Gloomhaven loses top spot on BoardGameGeek’s review charts

They aren’t hard scienceand should be viewed with as much skepticism as (video) gamers would view a site like this metacriticalIt can’t be denied that the user reviews are on BoardGameGeek play a big part in helping people buy, play, and/or argue about board games.

The site, an invaluable asset that is everything from a community forum to a wiki to an asset platform, allows anyone who has played a game to rate it. The more people rate a game, the more valuable that rating becomes, and while it’s far from a perfect system –This 2019 post has a very good guide to the pros and cons of reviews– Most people, myself included, can’t help but look at a game’s rating and feel like it has one some kind of impact.

You’d think there would have been dozens or even dozens if the site is 20+ years old hundreds of games that have risen to take the top spot in BGG’s rating chart. But no! Only since the website has existed – or more precisely since the rating system has been in existence eight Games have ever climbed to the top of the stack.

The first seven are:

• ways of glory
• Tigris and Euphrates
• Puerto Rico
• Agricola
• twilight fight
• Pandemic legacy season 1
• Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven, the biggest board game of the past decade, has been #1 since December 2017 but was finally dethroned this month, ending its five-year reign. And not by a new game either; it was overtaken by instead Brass: Birminghama game first released in 2018. Although I never got around to reviewing the game on the site, I played it a bit in 2019 and thought it was pretty good! Not the best ever fine, but that’s why review aggregation is a tricky business.

Instead of a kotaku write-up, then, here is SUSDs review of Brass: Birmingham In case you’re instead wondering what kind of game can be rated so highly among board game nerds overall:

In case you’re wondering which game could achieve this feat next, BGG say that the point difference between Gloomhaven And Brass: Birmingham is so tiny that they will “probably switch places for a while” as will be the case Pandemic Legacy (that’s right up there too) so fresh blood might have to wait a while.

BGGs Post announcing the move also includes some very useful advice for review aggregation, regardless of the medium:

It’s not that these rankings are timed, or that a game lands in its “right” spot and never moves again. The rankings don’t show absolute size, but rather size for a good number of people who are fans of that particular game or game genre.

Gloomhaven, for example, isn’t a game that casual gamers will pick up on a whim, but rather an experience that will appeal to those who might be interested in what it specifically offers. I don’t fall into that bucket, so I’ll probably never play the game, which means I’ll never add my (probably low) rating to the game page. You could only get a “reasonable” rating for a game if you forced everyone in the world to play and rate it – and forced ratings are probably not a reliable measure either, so we won’t go into that.

Rankings and ratings only matter insofar as your tastes align with the tastes of others. Don’t assume that all high-ranked games are recommended for you, and don’t avoid the low-ranked game that seems to suit your tastes perfectly. you do it boo

Here are the top 10 as they stand today if you’re interested in seeing the full list of games that will be received BGG user Really upset:

Although I never got around to reviewing it Brass: BirminghamI have reviewed a number of other titles on this list – including Pandemic Legacy, Terraforming Mars And rebellion—and you can read them here.