BoardGameGeek

History

Scott Alden and Derk Solko launched BoardGameGeek in January 2000, with Alden hoping it would become the go-to global authority on board games. The site borrowed its early design from 3DGameGeek, a 1996 project by Alden that focused on digital games with 3D graphics. In 2005, BGG started its own annual convention, BGG.CON, where the Golden Geek Awards are given out and new titles are demonstrated by staff who teach the rules.

The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming came in 2010, praising BGG as an unmatched resource and the recognized voice of the online board and card game community. From 2005 to 2015, forum posts looking for tabletop game groups roughly tripled, increasing by about 10% each year. By 2014, the site’s database cross-referenced over 65,000 games, 9,000 artists, 13,000 publishers, and 18,000 designers, and by April 2019 it listed 80,000 titles. In 2019, BGG swapped its old logo—a white blond man in glasses running with a checkerboard—for a new one.

Alden explained that the change signaled that gaming welcomes everyone, not just stereotypical geeks. The site entered the Origins Award Hall of Fame in 2020. By 2024, it cataloged more than 150,000 board games and saw 300,000 active users regularly.

Design

BoardGameGeek's central feature is a large, cross-referenced database of board games, artists, publishers, and designers, navigable through categories. Games are grouped by 'families' using broad concepts such as 'strategy' rather than direct thematic classification, and their mechanisms are logged. The information is user-driven. The database supports quantitative research and is relied upon by much recent academic literature on board games.

A live rating system allows users to rate games on a 1–10 scale, with suggested descriptors: 1 means "Defies description of a game. You won't catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken," and 10 means "Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change." Ratings of 8 and above generally indicate a well-liked game, while those under 7 indicate the opposite.

Users tend to prefer longer, more complex games. User reviews appear alongside those of established outlets like Shut Up & Sit Down and The Dice Tower. The online forums include reviews, errata, news, play logs, design notes, strategy articles, and images.

Users maintain personal profiles to list, rank, and review collections, manage blogs, and advertise projects and local conventions. Flags next to avatars denote users' countries of origin. 'Geeklists' are user-compiled lists of games; one such list tracks the history of the number-one ranked games. Contributors can buy 'geek gold' for cosmetic items, and the site raises funds through an annual end-of-year fundraiser. Users can shop for games and accessories, trade and sell games through the site's market or via Amazon and eBay, and participate in user- and company-driven giveaways and contests.

Did You Know?

• Since 2006, the site annually awards the best new board games of the year with the Golden Geek Award, selected by registered user vote.
• RPG and video game awards were introduced in 2014 and awarded through 2017, with only one category in 2018 and none thereafter.