Board game trends
More complex games rate higher (weight–rating correlation —), and solo-capable games went from — of new releases in 2000–09 to — in 2020–25.
Do complex games rate higher than simple games?
Spoiler: yes, and by a lot. Across all games, the median complex game (weight 4+) rates — points above the median simple game (weight under 2).
Weight is BoardGameGeek's 1–5 complexity score, voted by players. The charts call games under 2 light and games at 4+ heavy. Filter to a mechanism, a category, or both together to see whether the pattern holds inside them. Options with no games under the other filter are greyed out.
User ratings rise with game complexity
Games in this selection
Drag the sliders, or click and drag on the chart above, to narrow the list. Each histogram shows the games left after your other ranges. Hover a row to find the game on the chart; the table shows the first 100 rows in the current sort.
The small figure after each rating says where it sits among games at this ratings floor: top 5% means only 5% of them rate as high or higher. Divisive compares how spread out a game's ratings are with games of similar rating, weight, popularity and era: top 10% means more spread out than 90% of games at this floor, and bottom 10% means more in agreement than 90% of them.
More complex games rate higher in every era
Median rating by weight band and release period. Newer games rate higher across the board, so compare the slope inside each line.
Players set lower ages for light games, higher for heavy ones
Average age on the box and average age players recommend, by weight.
Mechanisms that rate above their weight
Average gap between a game's rating and the median for games of similar weight (same half point) released in the same decade. Tags with 30+ games. Click a bar to filter this page.
Mechanisms that split players, and ones they agree on
The median divisiveness of the games carrying each tag. Click a bar to filter this page.
How game design has changed
Share of new releases carrying each BoardGameGeek mechanism or category tag, by release year. Comparisons are 2000–09 against 2020–25.
Biggest shifts since the 2000s
Share of new releases with each tag. The eight biggest risers, then the eight biggest fallers. Click a row to add or remove it from the chart beside this one.
Share of new releases, by year
Share of games released each year, 1980–2025, carrying the tag. Pick up to five.
Today's most common mechanisms, over time
The fifteen tags most common in 2020–25 releases, as a share of each five-year release cohort. The last column covers six years.
More mechanisms per game, about the same complexity
Average number of mechanism tags per game, and median weight, by release year. BoardGameGeek has added many mechanism tags in recent years and older games are tagged less thoroughly, so part of the rise is bookkeeping rather than design.
Mechanisms per game
Median weight (1–5)
Which mechanisms go together
How often the most common tags share games, against chance.
The strongest mechanism pairs, and the rarest
Pairs that share games far more or far less often than chance.
Together far more than chance
Together far less than chance
The rise of solo play
Three ways to count it: solo-capable (minimum player count of 1), tagged with BGG's Solo / Solitaire Game mechanism, and solo-only (1 player max).
Share of new releases you can play solo
By release year. The dashed line extends the straight-line trend in solo-capable share over 2010–19, so the gap above it is growth beyond the earlier pace.
Solo design and the time Americans spend alone
The solo-capable share of games released each year, on the left scale, and the share of waking time Americans 15 and older spend alone, leaving out sleep, grooming and work, on the right scale, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey. The two scales are different, so where the lines sit relative to each other means nothing; only their shapes compare. 2020–21 is shaded.
Both climb over these years, so their yearly levels line up closely, but most of that is a shared upward trend. The stricter test is whether they change together from one year to the next, and they barely do. Read this as co-movement, not evidence that loneliness drives solo design. Time alone follows the method in Atalay (2024), applied to the 2003–2025 survey files.
More complex games went solo first
Share of each weight band that is solo-capable, by release decade (the 2020s are 2020–25).
Ratings: solo-capable vs multiplayer-only
Median rating by weight band, releases from 2015–25 only so both groups come from the same era. Across all years the gap is wider, because solo-capable games skew newer. Much of what's left is popularity and genre: solo-capable games get more ratings and lean toward genres that rate well.
Crowdfunded games went solo faster
Solo-capable share of each year's releases, for games BoardGameGeek tags as crowdfunded (Kickstarter, Gamefound and others) and for the rest. The dashed line is the crowdfunded share of all releases. It has moved far less than solo play since 2014, so the solo rise isn't just more crowdfunding.
Players say the solo modes work
Share of solo modes where most voters in BoardGameGeek's player-count poll call 1 player Best or Recommended, for games for 1 to 2+ players with 10+ votes at 1 player. The baseline runs the same test on games with no official solo mode.
Top-ranked solo-capable games, 2020–25
The first 50 rows in the current sort. Click a header to sort, or search by name.
Do crowdfunded games rate higher?
Spoiler: yes, but by a lot less than complexity does. At the median for 2015–25 releases, crowdfunded games rate — points higher, against — points between complex and simple games of any year. Much of that edge is complexity itself. Compare each game with similar ones and the gap shrinks to — points.
Crowdfunded means BoardGameGeek tags the game with a “Crowdfunding:” family: Kickstarter, Gamefound, Spieleschmiede and others. Comparisons use 2015–25 releases, after crowdfunding took off, so both groups come from the same years.
Crowdfunded share of new releases
Share of each year's releases tagged as crowdfunded, and by platform. Kickstarter still carries most of it, but Gamefound has grown fast since 2022. A game can be tagged on more than one platform.
At the same complexity, the gap mostly closes
Median rating in each weight band, 2015–25 releases (10+ games per group). Overall, crowdfunded games rate higher mostly because more of them are heavy, and heavier games rate higher.
Crowdfunded games skew more complex
How 2015–25 releases split across the weight bands.
| 2015–25 releases | Crowdfunded | Other |
|---|
Mechanisms that lean crowdfunded
Share of 2015–25 releases carrying each tag, crowdfunded against other games. The eight tags with the biggest lead among crowdfunded games, then the six with the biggest lead among the rest.
The games people want more than they can get
Wishlists per copy owned, for games with 2,000+ ratings released by 2020.
Crowdfunded games, 2015–25
The first 100 rows in the current sort. Vs similar is the average rating minus what the rating model predicts for a game of the same weight, release era, popularity and genre.
Designers
Pick a designer to see how their games compare with everything else at this ratings floor. Co-designed games count for each designer. Vs similar compares each game with what the rating model predicts for its weight, release era, popularity and genre, the same model as Adjusted rankings.
Every game, by weight and rating
Each dot is a game, sized by its number of ratings. Filled green dots rate above similar games, hollow red ones below. The dashed line is the median rating of all games at each weight.
Ranked games by release year
Games at this ratings floor, by the year they came out.
Most-used mechanisms
The ten mechanisms on most of this designer's games, against their share of all games at this floor. The number at right is how many times as common the mechanism is in this designer's games: above 1× more often than average, below 1× less often.
The most prolific designers, against similar games
Median gap to similar games, for the 30 designers with the most games at this floor. Click a bar to open that designer.
Games
Do designers get better, or heavier, with experience?
Designers with 10+ games at this floor, by game number in their career.
Median rating
Average vs similar games
Average weight (1–5)
Who went heavier, and who went lighter
Average weight of each designer's first five and latest five games.
Series
BoardGameGeek marks games in a series with a "Series:" family tag. Some are game lines like 18xx or Unlock!, some are a publisher's box line, and some group look-alikes such as Monopoly-like games. Pick one to see how its games compare with everything else at this ratings floor. Vs similar compares each game with what the rating model predicts for its weight, release era, popularity and genre, the same model as Adjusted rankings.
Every game, by weight and rating
Each dot is a game, sized by its number of ratings. Filled green dots rate above similar games, hollow red ones below. The dashed line is the median rating of all games at each weight.
The biggest series, against similar games
Games
Ratings with the biases taken out
A regression of each game's average rating on its weight, release era, number of ratings and genre, fit at the current ratings floor. Switch an adjustment on and that trait's effect comes out of every game's rating, then the list re-ranks.
How much each trait explains
Share of the variation in average ratings explained as each trait is added to the model (R²). The rest comes from the games themselves, and from things this data doesn't capture.
The recency bump
Rating boost by release period compared with games from before 1980 of the same weight, popularity and genre.
Genres whose fans rate higher or lower
Genres are BoardGameGeek's own categories, as tagged on each game; a game can carry several, and the expansion categories count too. Each category is a yes/no term in the model, so its effect is the rating boost for games with that tag once weight, release era, popularity and the game's other categories are held fixed. Categories with few games are pulled toward zero. A game's genre effect adds up its categories.
Strongest effects, categories with 30+ games
Every category
Effect: the rating boost with the other traits held fixed. Raw gap: the category's average rating minus the average of all games, before any adjustment; the difference between the two is how much of a genre's reputation comes from weight, era or popularity. Faded rows have fewer than 30 games, so their effects are shrunk the most.