Found a stat about how many board games get released each year and it blew my mind

I was just browsing Board Game Geek the other day, trying to figure out what to add to my collection, and I stumbled on a forum post that said over 4,000 new board games come out every year. That number seemed crazy high to me, because I can barely keep up with the 20 or so that seem popular at my local shop in Austin. I checked it against a few articles from 2022 and 2023, and it held up. It makes me wonder how many of these are actually good or just filler releases from Kickstarter campaigns that never get played after a month. I spend so much time picking out one game for game night, and now I feel like I am missing out on a ton of hidden stuff. Has anyone else looked into this and found a way to filter through the noise without getting overwhelmed?

2 comments

2 Comments

thompson.tyler13d ago

Whoa, 4,000 new games a year? That's like trying to drink from a fire hose while someone keeps turning up the pressure. I'm pretty sure half of those are just "Catan but with werewolves" or "Ticket to Ride but the trains are also sharks" from some Kickstarter that raised 3 million dollars and then vanished into thin air. Honestly, my filter is just looking at whatever the guy at my local game shop is grumpy about, because he's usually right about the good stuff. It's a jungle out there, but I'm pretty sure most of those 4,000 are just noise you can safely ignore.

blake_martinez12d ago

Saw a board game YouTuber break down the numbers and he said maybe 200 of those 4,000 games actually have any real thought put into them. The rest is just copycat stuff riding on popular mechanics with a new theme slapped on.