The Boardgames Chronicle in 2022 – analysis

Just like at the beginning of the last years, I am going to look back at The Boardgames Chronicle performance – I am not saying blog only, as there were much more activities, including You Tube Channel as well as cooperation with Cube4Me. Looking back, once again these were uneasy times, with pandemic mostly gone but other calamities – like war in Ukraine – hitting the world (especially here, in Eastern Europe). That of course definitely impacted behavioral patterns, especially in social media. So how did it go? What trends do I observe? Let us see!

BLOG

Stats

The wordpess.com is really great as far as statistics are concerned. It shows a lot of interesting data based on which I will try to draw some conclusions:

Area	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Views	26,744	74,683	393,948	487,253	446,883
Visitors	14,858	41,271	211,265	253,953	242,778
Likes	104	362	774	973	1005
Comments	166	195	501	509	448

I am glad to see that the number of views as well as visitors stays on pretty high level, although slightly smaller than in 2021. I think there are at least couple of reasons for this. First, pretty obvious factor was the decline of COVID pandemic and resulting end of isolation & lockdowns. People started to go outside and not use social media as commonly as during two previous years. Secondly, I was focused las year on couple of other endeavors – like YouTube plus cooperation with Cube4Me – and as day has only 24 hours, you can devote only so much time to each area.

My prominent post series

Now, instead of showing the most viewed posts table, I would like to focus on articles series created or continued in 2022 – I think such thematic-centered approach will be much more interesting, comparing “apples to apples”. Another year in a row, the most successful was Gloomhaven strategy-related set, which went over the roof as far as views are concerned. I also continued with My top 3 games… series – a ranking of titles in particular category I know and love to play.

More about those two series and links to particular posts – created in 2022 – below.

Except for those two series – which were responsible for huge part of all visits to the site – there were couple of other prominent efforts. Firstly, The Boardgames Chronicle started to be a platform, where other content creators, designer, players and developers share their content. I am so glad from the cooperation with Volko, Brent, Clint or Christophe. And here some of the best outcomes of this cooperation:

• Skirmishing and Evasion in C&C: Ancients (by Brent)
• Strategy Article – Breaking The Line, Holding The Line in C&C: Ancients: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (by Brent)
• Series on Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany 1945-48 (by Clint)
• D-Day at Tarawa – Replay by Volko: Part 1, Part 2 (of course by Volko)
• Inferno – Replay and Tutorial: Part 1 (by Christophe)

Last but not least, I wrote couple of long-overdue REVIEWs for my all-time favorite games, among them:

• Gloomhaven – we finished that 50+ scenario campaign in 2022 and I had enough material to thoroughly review the game.
• SPQR – can’t get enough of Great Battles system!
• Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul – Mark Simonitch games are very tense and interesting.
• Fields of Fire – still waiting for when this great game will get the new reprint!

Traffic Sources:

Let us have a look at another of interesting statistic:

This is not surprising: as in previous year, the top group are the English-speaking readers, from US & UK & Canada (thank you Dave!). Of course, quite a large group reads the posts locally, in Poland. On top of this, I have also pretty broad audience in Europe – including Germany (thanks Clio!), Spain, France, Italy & Netherlands. It is also encouraging to see so many views from Australia.

Of course, each and every entry to the site brings joy, even from such distant places like Congo, Tajikistan or Belize. It is great to see your blog read all around the world!

YouTube Channel

That was definitely one of the focus areas for me last year. I love talking about games, showing them, playing them and reporting – also via video format. The growth was huge, both in views and watch time of about 170%. I also hit the magic 1000 Subscribers barrier – which proves that this focus was worth the effort.

And what was the best – in terms of views and likes – content created? You would not be surprised – some of my favorite wargames! Just have a look at those beauties:

This year I am going to continue my YouTube experiments and bring even more material to broader public!

Cooperation with Cube4Me

That is probably something I am most proud of. Poland based blogger and 18XX fan who runs the games components shop combined their efforts to create a unique product – tailor made, verified on the real products, storage sets and solutions. It took a lot of effort and time investment but the satisfaction is great – and I truly hope you guys also benefit from those great products!

You can find their great sets always here:

• https://cube4me.com/product-category/wargames-sets/

Summary /  Comments:

It was a good year. Also, it was a very versatile year – blog, YouTube channel, Storage Solutions enterprise, trip to Essen Fair when I could meet Clio, and many, many more smaller events, ideas and plans. I am really satisfied but sometimes ask myself a question – when one can find time to actually play boardgames ? 🙂

Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Dear Readers, Subscribers, Players, Content Creaters, Designer – to everybody who contributes to our hobby and finds The Boardgames Chronicle content worth spending time with.

Thank you – without your support I would definitely not have so much energy continue with what I am doing!

PS. As always. any suggestions or comments what can I do differently / additionally are welcome!