No More Good Games

A few days ago, the Kinson Key Games team and I played a great game. It was an unpublished prototype that, at one point, I called a "Lacerda-Pfister-Suchý-Wallace smoothie," as it had elements that were reminiscent of those titans of board game design. At the same time, it was a game that was unique and fresh all on its own. It was a truly great game, which is frankly an accomplishment.

In this day and age, for a game to be published, I think it has to be great. Not good. Great.

I did a quick search the other day, for my own curiosity, of how many board games came out in 2025 alone. The results: somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000! (This was done by the super-thorough research method of doing an advanced search for 2025 entries, excluding expansions, and seeing that there are 50 pages of results here on BGG.) Of those 5,000, how many of them are good? Impossible to say, but I can say that of those 5,000, a little over 1,200 of them have garnered enough ratings to be ranked, a little under 500 are in the top 10,000 games, 25 of them have made it into the top 1,000 games, and one single title has made it into the top 100 (though we are trying very hard to change that!). With statistics like that, what chance does a mediocre game, or even a "pretty good" game, really have?

Of course, it's possible to make a big chunk of money on a successful Kickstarter, especially if there's some splashy components, etc., but how many dungeon crawlers have I seen over the years that make six-digits on crowdfunding and then are never seen again? A lot. That's how many. And while six-digits is a lot of money in one sense, it goes very quickly (even more quickly if you're shoving 100+ minis into the box, alongside a dozen stretch goals).

It's also possible, at least a time or two, for a well-regarded company or a well-known designer to release a game that's somewhat subpar and still have decent success. I won't name names and games, but I'm sure you can all think of an example of a game from a well-known entity that missed the mark.

For fledgling publishers and designers, though, I just don't think "good" is good enough anymore. In a way, it's a little bit heartbreaking. There are plenty of "good" games that I still cherish, and there are plenty of them that come across our dashboard as game pitches. We have taken pitches for plenty of games that are really cool, do something neat, provide an experience that is fun—and yet, we still pass on those projects because we only want to publish great games.

Speaking of publishing, I do think some of the blame for games failing to perform falls onto the shoulders of the publisher in charge. As a publisher, it's your job to ensure that the design is ready for release into the world. This includes doing extensive development on the game, breaking it and fine-tuning it so that it holds up under pressure and outliers; this includes writing an excellent rulebook (or contracting it to be done), as there really is no excuse to release a game with anything less than a great rulebook; this includes touting the game like you're proud of it and not just throwing it out there and hoping people buy it.

I remember a few years ago, there was a publisher who had multiple releases at a convention, but all of their advertising budget seemed to go to one single game they were releasing. That game sold very well, of course, and I think the other new releases had fairly decent sales, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the designers and others involved in the non-touted games because it seemed like the publisher was telling them, "Your game was good enough to publish, I guess, but it's not this game." (For the record, I actually think one of those non-touted titles is better than the one that the publisher was pouring their time and money into....)

So, in a sort of reverse point to one I made earlier (about well-known publishers successfully selling a game that's subpar), it's very possible for a great game to fall flat due to the publisher not doing their due diligence.

Any time I find myself feeling a little discouraged at our pacing, wishing we could grow our catalogue faster, I remember a few things:
1) We are going to publish great games. That doesn't mean that they're going to be universally loved (no game is), but it will mean that they're going to be games that we feel, deep down, that we couldn't not publish.
2) We are going to put the time and effort into making each game into an experience. We still regularly have people gush to us about the thrill they got when they first opened Galactic Cruise and found the Welcome Packet. We also find ourselves often mentioned in discussions of the best rulebooks in the market.
3) Quality, not quantity, leaves a legacy.