A closeup comparison of a playing card with pointed corners and one with rounded corners.

Why Playing Cards Need Rounded Corners

Playing cards need rounded corners. There are very good reasons why. Let’s talk about what they are.

Playing cards need rounded corners as opposed to pointed corners because they’re more comfortable to hold, and they won’t get damaged as easily while playing with them.

What Do I Mean By Playing Cards?

Thankfully, this is a simple explanation. By playing cards, I mean any card for a game at all. That can be the traditional playing cards most people are familiar with, or that can be the cards in Mansions Of Madness 2nd Edition. As long as there are cards and a game involved, they’re playing cards.

What Are Rounded Corners?

A close up of Colonel Mustard's card from Clue (2018).
Nice rounded corners you got there, Colonel.

There are two different kinds of corners for cards. There are pointed corners and rounded corners.

Pointed corners are corners that end in a point. Rounded corners are corners that don’t end in a point. Instead, they curve.

The Benefits Of Playing Cards Having Rounded Corners

A closeup of a hand holding a card with rounded corners.
Feels nice!

I’ll start this section by saying there are only upsides to cards having rounded corners. There are no downsides. That said, there are two main benefits to cards having rounded corners.

Firstly, cards with rounded corners are far more pleasant to hold. Imagine holding a card with a pointed corner (if you haven’t held one already). No matter what material the cards are, those corners are poking into your hands. It won’t be painful (hopefully), but it will be annoying.

Rounded corners feel much better to hold. That’s just the way it is.

A closeup of a hand holding a playing card with pointed corners.
Doesn’t feel nice.

Secondly, cards with rounded corners are harder to damage. This is true whether you’re shuffling the cards, holding the cards, playing the cards, or whatever else you’re doing with them. If the cards have pointed corners, they are far more likely to get damaged than if they have rounded ones.

So, Why Do Playing Cards Need Rounded Corners?

The answer is that cards with rounded corners are just better in every way possible. There should be no reason any company makes playing cards with pointed corners.

That said, there are a couple of examples of pointed corners still to this day. The ones I can think of are some versions of Clue and Monopoly.

As to why Hasbro does this, I really don’t know. My only guess is money. But they’ve demonstrated they can make games with rounded corners before. Heck, the Simpsons Clue 2nd Edition has them! So, why don’t all of their games have them?

I don’t know, but they really need to stop.

Did You Know?

(Each time you refresh the page you will get a new “Did You Know” fact!)

Did you know that Clue was made in 1947 and was created by Anthony Pratt during World War II? He did it to pass the time during air-raid blackouts. Air-raid blackouts were the practice of shutting everything off to make it as hard as possible for bombers to hit their targets.

Conclusion: Why Playing Cards Need Rounded Corners

So, cards NEED rounded corners. I don’t know if there’s a better version of corners out there, but if there is, let me know in the comments below. And, what do you think about pointed corners versus rounded corners overall? Let me know your thoughts and why you think that!

And, as always, keep on gaming, fellow board gamers.


Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *