7 ms·

Players Have Crowned a New Best Board Game – And It May Be Tough to Topple

34 points by scottie_m 8y ago

kevinwang 8y ago
Well, I don't really understand the conjecture in the headline, that this game will somehow be harder to topple. Since its newly released and a niche game, only people who suspected that they would like it and would pay $200 for it have obtained and rated it. Wouldn't we expect the rating to degrade over time as more people other than the most passionate try it? Although, if the game gets a reputation as a niche game, I can see how people would continue to self-select for playing the game, and it would continue to be a top-rated game, but with a significantly lower volume of ratings.
- labster 8y ago
  The conjecture is based on mathematics. If the majority of ratings are 10 out of 10, most raters don't have the ability to rank a future game higher than Gloomhaven. Because it's amassed so many 10s as rankings among its fan base, rating another game as a 9 hurts its chances of being on the top of the BGG rankings, which is a shift from previous ratings distributions of top games. But yes, as the tail gets longer, we should expect to see more lower ratings assigned to Gloomhaven. What the author didn't do was compare to other top games early in their release cycle. I'm not sure how much effect this will have, though -- gamers are grognards, not so strongly influenced by the new and shiny as most people.
- opencl 8y ago
  I think the price significantly contributes to the self-selection of only people who already have a pretty good idea that they're going to like it buying it.
- jsnell 8y ago
  Not really. First, it already has over 14k ratings, which is pretty substantial and 24k people who have marked it as "owned". E.g. when Twilight Struggle made it to #1 in 2010, it had just 7k ratings. Second, rating decay from the voting population of a game doesn't seem to be that big an effect on BGG. To use TS as an example again, you'd expect that a two player wargame about the cold war would have huge problems as the more general gaming population started playing it. But as the voter numbers for Twilight Struggle increased from 7k to 30k over the years, the rating has actually gone up (8.18 to 8.20). That isn't to say that there's no rating decay in place. But I think the source is when a game is perceived as "obsoleted" by newer games.
roflchoppa 8y ago
looks like another munchkins derivative. ha
- jack9 8y ago
  Looks like they finally got it right. Hah? The last line of the article... "Board games are evolving as well, standing on the shoulders of the great games and iterating on them."
jellicle 8y ago
This is a similar problem to the ratings of religious books on Amazon and similar sites. Appeal to a very narrow niche, disappeal to anyone else, satisfy that niche, and your percentage ratings will be very high (even though almost all customers know, correctly, that they dislike your product). This is also what allows targeted attacks against products - annoy (instead of appeal to) a limited segment of the population, they all come and rate your book a "0", now your rating has dropped to near-zero despite it APPEALING (instead of disappealing) to most of the population. Rating systems should try to figure out if a product is being boosted or attacked by a narrow slice of fans/haters.
- Jedd 8y ago
  It's not really that similar -- Amazon and similar sites have an audience that is mostly not interested in religious books. BGG has an audience that is mostly interested in board games.
  - Pinckney 8y ago
    Suggesting all boardgames are similar? Those are fighting words. Personally, I write off Gloomhaven because it's a tactical miniatures game (something I've never cared for). There are other high ranked games, like Caverna, which I write off for similar reasons.
    - Jedd 8y ago
      > Suggesting all boardgames are similar? Entirely not what I suggested. Amazon has a large registered user base (who can apply ratings), and only a tiny percentage of those are interested in religious books (or, these days, you could probably say only a v.small percentage of Amazon customers are buying books of any sort). BoardGameGeek has a user based almost by definition exclusively of people who are interested in board games. GP's suggestion that niche product ratings could / are skewed by people unfamiliar with the topic doesn't apply so well to niche communities, especially ones with effective moderation. Disclaimer - I've been on BGG since 2012, own Gloomhaven (but haven't played it), and consequently haven't rated it.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
> The BoardGameGeek list is valuable real estate in high-end board gaming, and the No. 1 spot is, of course, the prime position — Boardwalk, if you will. Forced Monopoly references are the board game equivalent of "Bang! Zoom! Pow! Comics aren't just for kids anymore!"
- Jedd 8y ago
  Especially as I didn't even get the reference on the first reading -- I've never played the US version of Monopoly. I'm assuming Boardwalk is the equivalent of Mayfair or Park Lane in the UK/euro version of the game? I guess it's even funnier given the way to consistently and reliably win Monopoly is to not go after the most expensive property, but rather simply hoard all the houses.
db48x 8y ago
The best board game is obviously High Frontier, so clearly this one will turn out to be a fad.
- adamredwoods 8y ago
  You'll have to bring that up with this Heroquest fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A
  - db48x 8y ago
    Wow. Although he is wrong, I may have trouble topping his arguments, or his presentation.
BrandoElFollito 8y ago
I tried to au board games with my children (11 and 13 yo) but we somehow never managed to get really into it, despite trying. They all look repetitive and limited in the possibilities (story, physical space,...). It would seem that they have no chance against video games (Civilization, Skyrim,...) and still this is, as the article pour it, a golden age. The only one which was fun (with my father, not children) was "Concept" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_(board_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_(board_game)) where the board is merely a medium but everything happens outside it.
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  Videogames are also very repetitive and limited in their possibilities. Limitation and how the player masters them is the major point of most games. Board games have some advantages over videogames. They have shorter gaming-sessions, a healthier multiplaying and a far stronger flexibility for game-execution and rules-modifications. Boardgames are played with the family and friends on a table and it's up to the players how they handle things.
  - BrandoElFollito 8y ago
    Yes, this is also what I was looking for. The thing is that I did not find a game which would be captivating enough for the children to go beyond one session or two. Monopoly: everybody hates everyone afterwards. Settlers of Catan: very repetitive, I believe that we did not grasp the key intent of the game. When they were younger games such as "Mille Bornes" ( a French board game) were OK, but these are really games for small children. They read a lot, do not play videogames very much and do not watch TV, enjoy chess, etc. -- so they seemed like good candidates for board games. I may try D&D (with a real MD) someday, who knowns.
    - Doxin 8y ago
      In my experience with board games variation is key, Much like most people don't just play one computer game forever either. And yes monopoly is terrible. Catan is mostly something to keep you occupied while conversations happen.

34 points by scottie_m 8y ago

Well, I don't really understand the conjecture in the headline, that this game will somehow be harder to topple. Since its newly released and a niche game, only people who suspected that they would like it and would pay $200 for it have obtained and rated it. Wouldn't we expect the rating to degrade over time as more people other than the most passionate try it? Although, if the game gets a reputation as a niche game, I can see how people would continue to self-select for playing the game, and it would continue to be a top-rated game, but with a significantly lower volume of ratings.

labster 8y ago
The conjecture is based on mathematics. If the majority of ratings are 10 out of 10, most raters don't have the ability to rank a future game higher than Gloomhaven. Because it's amassed so many 10s as rankings among its fan base, rating another game as a 9 hurts its chances of being on the top of the BGG rankings, which is a shift from previous ratings distributions of top games. But yes, as the tail gets longer, we should expect to see more lower ratings assigned to Gloomhaven. What the author didn't do was compare to other top games early in their release cycle. I'm not sure how much effect this will have, though -- gamers are grognards, not so strongly influenced by the new and shiny as most people.
opencl 8y ago
I think the price significantly contributes to the self-selection of only people who already have a pretty good idea that they're going to like it buying it.
jsnell 8y ago
Not really. First, it already has over 14k ratings, which is pretty substantial and 24k people who have marked it as "owned". E.g. when Twilight Struggle made it to #1 in 2010, it had just 7k ratings. Second, rating decay from the voting population of a game doesn't seem to be that big an effect on BGG. To use TS as an example again, you'd expect that a two player wargame about the cold war would have huge problems as the more general gaming population started playing it. But as the voter numbers for Twilight Struggle increased from 7k to 30k over the years, the rating has actually gone up (8.18 to 8.20). That isn't to say that there's no rating decay in place. But I think the source is when a game is perceived as "obsoleted" by newer games.

roflchoppa 8y ago

looks like another munchkins derivative. ha

jack9 8y ago
Looks like they finally got it right. Hah? The last line of the article... "Board games are evolving as well, standing on the shoulders of the great games and iterating on them."

jellicle 8y ago

This is a similar problem to the ratings of religious books on Amazon and similar sites. Appeal to a very narrow niche, disappeal to anyone else, satisfy that niche, and your percentage ratings will be very high (even though almost all customers know, correctly, that they dislike your product). This is also what allows targeted attacks against products - annoy (instead of appeal to) a limited segment of the population, they all come and rate your book a "0", now your rating has dropped to near-zero despite it APPEALING (instead of disappealing) to most of the population. Rating systems should try to figure out if a product is being boosted or attacked by a narrow slice of fans/haters.

Jedd 8y ago
It's not really that similar -- Amazon and similar sites have an audience that is mostly not interested in religious books. BGG has an audience that is mostly interested in board games.
- Pinckney 8y ago
  Suggesting all boardgames are similar? Those are fighting words. Personally, I write off Gloomhaven because it's a tactical miniatures game (something I've never cared for). There are other high ranked games, like Caverna, which I write off for similar reasons.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    > Suggesting all boardgames are similar? Entirely not what I suggested. Amazon has a large registered user base (who can apply ratings), and only a tiny percentage of those are interested in religious books (or, these days, you could probably say only a v.small percentage of Amazon customers are buying books of any sort). BoardGameGeek has a user based almost by definition exclusively of people who are interested in board games. GP's suggestion that niche product ratings could / are skewed by people unfamiliar with the topic doesn't apply so well to niche communities, especially ones with effective moderation. Disclaimer - I've been on BGG since 2012, own Gloomhaven (but haven't played it), and consequently haven't rated it.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

> The BoardGameGeek list is valuable real estate in high-end board gaming, and the No. 1 spot is, of course, the prime position — Boardwalk, if you will. Forced Monopoly references are the board game equivalent of "Bang! Zoom! Pow! Comics aren't just for kids anymore!"

Jedd 8y ago
Especially as I didn't even get the reference on the first reading -- I've never played the US version of Monopoly. I'm assuming Boardwalk is the equivalent of Mayfair or Park Lane in the UK/euro version of the game? I guess it's even funnier given the way to consistently and reliably win Monopoly is to not go after the most expensive property, but rather simply hoard all the houses.

db48x 8y ago

The best board game is obviously High Frontier, so clearly this one will turn out to be a fad.

adamredwoods 8y ago
You'll have to bring that up with this Heroquest fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A
- db48x 8y ago
  Wow. Although he is wrong, I may have trouble topping his arguments, or his presentation.

BrandoElFollito 8y ago

I tried to au board games with my children (11 and 13 yo) but we somehow never managed to get really into it, despite trying. They all look repetitive and limited in the possibilities (story, physical space,...). It would seem that they have no chance against video games (Civilization, Skyrim,...) and still this is, as the article pour it, a golden age. The only one which was fun (with my father, not children) was "Concept" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_(board_game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_(board_game)) where the board is merely a medium but everything happens outside it.

PurpleRamen 8y ago
Videogames are also very repetitive and limited in their possibilities. Limitation and how the player masters them is the major point of most games. Board games have some advantages over videogames. They have shorter gaming-sessions, a healthier multiplaying and a far stronger flexibility for game-execution and rules-modifications. Boardgames are played with the family and friends on a table and it's up to the players how they handle things.
- BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  Yes, this is also what I was looking for. The thing is that I did not find a game which would be captivating enough for the children to go beyond one session or two. Monopoly: everybody hates everyone afterwards. Settlers of Catan: very repetitive, I believe that we did not grasp the key intent of the game. When they were younger games such as "Mille Bornes" ( a French board game) were OK, but these are really games for small children. They read a lot, do not play videogames very much and do not watch TV, enjoy chess, etc. -- so they seemed like good candidates for board games. I may try D&D (with a real MD) someday, who knowns.
  - Doxin 8y ago
    In my experience with board games variation is key, Much like most people don't just play one computer game forever either. And yes monopoly is terrible. Catan is mostly something to keep you occupied while conversations happen.