US board game market revenue

As the US board game market boomed between 2010 and 2022, the number of employed American librarians fell with near-perfect inverse symmetry, at r of -0.97, prompting the obvious theory that board game nights are replacing libraries as the nation's preferred venue for quiet judgment. Perhaps every Catan expansion sold put a librarian out of work, as Americans who might have browsed shelves instead spent their evenings arguing about sheep-for-wheat trades. The librarians, for their part, have probably read enough dystopian fiction to see this coming. The dice, it turns out, were loaded.

US board game market revenue grew from roughly $1.5 billion in 2010 to over $3.7 billion by 2022, driven by the 'tabletop renaissance' — Kickstarter-funded indie games, pandemic-driven at-home entertainment, and hobby gaming communities. US librarian employment declined from approximately 150,000 to under 115,000 over the same period, driven by municipal budget cuts, digital resource shifts reducing foot traffic, and automation of cataloging functions. Both trends reflect shifts in how Americans engage with information and leisure: the library as institution contracted while analog social gaming expanded, both moving against each other across the same 13-year window.

An inverse correlation between two declining and rising cultural institutions can feel meaningful without being causal, like watching two tides on opposite shores. What both measure, perhaps, is a society renegotiating the value it places on shared physical spaces.