Analysis Paralysis | Opie Games

The Analysis Paralysis tag identifies content that analyzes data about the board game hobby or design. Posts will appear in the Game Design blog, RPG Design blog, Gaming blog, or the Industry blog depending on the community discussed, but all will appear under the Analysis Paralysis tag.

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How do Spiel des Jahres Winners Rate? – Part 3

John Parker

Jan 18, 2018

Analysis Paralysis

Game Publishing

Setup

Considering the statement made in Part 1 regarding the relevance of the SDJ to the BGG audience, let’s take a look at how the games considered for the SDJ rate on BGG. This rating begins with the Average User Rating, which drives the BGG Rating (which considers the number of User Ratings), and ultimately the BGG Rank (which stacks the BGG Ratings up against each other). Although, BGG Rank is ultimately the most interesting and will have the greatest focus in this article, we will look at some statistics about the SDJ and KSDJ games in the order that the BGG Rank is built: User Rating –> BGG Rating –> BGG Rank. All graphs have been derived from data obtained from BoardGameGeek.com in June and July 2017.

Note: If you are starting your reading with this article, you might want to jump to the introduction here: Industry Focus: Spiel des Jahres & the BGG Community Part 1

Spiel des Jahres Analysis Part 3 Figures

Figures featured in the Spiel des Jahres analysis articles. This is an extensive collection of graphs and charts. Some are probably self-explanatory, but the assumptions and criteria are helpful for context, and the full analysis report necessary for interpretation.

Data compiled from: Board Game Geek

SDJ 3.01 - BGG Rank of All SDJ

Spiel des Jahres Analysis Part 2 Figures

Figures featured in the Spiel des Jahres analysis articles. This is an extensive collection of graphs and charts. Some are probably self-explanatory, but the assumptions and criteria are helpful for context, and the full analysis report necessary for interpretation.

Data compiled from: Board Game Geek

SDJ 2.01 Avg Wt by Award Category

The Full Weight of the Spiel des Jahres - Part 2

John Parker

Jul 25, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Game Publishing

Setup

The Spiel des Jahres (SDJ) award is intended to recognize games for “family and friends.” Does it hit that mark? The Kennerspiel des Jahres (KSDJ) was created to recognize more advanced games. Anecdotally, this is obvious from the difference in games that have won the awards, but is there a way to quantify this difference? Not dissimilar from other media, the complexity level of a game is represented by what gamers generally call “weight,” which is available as a community contributed measurement on BoardGameGeek.com. All graphs have been derived from data obtained from BoardGameGeek.com in June and July 2017.

Let’s take a look at the weight of SDJ and KSDJ winners and nominees over the years for insight into their level of complexity:

What are their average and relative weights?
Have their weights changed over the years? (Are the games getting more or less complex?)
Have there been major changes over the years? What were the likely events that caused these changes?

Note: If you are starting your reading with this article, you might want to jump to the introduction here: Spiel des Jahres & the BGG Community Part 1

Spiel des Jahres & the BGG Community - Part 1

John Parker

Jul 18, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Game Publishing

Setup

Though some table top gaming enthusiasts believe that the Spiel des Jahres annual awards are not relevant for them, there is no doubt that these awards are important drivers in table top games in general. There is enough urban legend and pontificating about the awards that don’t report the facts that a deep dive into the statistics related to the awards is perfect for an article in the Analysis Paralysis series. Through this analysis, we will have a better idea of what makes a Spiel des Jahres game, the common aspects of the games that have been named in the awards – as winners, nominees, or recommendations – and how the awards have changed over the years. In particular, we will viewing this information through the lens of the BGG community (as expressed in the game and user data available on the BGG website). Eventually, we will also be able to compare data for the 2017 nominees before and after the awards to gauge the impact.

Community Focus: The Real BGG Accessibility Question: Careful What You Wish For

John Parker

Mar 08, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Setup

The BGG website (boardgamegeek.com) is the most comprehensive source of information and collection of commentary about board games anywhere ever… and it feels like it. Asking a simple question about a game on BGG is a bit like asking for the most common use of a word and having someone cart in the all of the unbound pages of the OED in a stack and saying, “Here, find it.” OK. So maybe not that bad, but it can be almost as intimidating to a new user.

Tabletop media has complained, criticized, and suggested improvements continuously for years now, so I don’t need to pile on any more than I already have. This article is not that. We will touch on the general sentiments and suggestions a bit for context, but this is not intended to be piling on.

Instead, let’s consider what a perfect BGG world might look like. Will there be a rush on rainbows and unicorns in that perfect world?

Community Focus: BGG Ratings Part 6: Conclusions and the Future

John Parker

Mar 05, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Setup

If you are coming to this article first, you may want to start at Part 1 of this series to be sure you have the full context. In this final part of the article we will review some conclusions and briefly look forward to what may be the future of Legacy games.

Community Focus: BGG Ratings Part 5: Rating and Tracking Data and Methods

John Parker

Mar 05, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Setup

If you are coming to this article first, you may want to start at Part 1 of this series to be sure you have the full context.

A review of the data collected of those who rated Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 as a “1” provides some insight into some rating and tracking practices. This is a short article to review some of the methods that I saw in the data and some of the difficulty experienced in analyzing the data.

Community Focus: BGG Ratings Part 4: Disposable Games

John Parker

Mar 05, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Setup

If you are coming to this article first, you may want to start at Part 1 of this series to be sure you have the full context.

As we saw in Part 3 of this article, some of the “hate” in rating Pandemic Legacy was directed toward ‘legacy” or “disposable” games in general. In this part we will look at some of the justification for that hate and the tracking data provided by users that either supports or undermines that sentiment. Based on the comments provided by raters and the data available we have two basic foundations for argument:

Legacy games have limited playability.
Legacy games have compromised value.

Community Focus: BGG Ratings Part 3: Hate Rating – That’s Just Stupid

John Parker

Mar 02, 2017

Analysis Paralysis

Setup

If you are coming to this article first, you may want to start at Part 1 of this series to be sure you have the full context.

As mentioned in Part 2 of this series, not all ratings of “1” for Pandemic Legacy are examples of “hate rating” and not all “hate rating” of Pandemic Legacy was related to preserving Twilight Struggle as #1 on the BGG rankings (or the positions of other top rated games). Another significant rationale as expressed in comments and implied by the data is a dislike of “Legacy” or “disposable” games – or, more precisely, how stupid and wasteful they are. Let’s take a look at a few more stats related to this form of “hate rating” and some other characteristics of those who rated this way.

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