{"id":310551,"date":"2025-01-01T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/?post_type=articles&p=310551"},"modified":"2025-01-01T11:10:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T17:10:42","slug":"meeple-mountain-year-in-review-2024","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/articles\/meeple-mountain-year-in-review-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeple Mountain Year in Review \u2013 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since our very first post, we\u2019ve been laser focused on publishing high-quality board game related content: whether it\u2019s written or video. We craft and discuss, parenthesize, spellcheck, and edit until we\u2019re happy with it. And this year we published 525 pieces; it\u2019s just crazy for an all-volunteer team like ours.<\/p>\n

Sneak peek…not only did we publish over 500 articles. We published our 3,000th piece on New Years Eve. But more on that in a few days!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s walk through the content and see what stood out.<\/p>\n

401 Written Reviews<\/b><\/h2>\n

2024 was a great year for games, with close to 5,000 titles marked as released in 2024 (according to BoardGameGeek<\/a>). And while there\u2019s no way that any team could review all of them (or would want to), we managed to review a respectable 141 of them, along with the other 250 games we reviewed which were released in other years.<\/p>\n

By traffic, our biggest game review hits of 2024 were Wyrmspan<\/i><\/a>, SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence<\/i><\/a>, Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering<\/a>, Tales of The Arthurian Knights<\/i><\/a>, Andromeda\u2019s Edge<\/i><\/a>, and unsurprisingly our reviews of Arcs<\/i><\/a> and Arcs: The Blighted Reach<\/i><\/a> expansion. All this just proves that even though we regularly publish reviews of lower profile games, it\u2019s generally the most popular releases that get the bulk of the traffic. But don\u2019t worry, we love helping out the little publishers too, so we have no intention of stopping reviews of little known games.<\/p>\n

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One thing you might notice is that all our review headers look very similar. A few years ago I decided to streamline and refine the headers for our content and did it all in Photoshop; but that still meant I had to make all of them. So this year I wrote some software for our team that allowed them to generate the headers on their own, with just a few clicks.<\/p>\n

14 Videos<\/b><\/h2>\n

Our video output has slowed way down, and while we still value our YouTube content, it\u2019s hard to continue releasing content when we don\u2019t have someone committed to recording videos regularly. So if you\u2019re reading this and you\u2019re interested in doing your own video reviews, let me know! You can step right in to an established channel with over 3,000 subscribers and make a difference!<\/p>\n

For the year we had 143,421 views in 2024, which was great for us, and we ended 2024 with a net positive 282 subscribers. Please make sure to check out our YouTube channel<\/a>\u2026then \u201clike and subscribe!\u201d<\/p>\n

96 Articles & Interviews<\/b><\/h2>\n

Our editorial coverage has slowed down somewhat, but we\u2019re still publishing great articles. We\u2019ve committed to regular releases of our short format review article type Quick Peaks<\/a>. Since we commit to covering everything sent to us by publishers, this is a way to get in at least something without feeling like we need to write up a full review. Many of our Quick Peaks games go on to full reviews, but not all of them.<\/p>\n

Some of this year\u2019s article highlights are Andrew\u2019s Trick Taker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/a>, Justin\u2019s all day gaming session with Mega Civilization<\/i><\/a>, our all-team collaboration On Gateway Games<\/a>, and our Dominion<\/i> Strategy Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a team we also went to a serious number of board game conventions, and wrote about them: TantrumCon<\/a>, Festival International des Jeux<\/a>, GAMA Expo<\/a>, Playthrough Con<\/a>, Congress of Gamers<\/a>, TraXX – an 18XX Convention<\/a>, Gen Con<\/a>, Essen SPIEL<\/a>, and PAX Unplugged<\/a>. This year\u2019s Essen SPIEL also featured the first time that four members of our team were at the event at the same time (including yours truly\u2026a bucket list item for sure).<\/p>\n

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And of course in addition to writing about the events after the fact, our \u201cMost Anticipated\u201d series topped the search results for most anticipated games of Gen Con<\/a> and most anticipated games of Essen SPIEL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We also launched a new series called The Dusty Euro<\/a>, as a way to pay homage to those classics of the genre\u2026the giants upon whose shoulders modern board games stand.<\/p>\n

10 Top 6 Lists<\/b><\/h2>\n

While we only did 10 of our well-received Top 6 lists, this year they covered a disparate set of topics including Top 6 Books Every Fantasy RPG Game Master Needs<\/a>, Top 6 Games to play on St. Patrick’s Day<\/a>, Top 6 Tips for Pitching Your Game to Publishers<\/a>, and Top 6 Completed Actual Plays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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New Feature Development<\/b><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m a professional software engineer by trade, and WordPress development (the platform used by Meeple Mountain) is part of my core skill set. This means that if I decide I want to add a new element to the site, I can implement it myself, and make it awesome. In 2024 I continued the development of features for the Meeple Mountain site.<\/p>\n

Board Game Reviews by Rating<\/h3>\n

Last year we added star ratings to our reviews, which is a big help to readers and for search engine results. But we have over 2,200 reviews and that can be tough to sift through. So this year we added the ability to sort our board game reviews by rating<\/a>, and even jump straight to specific star ratings (all 5 star reviews<\/a>, all 4 star reviews<\/a>, etc.) This is great for SEO and for readers who want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.<\/p>\n

Newsletter Builder<\/h3>\n

One of my goals last year was to kick off our newsletter<\/a>, and we finally did it! And that\u2019s been a big hit so far. While our subscriber base is still relatively small, it\u2019s growing rapidly as we prove to our readers that our content is worth it.<\/p>\n

But one of the driving forces in our newsletter development was that it would be easy to collect content. And so I spent weeks and weeks writing software that would collect information from our site and collate it into an easy to publish format. This means that we have to spend less time getting all the best material to our subscribers. And major kudos go to Tom Franklin, our newsletter editor. He tirelessly manages content, collects games and contests, and writes those amazing intros. Seriously, if you\u2019re not already subscribed to our newsletter, what are you waiting for?<\/p>\n

Website Traffic & Social Media<\/b><\/h2>\n

In 2024 we hit some really great milestones on social media.<\/p>\n