Friday Night Shots – Are We All Required to Like the Same Games?

Taking a break from the Boardgame Geek thread that has been inspiring these posts the last couple of weeks, because I saw something else that sparked a desire to rant a little bit.

Not that these posts should be rants, but sometimes they might be.

It’s still on Boardgame Geek, so those of you who are getting sick of these might want me to stay away from there for a while.

Invariably when reading a game’s forum on BGG, somebody will eventually post something like this.

“This game has such a sterling reputation. When I played it, I was bored out of my mind. Tell me why this is so good.”

Sure, this kind of post will bring a bunch of people out of the woodwork sharing the praises of whatever game we’re talking about, and that discussion can be fun.

Or somebody will post a negative review of a game in the forum where there are (usually) nothing but fans of the game (if you don’t like the game, why would you be subscribing to the forum?).

And then be surprised at the negative reaction to that post, though some people are actually nice about it and say “everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but I completely disagree.”

However, somebody will always end up being the voice of reason.

“We don’t all have to like the same game. If you don’t like this one, play something else.”

It’s like the Voice of God singing out of the Heavens…but people still end up debating the whole thing anyway.

Why do people do this?

Why apologize for not liking a game that everybody likes?

Why apologize for liking a game that nobody else likes?

Why think that everybody must be on the same page?

I think I’ve used up my monthly quota of “why” questions with this post, but oh well.

This is a little bit different than what some reviewers say about some games, including me.

Some people just have different tastes as far as mechanisms, or themes, or whatever are concerned.

I have a friend who really doesn’t like worker placement games at all, with a few exceptions.

Would he acknowledge that they are good games, just not for him?

(Honestly, I don’t know how he would respond to that, but I think he would).

I know I hate real-time games, especially games where you have to try and imagine things fitting together in as short a time as possible.

Eric Summerer has (or had, anyway) Factory Fun in his Top 100 games of all time list.

It’s very much near the bottom of almost 700 games played for me.

I can see why people would like it, though.

It’s just not my thing.

I don’t think that’s necessarily what these people are talking about, though.

I love most of the Garphill “trilogy” games that I’ve played, with Viscounts of the West Kingdom being my favourite of them all.

I’m sure there are some people who find the game slow and ponderous, or don’t like the deck-building aspect, or thing it’s pasted on, or whatever.

If somebody posted a review like that in the game’s forum, I might chime in and say why I disagree.

But the person has the right to their opinion and we don’t have to all like it.

Sometimes the fault for how tense things get is on the fans, not the reviewer/poster, though.

Too many times on BGG, I’ve seen somebody post a negative review of a game, or negative thoughts about it anyway, and the fans pile on.

“You didn’t play the game enough.”

“You didn’t play it right” (Thanks, Boardgame Hot Takes, for that one!)

“You’re just stupid and don’t know what makes a game great.”

Is that really constructive?

As an aside, I have recently discovered the Golden Geek Award-winning podcast Boardgame Hot Takes.

I didn’t know what I’d been missing, because these guys are great. Funny, knowledgeable, and just enjoyable to listen to.

In a recent episode, they reviewed Amalfi: Renaissance, a really great sort of worker placement/resource gathering game where your workers also represent your resources.

I enjoyed it a lot when I first played it, with it showing up on my Top 50 (though this year it dropped down to #82).

None of the three of them liked it at all, really, with one kind of lukewarm “I might play it again” reaction.

Did I feel like reaching through my car stereo system and throttling them?

Of course not.

I can see why some people wouldn’t find it interesting, or maybe just not unique enough, or whatever.

We don’t all have to like the same games!

We can all find flaws that turn us off (not just mechanisms that we don’t care for) in games that many people love.

Why is that so hard?

(Oops, there’s another “Why” question)

Sure, some criticism is just way out there, and also sometimes it’s completely misguided.

Sometimes they do get a couple of rules wrong and that actually broke the game for them.

If they had played it right, they might like it.

If that happens, I would hope they would try again and play it correctly, or at least stop ragging on it without doing so first.

Maybe it would still be flawed in their eyes and they would still hate it.

Who knows?

It would be nice if some of the negative thoughts about a game weren’t expressed so aggressively, and that some of the defenses of a game weren’t so hair-triggered and hostile.

It would be nice if we could all get along.

Getting back to the original question, though, you don’t have to apologize for not liking a game that everybody likes.

You don’t have to “prove” that it’s a bad game and that everybody else has bad taste.

You don’t even have to try and have somebody convince you that your opinion is wrong.

Just go your merry way and we’ll go ours, and maybe we’ll meet up at a game that we all like.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen…