Board games have been around for hundreds of years. More recently however, the hobby has seen significant change. Here I take a look at board game trends over the last 30 years. In particular, the number of board games released, the length of time that board games take to play and the number of players that board games can support. All data used is from BoardGameGeek, a well respected website for board games that keeps a comprehensive list of games on its database. On all of the below graphs, only board games that are ranked on BoardGameGeek have been included (totaling over 20,000 games).
Number of board games released over the last 30 years
The graph below shows how many board games were released each year over the last 30 years. 2023 has not been included as not all the data for this year was available.
From the early 90s up until 2019, there was a significant increase in the number of board games released each year. From 2020 however, there has been a dramatic decrease. This is likely due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Length of board games released over the last 30 years
The graph below shows how the playtime of board games has changed over the last 30 years. The length of time to play a game was calculated by taking the average (medium) between the minimum and maximum play times listed on BoardGameGeek.
Since the early 90s board games have become shorter, with a greater percentage of games released being less than 60 minutes in length. The last few years however have seen a sudden increase in game lengths.
Player counts in board games released over the last 30 years
These graphs show how the number of players that board games can support has changed over the last 30 years. Board games that can be played alone have increased dramatically in the last few years, while board games that require 3 or more players has decreased.
The maximum number of players has also increased, with less than 20% of games released today only able to support 3 or less players. Interestingly however, there has been a recent decrease in the percentage of board games that are able to support very high player counts (more than 5 players).
There has been a recent increase in board games that are able to support a wide range of different player counts. Games released in recent years are able to support 4 or more different player counts.
