The Oldest Games People Still Love To Play

People in Yorkshire are used to old things. After all, this is home to York, one of the oldest cities in the UK; founded in 71 A.D., it stands just behind Colchester and London on the age charts, though if you ask us, we think that it’s managed to retain more of its old-world charm than those two!

But interestingly, the oldest things in Yorkshire aren’t cities or towns. If you regularly play games, then there’s every chance that you’ve played one that is even older than York. And you’ve certainly played a couple that were invented while York was still in the process of establishing itself.

In this post, we’ll look at the oldest games that humans still love to play (note: there are older games than these ones, but nobody plays those ones!).

Chess

If you could ask a crystal ball, ‘will there ever be a more successful game than chess,’ we’d wager that the answer would be ‘no.’ Chess has a history that stretches back some 1,500 years, only back then it was called chaturanga. The game has evolved significantly over the centuries, but the basic gameplay and objectives have remained the same. Given its current level of popularity, it’s unlikely that chess will be consigned to the history books any time soon. After all, there are more players today than at any point in history.

Go

Remember at the beginning of the article, when we said that there was a game that was older than York? We were talking about Go. This game is still hugely popular — there are more than 20 million active players, and an estimated 50 million people know how to play — despite being more than 2,500 years old. As with many age-old games, the internet has had a profoundly positive impact on Go, helping to expand its audience; historically, this game was played almost exclusively in East Asia. Today, it’s played all over the world.

Blackjack

Blackjack is a comparative baby when compared to chess and Go, but it’s an age-old pensioner compared to modern video game titles. It dates back to at least 1700 when it became a popular game in the leading French casinos. Today, it’s a bona fide casino classic with more players than ever thanks to its availability online. Part of the enduring appeal of blackjack is that it’s easy to learn but difficult to master, providing the right balance between accessible and challenging play.

Snakes and Ladders

OK, it might be a push to say that people ‘love’ to play snakes and Ladders, but still, it’s very much a game that people play, and so it goes onto the list. This game is believed to be more than 600 years old, with some researchers saying that its history goes as far back as the 2nd century B.C., which would make it older than York. That claim is disputed, however.
You might play Snakes and ladders today for just a bit of fun, but it has quite a serious background — it was originally designed to make people aware of all the sins and virtues that’ll come across through life!

Checkers

Checkers might just be the oldest game on this list. Homer and Plato, two old-school writers, both mention checkers in their writings, and there’s evidence that the earliest versions of the game were being played more than 5000 years ago, in 3,000 BC. The modern version of the game was developed in 12th-century France. It used the existing game as a template, but added new rules and board; today, you’ll find boards with 64 spaces, 100 spaces, and even 144 spaces.

Final Thoughts

People have always loved playing games, and, as the games above show, that doesn’t always mean playing the latest video game titles. Sometimes, it’s the classics that work the best — after all, if people have been playing them for thousands of years, then they must have something about them!