Board game maker Days of Wonder has reacted indignantly to patently false charges that an addiction its Small World board game caused an unidentified woman in the London suburb of Swanley to neglect her children and starve her two dogs to death.  Both The Daily Mail and The Sun failed to distinguish between the Small World board game and similarly-named but totally unrelated, smallworlds.com online game. 

The Daily Mail and The Sun ran huge pictures of the Days of Wonder Small World board game accompanying their stories.  Evidently the tabloid reporters are really not very familiar with the family-friendly world of board games.  As Days of Wonder’s CEO Eric Hautmont put it, “Since when are board games a source of danger and cause for addiction?  Our philosophy has always been to create family friendly games that are fun to play with others, not alone.  It’s the total opposite of online games that would isolate a player in a virtual world.”

The Small World board game cannot be played online and there is no invitation to play it on Facebook, which is the way that the tabloids indicated that the Swanley woman became interested in the game that caused her addiction.  Launched in April of 2009, Small World was originally only available as a physical board game.  A non-online digital version was released for the iPad just six months ago.  The iPad game is a 2-player game, while the physical board game is designed for up to five players.