BGG Ratings Demystified
Nut Hunt has been out in the wild for a little over a month now, and I’ve been exceedingly pleased watching consumer ratings trickle in. We’re currently sitting at an 8.2 on BGG with 55 ratings.
Despite our high average rating, Nut Hunt is ranked 14,824th on Board Game Geek with a Geek Rating of 5.524.
The Math Behind Geek Ratings
BGG rankings are based on something called a Geek Rating. While I couldn’t find the exact math behind the Geek Rating calculation, it has two important elements.
It is a Bayesian average
Some ratings are scrubbed
A Bayesian average is an average that includes external assumptions. That is Board Game Geek seeds the average with a large number of dummy ratings. My best estimate is that there are about 1,000 ratings of 5.5 included in the calculation.
Board Game Geek scrubs ratings from the calculation. It’s unclear what triggers rating being omitted – but it is clear that there is some effort to only include ratings that BGG’s algorithm thinks are legitimate. This may mean that newer accounts, or less active accounts are excluded, or that a predominance of extreme ratings (0s and 10s) are excluded.
In aggregate (and likely by design) games with a large audience and large number of ratings are favored in BGGs Geek Rating and ranking system.
Average Ratings
While a high Geek Score and high BGG rating is unattainable for the vast majority of indie games, there is still a lot of power in a high average score.
Average scores are what consumers see when they go to your games’ page. Since most of us won’t make the top 100s BBG lists with our games, average scores are massively more important than Geek Scores.
It is important to note that BGG users are savvy and protective of the authenticity of their platform. It is fairly obvious when looking at a game if reviews are disingenuous, and I’ve seen a number of indie games review bombed because users suspected them of having fake reviews.
So, as with most things related to board game publishing – it’s important to engage your community genuinely. Ask actual consumers and not just family and friends to rate your game and engage on BGG.
What’s your favorite “underrated” game on BGG?
