The Games desk
Games Gift Ideas: Board Games, Video Games & Building Kits
Discover the best game gift ideas—from strategy board games and family favorites to video game consoles, card games, and LEGO building sets. Explore curated picks for gamers of every kind or use our Gift Finder for personalized game gift suggestions.
From the editors
There's a point in a good game where you stop thinking about the rules and start thinking about the other person. That's what we're buying when we give a game as a gift — a few evenings of that feeling, hopefully spread out over years.
The games here are mostly ones we've played ourselves, and mostly ones that punch above their complexity. Wingspan looks elaborate but teaches in ten minutes. Spirit Island is heavier, for people who already know they like strategy games. Bicycle Playing Cards are a $7 gift that some people use literally every week. We've also included a handful of console and VR picks for the video-game side of gaming, and LEGO sets for the build-it-while-podcasts-play crowd.
The two rules we follow: (1) don't buy a game with more pieces than the recipient has shelf space, and (2) don't buy a 4-player game for a 2-person household. Both violations end up unplayed.
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$$LEGO Ideas International Space Station
My friend keeps this on his desk at work, and I swear every person who walks into his office stops to look at it.
$$$Monopoly Luxury Edition
I grew up playing Monopoly on a board so beat up that half the property cards were held together with tape and the dog token had lost a…
$Bicycle Playing Cards
There's a beat-up deck of Bicycle cards in nearly every junk drawer in America.
$$Spirit Island
I remember the first time someone brought Spirit Island to game night. I took one look at the board, the piles of tokens, and the thick…
$$$$Nintendo Switch Lite
I picked up a Nintendo Switch Lite for a long flight a couple of years ago, thinking I'd use it once and forget about it.
$$Wingspan
A board game about birds sounds like the most boring gift pitch imaginable. I thought the same thing until someone brought Wingspan to a…
$$$$Steam Deck
Someone in my life has a Steam library with 200+ games. Most of them were bought during sales and never played.
$$$$LEGO Technic Bugatti Chiron
There's a specific type of person who sees a $445 LEGO set and immediately starts clearing shelf space.
$$Terraforming Mars
The first time I played Terraforming Mars, we started at 7 PM and I looked up at the clock to find it was almost midnight.
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