using 3 inch (7.6 cm) black and white mini-frisbees as “stones” to play at some local parks.
), so it’s a cool lure.