Board game boxes go high tech

We’ve mentioned before how a number of great board games have moved to incarnations on digital platforms like the iPad and such. But did you know the boxes are going high-tech as well?

Out of the Box Publishing just announced this week that their game box will teach you how to play their games. Three cheers for awesome board game boxes!!

“How are they going to do that?” you ask. With the use of QR codes.

If you haven’t heard of QR codes before, we’re guessing that you’ve at least seen them around and just didn’t know what they were. QR codes are actually like a bar code. But instead of a bunch of black lines, they’re a square image of a black and white design that relays information to a digital device. So for example, you can scan it with your mobile phone and it will pull up additional information about the thing you’re looking at.

QR codes are being used in all sorts of places like ads, window displays, billboards, and on products. Well, now Out of the Box is putting them on their board game boxes. They’re starting with their popular board game (a party game we highly recommend) – Word on the Street – this holiday season. So when someone picks up a box of Word on the Street to take a closer look, they can scan the QR code and watch a short video demonstration of how the game is played.

That’s awesome!

As you know, we think videos showing how to play a board game is a great way for people to get a feel about a game before they buy it. So making a way for people to watch a game video right while they’re in the store looking at the game box is fantastic!

So we second the comment by Al Waller, President of Out of the Box Publishing in the press release: “We’ve always looked for easy ways for more people to quickly learn our games. I had no idea how easy QR codes are to use—they’re the perfect solution!”

We may just have to go pick up another copy of Word on the Street just to get our hands on such a cool box!