I think it's just something that people don't talk about playing. Much like boardgames, people play them, but most people don't talk about playing them
They are a very underappreciated form of entertainment. Card games too. I mean, for a while they were just the typical Monopoly/Trivial Pursuit/Sorry style games, but now there's so much creative games out there.
I guess I shouldn't mention that my friend group and I get together once or twice a month and spend an entire day playing various board games haha. Though if I'm being honest there's some really really fun and creative ones out there nowadays.
Any specific ones you'd recommend? I've not played any boardgames in a while, but my gaming group does dive into other things occasionally. Checking out some newer boardgames sounds pretty fun.
There are indeed a wide variety of fun ones, especially in the cooperative scene. Pandemic is a great example, and there's expansions for it too. My favorite cooperative board games would be the Forbidden _ series (Forbidden Island, Desert, Skies, and Jungle), because each one is similar in how it's played, but so different at the same time. Island involves collecting artifacts on a sinking island, Desert involves assembling a flying machine to escape a desert before being buried alive, Skies I don't have yet, and Jungle involves escaping through a portal before alien creatures overwhelm you. Jungle I haven't beaten yet despite playing 3 times.
Good variety with competitive games too. Plunder is a pirate themed game about controlling multiple ships to find treasure, claim islands, and fight one another; Dice forge is a game where you change out the faces of you're rolling to get the most victory points; And if you like Risk, Small World has similar vibes. You shuffle two separate race piles to create randomly made fantasy creatures, such as Marauding Skeletons, or Flying Werewolves, or Heroic Ratmen, etc. You claim a race, get tokens based on the adjective and creature combo, and use them to conquer territories, and get victory coins for each territory at the end of your turn. Whoever has the most coins after the final turn wins.