Game Marketing

Setup

Considering the statement made in Part 1 regarding the relevance of the SDJ to the BGG audience, let’s take a look at how the games considered for the SDJ rate on BGG. This rating begins with the Average User Rating, which drives the BGG Rating (which considers the number of User Ratings), and ultimately the BGG Rank (which stacks the BGG Ratings up against each other). Although, BGG Rank is ultimately the most interesting and will have the greatest focus in this article, we will look at some statistics about the SDJ and KSDJ games in the order that the BGG Rank is built: User Rating –> BGG Rating –> BGG Rank. All graphs have been derived from data obtained from BoardGameGeek.com in June and July 2017.

Note: If you are starting your reading with this article, you might want to jump to the introduction here: Industry Focus: Spiel des Jahres & the BGG Community Part 1

Setup

The Spiel des Jahres (SDJ) award is intended to recognize games for “family and friends.” Does it hit that mark? The Kennerspiel des Jahres (KSDJ) was created to recognize more advanced games. Anecdotally, this is obvious from the difference in games that have won the awards, but is there a way to quantify this difference? Not dissimilar from other media, the complexity level of a game is represented by what gamers generally call “weight,” which is available as a community contributed measurement on BoardGameGeek.com. All graphs have been derived from data obtained from BoardGameGeek.com in June and July 2017.

Let’s take a look at the weight of SDJ and KSDJ winners and nominees over the years for insight into their level of complexity:

1. What are their average and relative weights?
2. Have their weights changed over the years? (Are the games getting more or less complex?)
3. Have there been major changes over the years? What were the likely events that caused these changes?

Note: If you are starting your reading with this article, you might want to jump to the introduction here: Spiel des Jahres & the BGG Community Part 1

Setup

Though some table top gaming enthusiasts believe that the Spiel des Jahres annual awards are not relevant for them, there is no doubt that these awards are important drivers in table top games in general. There is enough urban legend and pontificating about the awards that don’t report the facts that a deep dive into the statistics related to the awards is perfect for an article in the Analysis Paralysis series. Through this analysis, we will have a better idea of what makes a Spiel des Jahres game, the common aspects of the games that have been named in the awards – as winners, nominees, or recommendations – and how the awards have changed over the years. In particular, we will viewing this information through the lens of the BGG community (as expressed in the game and user data available on the BGG website). Eventually, we will also be able to compare data for the 2017 nominees before and after the awards to gauge the impact.

Although the expertise and focus of Opie Games is not to analyze the game publishing industry, as we design and develop games we are considering the current marketplace when deciding which game designs to pursue. Time to design is always a limiting factor, if not the most limiting, so working on something for which the market is quickly diminishing or is over-crowded may be equally wasted. These studies may also be helpful in providing information for a pitch, to differentiate what Opie Games has designed from what is available. How this information is not being use is to determine what game to start thinking about. Ideation is upstream of this process.

Objective

Survey and analyze (to the extent reasonably possible) the game publishing industry to:

• Inform the Opie Games process decisions from design into development.
• Become knowledgeable about the game publishing aspect of the table top game industry.
• Identify game publishing trends to forecast the market needs of the near term future.
• Provide the game design and development community information that maybe helpful on its own or may seed further analysis.

Hopefully, you will find this analysis interesting and helpful in your own forays into the game publishing industry.