This might surprise you, but every board game in the world tells you a lie. Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole, but there are three things that can be a lie that are printed on every single board game. And I want to talk about them and why some of them are they way they are and maybe what to watch out for.

The three things are the age range, the game length, and the player count. All of these can be wrong for different reasons. Some of them might even be out of the publishers control, and well, they are just lies. Let’s get into them.

The Age Range

We start off with the one that publishers lie about the least. In fact it might not even be the publisher that lies on it. You see a game that looks like it’s for young kids, but it has an 8+ range on it. That number is more indicative of the size of pieces in the games. There are standards for toys so that they aren’t choking hazards or dangerous to a certain aged child. That is why you see on toy cars, dolls, anything basically, an age range for it.

Generally publishers do a solid job of aging it up, if the material, story, in the game is more mature. So I don’t know that many publishers lie on the age range. However, they know that some people think age range talks about complexity, and it doesn’t. That is a lie we consumers tell ourselves. Some publishers have even started to put a complexity scale on stuff, now, with that, sometimes they lie.

This, though, is also not completely intentional. For a war gamer, and easy war game will warrant a lower complexity on BGG or on a box. But for someone who has played Ticket to Ride and wants to jump into a war game, the complexity scale is different. This actually goes back into my board game classification article two weeks ago, which you can see here.

The Player Count

This one also gets lied about some, but not all the time. There are two ways that the lie can go, they can say it can’t play at a number or that it can play at a number. The latter of the two is by far way more common. The case where a number isn’t listed basically happens in cooperative games with shared information. It might take a lot of effort, but Pandemic isn’t a game that has solo play, but it can easily be played solo just controlling two characters if you wanted.

The way more common way of lying is by saying that it can play at a player count. This is most common in games that have a lot of downtime. So the more players, the more time between turns, maybe even the fewer choices people have to make in the game, and it ruins the fun. This is pretty common where a game will say it goes up to four players but doesn’t work well with that number. It can also go to lower numbers. This happens in social deduction type games. It might work with three players, but will it be fun at that number.

So why do they do this, because it sells more. If a game can play up to 4 or 5 people, that looks better. That works better for more groups. If a game can play with 2 or 3 players, that means you don’t need to get as many people together. Now, it might not be a good game at those counts, but it’ll sell more copies. Which is a bummer because a game could be an A with 3 players but a D with 5 players.

The Game Length

Finally, the biggest lie. Rarely do board games accurately portray how long a game will take to play. They will say 30 minutes, it’ll take an hour. They will say 20 minutes per player, it’ll be 30. And this is a really common problem. Generally I would say, look at the time and multiply it be 1.5 or 2 and that’ll be more accurate in terms of length.

There is an additional factor to consider as well. The first time you play a game it is going to take way longer than subsequent plays, or at least it will a lot of the time. Why, because you are learning the game. You don’t know your strategies, you don’t know all the rules. Now you are stopping to look things up, you need to read every card.

For example, the first time I played Ascension, there was a lot of reading. I have played Ascension a lot of times now, both on the app and in person. I don’t need to look at a card text to know what it does anymore. While a newer player will be reading and increase the game length, a group of veteran players of Ascension could knock out a game fast. So that lie isn’t intentional, it should just be known. So the first game might be twice as long as your next play, it just depends on the game.

So Are They Fixable?

Honestly, not really. The age is because of safety regulations, not complexity. It might look like that, but it’s not that. I recommend to help correct that one, read the back of the box, see what the game sounds like. The player count, publishers could and should change that. However, they won’t. Why, because it makes them money and someone might like it at that count. And the time, again, underestimating the time helps games sell. Faster, easier to get to the table games well more. And the sample size of players, the play testers, they get to really know the game. So a group of very veteran players of a game might be able to play that fast.

So why talk about it. I think a bad experience is often a deterrent for new players joining the hobby. So I want to get the information out there that shows how to read a box. Will this get to everyone needs it, unfortunately not, but I hope some people can spread the word and we can talk about actual expectations for game length, player count, and more in a helpful way.

Which of those lies bugs you the most?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.