Somewhere on BGG there must be someone with a binomial distribution…
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By eye, I cant really discern a normal, binomial, or Poisson distribution across these histograms.
But if someone had a bimodal distribution, that would be easy to see.
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That’s the one I meant!
Goes to get wake-up juice 
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I mean I like to think that I can generally tell if I’ll like a game before playing it thesedays, from the rules/playthroughs etc. Most of my plays tend to be of games I own so hence higher ratings. Most of my lower ratings are either games I bought when I was just getting into the hobby (and making some questionable purchases) or games owned by others (which I get to play less often)
If I was playing every game that gets released, I suspect things would swing in the opposite direction.
I also think I feel bad giving super low ratings to games that are objectively not terrible, but just a bad fit for me so…
Eh, the psychology of game rating is more complex than you’d think!
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I used to see this on camera review sites, where someone’s just laid down several hundred quid and wants to be reassured that they did the right thing…
I’ve definitely got better at this but I’ve also accepted how much further I’ve got to go. (Not to mention the biasing effect of playing with people I really like, or winning my first game, which still works on me even though I know it’s there.)
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Of everyone so far, my graph most closely matches RogerBW’s. Only it’s more of a pointy spike at 6. More of an Eiffel Tower shape.
I’m not interested in playing 6’s and below, which is a shame when most games are 6 and below. If I’m honest, I’m usually craving another play of a game in the 8-10 range, so it can be hard to convince me to even give a 7 another go. But I suspect I only diverge from the BGG rating meaning there because I get to play good games so infrequently - if I could play more, I’d be more willing to diversify in the 7’s, and I think there was a time a few years ago when that was the case.
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I don’t rate on BGG, I find it too complicated conceptually. However something on this thread popped in to my head today. I’m having a ton of fun with Quarriors currently, but also some poor games. I don’t know it’ll last but I’m pleased I have it and will definitely keep the game. However it’s rating would be around 5 or 6 for me and this is a good example for me of that level of game staying in my collection. It’s light hearted, unfair and often silly fun. I think occasionally that’s enough. Sort of a break between heavier or contemplative games or just enjoying a different atmosphere with friends. Actually my other example is Warriors. I think sometimes something a bit mediocre helps and I almost maybe see it as a rebellion against pressures on the constant churn of games and the hype around new ones. Just doing the best of what’s there has a quality all it’s own.
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Sounds like you’ll need at least a two-dimensional rating system, plotting “enjoyability/fun” on one axis and “good game/design” on the other.
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Or to follow the trend of many rating systems these days, which is simply binary - good/bad, recommend/don’t, keep/sell or whatever.
While these are more informative in aggregate, they do avoid a lot of problems with graded ratings.
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I just use a simple 5-dimensional axis system to organize things according to complexity, fun, player count, setup time, and group popularity. It’s simple and easy to read, and is scientifically proven to maximize the fun-per-ounce ratio of any game collection. 
I don’t actually do anything of the sort
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Sounds like a great idea for a board game website 
Please do not send me links to BGG
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Given infinite room I’d sort my games 3 dimensionally.
X - Complexity
Y - Max playtime
Z - Max player count
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I use the simple 1 to 10 rating based on how many trainzzzz are in this game
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Yes, but how many games have TEN trains!? It would be madness!
besides, trains are huge, how would you even fit them in the box?
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Storage solution from Game Traynz.
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I thought of this thread again as I was going through and updating some of my ratings on games. I checked the bgg rating scale again to make sure I’m not too far off the mark and it struck me how nonsensical the bgg rating system is. I think maybe I’m just too literal for it but “9 - Excellent game. Always want to play it.”. Really BGG always? always?
“Sir your wife is going into labour” “Not right now, Champions of Midgard”
“I’ll pay you $1000000 to play Munchkin with me” “But what about Champions of Midgard”
AN ASTEROID WILL HIT THE EARTH IN 2 HOURS!!! “Time for Champions of Midgard!”
Every night laying awake staring at the ceiling because I ALWAYS want to play Champions of Midgard.
Even with all those hyperbolic examples out of the way I cannot imagine a game I would always want to play at game night. I think eventually everyone would get tired of playing any one game and want to play something else, at least once, for variety. If that’s true then NO game could EVER be a 9/10 on the bgg rating scale because it says “Always want to play it.” and the rating scale is broken because they used an absolute in the guidelines. Always is an absolute, it means literally everytime forever.
And yeah I get it you can Barbossa me and tell me “it’s more like guidelines” but it just bothers me so much that they used such descriptively poor wording for their rating system.
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Yeah, always is a bit harsh.
I’ve found that I’m reluctant to rate something a ‘10’ because, in my head, it implies that there is nothing that could be done to improve the game. I’ve never found a perfect game; there’s always something that I think could be done better.
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