this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
45 points (100.0% liked)
boardgames
330 readers
1 users here now
Everything boardgames
Please stick to English for posts and comments
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Nope, nobody likes one of the best selling and most popular hobby board games of all time. ;)
I think I can trace the insane oumt of Wingspan sales to a New York times article, at least what I gathered when swarms of non gamers started asking for Wingspan.
It still hovers in the top 10 on our sales charts despite not running out of stock at distribution (meaning it sells despite price competition)
The in-laws heard about it from the Today show and begged to play it. Ended after the first round and howls of "The Today show lied". It was not a pleasant evening but that was only a part of it.
By the time we were able to get hundreds of copies to meet demand the pandemic hit so we never did a demo night to teach those people.
I can also imagine a bunch of people paying well over the $50 MSRP during the great wingspan drought on its release year
:D I've found it to be a divisive game, maybe some snobbery about it's mainstream appeal, and luck of the draw putting people off.
Also criticisms over egg laying, which I believe an expansion fixes, but most will have only played the base game, which does have faults.
People are fools if that's the reason why. Mainstream appeal for a hobby game means more hobby gamers to play with.
Oh exactly, I find it's slightly rigid people who have been playing in groups for years. I love gateway games.
The egg laying criticism is mitigated a little by the expansions. But I would also say it's kinda like the first strategy people realize can work. The game is so situational because of the card draw and the randomization that egg laying definitely CAN work well in a lot of scenarios, but personally I look at it as sort of a fall back if something better doesn't come along.