Announcing The BoardGameGeek Hall of Fame: Day 1 Inductees | BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek
What would you add in as a “pivotal” game in bg history? I’m thinking of Settlers of Catan - first thing comes to mind
Announcing The BoardGameGeek Hall of Fame: Day 1 Inductees | BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek
What would you add in as a “pivotal” game in bg history? I’m thinking of Settlers of Catan - first thing comes to mind
The list is pretty short in my head:
EDIT: just read the article and totally agree with Diplomacy and Cosmic Encounter. But otherwise, I stand by my list.
Genre defining titles:
Some bit of modern history
I’ve mostly seen BGG as a revenue-generating operation lately, so seeing them put time and effort into a “Hall of Fame” and mentioning, exclusively, games published before I was born is a curious move.
Is it a long play? After the inaugural class, will they starting nominating anything on the Hotness list? Or is it just genuine appreciation for the story of the hobby?
I thought it was considered to be Caylus, but a sorting of the Worker Placement mechanic on BGG shows 1991’s Silverton as the earliest game that has its year of publication listed. This is a list that includes Aladdin’s Dragons which I see as a bidding game rather than worker placement. It shows how fuzzy these categories can be.
Good point! I forgot Caylus
I think it’s long term but it’s marketing more than anything I reckon. If BGG wants to secure status and be the place to go for games it probably is good to have an authoritative statement about things.
At this moment it’s kind of a trend tracking database but they might have ambitions to be more than this.
“Look, we’re not just boosting the stuff that makes us money, we’re the serious site for all games. Don’t ask about that time all our awards went to Wingspan.”
Ah theres much to complain about BGG but Wingspam awards was all on the infinite wisdom of the site’s userbase
“focuses on modern board games that have directly shaped the contemporary hobby and community. Games such as Chess… fall outside the scope of these awards.”
Wasn’t expecting that sort of criteria, but it’s a really good list on those terms. Diplomacy for sure. I wonder if they’ll also put Risk on it? Cluedo/Clue?
I engage with the site quite casually. I learn about new games, get answers to rules questions, download playing aids, etc. I do donate to the site and don’t see ads. I don’t engage with the hype and so I don’t have much to complain about BGG. Having awards and a Hall of Fame seems a very fannish thing to have.
Sports Halls of Fame has meaning when it is independent of the sport. For example, the MLB Hall of Fame is not run by the MLB. The UFC Hall of Fame is run by the UFC and so meaningless. It is possible that the commercial entanglement that BGG has with publishers could influence their selections and that would be a bad look.
There also has to be time. So long as BGG sticks to games that are at least 10 years old, I think that is fine. I would prefer 20 (what I call the “classic rock” rule), but 10 is enough for hype to die down.
Going back to the MLB, the inductees are not voted on by fans. It is not a people’s choice award. We all know how well those go on the internet. So it can’t be based on game rankings or a vote. The choice of inductees will always be subjective and up for debate, but that discussion (what social media types would call “engagement”) is kind of the whole point.
Out of the other games posted here (I have not viewed the link yet), I would add Pandemic. Certainly one of the biggest names that comes to mind when someone asks for a list of cooperative games.
Day 2 brings more fame and, presumably, more hall. Approximately 5 more of each.
Magic
Catan
El Grande
Tigris and Euphrates
Ra
I see nothing to argue with there, even though I personally hate Catan.
I believe it is considered to be Bus. There is one, or a handful, of games that did proto-worker-placement in various forms but Bus is the first game that did it in a purely recognizable way?
Agricola is the one that mainstreamed it, though. #1 on the geek for years.
I think there are some games that you can look back and say, “Yeah, that was proto-Worker Placement”. But at the time, the worker placement wasn’t the foreground.
I think worker placement became the sensation that it is when games moved it into the focus and gave the scarcity of worker placement spots some sharp teeth.
You can’t possibly be saying Bus doesn’t have teeth, or have worker spot scarcity?
Fair. But it also features a big reset button
Carcassonne
Power Grid
Ticket to Ride
Caylus
Twilight Struggle
Again, no real complaints from me. Comments on BGG are mostly fighting over why Puerto Rico was skipped
Power Grid is my favorite game, but I don’t know if I’d put in the Hall of Fame. In MLB terms, it would not be a “first ballot” inductee and might be best as an “Eras Committee” inductee.
There are two basic criteria I would consider:
Power Grid wasn’t very significant in the board game market. It did not expand the market for board games (like Ticket to Ride). Artistically, it borrowed mechanics from other games and yes, put them together in a nice way, but it didn’t influence the games that came after it (like Puerto Rico).