I just wanted to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to you all for coming to visit my little corner of the internet. Whether you’ve just landed here for the first time by mistake, or if you’re a regular who gets alerts when I post. All the same, seeing the visitor numbers makes the whole endeavour feel worthwhile and I hope you get whatever it is you came here looking for.

GoPlayListen had its 10th anniversary in October. Back in 2011 the title made more sense. I started the blog to be a place for me to write about whatever was on my mind. And back then that was equally likely to be going somewhere, or playing/listening to something cool – and often all three in the same weekend. I even wrote about moving to a new town, running, football and all sorts of things. But over time it became a pure(ish) board gaming blog.

2020 was the blog’s most successful year for visits, after a few wobbly years. I thought it might be a one-off, but this year should roughly equal it (update: beat it!). This is even better because it has been consistent throughout. Where last year, I had a few weirdly strong months making the rest of it look better than it was. It’ll equate to about 50,000 visits for the year. Nothing by interweb standards, but pretty good for a one man band in a niche category. Especially with only a largely ignored Facebook page to back it up on them there socials. But remember – you can help by clicking here before visiting and buying via Board Game Prices 🙂

Gaming in a COVID world

I ducked out of gaming resolutions last year due to COVID. And as nothing has changed, I’m skipping them again. I was hoping to do a 100×1 challenge. The idea is to play 100 different games from your collection, choosing games you’ve neglected – which is loads, due to limited play chances. But I’m struggling to get one meetup a month arranged, let alone one/two per week, so simply can’t commit. Any game time I have is spent on games I’m reviewing from Essen. Thankfully so far they’ve largely been great games.

I guess it should be no surprise my most viewed post this year was my Top 10 games at online board game website Board Game Arena. Where so many of us have had to do a lot of our gaming during the pandemic. I actually wrote the list in June 2020 and its amazing how much they’ve added since. I’d only include a couple of those games in a top 10 now. So should really get around to doing an updated post…

But I’m rambling. Thanks again for visiting. And to any publishers fishing around to find their Essen game reviews – sorry! If you can’t see them, they’ll be coming early next year. Just as long as I can actually get some people round to play them. Have a great festive period, a fun new year – and here’s to a slightly less virusy 2022…