You can put me down in the meaningless distinction camp. Back in the day, it was a useful designation to separate “American” board games like Sorry, Monopoly, Scrabble, and etc from “European” board games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and etc. As a whole, though, the hobby has moved on. Today, it’s more useful to define games in terms of specific mechanics and level of interactivity, with similar games being grouped in genres. A few examples would be trick takers, deck builders, worker placement, auction games, and cube rails, though there are many more.
You can put me down in the meaningless distinction camp. Back in the day, it was a useful designation to separate “American” board games like Sorry, Monopoly, Scrabble, and etc from “European” board games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and etc. As a whole, though, the hobby has moved on. Today, it’s more useful to define games in terms of specific mechanics and level of interactivity, with similar games being grouped in genres. A few examples would be trick takers, deck builders, worker placement, auction games, and cube rails, though there are many more.