The number of ratings per game Perhaps one of the most controversial choices of the Shut Up & Sit Down Effect article was using the number of ratings1 on BoardGameGeek (BGG) as proxy for “attention” to a game. So let’s double down on that! 😈
If lots of ratings mean a lots of eyes on a game, we can ask questions like: What games get most of the attention? Do few games steal the spotlight?
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Measuring the Shut Up & Sit Down effect
Using synthetic control to make up our own counterfactual world
Shut Up & Sit Down Shut Up & Sit Down (SU&SD) is arguably the largest (at over 400k subscribers) and most influential YouTube channel in board gaming. A video with a glowing recommendation by them can lead to a game sell out overnight. Or at least that’s how the anecdotes go. There’s been previous attempts at quantifying the effect, but over here at Recommend.Games is where board games and data science meet, so obviously, we have to dig a little deeper.
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How long is a game of High Society?
High Society is a classic bidding game by classic designer Dr Reiner Knizia, most recently released by Osprey Games with a wonderfully classic look:
The general concept is quite simple: the players are members of said “high society” and are trying to outdo each other in showing off their wealth. The game is played over a series of rounds, and in each round, a card is revealed from a deck of 16 cards.
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Child's play: How hard is Orchard?
Orchard is a beloved children’s game classic which is so old – it’s as old as myself. 👴 As one might expect from a children’s game, it’s really simple: roll a die, pick a fruit of the corresponding color, and put it in the basket. If you roll the raven, the raven moves one step closer to the orchard. If you manage to pick all the fruit before the raven reaches the orchard, you win together.
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Recommend.Games is back!
Request to have your collection added to the database now
The hiatus is over! Already since April 2023 the recommendation engine at Recommend.Games has been back online, albeit with reduced functionality. In order to cut down serving costs, I made the recommendation model much more lightweight (this deserves its own article) and removed rarely used features as well as a bunch of bloat from the database.
Most of the database was filled with users’ collection items, i.e., games they rated, owned, have played etc.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 winners
The cat’s out of the bag and the winners have been announced!
This year’s show was… long… On the one hand, it’s nice to have all three awards (including the Kinderspiel) back together in one announcement, but on the other hand, once you add special awards, the review of the 1983 awards, interviews etc, even die hard fans (and obviously I’m one of them) have a hard time keeping their attention up.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions – Part 2!
The waiting is finally coming to an end! On Sunday, July 16, the jury will announce the winners of Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres 2023. We’re blessed with another year of very strong games and I’m certainly very excited to learn what games will win the two awards.
After two years of calling both winners correctly, I’ve missed the Spiel des Jahres 2022 winner Cascadia last year, so I hope I’ll do better this year.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 nominations
Nominations are out! The jury selected a total of fifteen games for their longlist, ten for Spiel des Jahres and five for Kennerspiel des Jahres. Out of these games, three games each are nominated for the two awards and can hope to get the coveted meeple added to their covers on July 16.
Let’s dive straight into the nominations and recommendations, before we discuss how good (or bad) my predictions were and if the agreed with our Kennerspiel score.
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Spiel des Jahres 2023 predictions
Spiel des Jahres 2023 is around the corner! As in the previous years, I’ll try to predict what games have the best shot at ending up on the longlist (aka recommendations) and the shortlist (aka nominations) when the jury announces their picks on May 22nd.
As every year, I’ll let the algorithms speak. The predictions for the longlist come directly from the recommendendations out of all eligible1 games. Our very own Kennerspiel score is then used to sort those into their respective list of the top 10 contenders for either award.
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Announcement: Recommend.Games will take a hiatus
Update: The hiatus is over! Recommend.Games is back, albeit with some reduced functionality.
The very first commit to the project ludoj1, as I called it back then, was on December 5th, 2016. I registered the domain Recommend.Games on November 22nd, 2018. On May 15th, 2020, I published the first post on this blog. Over the years, this site attracted more than 50,000 users, which is a huge number, if you think about it.
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