I originally started this post because of the game store locator that I learned about via the ‘Geek. The store locator relies on user-supplied store information, so if your favorite game shop isn’t listed go ahead and add it!
This would have been a pretty short post, but while I was checking out the website hosting the store locator I found out that the author is Matthew Gray , one of the BGG admins. I read the Games section of his blog and stumbled across a post about BoardGameGeek Recommendations. I already knew about Geek ratings on games, and I have used “GeekBuddy Analysis” extensively for purchase advice; however, Matthew’s post was where I learned about the improved games rating page — very cool!
So, how is this an improvement over the regular GeekBuddy analysis? The biggest difference is that with GB analysis, you start with a particular game that you may be interested in and see how your buddies rate it. The improved page shows all games that your buddies have rated. This can result in a huge number of games, so there are several filters that you can apply: only show games that you don’t own and/or haven’t rated; only show games on your wish list; and require a minimum number of ratings. Great stuff! I just wish I had known about it a few days ago when I was working on my Christmas list…
Now, there are a few potential improvements that could be made. Clicking on the sortable column headers clears any filter settings you’ve entered, which can be a real drag. Another issue comes up if you filter by a particular GeekBuddy list: all the list members’ names show up (which is cool!) but they have no whitespace separating them, so,the,browser,sees,the,list,as,a,gigantically,long,word,with,a,bunch,of,commas,in,it,which,makes,the,browser,display,them,poorly! This works fine as long as you only have 10-20 buddies on a list, but once your buddy list starts widening the browser window it can get pretty ugly. (It’s especially bad if you enable the “Include buddies of buddies” feature on a large list.) One final thing I’d really like to see is a setting to filter out game expansions, which Matthew has already suggested.
In spite of the previous paragraph, I think the improved games rating page is awesome. Thanks for putting this together, Matthew!
You’re welcome.
Giving credit where it’s due: Scott wrote the original version of the page and added the groups stuff. I wrote the “buddies of buddies”, “games I don’t own”, “games I haven’t rated”, and “on my wishlist” features. I’ve been meaning to add “exclude expansion”, but haven’t gotten around to it.
In any case, I’m glad you’re enjoying the features.