ABSTRACT
The notion that board gamers can be fans has been little interrogated in fan studies. The majority of work that draws a connection between games and fans has concentrated on video gamers as a type of fan audience. The chapter explores the lapse in fan studies scholarship by examining board gamers as fans. It interrogates the a priori argument that video gamers are a type of fan—that is, by assuming that video gamers can be fans, scholars actually prioritize video games as media and deprioritize board games as media texts. Fan studies must continue to expand its borders to examine a greater variety of texts, genres, and media types. Limiting studies of fans and games to solely those of the "video" variety, however unconscious a demarcation that may be, ultimately foregrounds only one type of analysis. A huge community of board gamers exists that participate in fan-like activities.
