It's too expensive. Or we've already devalued it ourselves

It's finally coming out in Italian. One of those games we've been asking for for a long time, with a high rating on BGG and over a thousand reviews behind it: the localization we've been waiting for. A day or two passes. And under the announcement, all sorts of comments pour in: some dismantle it point by point, some list the flaws with the calm of those who know. But also those who played it and had fun, those who defend it. Positive and negative, all in the same thread.

Except the two things don't weigh equally. The confident criticisms remain at the top, they cite each other, they make noise. The "I liked it" comments slip below, more timid, fewer. And in a short time, regarding that game just released in Italian, only one thing remains in your mind: the flaws. I see it with every localization. It hasn't even had time to become known, and we all already know "what it's like."

You don't judge it. The herd processes it.

What we call an "opinion on a game," often, is not a judgment. It's a chain. The first negative comment becomes the second, the second quotes the first, and within an afternoon, the game we were waiting for is already "the one with that problem." Scholars call it an informational cascade: at some point, we stop using what we know and rely on what others have written. So many people can't be wrong, can they?

Take randomness. "There's too much luck" is among the criticisms I read most often. But the randomness was in the box before you even bought it — and you, almost certainly, knew it. There were tutorials, recorded games, the rulebook, and those same reviews on BGG that you had gone to read. You didn't discover it at the table: you had already read it. And sometimes you took that criticism wholesale from outside and brought it here — becoming the first link, in Italy, of a chain that started elsewhere. The same applies to "the interaction is only apparent."

I saw it in almost pure form on Deep Regrets and the Feya's Mire — under the Italian announcement, a shopping list of flaws even before the games entered people's homes. And the most striking passage for me: people reselling a game without even opening it. "I read the comments." "That guy on YouTube spoke badly of it" — and maybe they didn't even finish the video. They didn't judge the game themselves. The thread judged it.

On what basis do we give ratings?

On Deep Regrets and Feya's Mire, I read such fierce criticisms that they made the games seem worthless. Barely three-star material. And a simple, almost trivial question came to mind: on what basis do we give ratings? Is it possible that just one thing we don't like — the randomness, the interaction, a feature we might have already known was there — is enough to trash everything else?

The problem is that we judge en masse. Good or bad, passed or failed, one star or five. But a game is not just one thing. Try to break down the rating and give a score to each part:

• Mechanics — the core, how it works
• Setting — how much it immerses you
• Randomness — how much, and if it's manageable
• Interaction — what really happens between players
• Components — the quality of what you touch
• Price/components ratio
• Translation — since we're talking about localizations
• Rulebook clarity
• Longevity — how well it holds up over time
• Depth — how much there is to explore

Average these, and almost always you'll find that the "three-star" game wasn't three stars: it had two low scores and eight good ones. The resulting rating is more inconvenient to write — it doesn't make as much noise as a blunt dismissal — but it's truer. It remains personal, of course. But it's personal and honest, not personal and gut-driven.

And those who found it good? They often remain silent.

Here's the most uncomfortable part: the big damage isn't just done by criticism. It's done by the silence of those who would have something good to say. It's called the spiral of silence, and sociologist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann described it: when you feel your opinion is in the minority, you stay silent to avoid isolation — and your silence makes others seem even more numerous. Three confident criticisms weigh as much as twenty. The twenty who had fun write nothing.

And then the worst thing happens. In a famous experiment, psychologist Solomon Asch asked a group which of two lines was longer — a trivial matter. If the others, in agreement, pointed to the wrong one, many would conform. And not for the sake of peace: some would genuinely begin to doubt their own eyes. This is the most insidious mechanism: those who started convinced begin to find flaws — and in the next game, they look for them. And they find them. The collective opinion has devoured their own.

You think it doesn't concern you. You're the only one who can stop it.

And here I'll tell you directly. You think your comment doesn't change anything, that going against the tide is useless. It's the opposite. In the same Asch experiment, just one person telling the truth was enough for conformity to collapse from one third to almost nothing. It didn't take a crowd. Just one. Cascades work the same way: a clear and honest voice is enough to reverse them.

And I'll tell you what I think, without beating around the bush. A game is worth what it leaves you with, at your table — not for the average rating of a thread. Does it have flaws? Of course. Every game has them, even the ones you love. And that's fine: that's not the point. The point is not to let flaws, reported by others, decide for you if a game is worth it. What a game conveys to you, you must feel it yourself.

That's why it's called that. And why the problem is us.

The cover price is a promise: this game is worth X. But if we decide its worth before playing it — three comments, a video, a trial game — any amount, against a value we've already lowered in our heads, will seem too high. The game goes on sale. Then to the used market, "played once." And the cover becomes a number no one believes in anymore.

Perhaps it's not just a flaw of ours — it probably happens elsewhere too. But here, we pay the price in a specific way. Those chain criticisms sink the sales of the Italian version. The publishing house makes little money, and won't return to that line: no reprint, no expansion. And those asking for those expansions will be the very people who loved the game — and who, in the meantime, had let only others speak.

We complain that not enough is released in Italian. And we blame publishers, distribution, prices.

But are we sure that, in the end, one of the ills of the board game market in Italy isn't actually us?