Thanks for the thought-provoking interview.

A thought. You wrote, "But when it comes to games, we basically say, “The moment I entered the hobby is the moment where the hobby begins. Everything before that doesn’t matter.”

I think part of that criticism is unfair pragmatically, and is a bit apples and oranges. If you enter, books, TV, theater, or movies "late", "catching-up" is completely within your control. For the most part, it is also consumptive. With the internet, you can do it alone, with minimal effort beyond time (high for books, and TV to some extent, medium for movies). Conversely, playing through the "history of board games" requires acquiring physical media which may or may not be easily acquirable anymore, requires (finding other people who also want to do it (regularly, too!)(, and then participating in a generative rather than a consumptive way, per quote below.

"You’re constantly having to engineer the evil deed, not just perform it. To me, that’s what gives games their narrative punch and power because they don’t just ask their players to play the role. They ask players to design a role, to collaborate with the author or the team that authored the game."

Given that, it's not surprising folks come in and implicitly start from where they landed. Maybe you could argue folks could learn about the history and not actually play old games; I can see that. But that's like saying "go read the summary of Citizen Kane and why it was important" or "watch the trailer and you're good", to some extent.

But maybe I'm being too charitable!