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As cool as e-sports? Tabletop games gain popularity in Jakarta
Across Jakarta are dozens of tabletop communities that gather at trading card game stores, such as Good Guy Games in Tomang, Arcanum Hobbies in Kuningan and Eternity Games in Mangga Besar.
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A person plays board game Monas Rush, developed by a local company. (Monas Rush/-)
W
ith a rising interest in tabletop games in Jakarta resulting in more competitive tabletop tournaments being held at both the national and international levels, calls are being made for the government and citizens to recognize the games as sports.
Across Jakarta are dozens of tabletop communities that gather at trading card game stores, such as Good Guy Games in Tomang, Arcanum Hobbies in Kuningan and Eternity Games in Mangga Besar.
At the Good Guy Games hobby shop, players mainly gather on weekends to relieve stress from work or studies and compete in weekly tournaments with popular tabletop games such as Cardfight!! Vanguard, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dungeons and Dragons.
In addition to weekly tournaments at each shop, regional and national-scale tournaments are also abundant, with most of them being held either annually or biannually.
Bushiroad Championship Series 2019, held at Lotte Shopping Avenue in Kuningan, South Jakarta, from Nov. 23 to 24, was the eighth national event held by trading card game developer Bushiroad Inc. in Indonesia, with 643 tabletop players across the nation competing to represent Indonesia at the international finale in Japan in February.
Players competed in three types of card games by Bushiroad: Cardfight!! Vanguard, Future Card Buddyfight and Weiss Schwarz. They are all played on a table, just like more traditional games such as chess, Scrabble, mahjong and bridge.
Indonesia mainly competes in four different categories of tabletop games: board games, card games, pen and paper games, and figure and dice games. Each category differs in terms of gameplay and design.
