Chess Overtakes CATAN in BoardGameGeek.com Rankings

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If you’re between 30 and 45, you may have been introduced to Settlers of Catan (now just CATAN)  in college. I was. It was that modern “gateway game” that redefined what a board game could be. Who could forget the struggle to trade away that worthless sheep just to build a road?

The buzz surrounding CATAN is well captured in a 2009 Wall Street Journal article that boldly declared it “the new golf.”

“Settlers is definitely the new live networking for our crowd,” says Mr. Pincus, whose start-up makes online games such as FarmVille. “It’s like our kind of golf game — none of us have time to play 18 holes of golf, but we can handle a pizza and a board game.”

Next month CATAN will celebrate its 30-year anniversary. Even after 3 decades, users on the board gaming social site BoardGameGeek.com log thousands of plays each month. College students are still discovering it, and the magic of the game is still very much alive. Its longevity is evident in its many expansions and digital adaptations. Even Jay Severson, co-founder of Chess.com, was inspired by CATAN to create the game Landover.

But if you walk around college campuses today, you’ll notice a broader range of options. With 27.7K ranked games on BoardGameGeek today (games need at least 30 ratings to qualify for the rankings), the diversity is clear. This is up from just 18.3K ranked games five years ago.

Maybe I’m biased, but it seems there’s a fresh buzz around the game I help grow—chess. Headlines like “Teachers Nationwide Are Flummoxed by Students’ Newfound Chess Obsession” from The Washington Post seem to confirm this trend.

So, is chess the new CATAN regarding being a gateway game into the hobby of board games? I looked at historical BoardGameGeek rankings. Rankings are weighted, so the more people who rate a game, the better it scores. Over the past seven years, CATAN has slipped from being ranked in the top 2% of board games to the top 3%. In contrast, chess has risen from the top 3% to the top 2%.

Today, chess is ranked #446, so let’s stay humble—over 400 board games are still ranked higher, many of which are more recent releases. These include modern classics such as:

• Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure (#84)
• Codenames (#151)
• Pandemic (#156)
• Splendor (#232)
• Ticket to Ride (#245)
• Love Letter (#335)

Still, some games stand the test of time. Take Go, for instance, ranked #224 and predating chess by centuries.

As we turn the page to a new year, I’m in awe of just how long a fun game can endure. And above all, I’m grateful for the embarrassment of riches we have as board game fans.