For 6 years I was organizing boardgames con called Pionek (Pawn). It was a great fun and a great lesson about gamers community. One of the events I held was a voting for the best game of the con. It had super simple rules – when you were leaving home, you were allowed to take a voting paper, write titles of 3 games you liked the most at con and leave the paper in a special voting box. From among all those who left papers with votes we randomly choose 3 people who win a free game. As you can imagine, voting was popular. Who doesn’t want a free game, right?
After the con I was the guy who open the box and count the votes. It was a hell of a lesson.
Let me show you some numbers before we move on – these are from three different edition of Pionek con:
One year 84 gamers voted for 65 different games.
Other year 104 gamers voted for 65 different games.
Other year 77 gamers voted for 81 different games.
You see that? There is no one ultimate best game. There is no one game that everybody likes. In a fact, the situation is exactly opposite. Every gamer has a different taste. Every gamer likes something different. Every damn gamer votes for different game. I run this voting for nearly 20 editions of Pionek con and it is always the same. The whole wide range of games that particular gamers find best. One loves Terra Mystica, the other loves Love letter. One loves Neuroshima Hex, the other loves Jenga. Look at those numbers. This is crazy.
Why I am telling you that? Why I am showing those numbers?
I try to show you that the game you love is not the best. And what is more important, the game you hate is not crap.
We gamers too often tend to go for a crusade. We often say that this or that game sucks and we give it 1 at BGG and we crash it in reviews, we go to the forums and we attack the game and gamers who like it. We can’t stand the fact that someone actually likes and plays the game we hate so much. So we fight. We make internet busy with our comments. We try to convince other players that they should immediately stop playing this shit.
Here is a deal.
I personally hate Terra Mystica. Worst game ever. I don’t like Power Grid. I don’t like Trajan. I don’t like Summoner Wars…
So what?
Do I troll fans of those games on forums?
Do I publish negative reviews of those games?
Do I bully them on Twitter?
No. I simply don’t play them. That’s all.
I don’t like the game I don’t play it. I don’t bully people who like the game. I don’t visit their forums and tell them they are stupid. Please, act the same.
My message is: You don’t like some games so you don’t play them. That’s it.
Please, consider this mind blowing strategy.
I strongly believe that good board game is the one that tells a good story. You play it and suddenly you are sucked into it, you feel chills on the skin. Emotions grow. In a moment you defend castle. You hear roar of warriors. You smell boiling oil. You are into it.
That's how I design my games. I always want to tell a good story. I want players to be into it. As deep as possible.
