Table-top games are booming in the video-game age. 视频游戏年代，桌游盛行。

　　Essen is not one of Germany's better-known cities. 艾森不是德国任何一个比较出名的城市。

　　But for the world's growing band of board-game devotees, it is paradise. 但它却是全球不断增长的棋盘游戏爱好者的天堂。

　　Each October it plays host to Internationale Spieltage, or Spiel, a board-game convention that is half fan-club gathering,  每年十月这里都会举办“埃森国际游戏节”——半是爱好者聚会，

　　half trade show—and, alongside America's Gen Con, one of the biggest gaming festivals in the world. 一半是贸易展的棋牌游戏大会——与全球最大的游戏节之一的美国“创展”齐名。

　　This year the organisers expect more than 160,000 visits over the festival's four days. 主办方预计，今年为期四天的游戏节里，会有超过16万人出席。

　　Attenders will be able to watch and play more than 850 board, card and role-playing games,  出席者将观看和参与超过850种棋盘、卡牌和角色扮演类游戏，

　　including a much-anticipated board-game version of “Magic: The Gathering”, a highly popular card game launched in 1993 in which players take on the role of duelling wizards. 其中包括一款万众瞩目的棋牌游戏——“万智牌”。在这款1993年推出的火爆的纸牌游戏中，玩家扮演决斗巫师的角色。

　　The whole thing will be capped off with the largest contest yet seen of “The Settlers of Catan”, in which 1,000 people will compete to colonise a fictional wilderness. 整个游戏节将以迄今为止最大的比赛“卡坦岛”作为结束，到时将有1000人角逐殖民虚构荒野。

　　The market for such “hobby games” is booming. 这种“爱好游戏”的市场正在蓬勃发展。

　　ICv2, a consulting firm, reckons it is worth $880m a year in America and Canada alone. 咨询公司ICv2评估，仅在美国和加拿大，这一市场价值就已达每年8.80亿美元。

　　“We've seen double-digit annual growth for the past half-decade,” says Milton Griepp, ICv2's boss. “我们已经见证过去五年里其两位数的年增长率，”ICv2的老板米尔顿·格里普说。

　　Some of the games at Spiel will be aimed at children, but grown-ups are doing most of the buying. 埃森国际游戏节上的部分游戏是针对儿童的，但成年人才是最多的购买者。

　　There is something for every taste, from “Fluxx”, a lighthearted card game whose rules change with every card played, to “Power Grid”,  也有一些小众游戏，从“无常牌”（一个轻松愉快的卡牌游戏，其规则随着每一个出战卡牌变化）到“电力公司”

　　a fiendishly tricky business game featuring aspiring electricity tycoons, to all-day chin-scratchers such as “Twilight Imperium”, a game of galactic civilisation-building. （一个非常棘手的商业游戏，有抱负的电力巨头们整天为之抓耳挠腮，如“暮光帝国“——一款庞大的文明建设游戏。）

　　Steve Buckmaster of Esdevium Games, a British distributor, says that far from diverting people, video games—especially ones on smartphones—have brought gaming to a larger audience. 一位英国经销商——Esdevium游戏的史提夫马斯特说，视频游戏，特别是智能手机上的游戏，不会远离人们，相反他们受到更多用户的喜爱。

　　App versions of popular games often boost sales of their physical counterparts. 流行游戏的手机应用版本常常提升其实物版本的销量。

　　The internet has helped fans organise get-togethers, tournaments and the like, while crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter have made life easier for aspiring designers. 互联网促进游戏迷聚会，比赛等，而类似于Kickstarter的众筹网站使有抱负的设计师生活得更容易。

　　They, in turn, are integrating computers into their games. 反过来，他们将计算机融入到游戏中。

　　“X-COM”, a board-game tie-in to a popular video-game series, uses a smartphone app that takes the role of the incoming aliens which players must battle on the table top. “未知敌人”是一个与流行视频游戏系列相关的智能手机应用版棋牌类游戏，玩家必须在桌子上玩，扮演即将到来的外星人角色。

　　Meanwhile bricks-and-mortar game stores have adapted, running tournaments and providing the face-to-face sociability that online gaming lacks. 举办游戏比赛并提供网络游戏缺乏的面对面社交功能，其间实体游戏店已经适应新的情况。

　　And with “Game of Thrones” on TVs everywhere and cinemas packed with superhero films, the general triumph of what used to be mocked as “nerd culture” has made the fantasy and sci-fi themes featured in many games less of a turn-off. 随着《权力的游戏》遍布电视荧屏和超级英雄题材的电影充斥影院，曾被嘲笑为“呆子文化”的全面胜利已经成为幻想和科幻主题，几乎无法避免地出现在许多游戏中。

　　Not every analogue pastime is suffering in the digital age. 并不是每一个相似的娱乐方式都在数字化时代遭受挫折。