From Tip to Tip-Taking Measure of Wingspan: A Wingspan Board Game Review

ubarose wrote: BTW my secret plan is to get work them them up from Wingspan to Argent.

Depending on what they like about Wingspan, that might not work. Wingspan is a very pretty game that sounds relaxing to play. Argent is an ugly sprawl of information overload that generates chaos and take-that exchanges.

WINGSPAN is too complicated for my non gamer wife, non-gamer in-laws, and pre-literate child. I suspect, but don’t know for sure THANKS QUARANTINE, that it is too simple for my game group. Perhaps our bird sanctuaries are in Uncanny Valley.

To jeb's point: I haven't run across anyone who's "annoyed" by the fact that Wingspan is so popular. I know people who are fairly confused by that phenomenon. But I get it. I wrote a decent-sized essay for this here site about the fact that I think Wingspan was really important for the game industry at the current time; not only because it demonstrated in a very visible fashion that, yes, women can be successful designers, too, but also because it embodied one of Elizabeth Hargrave's main complaints about the industry: the vast majority of topic matter in the gaming world is SF/fantasy/horror-related. That's why Wingspan is about birds. That's part of why it probably appeals to "non-experienced" gamers to a certain degree. They don't have to get comfortable with wizards and space aliens. It's just birds. It's like paging through the Audobon guide with some friends, but more fun.

Any annoyance that does occur may be a backlash to the immense popularity of the game; as is always the case with almost any game that wins Game of the Year, 15 Geek awards, etc. Then you come across people who have played a lot of games (like us) and been in the hobby for a long time and we're all like: "Eh. It's an average engine builder." But, again, sometimes that's what's necessary to open the door for new(er) people. I don't begrudge the game its success or favor one bit. It's just not something I'm particularly excited about because I'm not the target audience.

(Plus, 51st State is just better.)

BGG has seen some grade inflation in their ratings over time. The early ratings were relatively straightforward, but sometimes fans of newer games would inflate their grades in an attempt to push their new fave higher in the overall rankings. Or sometimes a BGGer would rate a game a 1 to express disapproval of a publisher. For example, Space Hulk racked up a bunch of 1 ratings by BGGers who never played it, simply because Games Workshop made BGG take down some custom content submitted by BGGers. That's why I pay more attention to the verbal descriptions next to the individual ratings at BGG. I give less weight to the 1s and 10s, and pay closer attention to the comments for the ratings in the 4 to 6 range. Not 7s, because too many BGGers seem to use 7 as a default rating for an average game.

That's a lot of people buying Wingspan! I didn't know it was quite that big. I still haven't played it or even Terraforming Mars yet... I've kind of been under a rock.