29 January 2025
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Chaos Cards recently announced a partnership with Asmodee to bring free board games to university societies, and we wanted to find out more. Liz Flynn, General Manager at Chaos Cards filled us in on not only what they’re doing, but importantly why they’re doing it too.
Interview by Charlie Pettit
Who are Chaos Cards?
Chaos Cards is a tabletop gaming retailer. Founded in 2011, it originally wanted to become the UK’s ultimate trading card store, beginning its journey as an online retailer. It wasn’t long before they grew, opening a bigger warehouse, incorporating the wider tabletop gaming market with the likes of board games too, and opening a bright, exciting physical retail space in 2017. From there, it’s surpassed the original dream, growing past its title of Cards, and into a well-known, well-used tabletop gaming home. So where then, does a project to put board games into the hands of students come into it?
“The back story to this is that as a company, we try to support as many kind of tabletop gaming communities as we can.” Liz explains. “We get lots of requests from charities and groups looking for the odd board game to go into their fundraisers. And then earlier this year, we started having a talk with a society at the University of Oxford who were wondering if we could establish a bit of a bigger relationship with them.”
“I just started to think about how actually, just being at university is such a great opportunity to meet people and games together, learn new hobbies. I thought it would be amazing if we could set up a better partnership with lots of societies across the UK. So we approached Asmodee to see if they would be interested in coming in with us on that.” Asmodee, the leading distributor voiced enthusiasm, and the two embarked on developing an idea that would make board games easily accessible for students across the country. What emerged was Chaos on Campus.
Free Board Games for Students
The initiative is straightforward – board game societies are invited to apply to Chaos Cards through their website, explaining a little about their society and how they might benefit from games. From there, they’ll select 50 societies to provide a bundle of games that will be worth around £200 to utilise within the society. Although the bundles may vary, they’ll include the likes of some big names – Catan, Mansions of Madness, Mysterium, Ticket to Ride, Marvel Champions and more.
“I remember being a student,” Liz clarifies, “and I didn’t have much money going around. Games can be a little bit expensive sometimes and there are often new games that you want to try, and lots of different tastes within a tabletop society. Wouldn’t it be great if there was just a little library that they could use just to get them started, find out what the group’s interested in, introduce some people to the games if they’re new to it?”
“It’s just a great way to kind of get a society up and running basically. And of course, students don’t have lots of money. So this is another great way of just making sure that they’ve got a really good selection of games that they can use.
“Hopefully we’re going to develop a relationship with them where we can get to understand the societies, find out more about the students and maybe there’s other opportunities there. Maybe there’s students who are looking to develop their own games, maybe they want to work with us a bit more for that, or maybe they want to share what their society is up to and so we’re hoping to build this into a bit of a longer term partnership.”
Chaos on Campus Requirements
The idea of free games is a great one, as are the reasons for the initiative itself – but we can’t help but wonder if there’s a catch, or additional requirements on the society itself to complete or maintain something in return. The answer however, is no. Liz explains it’s all about being able to keep an open conversation with them if possible, but there are no hidden terms and conditions to it.
“We’re probably going to be looking really for the societies that are either a little bit more active on social media or a little bit bigger.” Liz says of choosing the 50 societies. “So if we get inundated with responses, then we’ll probably start to prioritise in that way just so that we can make sure that we’re supporting some of the bigger groups. But actually at this point, there are very low expectations. Longer term, they don’t really have to do much at all. Like I say, hopefully they’ll keep in touch. We would really like it to be a two-way conversation. But ultimately it’s just about getting games out there and getting people playing. If not a huge amount comes back from it, it’s fine. The job is done in kind of getting people playing and knowing that we’re helping support the wider community. We won’t be holding them to anything. It would just be great to meet some like-minded people, and certainly at that age where maybe ideas are flowing and they’re not quite so tainted by the world of work and other responsibilities. Potentially there might be some great game designers out there who we can get to meet. People looking for jobs maybe that want to come to work for us or Asmodee, or anyone else – it’s just about making connections and just that first step of reaching out.”
Free Games Deadline
If you’re a member of a society, or know someone who is that could benefit, they need only apply online by 7th February 2025 to be in with a chance of taking part. Chaos Cards will be reviewing applicants over the course of February with a view to posting games in early March. There’s scope for the scheme to continue and evolve if it’s popular, and with the growing popularity of our hobby, we’re hopeful it will!