Intro
Welcome to this week’s gaming post! A few weeks ago, I took a deep dive into my Top 40 games to figure out if I had a favorite year and era in board gaming. This time, I thought I would take a similar approach to analyzing the Top 100 Board Games according to Board Game Geek (BGG) and compare it to the distribution in my Top 40.
A couple important notes before starting: this list was compiled a few weeks ago, so it’s possible that there have been some slight changes within the BGG Top 100, but the trends should still apply. Also, I did not remove any games that could be considered reimplementations, sequels, or games heavily based on another game because there is so much room for interpretation on which games qualify. With those out of the way, let’s jump into it!
A Balanced Landscape with a Familiar Golden Era Lead
While my Top 40 had some ebbs and flows, there’s a fairly even distribution of games released between 2015-2023 for BGG’s Top 100. In addition, those years are bookended with a similar number of games from 2014 and 2024. While not as steep as you might expect, it’s also worth mentioning that the largest dip is from 2020-2022, which aligns with the COVID-19 pandemic.
When grouping the games into eras, while 2016-2020 is still the largest, it doesn’t heavily outweigh the other eras. In addition, comparing the percentages to my Top 40, it’s fairly similar, with the 2016-2020 exactly the same at 43%.
2025: A Down Year or Simply Too Soon to Tell?
Interestingly, there are no games released during 2025 in the current top 100. Part of that is likely due to the fact that the majority of new game releases each year happen later in the year, with many games releasing in October at the Essen convention. In addition, many of those Essen releases don’t even make it to a worldwide release until the end of the year and into the next year. Therefore, not as many people have been able to play all of the big releases from last year, myself included, and thus it will take time for those games to make their way up the BGG rankings.
Looking into the games from 2025 in more depth, there are at least two games that are likely to find their way into the BGG Top 100 at some point. At the time of writing this, The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, which is a Lord of the Rings-themed Pandemic game, is currently ranked just outside the Top 100 at 108. One of my favorite games from last year, Galactic Cruise is currently ranked at 126. Given its shared DNA with the heavy euro games from designer Vital Lacerda, of which four of are currently ranked inside the Top 100, I think there’s still a strong chance that it reaches the Top 100.
However, as you scan farther down the list of games released last year, it feels unlikely that at least five games find their way to the Top 100, which would mark the fewest total since at least 2014. There were a number of external factors that impacted the board gaming industry last year, but when we look back after another five to ten years, I expect that 2025 will be labeled as a fairly significant “down year” for the hobby.
2023 in Focus: Recency Bias or Real Strength?
Comparing the distribution of games in the BGG Top 100 to my own Top 40, there are some similar trends. For example, two of my highest years were 2016 and 2023, which also align with the peaks seen above. Part of me wondered how much of a recency bias played into 2023 having the highest number of games in my Top 40, but on BGG where I suspect recency bias plays less of a role, 2023 is still one of the highest years. I already mentioned games like Hegemony and The White Castle in my previous post, but 2023 also brought us Sky Team and Voidfall.
One important caveat to mention: as you dig deeper into the games from 2023, there are a fair number of games that can be considered a reimplementation of another game, such as Dune: Imperium – Uprising, Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, Age of Innovation, and Great Western Trail: New Zealand. With my Top 40, I typically restrain from putting multiple games like these in the list, which is why there’s only one entry in my Top 40 for games like Great Western Trail and The Crew. However, BGG does include multiple entries in their Top 100 for these types of game.
That said, I still believe that 2023 was a strong year in the industry, and it represents a return to normal after the COVID years.
A Golden Era Backed by the Top 100 Data
Like I mentioned in my previous post, there’s still a strong argument to be made that the era from 2015-2019 was the “golden era” for the board gaming hobby. Each of those years has almost the same number of games represented, and the total makes up over 40% of the BGG Top 100. In addition, when you dig deeper into where the games rank within the Top 100, games from 2016-2020 make up half of the top 50 games.
Small Samples, Big Hits: The Strength of Select Years
Wrapping up with another interesting finding – while the 2020 and 2024 years don’t make up as many games as some of the other years, the average rank of games inside the Top 100 from those years is quite high. For example, Dune: Imperium (6), Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (12), and Lost Ruins of Arnak (30) pull the average quite high for 2020. Meanwhile, there are three games from 2024 within the top 20: SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (16), Slay the Spire: The Board Game (17), and The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth (20). One could argue that only one of those games is an original IP, but I still find it interesting, and it’s particularly impressive how quickly and far SETI has climbed considering it’s still relatively new.
Closing
With that, those are five of my takeaways from analyzing the current Top 100 board games according to BGG. If you haven’t read my previous post where I examined my own Top 40 games, I encourage you to check that out here. Now I’d love to hear your takeaways, as well as what your favorite years in the hobby have been, or any other thoughts or future content suggestions in the comments below. Happy gaming!
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