One of the first posts on Board Game Beat was a survey that invited readers to tell us what they wanted to see on the site, and in that post I wrote, "In a week or so, I'll write a Roll Call Recap, sharing what our community would like to see more (or less) often."
I think "six weeks later" falls into the "or so" bucket. The day I posted that survey, I headed to Germany to cover the Spielwarenmesse toy and game fair, and I've since attended both Toy Fair NY and GAMA Expo. While I had wanted to make a splash with convention coverage, I think experiencing three conventions within six weeks has been more enervating than invigorating, with my notebook and phone still filled with unpublished material from Germany, not to mention from the later shows.
With that trio of trips behind me, I'm finally looking at the survey responses to see whether convention coverage like this is even what people want. As it turns out, "Conventions" is actually far down the list of reader interests. For the question "Which topics in the board game industry do you wish were covered more frequently by journalists?", with readers being able to choose five items from a list, the top results are:
- 49% - Industry news
- 41% - Games from less-covered regions/emerging markets
- 35% - Game design
- 35% - Game announcements
- 31% - Creator profiles (designers, artists, developers, etc.)
- 31% - Business and financial side of the industry
- 30% - Game reviews
- 29% - Social issues in the industry/community
- 26% - Game previews
"Conventions" and "Graphic design & art direction" are next with 19%, so that's roughly half the level of game announcements in general. In other words, tell us about games, but don't worry about being on the scene to tell us ASAP. That said, the Beat's most popular post to date, with nearly twice the views of the second most popular one, is "Forbidden Legacy to Debut at Gen Con 2026", possibly because Gamewright and parent company Buffalo Games have posted almost nothing about the game. (My images keep ending up on the BGG game page because they're the only images out there — then I ask to have them deleted.)
The third most popular Beat post is my write-up of the new version of Sushi Go Party!, so maybe convention coverage is of interest, but only in specific circumstances. The difficulty, of course, is that you often don't know what you're going to see at a convention. Perhaps you'll run across a sequel to a popular game series from a pair of famed designers, and perhaps you'll encounter yet another publisher of adult party games that go for gross-out moments. (I bypassed many such booths at Toy Fair NY.)
Writing about games from less-covered regions was one of my initial priorities before I blitzed myself into covering these conventions, so I had asked in the survey "What countries/regions would you like to see covered more in board game journalism?", with readers being able to choose three items. The most popular results are:
- 40% - Southeast Asia (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)
- 31% - Central and Eastern Europe
- 22% - Africa
- 22% - South America (other than Brazil)
- 19% - Australia
- 17% - Brazil
- 16% - India
Everything else was between 10-15%. I might have tipped the scales by including all of southeast Asia in a single response, and the next three most popular answers were similarly grouped, but I felt that listing every country separately would have spread out support smoothly across the board — more jelly than jam, if you know what I mean.
As for how you'd like to see industry news, these countries, game announcements, and so on covered, the top answer to the question "What are your favorite content formats for board game coverage and discovery?" (for which readers could choose two items) is no surprise:
- 73% - Written articles/blog posts
- 38% - Long-form video (e.g. 10+ minute YouTube videos)
- 27% - Podcasts
- 24% - Email newsletters/digests
- 13% - Community discussions (e.g. forums, comment sections, Discord chats)
I mean, I focus on written content, so people responding to a survey on my site will likely want to see written content.
While I appreciate the support for long-form video and podcasts, they are not forms with which I'm generally comfortable. I created so many videos at BGG because my boss asked me to create videos, not because I was inspired to do so...other than when I swept components into a box and asked someone to film me doing so. That might remain my largest contribution to game culture, with my gravestone reading "EAT / SLEEP / GAME / SWEEP BITS INTO A BOX LIKE AN ANIMAL BECAUSE LIFE'S TOO SHORT TO WORRY ABOUT BAGGING WOODEN COMPONENTS / REPEAT".
I will likely release videos infrequently, and as for podcasts, I've instead opted to record an audio version — which I've spoonerized into "Boardcast" — of at least one long article per week. That way I can focus on the writing, then record what's already written instead of riffing and hoping to say something meaningful. (I've hired editors for the one video released to date and the Boardcast versions of articles because I'd rather pay someone to do this work than struggle through it myself.)
As for the related question "Where do you usually find or follow board game coverage?", with two choices being possible, the top answers are:
- 66% - Dedicated websites/blogs
- 52% - YouTube
- 16% - Podcast apps
- 13% - Reddit
- 10% - Email newsletters
So much support for YouTube! Personally the only game-related video coverage I watch is Efka and Elaine's "No Pun Included", the name of which I still remember as "No Pun Intended" no matter how many times I see it written down. Otherwise my videos of choice are essays about music and movies. (Shout out to Trash Theory!)
Finally, we come to this question: "What do you most dislike about current board game coverage?", with respondents being able to choose up to three items. The top vote-getters are:
- 69% - The content is too promotional/feels like advertising
- 48% - The content is too clickbaity
- 17% - The content is not detailed enough
- 14% - The coverage doesn’t include the games or topics I care about
- 13% - The site or channel has poor design/is hard to navigate
- 12% - The content is boring
Okay, the vast gap between the top two answers and everything else highlights the main sources of discontent about content in the game industry. I think I avoid clickbaity material — although I do sometimes use cryptic headlines to wedge in as many games as possible — and ideally my posts do not feel like advertising. To be clear, none of the material on Board Game Beat is paid content other than banner ads and the sponsor messages at the beginning of videos and Boardcasts.
For game announcement posts, I try to cover what I find interesting or relevant (or what I think others will find interesting or relevant), with the games featured typically being grouped by designer, publisher, subject matter, player count, country of origin, point of discovery, or some other linchpin.
For my first six weeks, yes, sometimes that "hook" was only "I saw all of these games at the same convention", but ideally I can cover game announcements in the context of a trend, as with March 2's "Nostalgia" article and March 10's "Make it smaller" article — or if not a trend, then with a focus on a less covered part of the world or within a profile of a creator or publisher that I've not written about previously. Before the Beat launched, for example, I had reached out to about a dozen creators to get started on profiles, then those mostly got sidelined as I swept myself up in convention fever.
The longer articles will continue as well thanks to a weekly content calendar I had mapped out through June, with numerous other topics on the sidelines waiting to be fleshed out. My "article ideas" folder is bursting with possibilities, so I need to expand my point of view and look beyond every single announcement. Plus, I have nonsense ideas aplenty, and they've gone nowhere, too.
Let's consider these first six weeks an introductory period, and we'll see where things go from here...
