One of the main drivers for this whole week was trying to figure out the “best year” for board game releases. There seem to be as many opinions on this topic as people in the conversation — with everyone having their own theory for the “best year” for board game releases. So we took a “scientific” approach by having 19 members of the OG each independently come up with their own list of Top 100 games of all-time. Then we used a spreadsheet to graph all 983 games that appeared across those lists of favorites, and we came up with the graph above. You can see that 2013-2019 stand tall (along with 2004), but ultimately 2015 emerged victorious as the consensus best year of all-time for board game releases based on the aggregate votes across all of our Top 100 lists!

• #10 – 2007 – 64 votes
• #8 – Tie: 2011 and 2016 – 69 votes each
• #6 – Tie: 2004 and 2017 – 74 votes each
• #5 – 2014 – 75 votes
• #4 – 2018 – 77 votes
• #3 – 2013 – 78 votes
• #2 – 2019 – 81 votes
• #1 – 2015 – 82 votes

Talia Rosen: I’m surprised to see 2015 and 2019 win, given that neither year has many games that I particularly enjoy!  I do love Pax Pamir and 7 Wonders Duel from 2015, as well as Cartographers and QE from 2019, but none of those games seem to be driving the victory here among OG contributors.  Rather, 2015 and 2019 seem to emerge victorious due to a wide variety of games, particularly heavy German-style games like Voyages of Marco Polo and Mombasa for 2015, and Barrage, Marco Polo II, and Maracaibo for 2019.  I can’t really keep these games straight personally, and they seem very far from my cup of tea, given how dense this type of game has gotten since the success of ever-more-complex games following the success of “kitchen sink” style games like Ora et Labora (2011) and Bora Bora (2013).

Nate Beeler: I also am surprised by the “winning” years, as I only had one game from those two years make my list (Codenames in 2015). I suspect if we did ranked voting instead of all or nothing that we would have a very different set of favorite years, however. The games that make up those years don’t seem like the kinds I hear people listing as their all-time favorites.

Larry Levy:  Well, maybe you have to blame me, guys, as 2015 might be my favorite from the last 10 years.  And the games involved are hardly unknowns:  Voyages of Marco Polo, Grand Austria Hotel, Codenames, Pandemic Legacy, Mombasa.  Plus, I think Baseball Highlights 2045 is one of the best sports-themed games ever.  Great, great year!

2019 did introduce my favorite game since 2015, the incredibly amazing Barrage.  But other than that, it wasn’t all that special for me.  Marco Polo II did make my list, but those two were the only 2019 games I included.  I like Maracaibo, as well as other 2019 titles like Paladins of the West Kingdom and Res Arcana, but none of those cracked my top 100.  So a good year for me, but like I said, not all that noteworthy.  2013, which finished third in our rankings, was much more my speed.  I listed 6 games from that year, with Spyrium, Russian Railroads, Concordia, and Talia’s favorite, Bora Bora, being the highlights.

Fraser: My popular years were 2003, 1999, 2004, 2002 and 2015.  If I were to pick just two from each of those years: Puerto Rico, Amun Re, Tigris & Euphrates, Ra, Power Grid, St Petersburg, Fische Fluppe Frikkadelen, and Wallenstein.

Are you surprised to see 2015 and 2019 emerge victorious here?  What great year for board game releases did we collectively miss here?