The weird world of board game releases

Whether it is board games or video games, I tend to get a lot my information about new releases these days from YouTube (plus Twitch, but only for video games). For video games, publishers tend to give streamers access to their games just days before release. Or they give them access earlier, but put an embargo on releasing the streams just before release. Sometimes that is an early access release, but if you see a video game played on YouTube or Twitch, you can usually get access to that game very soon afterwards. With video games mostly releasing as downloads on platforms like Steam, or in the dedicated online shops for whatever console you own, everybody gets access to the game at once, and usually to the same version of it.

Board game releases are a lot more complicated. Especially crowdfunded ones, as for those the peak activity on YouTube is before the crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Gamefound starts. Publishers produce prototype copies of the game and distribute those to content creators. So if I see somebody playing a board game on YouTube, I might be able to pay for it soon, but I won't be able to play it for usually more than a year, sometimes several years. Crowdfunding campaigns are driven by FOMO, the fear of missing out, and for that reason there is often very little information about how available the game will be in retail. Some games *only* sell via the crowdfunding campaign, and the only retail availability is from shops that get a few of those crowdfunded copies of the game and sell them on at a profit. Other games have a retail release. Often the crowdfunded version of the game is somewhat different than the retail version of the game, for example having more luxurious components.

When I visited the Spiel board game fair, I did again come across a booth that was selling retail copies of a game (Steam Power from Wallace Designs) that I had crowdfunded and not yet received my copy (I won't get it before Q1 2025). That is always a bit disappointing. Especially since in this case I pledged only for the standard / retail version of the game, which is the same that was available for sale there. There were some other booths for games that I had backed, but I didn't see another game already for sale. Thumbs up to Portal Games, who delivered my copy of Thorgal the Board Game just before showing the game at Spiel.

In early July, a major YouTube board game channel made two videos promoting Arcs as the best board game of 2024, kicking off a serious hype train. Three months later, at the Spiel, the hype seemed to already have cooled down somewhat. The backers on Kickstarter had received their copies, and there were retail copies available for sale, of which I was able to get one without even having to stand in a queue. But retail availability is still a while off, with estimates ranging from November to after Christmas. The peak of availability of video content on Arcs was way before most people can even buy the game.

The Spiel is very much a commercial fair. It isn't meant for you to sit down and play a game for long. The tables with games that do exist are mostly for demonstration, and that often is an abbreviated version of the game, to get more people to experience the game, and then to buy it. There are a lot of stands for selling games. And one of the attractions is that sometimes there are games available that aren't quite in retail yet. But this year I only bought two games during the Spiel, and two more of the games shown there in retail after the fair. Buying a game at the Spiel usually involves standing in a queue, and the hotter the game is, the longer the queue. Again this is driven very much by FOMO: BGG publishes a list of new games at the Spiel, players can give thumbs up for games they are interested in, and the most-talked games are quickly sold out. Some companies just sell all they have on the first day, others ration the games over the 4-day duration of the fair to still have something to sell on Sunday. But as I was only there on the first day, I experienced the peak buying frenzy of people who didn't know how long the game they wanted would be available for, and thus queued for sometimes hours to get it.

Personally I have mixed feelings about all that. On the one hand, by the nature of the public board game night I go to, bringing the latest game that nobody has yet makes it easier to find people to play with. Nothing is worse than bringing a game nobody wants to play with you. On the other hand, I don't think I had more fun with Arcs in the two evenings I played it now than I would have had if I had only brought the game 3 months later. The Spiel is huge, and I never manage to see everything in a day, so giving up hours of seeing new games in favor of standing in a queue doesn't appeal to me.