Board games are an interesting thing because it's one of those global trends that did not originate in the US. Instead it game from Germany but with quite a bit of delay.
The German version of settlers came out around 1995 IIRC and sparked a big revival of board games (and strategic board games in particular in Germany. Then some time around 2008 or so I had friends in NZ and OZ who used to not play board games tell me about this cool game the wanted to play. I was quite surprised that it was settlers which I had not played since moving overseas in 2004.
So yeah the whole revival originated in Germany, but took about 10 years to suddenly go global.
The German version of settlers came out around 1995 IIRC and sparked a big revival of board games (and strategic board games in particular in Germany. Then some time around 2008 or so I had friends in NZ and OZ who used to not play board games tell me about this cool game the wanted to play. I was quite surprised that it was settlers which I had not played since moving overseas in 2004.
So yeah the whole revival originated in Germany, but took about 10 years to suddenly go global.