Board Game General /bgg/

I feel like a board game crash is coming.

There's so much crap. My local stores are so overstocked, and most of what they have is stuff is no name games. Their shelves are particularly overstocked like crazy with sci fi and fantasy stuff.

i'm a new player that wants to play online. what game would be a good starting point for me? i'm a very competitive person. i haven't developed a particular taste for any specific genre, i'm just looking for general recommendations.

>So guys, what are your thoughts about Gencon?

Pretty underwhelmed. New mansions of madness looks cool I guess.

>Things you were hyped to hear about?

I was hyped about Last Friday, but MarcoWargamer made a review and he seems so disappointed. His tastes usually line up pretty well with mine.

>Things you were sad to not hear anything about?

No news of the Legendary : Alien expansion.

>Things you wish hadn't happened/happened differently?

I dunno.

>Also, most recent game played and how was it?

Most recent.. I'm not sure. I think it's Karuba. Which I love.

Honestly, I could live with that. There's too much stuff coming out, I cant keep up and as such I feel kind of numb to many announcements.

boardgamearena.com
boiteajeux.net
yucata.de
brettspielwelt.de

Try anything that catches your eye.

what are your personal favorites?

I'm more of an euro guy
Puerto Rico
Castles of Burgundy
In the Year of the Dragon
Through the Ages
Jaipur
Caylus
Stone Age

I don't think there's a crash on the horizon.

One of the reasons behind the video gaming crash was a saturation of product and no quality control and no media/communication infrastructure to know what was good and what was bad. The market was over saturated and consumer confidence was at an all time low.

That's not the same situation we have currently in board games. Yes there is tons of product on the market, however I don't think that it's 'oversaturated'.

And consumer confidence I would say is at an all time high currently. There's many companies that are just implicitly trusted to make god products because they've made SO MANY AMAIZNG PRODUCTS already.

That combined with how many reviewers are easy to access it becomes easier and easier to know which games are generally good or bad. or might fit your style and preferences.

If anything I think we're gonna see a bit of a market divergence. What I mean is I think we're going to see more and more extremes in our board games. More games being produced as massive luxury items like Food Chain Magnate, Star Wars Rebellion, Mansions of Madness, and more games being produced as tiny, easy to transport and store games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, the Tiny Epic series, and Love Letter. I think that the middle ground of your Ticket to Rides and Roll for the Galaxy are going to start to get squeezed into those huge or small categories.

>I don't think there's a crash on the horizon.

I don't either... What I can see is some games surviving based on hype and massive buy-in from casual gamers (like Exploding Kittens for example). But with the proliferation of gaming companies and quality Kickstarter offerings I can see the more discerning board gamers having higher expectations of quality. This is almost certainly going to result in some startup companies simply not lasting long if they don't have very well designed / appealing products. And that can be damn skippy difficult to achieve right out of the gate. Particularly when competing with companies / designers that have decades of design and manufacturing experience. That said, with FFG / ANA becoming the obnoxious 'Giant in the Playground' of board gaming, I'm glad that so many quality KS from 'the little guys' are hitting the market these days.

There's an absurd amount of stuff and part of that is that it's just so much easier to produce games now and it's such a low risk compared to other forms of media. Combine that with the growing market and we're in a huge boom that is doomed to fizzle out under it's own weight but I wouldn't say we'll see a crash or anything. Like someone said, confidence is at a rather large high and we do have at least some public opinion going around unlike with the dark ages of videogames. Further more, we do have some quality staples in the industry. Fantasy Flight I don't see going anywhere anytime soon, and there's even individual makers who are becoming famed for their boardgame design.

I don't think there's a crash in the horizon. I do think that big corps will strangle sellers and consumers.