Celebrating 10 YEARS!!

The Board Game Family — It’s been a fun 10 years!

What were you doing 10 years ago?

We know what we were doing 10 years ago.

We were starting family board game reviews!!

Of course, we didn’t foresee that 10 years later we’d still be going strong. But here we are.

That’s right, in the Fall of 2009 we established The Board Game Family and published our first family board game video review!

Since then, our video reviews have been seen close to 2 million times and our written reviews and articles have been read by tens of millions more.

It’s been an amazing 10 years!

How it all started

Since our reviews are still attracting tons of new visitors and viewers every day, chance are high that you haven’t been watching our reviews from Day 1. So you may not now how we got started.

We’re happy to share.

10 years ago, there were a few board game video reviewers that posted with regularity. The most popular at the time were Tom Vasel and Scott Nicholson. There were a few others, but they were all older men who owned game stores.

We realized that there weren’t any reviewers with a specific focus on family game time.

So we decided to give it a shot!

But we’d be different.

Our reviews would be by the kids!

That way parents could see what games kids enjoyed and why — so they could determine if their own kids might enjoy playing those games.

And we’ve stuck with that focus ever since!

The first games we reviewed were the games were were most playing at the time:

It was a time for testing and those reviews were a bit unpolished. But we were having fun, so we kept at it.

Keeping Focused

Looking back, it’s amazing to see what’s happened with technology and how hobbies of all sorts are shared. YouTube was only a few years old and social media was relatively new.

But all that has changed.

Also since we started 10 years ago, board games have exploded in popularity.

With over 5,000 board games and card games being published every year, we’re definitely in the hey day of board games.

And with that explosion has also an explosion of board game reviewers — including many focused on family games.

Now there are 100’s of board game reviewers around the world posting a myriad of content. And not only has the amount of reviewers and content grown over the years, but the quality of video production is off the charts!

Just take a look at The Dice Tower, Watch if Played, and Man vs. Meeple and you’ll see how amazing video reviews and commentary are done now.

board game reviews — Our most-watched video reviews as of Nov 2019.

But even though the industry has changed over the last decade, we’ve kept our focus on the family perspective. We still seek to be a resource to parents looking for fun games their kids (and they) can enjoy playing together.

We get a kick out of watching some of those video reviews when our kids were young.

But they don’t stay young forever.

And before you know it, they’re grown and gone.

Which means we’ve had to adjust over the years.

The quantity of video reviews we posted began to wane after our first son went to college because he was our main video editor. But that’s also the time teenagers start getting occupied with so many other activities. And we decided early on not to force our kids to do video reviews. Because if they don’t like a game, or aren’t interested in getting in front of the camera, it won’t turn out well anyway.

Which meant that written reviews would take center stage. So for the last few years, my written reviews became our core content.

But the focus has remained the same — helping other parents discover games their family can enjoy playing together.

What’s next?

If you’re a parent, you know predicting the future is impossible.

If you had asked me 10 years ago how long we’d be reviewing family board games, I wouldn’t have had a clue either.

While this is still just a side hobby, it’s amazing to realize that I’ve kept with this longer than any job I’ve had in my career. Since starting The Board Game Family in 2009, I’ve been with 4 different companies in my professional career. That’s crazy to think.

So while my day job has changed many times, The Board Game Family is still such an enjoyable outlet for me, that I don’t foresee giving it up quite yet.

We can’t foresee how many more years we’ll keep at it. But as long as we do, we’re going to keep sharing our love of family time — and how board games can be a fun part of that.

And who knows, if we keep it up long enough, you may be seeing our grandkids reviewing great family games. (Now that’s a crazy thought…)