Category Archives: Board Game Survey

U.S. Gamers Prefer the Familiar

From 2016 to 2020, I belonged to a board game group which typically played a new game every week. Meanwhile, my parents still play Scrabble every day, sometimes twice a day. Two very different extremes. My parents are in good company. In a newsmaker survey of 1,059 U.S. adults, 54% of adults would prefer to play a board game that they had played before, while just 16% would prefer to play a board game new to them (20% have no preference, and 10% don’t play board games). While the 16% who prefer […]
Risk board game

Gamers More Excited by New Versions of Risk than Reissues of Other Games

Axis & Allies, Diplomacy, Robo Rally, and Squad Leader will be moving from Avalon Hill to Renegade Game Studios, which will also be developing “new versions of Risk themed around fan-favorite Hasbro brands G.I. JOE, Transformers, and Power Rangers.” In addition, “fans will also see new printings of staples for the line as well as the return of some long out-of-print editions.” In a survey of U.S. adults who have ever played board games, four times as many had played Risk as had played Axis & Allies (42% to 11%). […]
4 Candy Crush screenshots

A Nation of Gamers: Two Thirds of Americans Play Games Each Week

Researchscape conducted a newsmaker survey of 1,074 U.S. adults to develop an overview of game-playing. The survey was fielded from April 22 to 24, 2022. The responses were weighted to be representative of the overall U.S. population by the following variables: state and region, gender, age, race and ethnicity, household income, ideology, and registered voter status. Videogames have long had niche appeal, but mobile games have democratized the reach of computer games. In fact, mobile games are now played by as many people as card games: 88% of U.S. adults […]

Larger Households, Wealthier & Younger Americans Play Tabletop Games More Frequently

Only 13% of Americans play card or board games at least once a week, while 43% play such games once a month or more often. Americans go to the movies slightly less often: only 7% go at least once a week, and 39% go once a month or more often. This is according to a Researchscape online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18 to 80 years old, quota sampled to reflect the U.S. population by age, gender, region, Hispanicity, and education. The survey was fielded from June 22 to […]

The Cult of the Old: Board Game Purchases

Researchscape International conducted an online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults aged 18 to 80 years old, quota sampled to reflect the U.S. population by age, gender, region, Hispanicity, and education. The survey was fielded from June 22 to June 24, 2018. About one in five U.S. consumers had purchased a video game in the past month, compared to one in ten who had purchased a board game and a similar amount who had purchased a card game. The most popular game purchased was Monopoly, bought by 90 out of 2,000 […]

Only a Quarter of BGG Users Track Most or All Their Collection

Researchscape conducted an online omnibus survey of 2,339 U.S. respondents, and I snuck in some questions about board games. (The survey was fielded from May 26 to May 28, 2018.) BoardGameGeek.com allows users to log every tabletop game they own. I’ve always wondered: How comprehensive are these collections? Not very! Only 9% of BGG users have cataloged all of their games, and only 16% have cataloged most of their games. Only 13% of those making under $50,000 had logged most or all of their game collection, compared to 32% of […]

The Cult of the New: Preferences for New Board Games

For an update analysis for 2024, see: U.S. Gamers Prefer the Familiar. The “cult of the new” is the obsession with new titles, which makes hobbyist gaming much like the movie industry. The online site, Yucata.de, offers free online games with human players. Here are the plays averaged across 111 games, relative to when each game was first introduced to the community. You can see that a new game peaks in 3 months, then gradually declines to half its peak after 2 years, dropping only slightly after that for the […]

Last Game Played – Board Game Survey Results

Researchscape conducted a series of one-question polls as background research to its survey of Kickstarter backers. In a poll conducted March 23, 2016, half the U.S. online consumers interviewed had played a game this year: 18% in the past week, 17% within the past month, and 16% earlier in the year. The other half had played in 2015 or earlier or couldn’t recall. How long has it been since you played a card game or board game? (In real life, not on an electronic device.) Option Response % Cumulative % Within past week […]