What Games Are People Playing?

Mark Jackson took some time to summarize what are called "5 and 10" or "five and dime" reports culled from spielfrieks early this year. This was a bit late in coming, but better late than never. The results were taken from 64 different gamers, with 5 points awarded if the gameshowed up on their five list (played 5-9 times) and 10 points if the game showed upon their dime list (played 10+ times). Here is a list of the top 10:

Game Points % 01 Rank 00 Rank 99 Rank
Puerto Rico 395 74% new n/a n/a
Carcassonne 355 60% 1st 24th new
Settlers of Catan 215 43% 5th 1st 3rd
Crokinole 210 37% 5th 136th 62nd
Liar's Dice / Bluff / Perudo 200 37% 2nd 7th 8th
Transamerica 190 42% new n/a n/a
Lost Cities 150 32% 3rd 2nd 1st
Can't Stop 125 28% 11th 7th 11th
Take 6 125 26% 33rd 15th 40th
Bohnanza 110 22% 9th 20th 16th

The games on the list clearly fall into a few distinct categories: light filler games that people tend to play frequently (Liar's Dice, Can't Stop, Transamerica, Lost Cities, Take 6) and deeper strategic games that are hugely popular (Puerto Rico, Settlers). The game in a category by itself, dexterity games, is Crokinole. You can put Carcassonne in either the light filler category or deeper game depending on your preference :-).

I've played all of these games except for Lost Cities and Take 6. Actually I've played Lost Cities online against an AI, but never in real life.

Judging from the session reports I've been reading so far this year, it looks like Puerto Rico will again be at the top of the list for 2003. A few predictions for new games that we might see in the top 10 for 2003:

Likely it will be tough to displace some of the tried-and-true fillers (like Can't Stop and Liar's Dice) and classics.

Updated: