Alison, I think you may be underestimating just how biased the Geek rankings are against older games and that bias increases the further back you go. I agree with you that, overall, games are better today than they were 20 years ago, but I also feel the best games of that time (and the best ones of the 90’s) hold up just as well today as they did back then. But you’d never know it from their Geek rankings, for a variety of reasons. The Geek rankings are by no means worthless, but they need to be interpreted and the extreme age-related bias means they are close to meaningless when it comes to older games. So make whatever points about gaming then and gaming now that you want (because I agree with most of them), but relying on Geek rankings as a star witness in the discussion won’t win you any points with this member of the jury. :-)

I’ve been gaming since ’99 and have about 3200 different titles under my belt now. With so many games being released there’s no doubting that many new games provide just the same experience as older titles (as in “Oh, I’ve played this same game in 7 different forms before”) and I tend to give them short shrift so yes, old school in that sense.

I’m not sure BGG rankings tell us very much of anything, and T&E is still the best game ever made in my book :)

To look at it another way, the only games on the BGG Top 50 made prior to 2010 are the original Brass, Twilight Struggle, Crokinole and Puerto Rico. Arguably the most feted game at the turn of the century, Euphrat & Tigris, languishes 123rd. I know there’s rating & algorithm recency bias towards new games but it still feels representative of what I’m feeling and seeing in my gaming. Re Sticheln vs TM, the world is a richer place for diversity :-)