News You Can Bruise for 2012 August 13

Here it is, folks. I re-downloaded the BoardGameGeek dataset and crunched some numbers to determine what happened between July 2011 and now. Highlights:

• 7328 games were added to the BGG dataset, and 232 were removed.
• On average, we'll give a game from 2011 a worse rating now, than we did when it was new. We'll give a 2010 game a worse rating than we did in 2011. This "cult-of-the-new effect" is detectable in games published as far back as 1997.
• Despite that, the ratings we give out are inflating over time. Once a game is 15 years old, inflation cancels out the fading of the cult-of-the-new effect, and a game's rating starts going back up over time.
• Despite that, we still rate newer games higher than older games.
• Some games proved to be highly underrated relative to their 2011 ratings, notably 1989: Dawn of Freedom and Toc Toc Woodman. Some proved to be highly overrated, notably War of the Ring Collector's Edition and JAB: Realtime Boxing.
• Some older games have really taken off since July 2011, like My Little Pony Hide & Seek (the subject of a vicious ratings war) and Cards Against Humanity.

I'm planning another entry in the Loaded Dice saga, one involving geeklists, but that's not going to be done for a while.