Loaded Dice

Leonard's board game data experiments

Introduction

In July 2011 I grabbed a lot of information about board games from BoardgameGeek's excellent database, using their simple web service. My original purpose was to create the art project Board Game Dadaist, but as I grew to understand the dataset I found that I had a lot of questions about board games that this data could answer. These pages contain some interesting facts, graphs, and lists I discovered. I've updated it twice, in 2012 and 2013, with analysis of how the dataset changes over time.

Get the raw data

I'm making available the raw data I've collected from BoardGameGeek over the years. I don't have time to update this essay anymore but I still collect the data.

JSON stream format:

• Games - yearly dumps, 2011-2015 (352 MB)
• Geeklists - yearly dumps, 2011-2015 (2.2 GB)

Original XML format:

• Games - yearly dumps, 2011-2015 (323 MB)
• Geeklists - yearly dumps, 2011 2015 (2.2 GB)
• Games - weekly dumps, August 2015 to November 2015 (430 MB)
• Games - daily dumps, December 1 2015-January 4 2015 (3.7 GB)

Table of Contents

• Ratings
  • What does a rating mean?
  • BGG Decoder Ring
  • Standard deviation of ratings over time
  • How many games are unrated?
  • Do newer games get more ratings?
  • Are games getting better over time?
• Categories and Mechanics
  • Unusual games
  • Most popular game types
  • Untapped wargame markets
  • Untapped non-wargame markets
  • Best-rated combinations
  • Worst-rated combinations
  • Most variable combinations (highest standard deviation)
  • Most consistent combinations (lowest standard deviation)
• Game Families
  • Games about animals
  • Game versions of sports
  • Games about countries
• Ownership and the Trade Market
  • Excess copies by publication year
  • Excess copies versus rating
  • Low-rated games that are in demand anyway
  • Low-rated games with many excess copies
  • Low-rated games people are holding on to
  • High-rated games with many excess copies
  • High-rated games people are dumping
  • High-rated games that almost nobody owns
  • Pre-1990 games still greatly in demand
  • Pre-1990 games with many excess copies
  • Games that aren't moving
  • If wishes were horses
• 2012 Update
  • Introduction
  • Newly added games
  • English?
  • The cult of the new
  • Rating inflation
  • Formerly underrated games
  • Formerly overrated games
  • Late bloomers
• 2013 Update
  • Introduction
  • Newly added games
  • Rating inflation update
  • Formerly underrated games
  • Formerly overrated games
  • Games growing or shrinking in popularity
  • Changes in excess copies: the market in action
  • Games nobody/everybody wants

Next: Ratings