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Diving into BoardGameGeek

jvanelteren.github.io

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Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#91

Post by svachalek »

hibikir wrote: post #56

The problem of boardgame evaluation is that what we have multiple populations that have very different ideas of how good a game is, and are so aware of their preferences that they will not rate all that many games outside of their favored niches. Therefore, making head to head comparisons is not really about rating games, but the number of people in each group that decide to even rate the game. Any analysis that does…

I tend to think of most things on about 4 levels. I think it applies to types of board games but also movie and music genres, cuisines, etc:

Flawed: you may not like this, even if you usually like things like this

Good: perfectly serviceable example of this type of thing, if you are interested you will probably like it

Exemplary: people who like this kind of thing tend to agree this is one of the best

Outstanding: you may even like this thing even if you haven’t liked things like this in the past, and if this is your thing then don’t miss it

I find that it’s fairly easy to sort things into the first three buckets by scanning through reviews and comments, but the fourth one is hard because by definition you need atypical reviews. Would be interesting to see an analysis that more or less predicted what reviewers would like and then plucked out positive outliers.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#92

Post by svachalek »

brimble wrote: post #55
scrollaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here's a more developed (and spicier) take then. Larger board games are very often mere laundry lists of systems that can be found in many other board games. The longer games tend to have systems that MAKE the game long, rather than cause people to develop a strategy. One example is some mechanics forcing synchronous turns, or even worse, preventing you from preparing your turn in advance. Which gets even worse…

In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interest…

This is actually a nice part about board games being more niche than video games. Pick just about any game on a computer and console and it’s been analyzed to death, every secret and strategy found and quantified.

Many moderately popular board games don’t have anything even approaching this level of analysis, some have quite broken combinations and strategies that have never been published anywhere, so even if you’re not the first to figure it out you can feel like you are. I really enjoy that feeling, that your discoveries have not been trampled over and graffitied long before you got there.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#93

Post by Oddskar »

quartesixte wrote: post #90
Oddskar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more amateur reviews I've read on BGG the less I pay attention to them, honestly. A big difference between movies and boardgames is that it's (for the most part) a group activity . And to make matters even more inconsistent, whether a group will take to a game or not will also depend a lot on who actually teaches them the game and how that person goes about it.

To add, you can teach it completely “right” and the audience might still find it utterly dull. Coup vs Resistance is, surprisingly, a very good barometer for the kind of group a group is.

Can you elaborate on the coup vs resistance thing? Sounds interesting.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#94

Post by slightwinder »

moate wrote: post #50
slightwinder wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not limited to board games. You have the same with tabletop, video games and basically everything. There is always that special crowd that enjoys long, complex stuff. How many people here are proud of their hundreds and thousands of hours game time in something like factorio, civilization, rimworld, in the year-long work they invested in some obscure software-project or something physical they had built? Some…

If it were true that complex games were inherently, objectively better we would only see more and more complex games. We don't, and major hobby game producers are constantly putting out low complexity games because, spoilers, some people are playing games to goof around and have fun! It's just like any other form of entertainment. Think about genre movies. What makes more money, the latest giant Marvel/Disney zip ban…

> If it were true that complex games were inherently, objectively better

What are you talking about? Complexity is more enjoyable for some, not all people. And the joy a game brings is subjective, not objective. You can't measure game-quality by saying this has x rules more than other games, so it's objectively better.

> we would only see more and more complex games. We don't

Not true. There is a rise of complex games in the last decades, especially in digital games. But it's still a relative small market, so the number of casual games are rising significant faster, distorting the impression on surface. And there are also several constraints which influence this rise. You can't measure this by simple binary logic.

> What makes more money

Money is an irrelevant metric for this.

And we are long over the point were complexity in moving pictures was a thing of movies. It's now all in series, and the complex sh*t is on netflix, prime video, etc.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#95

Post by astura »

moate wrote: post #49
mlindner wrote: post #2

> Are heavy games really 'better' than 'light' games? To serious board game players, yes, more complex games are "better" because the simple games tend to have dozens of games with almost identical feel. If the game is complex there can be more variety. > But I don't have time to play games that are very complex and take many hours! And the authors personal biases heavily stilt things.

Just here to say, as someone who both worked for a gaming company, has designed games, and has a shelf FULL of things like Fury of Dracula, Root, and Mansions of Madness, I consider myself a serious board/table top gamer. Light games are great. Ever play "The Mind" or "Exploding Kittens" at a party? Super fun. Everything is personal biases. If you have the time to set up and play Gloomhaven, great! But many people do…

That's because Candyland is a game for toddlers. It's designed to be played before the player(s) are able to read, write, or count.

Sure, it's not fun for the kindergarten-and-above crowd, that's kinda the point.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#96

Post by moate »

slightwinder wrote: post #94
moate wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were true that complex games were inherently, objectively better we would only see more and more complex games. We don't, and major hobby game producers are constantly putting out low complexity games because, spoilers, some people are playing games to goof around and have fun! It's just like any other form of entertainment. Think about genre movies. What makes more money, the latest giant Marvel/Disney zip ban…

> If it were true that complex games were inherently, objectively better What are you talking about? Complexity is more enjoyable for some, not all people. And the joy a game brings is subjective, not objective. You can't measure game-quality by saying this has x rules more than other games, so it's objectively better. > we would only see more and more complex games. We don't Not true. There is a rise of complex game…

I was agreeing with you.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#97

Post by Oddskar »

kbenson wrote: post #72
Oddskar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more amateur reviews I've read on BGG the less I pay attention to them, honestly. A big difference between movies and boardgames is that it's (for the most part) a group activity . And to make matters even more inconsistent, whether a group will take to a game or not will also depend a lot on who actually teaches them the game and how that person goes about it.

> whether a group will take to a game or not will also depend a lot on who actually teaches them the game and how that person goes about it. Definitely agree on this. I was teaching a few different people at different times how to play Wiz-War over the holidays (I had recently made my own copy from a printables PDF I found on the BGG site since it's not really for sale), and I definitely took different strategies wit…

Interesting anecdote. I feel like this is probably the area of boardgame that has progressed the least. In some sense the YouTube channels that do full rule explanations is a way of remedying this, sure, but that also feels quite.. odd to break out the iPad during a social gathering.

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#98

Post by asgardian28 »

fridek wrote: post #19

Interesting analysis. It has some signs of the author introducing variables until the ranking looks "right" though. I also disagree with some of the conclusions, based on my moderate experience with the site and its users. A few suggestions to improve: * Consider that most users rank 1-10 to stack rank their own games. BGG explicilty encourages this, insisting it's YOUR rating and there is no wrong way of arriving at…

The rank percentile is a great suggestion and after that take the average rank I guess?

Ratings per year is a possibility.

Complexity: Indeed I wanted to remove some of the more complex games because I don't have time for them. Although on reddit there was a nice discussion that the weight is composed of complexity & depth

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#99

Post by asgardian28 »

hibikir wrote: post #56

The problem of boardgame evaluation is that what we have multiple populations that have very different ideas of how good a game is, and are so aware of their preferences that they will not rate all that many games outside of their favored niches. Therefore, making head to head comparisons is not really about rating games, but the number of people in each group that decide to even rate the game. Any analysis that does…

Actually I'm making a small application that shows similarly rated games. For fun tried out Brass: Lancastershire and got as most similar games: Brass: Birmingham, Age of Steam, Food Chain Magnate, Dominant Species

Top 3 for Eastfront: Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit #2, Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe and..... A Victory Lost: Crisis in Ukraine 1942-1943

Re: Diving into BoardGameGeek

#100

Post by asgardian28 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #3

> I was a bit shaken by Eat Poop You Cat, but it seems a nice game you can play with pen and paper. This looks like a marvelous game that requires no purchase and no special equipment. Why would it shake anyone except for a ridiculous name?

That was the reason, had never heard of it. Sounds really fun though!
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