The Board Game Industry is Growing
Market research shows the board game industry's valuation at a shocking $11 billion today with YOY expected growth at a rate of 7-8%↗. For reference, board games are now on the map contending with other billion dollar media industries.
Boardgamegeek is the top English language website for cataloging board games, even if we expand our data to include the top 25,000 games, we find that the majority were published recently.
Mismatch Between Sales & Popularity Within the Niche
Sales data would probably still show games like Chess and Monopoly at the top of the charts, but modern board games are more diverse than ever before. You can now terraform mars, create environments for adorable birds, or survive prehistoric times playing as our cave ancestors.
Photo by Shreya Jaiswal, Parks Board Game
When looking at just the top 1000 games today, the top categories today are: fantasy, card game, and economic.
On the flip side, when looking at the top 1000 games, it's not as clear which mechanics are most likely to be seen. People are interested in a diverse set of mechanics but popularity of categories or themes are more likely.
We can also see that the categories published in games have changed significantly over time, as is the case for wargames (decrease), fantasy (increased), and card games (increase).
Average Rating on Boardgamegeek
The trait that correlates most clearly with rating on board game geek, however, is board game complexity. Sounds like we're all a bunch of nerds, I'm quite alright with this label.