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I let my personal prejudice get in the way of good statistics in 2003 - lumping my beloved Mystery Rummy games together so that they would appear and refusing to lump the obviously related 10 Days/Europa Tour series. My apologies - that's been corrected in the lists you see on this page. The formatting of the report is substantially changed this year... the most obvious difference to the casual observer is the inclusion of many more games on each list. (There is now 25 on the Most Played Games list and 15-20 on many of the other lists.) 75 different gamers (and one gaming group) responded to the call for lists of games they played 5+ and 10+ times in 2003. | ||
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Interesting Observations: Puerto Rico set a new record last year (74%) lost 11% off the total and still managed to capture the crown again this year. It also (as you'll see below) took the first spot on the five plus playlist and the ten plus playlist. Last year I predicted it would hold in this position for a couple of years and begin dropping... so far, I'm looking downright psychic. Carcassonne continues to amaze & astound me. My prediction was the release of the newest expansion would fuel it's playing health, and I was right. (I've become a fan over time myself - while not particularly enjoying the vanilla game and/or any version of it with more than 3 players, I find it a splendid 2-3 player game when using one or all of the expansions.) My guess: it drops another 10-15% next year and then settles in at that number for a long time. I was sure that Transamerica (which I dubbed "the cotton candy of euro gaming" - pithy little booger, ain't I?) would drop below 20% this year. Iwas wrong. With some gamers coming to it's defense (see Greg Aleknevicus and/or the winning percentages of regular players on BSW) and others using it as a family or gateway game, Transamerica did much better than I expected. No predictions for next year on this one... I'm pretty much clueless. More fillers than usual this year... probably more evident because I extended the reporting to 25 games. I find the similarities between Coloretto & King's Breakfast fascinating... and their respective champions & foes humorous to listen to. | ||
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Interesting Observations: A whole lot less of us are playing Carcassonne or Settlers 10+ times per year. I'm particularly curious if Settlers has "jumped the shark"... I'd guess not, but I do think it's settling (he he, unintentional pun) into a long-term position right around #10. Big surprise... the return of Zirkus Flohcati. Fillers don't tend to last forever (for example: where did For Sale go on this list?!) and so it's esp. interesting when one of them has a resurgence. This does not seem to be related to the Attack of the Clones release. Again, it's funny how close that Coloretto & King's Breakfast are running here. Prediction: no way that Paris Paris will make it back back to this list next year. | ||
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Interesting Observations: Many of the 10+ players of Carcassonne seemed to have dropped down into 5+ plays a year - where I expect it to stay. Both the quality of the expansions (very good) and it's prominent place on BSW help keep it in play. Settlers seems to be trailing - which surprises me in some ways (it's a great game and easy to introduce to newbies) and not in others (the core of the designer gaming hobbyists have played the heck out of it). I don't expect to see Clans to show up here again - and tellingly, Paris Paris didn't make it to this list. (In other words, it generated pretty strong love/hate vibes - and the "love" vibes seemed to have evaporated by late summer.) Take 6 is the amazing one... it's growing in play over time, which defies most of the regular patterns. Any thoughts? I'm bamfoozled. | ||
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Interesting Observations: I was surprised to see The Bucket King in the top position... honestly, I was expecting Transamerica to "win" this list. The really thunderous drops were those that went all the way to the basement: Industrial Waste (a game I rather like, btw), Vom Kap Bis Kairo (another game I like), Mexica, Pizarro & Co. (probably my least favorite game on this whole list besides Ghosts! and one I'm not at all unhappy to see dropping in playing time), Squint (a good party game) & Ghosts! Epic Duels isn't really a surprise... it received much of it's play due to the release of the film. Still, it's a good little game & one I'm glad I own. Spinball, for the masses who've never seen a copy, is a tabletop game (a la Crokinole) created by Aaron Weissblum... most folks who play it either own a copy and/or play it at the Gathering. (It's an amazing game of backspin & ricochet - very cool.) Most likely to be here next year: Paris Paris. (Have you figured out I'm not a fan of this game yet?!) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interesting Observations: There are some obvious reasons for some of these games appearing here: Fresh Fish was re-released in an English edition; Bang! got a second edition released by Mayfair; Emerald appeared on BSW; Zendo was a "packaging" of an already popular Icehouse game; Loco was a new (cheaper!) version of Quandary; MR1: Jack the Ripper got new packaging; High Society was re-released by Uberplay; Street Soccer is on Little Golem. One of the games (Odin's Ravens) was released at Essen in 2002, giving it enough time to gather some plays but the real "coming out" occured in '03. ...but for all of that, how do you explain the resurgence of interest in Zirkus Flohcati or Ra?! What about Kupferkessel Co., which keeps making converts? And Exxtra?! (My only thought is that the crew at Gulf Games has turned it into some kind of Rocky Horror-ish gaming experence... but that doesn't really explain it.) What about Battleline, which has gone OOPtwice?! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interesting Observations: I debated about putting Europa Tour and 10 Days in Africa together... that would have boosted the combined pair to 3rd place with King's Breakfast. (No, I'm not sure why I didn't. Sue me.) Conductor's Note: Because I'm an idiot, that's why. Sheesh. Probably the biggest surprise was Age of Steam... not only was it well-liked, but for a monster game it managed to generate a respectable level of play. (This was not hurt, of course, by the expansion maps that were released.) Attika will see a lot more play this next year... as will New England & Alhambra. My gut feeling is that Amun Re will drop off the five & dime radar soon (not due to any lack of quality - but that it won't generate the kind of repeated play.) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Continue onto The Present | ||
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