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As cool as e-sports? Tabletop games gain popularity in Jakarta
Play your cards right: Vanguard TCG players compete in the 2019 Bushiroad Championship Series event at Lotte Shopping Avenue in Kuningan, South Jakarta, last month
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lay your cards right: Vanguard TCG players compete in the 2019 Bushiroad Championship Series event at Lotte Shopping Avenue in Kuningan, South Jakarta, last month. TCGs and other tabletop games are on their way to being recognized as sports in Indonesia.(JP/Haryadi Prawiratama)
With 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.
For example, Cardfight!! Vanguard is a modern card game about raising the player’s Vanguard power to defeat the
opponent’s Vanguard, which is very different compared to the traditional card games such as bridge.
To help the player’s Vanguard defeat the opponent’s, “comrade” cards must be used to attack and defend against opponent’s attacks, as well as to use the skills displayed on each card to strengthen a card, weaken an opponent’s card or both.
The Jakarta Post attended the Cardfight!! Vanguard tournament for two days and experienced a lively event, full of enthusiasm from the players who were predominantly college students and young adults.
Among them was Phillander Venansius, a 29-year-old entrepreneur from Bandung, West Java, who has been a regular participant of the biannual event since 2015.
“It was fun seeing old friends and [meeting] new players during the event. There’s potential for the event to grow bigger and for more people to join the game,” Phillander told the Post on the first day of the event.
Another participant, Muhammad Hadyan, a 20-year-old college student from Bandung, was happy despite finishing ninth and failing to secure a position in the final.
However, he lamented Indonesians’ lack of awareness on tabletop games and trading card games, arguing tabletop gamers were athletes just like soccer players or e-sport players.
“Our top players have even won at international events, yet they don’t get the same amount of respect as other athletes. That has to change,” he said.
Last year, Rifaldhy Anand Caesara and Rahakim Imam represented Indonesia and won the TCG Asia Championship 2018’s Yu-Gi-Oh! card game event against players from Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan and Thailand.
However, their achievement was left unnoticed by both the Indonesian government and citizens.
Indonesia Tabletop Sports Union (SORTI) aims to raise awareness on tabletop games and boost its reputation among citizens.
SORTI chairman Indra Lukito said tabletop games deserved to be called sports due to the health benefits they offered to the human body.
“Based on research by Emer MacSweeney, a leading London neuroradiologist, an activity is considered a sport if it benefits the human body,” Indra told the Post.
“In addition, tabletop games may reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s by 67 percent because the brain receives a good amount of cognitive stimulation when playing them, which may also improve the brain’s ability to memorize things.”
Indra said the rising number of tabletop players and communities in big cities like Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya contributed to the growing popularity of the games among Indonesians.
The hope for these communities is that more people join competitive tabletop tournaments, which in turn would signal the need for the government and citizens to recognize the players as athletes.
SORTI’s 2020 goal is to add tabletop games to the list of Community Recreational Sports Festival (FORNAS) events. FORNAS is a national sporting event involving e-sports and other games.
To do so, SORTI became an official member of Indonesian Sports for All Federations (FORMI) in November with the approval of FORMI chairman and former sports minister Hayono Isman. (hpw)
