2023 Games Library Report

Hello U-Con gamers and welcome to my favorite time of the year: Games Library Statistics season! It’s been a week since U-Con 2023 was put to bed and I don’t know about you but it sure felt like the old times again. Open gaming was filled pretty much every time I was in the ballroom and I spent a lot of time in the ballroom.

This year we discovered that the Games Library is either a liquid or a cat when we stuffed it on 6 shelves Friday.  On Saturday I decided to commandeer the Franken-shelf we put together but didn’t use because the games looked cramped and I thought we could spread them out a bit.  However, when we spread them to the new shelf, they still looked cramped but now we had 7 shelves. Games Library’s gotta Games Library I guess.

The Library only added 76 games since last year and U-Con attendees played 167 of the total games available (28% of the Library). Of those 167 games, 21 of them were new games that had not yet appeared at a U-Con. 

There were 285 checkouts over the weekend, which is the second highest number of checkouts since I started keeping stats in 2014. 2019 still holds the record at 339 checkouts.  This year was the year of the two player game; we had a really high number of people specifically requesting 2 player games (rather than games that can be played with 2 people).  The library has 17ish 2 player games proper (Castellan comes in Red/Blue or Green/Yellow and each color combo is a 2 player game that you can convert to a 4 player game by using both sets. So I guess 16 unique 2 player games but more than one couple can play Castellan at the same time?). Of those 17ish, 10ish were checked out and Spirits of the Wild was the overall winner for number of checkouts for 2023.

The popular games this year were Spirits of the Wild with 12 checkouts, Dice Forge with 6 checkouts, and Boop., Canvas, Dominion (base game), Succulent, and Wingspan at 5 checkouts each.  The rest of the numbers show that almost 70% of the games checked out were only checked out once. I think this year people were trying out more new games rather than playing their old favorites.

There is a dwindling handful of games that have been checked out every year since I started tracking stats: Forbidden Island, Lords of Waterdeep, and Zombie Dice remain on that list.  Tokaido got 0 check outs this year and, sadly, falls off the list.  The other, and happier, list is games that got their first ever checkout.  Mille Bourne, Knightmare Chess, Heir to the Throne, and Dominion: Adventures (all acquired in 2017) were checked out for the first time this year. 

For people who like numbers:

	# Games In Library	Unique Games Played	% Library Played	Total Checkouts
2017	237	83	35	167
2018	298	102	34	233
2019	372	153	41	339
2022	520	116	22	178
2023	596	167	28	285

If you are looking for popular games to gift, Spirit of the Wild was THE game to check out this year.  However, if you are looking for a game that can play more than 2 players, Canvass, any of the Dominions, Succulent and Wingspan from the above mentioned games were popular (and Canvas has the added bonus of being a gorgeous game to play). Carcassonne got 4 checkouts this year, which is more than all its previous years combined. Blokus, Century Spice Road, Coup, Steam Up, Tea Dragon Society, and Unearth all racked up 4 check outs this year as well. Loopin Louis and Suspend also both got 4 check outs each but that was mainly to the younger gamer crowd so if you have wee gamers, keep those two in mind.

Lastly, I convinced a bunch of gamers that had just partaken of BarCon to try Super Vampire. There are a certain set of games for younger people that also make excellent games for older people who have maybe imbibed a bit before getting their gaming on. This group had the best time trying to remove garlic before sun up. Were they any good at it?  Is anyone really?

Now on to my least favorite part of minding the library; setting the parts counted date to zero and going through the whole library game by game.  Until next year, keep playing and stay safe.

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Games Library Wrangler -JQ