May 17, 2021 – Board game community and price comparison tool Board Game Atlas has launched a new review system highlighting only accredited critics in addition to the overall community score. They have launched the new feature with an initial slate of 30 of the industry’s top critics and over 3000 critic review snippets.
The list of critics includes A-listers like Tom Vasel from Dice Tower, Rahdo from Rahdo Run Through and Matt Halvorson from Board Game Halv. You can check out the full list of critics over at the Board Game Atlas announcement post.
When visiting a game page, users can now see both a community and a critic score on a new 100 point scale. For anything helpful, that user can head over to the original review source to watch, read or listen to the whole thing.
When the critic review feature was initially announced the overall response was excited but skeptical. People over and over said it was something desperately needed but that it was going to be hard to pull off. Reviews are seen as objective and too difficult to put a firm number on. Users will see now more than ever that scores have been applied and this content has been organized, this system provides a key guide that is easy to make sense of.
Board Game Atlas has an ambitious future roadmap planned and this marks a key step. Since January the team has been growing and outlining major features to be launched over the coming months.
“In the past two months we have rolled out new systems for publishers, retailers and now critics. This is only the beginning and we are very excited to continue to improve the board game experience for the consumer and everyone else involved.” Said CEO Trent Ellingsen.
