BY THE NUMBERS: The BGG 1%

Aaron Steiner Wald) United States

Unspecified

Unspecified Recommend 535 37.30 BGG has its own 1%



NEW: Help our study. Provide experts' input on Acclaimed games at:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/198649/bgg-1-experts-d...



And Loved games here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/198654/bgg-1-give-your...



(The others will be coming soon)



I was embroiled in a discussion of BGG ratings, and where the "consideration" list ended. Was it the highest rated top 500? Top 1000? Putting on the statistician hat, we worked through the numbers. In the end, it gave an interesting answer and an entire subset of categories.



First, to explain the statistics (I promise a very basic explanation.)



When any body of items are rated -- games, movies, actors, dogs, quarterbacks -- a typical graph line appears showing three curves: a steep elite curve, a long, gentle mid curve, and a slightly steeper low curve. We are concerned only with the elite curve, where you find the top games.









The elite curve commonly has few items at the extremely high end, creating a rapid but slowing descent of items that ends in the gentle mid curve.



Along this curve, there is a "Point of Separation" -- a spot where the the curve ceases being steep. In BBG’s case, the point of separation marks games that stand out more clearly in quality or popularity (or, yes, hype).







Where is the point of separation in the BGG ratings? Interestingly, looking at over three dozen different criteria, that point of separation consistently appears at or near the same place: between 750 and 900. The graphs below are several samples of these criteria.



Rank is the BGG rank. Real rating is the BGG Avg Rating (the word avg confused us regularly, so we referred to it by real instead, simply because it is the unmodified average).



So, for example, of the BGG games ranked 1-100, 100 had a real rating (a BGG "Avg Rating") of 7.0+, while only 40 games ranked 901-1000 had a real rating of 7.0+





































Game Personalities





This striking similarity lined up with the fact that BGG has 80,000 games listed. With the point of separation appearing around 800 consistently, it demonstrated a particular concept: 800 was 1% of 80,000, creating a meaningful “BGG 1%.”



One of the batteries of criteria used was game personalities – how much passion did a game arouse in players? Ten “point of separation” levels were identified with distinct personalities. Below these ten were levels where ratings of 6 became dominant. Interestingly, these 6-dominant levels began at exactly BGG’s rank 800.



The ten personality levels that fell naturally into the BGG 1% were as follows:



Acclaimed

Loved

Popular

Preferred

Interesting

Liked

Common

Acceptable

Known

Viable





Remember that the BGG ratings system has its own quirks and difficulties, and gems are scattered throughout the games ranked below 800. However, if you are a new player wanting to begin your collection, or a real pro wanting to collect all of the best, the BGG 1% is a reasonable place to start (but not to end). You might just as easily find a great game among the Viable level as among the Acclaimed.



The Geeklist below details the levels information, using a representative game for that level. Further geeklists will detail the types of games in each level.



Study Notes



Parameters

All games were included in the initial parameter analysis.

For the personality analysis, games required the following:

-- Published 2013 or earlier to ensure a mature ratings base.

-- 500+ ratings.

-- Not part of a closely related set of games (looking at you, ASL). Only the primary/best rated game of such sets was considered.



Rating Focus Methodology

In any community rating system, the lower half of rating values are generally considered statistical noise until they become a plurality. This is especially true of a 1-10 rating system. In other words, almost no statistical use can be made of ratings 1-3, and only partially of 4-5. This is called the “crank factor,” and plagues every such system. Only when these ratings are dominant do they become a potentially meaningful indicator of the item rated. Even then, however, there is a strong risk of some external purpose causing the ratings – backlash, public shaming, etc.



For this reason, Ratings 1-5 played no factor in analyzing the personality levels of the universally excellent games of the BGG 1%, and these results are the better for it. However, as we are using the BGG rankings to begin with, the 1-5 ratings remained a key part of the initial analysis.



