If Geek Madness was largely driven by casual gamers who want something they can just pick up and play, then sure, but that doesn’t account for a lot of the other results. It seems very much like it’s driven by spite voting instead, and that just sucks.
Having said that, I voted for both BSG and A:NR this round as I love both games.
So basically any internet poll ever then =P
I don’t recall it being this bad last year.
Experience vs Novelty, imo. Easier to see things when they’re older.
Netrunner leading by fewer than fifty votes at time of my vote.
We were up by 100ish but BSG is closing in. I’m posting the rounds at the top of the thread, but in case you didn’t know that and missed the other post; round 2 is up:
I don’t think you actually read the explanations given your response so I’ll attempt to rephrase them as I don’t feel like cutting and pasting.
Twilight Struggle has an abnormally high rating because it is exceptionally good at self-selecting its player base. It is certainly an excellent game, but the audience that appreciates it is particularly niche.
Hanabi on the other hand is an excellent game which has a very broad base to appeal to. The conception that Hanabi is somehow a “light” game simply because it can be played casually is wrong. While Hanabi is certainly a game that can be mastered, it is not easy to master.
What that means is that when exposed to a significantly larger player base a game which is almost universally appealing certainly possesses the potential to win more votes than a noticeably niche offering. And before someone says Hanabi isn’t universally appealing let me say that I’ve demo’d, sold, and gotten multiple happy return reviews from non-gamers. Presented properly and approached correctly Hanabi absolutely possesses the potential to be universally appealing, Twilight Struggle on the other hand does not.
Side Note: I love both games to the tune of 10 rating, I would have voted for Hanabi.
I’ve played Hannabi once, and it was certainly accessible. But accessibility does not necessarily mean it’s a good game (it wasn’t very interesting to me, for sure), nor does it imply progression in Geek Madness (see Loveletter). On the other hand, Twilight Struggle is truly epic - it’s detailed, beautifully designed mechanics combined with the realism of the card text mean that it’s a gaming experience unlike any other that I know of.
Thing is, we can easily make non-gamers or casuals interested to play with us with lighter game like Hanabi or Seven Wonder but you will never convince anyone who isn’t already into boardgames to play twilight struggle with you.
Who cares about these polls. If you need BBG to convice you netrunner is your game, well… 
I’ve talked to a bunch of people who each year picked up this game because of how highly it was rated on BGG. Its not that we need BGG to tell us what games are good; its that if we tell BGG that our game is good inevitably some of them listen and become netrunners.
Hanabi is an excellent coop game. It’s very tense and removes a quarterbacking problem that exists in other coop games. Just don’t diminish the gameplay by house ruling it which I’ve read some people do. It’s ok not to get a perfect score every time. The challenge is what is important.
maybe, but for me the hate is not worth it, I avoid BBG.
As shitty as it will be to probably not win geek madness again this year, I’d like to pat all of you guys on the back for making it possible. We have created a forum so much better than the cesspool that was BGG that functionally nobody uses it to talk about netrunner anymore. Thanks everyone, you’re the best.
I understand that you personally prefer Twilight Struggle. I’m not really endeavoring to change that. However, what I am trying to explain is that Hanabi is a strong game that stands on its own merits.
Hanabi is the most cooperative co-op, when played strictly by the rules it is impossible to have a single player quarterback the game. It tests the capacity of players logic, memory, and teamwork. The game truly shines with multiple plays. I’ve spent hours playing the game and discussing approaches to gameplay, errors in play, best ways to handle various situations, and I still come across situations that aren’t clear cut.
Hanabi also teaches excellent lessons about communication and how to approach communication that I think are invaluable to both children and adults. It teaches nuance and subtlety in ways that are not well taught in either schooling or by most people.
Further, the level of difficulty is easily modified by simply allowing or disallowing minimal adjustments in the amount of communication allowed.
It is certainly possible that a group of people might find the depth of Hanabi to be trivial. But that group is such a narrow band of even the already fairly narrow gaming population that the game remains both accessible AND interesting to a broad cross-section of the population.
Twilight Struggle on the other hand, for all of its excellence, and it is excellent, does not have that same cross-sectional appeal.
I don’t really agree with the assessment that Hanabi is a “light” game. It can certainly be played lightly, but it has greater depth than most “light” games. King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride, Jaipur, Forbidden Island, these are all light games because they have relatively trivial decision making trees, and paying attention to the entirety of the game is not particularly relevant to game play so you can be incredibly social without losing much value in the game itself. I can be dropped into any of those games in the middle, join the social conversation, and play just as proficiently from simply looking at the board position. It is virtually impossible to simply swap someone into a game of Hanabi without a detailed explanation of what has happened and the order in which it happened, and doing so it likely to destroy the game itself.
Calling Hanabi light is akin to calling chess light because you can teach the basic rules of movement for chess pieces to pretty much anyone, and complete novices can push pieces around the board without much serious thought and still have a good time.
Compared to Twilight struggle, both 7 wonders and Hanabi are lighter and more accessible. Doesn’t mean the game doesn’t have any depth but you can’t compare a game with heavy mechanics like Twilight Struggle or Power grid and something lightweight (rule and mechanic wise) like Hanabi.
That I can totally agree with, comparing the two with terms like better, superior, worse, etc doesn’t make any sense at all.
Next round is up! Official 2015 Geek Madness Tournament: Sweet 16 (Rd. 3) - VOTING CLOSED
Power Grid is going to be hard to beat.
Time to get the propaganda back online!