ASCENSIONES IMPARABLES EN LA BGG (2014)

[Mérek]

Hombre, igual influye que el Caverna lleve sólo tres meses en el mercado, ¿no crees? O pretendes que venda en esos tres meses más que el Catán en 20 años o el Carcassone en 15. Y esa lista muestra al Monopoly entre los primeros, vaya juegazo eh!!

Del Monopoly hay quien dice por ahí que a lo mejor no está tan mal como pensamos... 

Si que lo dicen, y es cierto, pero es porque no lo sabemos jugar.

Me juego el cuello a que la mayoría de los que dicen que es malísimo no lo han jugado desde que tenían 8 años. Es como si pones a un chaval de ocho años a jugar al agrícola, pues se pasará la partida con el jornalero y pesca y animalitos, al final vivirá en la miseria.

Y absolutamente NINGUNO lo han jugado con las reglas oficiales.

(Como el que decía que el Caylus estaba roto porque no construir edificios era la mejor estrategia , resulta que no reseteaba el preboste).

En la Bgg hay odio hacia los dados porque consideran que el azar es malo para los juegos, sin embargo si es robar cartas de un mazo de 150 diferentes por ej. se ve correctísimo.
Yo creo que el mayor problema es que nos gusta ganar, y en estos juegos para listos gana (o tiene ventaja) el que conoce mejor el juego (normalmente el propietario). Ya que lo ha jugado mas veces con grupos de personas diferentes. En el momento que hay algo que escapa de su control como los dados del Catan o sus  intercambios y movimientos del ladrón (que te lo pueden colocar a tí entre todos los "peores jugadores" ya
decimos random castaña injugable voy a ponerle treses porque pierdo.

El Monopoly se parece mucho al Catan, hay intercambios que pueden hacer que el jugador con ventaja en las tiradas de dados se equilibre con los demás, pero claro para esto hace falta que jueguen adultos y no niños de 8 años.
Y esos dados hacen que no siempre ganen el mejor jugador, pero si que va a tener ventaja si sabe elegir las mejores posiciones para sus casas, incluso se puede parar el juego antes de la tirada de cualquier jugador y negociar intercambios o construir casas donde sea más probable que vaya a caer, y eso ya lo hemos aprendido con los ochos y seises rojitos del Catan.
No es el juego definitivo pero si uno que todo el mundo debe jugarlo porque es un juego mítico, y no es tan malo como lo recordabais o como quiere hacer creer la Bgg.
A mí también me jode ir al carrefour y que haya diez versiones de monopoly trivials y ahora caigo y que no vendan Twilight Imperiums de diez horas de juego o through the ages con su hora de explicación, pero es que eso no es para todo el mundo, tranquilo tú no tienes la culpa y por mucho que pongas cuatros en la bgg a la gente le va a dar igual.
Solo que olvidarse de eso y si te gustan los juegos de mesa tienes que poder apreciar el Monopoly.


[spoiler]

Buildings
There are 32 houses and 12 hotels in a Monopoly® set and that's it. Once these are used up you cannot buy any more. This can be used to an advantage. If someone buys up the last of the houses than no more building can occur. This includes hotels.

When you sell houses or hotels back to the bank you only get half of what you paid for them.

You can buy and sell buildings, or conduct any other business, at any point in the game. You don't have to wait for your turn. However, this business should be conducted between roles of the dice, with a brief "time out" being called.

Auctions
If you decide you do not want to buy a property you land on, it is immediately auctioned by the bank. One way or another the bank gets rid of it. Regardless of price, the property is sold to the highest bidder.

Cards
Once a "Chance" or "Community Chest" card is drawn, it is placed, face down, on the bottom of the deck (unless it is a "Get Out of Jail Free" card). The deck is never reshuffled during the game. It is fun when the cards have gone around once and you have an idea of what cards are coming up. This is especially true in the later stages of the game if you know one of the "building repair" cards are coming up and there are lots of houses and hotels about. Drawing cards then begins to resemble a game of Russian Roulette.

Income Tax
Income tax is calculated from total net worth, including property and buildings, not just cash on hand. You must decided whether to pay the 10% or the $200 before you count up what you have.

The Bank
The bank will not except anything from players except cash, houses, and hotels, with buildings worth only half their purchase price. Money can be raised by mortgaging properties. The bank cannot take back property. If a player happens to go bankrupt to the bank, the bank must immediately auction all of that player's properties. The bank, or any other player, cannot loan money to another player.

Going Into Debt
Quite simply, You can't! Once your assets are down to zero (or less) you are bankrupt and out of the game. You can get a "loan" from the bank in the form of mortgaging.

Jail
A player can collect rent or conduct any other business when in jail, just like Al Capone did.

If you do not roll doubles on your third turn in jail then you must pay the $50 fine.

Mortgages
When you bring property out of mortgage you must pay 10% interest.

If you obtain mortgage property from another player you must pay the 10% interest immediately, whether or not you take it out of mortgage. If you bring the property out of mortgage at a later time a further 10% is still applied. This additional interest can be avoided by bringing the properties out of mortgage immediately.

Trades
Under no circumstances can players loan money to each other, nor can houses or hotels be transferred from one player to another. Buildings must be sold back to the bank for one-half of their purchase price, and purchased by the other player at the appropriate value for the properties they will be built upon. Player are free to exchange properties (provided they do not contain buildings), cash or "Get Out of Jail Free" cards in trades. Players cannot trade "immunity" for fines when landing on other player's properties.

Free Parking
Nothing happens on "Free Parking". No money collects here. It's exactly what the name says – free parking.

However, if you have the Stock Exchange option, Free Parking becomes the Stock Exchange.

GO
You do not get $400 if you land on "GO". You just get your regular salary of $200.

Introduction

Monopoly is a game that people love to hate on the Geek, but is it really so bad? I'm going to give away the ending of this review by telling you that I rate it a 5 out of 10 in my game collection. That is for the four to six player game, mind you. Monopoly is terrible with two or three players. I rarely play Monopoly, because I have sucked everyone I can into board gaming and as a result I always have better things to play. But, from time to time, I do end up playing Monopoly, and I always enjoy it. There are just other games I enjoy more. I am going to assume for the purpose of this review that everyone reading it has played Monopoly and is familiar with the rules. There is a new version of Monopoly with a speed die to speed up the game. I haven't played that version and I'm not sure it is a good idea for reasons I will discuss in the review. I'm going to write this review as answers to a number of questions, starting with some Monopoly myths.


Doesn't A Game of Monopoly Never End?

In a way this is not a myth. Most people play Monopoly with house rules. In particular, most people play with some sort of rule that injects money into the game when you land on Free Parking. As noted on the game page, this rule breaks the game. Monopoly is a limited commodity game, in which you have to manage your primary resource, which is money. In fact, as far as I am aware, Monopoly is the first resource management game. In any resource game, if you change it to flood the market with a particular resource you will break the game. Imagine a game of Settlers of Catan with a house rule that said, instead of returning resource cards when building, the next player to roll a 7 collected them all. This would absolutely destroy the game. Something similar happens in Monopoly when you flood it with money. The game is designed to flush money out of the system when you purchase property and build houses and hotels. Without flushing that money out, bankruptcy takes too long to accomplish.

My own feeling is that these house rules date to a time where the point of playing the game was to keep the kids away from mischief. A lot of parents wanted to make the game as long as possible so that they would give fake money to the kids in rents, and not real money to the neighbours in property damage. Now we have TV and the internet for that purpose. If you play with the actual rules, and at least one competent player, the game takes about two hours.


Isn't Monopoly Just a Game of Luck?

No. Monopoly is a game in which the most skilled player will almost always win. The problem is that people think that there is no skill to Monopoly and so they do not bother to develop a strategy. About twenty years ago I started refusing to play Monopoly with house rules. Since that time, I have never lost a game of Monopoly. Granted, that is only about twelve games, but it is probably my longest unbroken winning streak in any board game.

The view that randomness equals a lack of skill is not as widely held as it once was, probably because it is completely wrong. In a well-designed game, random elements are about risk management. Having some sense of what you are likely to hit next and which of your properties are likely to be hit is important in deciding whether to take the risk and build housing or whether to sit on that pile of cash. Knowing which properties are more likely to be hit and which sets are better is important too.

More importantly, developing your economic engine is what Monopoly is all about. Making sets and building housing on them, which can bring in money for more housing and sets is the engine. No one seems to think about Monopoly that way, but it is really the first game designed in which you make an engine. To take an obvious example, many people wait until every single property is taken before getting to work on their economic engine. In fact, deciding when to start developing and depleting that stack of cash you could use to buy properties is an integral part of the game.

There are all sorts of interesting moves in Monopoly. For instance, if a set is split between two players and you land on the third property, sometimes it is not a good idea to buy it. You can put it up for auction, and, because you are allowed to bid, step in if it goes for a bargain. But often you can watch one of the players pay far too much to obtain that property and cripple themselves; evil and fun.

Most importantly, Monopoly is, at its heart, a trading game. Winning at Monopoly is about understanding how to trade. Even if you land on nothing, you can still win, because there should be a player short of cash who will sell stuff to you, and then you have something to trade. I once won a game of four player Monopoly in which I landed on three properties, none of which were all that good. I had to make four trades to do it (that's right, I traded with one player twice), but I still won. I'm going to come back to trading later, because it is trading which I love about the game.


Doesn't Monopoly Have Boring Mechanics?

OK, so roll-and-move is a bit of a boring mechanic, but the real reason that Monopoly has lasted is not because stupid people don't know any better. At the time it came out it was radically innovative. I have already mentioned that it has an economic engine in it and that it is a resource management game. It has set collection as well. Lastly, it has the best trading mechanic of any board game that I have ever played. Other than abstracts, Monopoly was the best game around for decades. Now it is not. But buying Monopoly was a sensible decision until at least the seventies. People who buy Monopoly now are just a little behind the times.


Isn't It Bad Because it has Player Elimination?

There is some truth to this objection. Mind you, I think that there is something great about player elimination. I enjoy watching my enemies going down to crushing defeat, instead of having slightly fewer points than me. However, I would never bring Monopoly to a game night because of the player elimination. Monopoly is a true family game in that it should only be played by families. If someone gets eliminated, they just wander off and do something else: play Wii, or talk to batty Aunt Betty or whatever. Besides, you can get your non-board gaming family members to play it. Although, I recommend brain-washing your family until there are no non-board gaming family members. Finally, if the game is hopeless, don't forget that it is possible for the losing players to concede and not wait for the inevitable. They do that in chess, so it is OK.


What's so great about this Trading You Keep Going on About?

In Monopoly you can trade anything, at any time with anyone. This is an amazing mechanic. While Monopoly does not have a lot of downtime because of its roll and move mechanic, you can be trying to trade through most of the game. That means that there does not need to be a lot of down time, because you can be trying to make trades from near the beginning to near the end. People tend to think that Monopoly has two stages. The first stage where you buy properties and the second where you develop them with a midway point where you might do some trading. In fact, quite quickly most of the properties tend to go, and it makes sense to start trading then, to get your economic engine up to speed. As the game progresses, you might need more sets or more money, and when someone lands on your property, it often makes sense to resolve that with some element of trading.

Trading is almost always to your advantage, because you get a benefit relative to the players that are not involved in the trade. Making the trade is the important part. For instance, one of the tricks that I use to win is to flip my offer in a potential trade. I might offer another player Set A, if they give me Set B and $200. If they refuse, I will suggest that they get Set B and $200, if they give me Set A. I am pretty good at Monopoly, because I focus more on making trades, than ripping off the other player and I trade whenever it makes sense. Once you see that trading early and often is the key to victory, two wonderful things happen. First, you win about a dozen games in a row. Second, the game speeds up dramatically because development happens before thousands of dollars of extra cash have been injected into the game by going round Go! As a result bankruptcies happen much earlier.

Because you can trade anything, at any time, with anyone, the trades are richer and more complex than in any other game. I have managed to get a trade to happen on several occasions by throwing in a get out of jail for free card. There are massive numbers of trades that are possible. You can give people sets in return for sets. You can give them sets in return for properties that you cannot use, in order to trade them to someone else. Money can play a factor in the trade, with a little bit of cash to sweeten the deal. You can even just sell or buy something from another player. Trading is very complex and filled with nuances. The more you understand the game, the more elements come into your trading decisions. Understanding the psychology of the other players and what they will trade and what they overvalue is another huge factor. It completely buries the trading mechanics in any other game. A wood for a sheep looks boring in comparison.

Some games are only good if they are played by skilled players. Weirdly, Monopoly is one of those games, although it gets good with only one skilled player. If someone starts trying to trade early and often, other people do too. Because trading for properties you cannot use makes sense if you can mortgage them or trade them, there are always multiple players to trade with. Making several offers gets everyone trying to trade in my experience.

My skepticism about the speed die, is that, from what I understand, by accelerating buying the properties and other players landing on them, you encourage the lead players not to trade and to try to wait for sets. To my mind, anything that discourages trading is bad. I should buy the new Monopoly, to get that Speed Dice, and see if that is a real concern. But I cannot justify it, because I have three copies already. As all gamers know, you get given themed versions of Monopoly all the time.


If You Love the Trading so Much, Why only a 5?

The biggest problem with Monopoly is not any of the alleged problems addressed above. The real problem is the decision-to-time ratio. You do not make that many decisions in Monopoly and only a few of those decisions take much thought. Most of the time, it is obvious whether you should buy a property, mortgage a property or build a house. The really interesting decisions are around trading and you only do that a few times in a game, but, even playing properly, the game takes two hours.

Monopoly is an outdated game with a truly awesome mechanic in the middle of it, which you do not get to do enough. But that mechanic is wonderful. Until someone comes up with a game that has trading options as deep and rich and non-obvious as Monopoly, but that takes a shorter time to resolve, Monopoly will not be completely obsolete. Until that game appears, I will always be willing to play Monopoly, at least until my gamer brain-washing of the other players is complete.

http://files.geekdo.com/geekfile_download.php?filetype=application%2Fpdf&filename=Monopoly+World+Championship+Game+Rules.pdf&filecode=2y6z1xigud&validationcode=52044d711457f62ebe8d7b4615e664a4



http://www.businessinsider.com/math-monopoly-statistics-2013-6?op=1
[/spoiler]

Comparar el Monopoly con el Catán es como comparar a Carmen de Mairena con Cristina Pedroche.

Ahora, que yo no tengo problema, tu te quedas con Carmen de Mairena y yo con la Pedroche

[Borja]

Bueno, y verás cuando pruebes el "Parchis-Cube" de Gelete. Vas a flipar. Está cubando el parchís y se le ha ocurrido un sistema de draft revolucionario del copón. Cremita. Arde el hacha y tiembla el misterio.

Esó sí, por ahora solo hay formato "legacy", el "pauper" está costando más.

jejeje no se si tu mensaje es troleo (del bueno, del divertido), o sencillamente buen sentido del humor, pero si puedo decirte que derrocha mala leche en cada palabra (otra vez, mala leche de la buena) joder, ya podía haber más gente con este sentido del humor! 

Hoy por hoy no me negaría a una partida a Monopoly (especialmente si la opción es algo como Troyes o Castillos de Borgoña  ), pero no es mi primera opción habiendo cosas como Catán, Bohnanza o Dragon's Gold por ahí.

Y aquí viene el otro, que no pierde ocasión de lanzar darditos envenenados al pobre Troyes o Borgoña. Joder vaya par! 

Por añadir un matiz, entiendo todo lo que decís, de verdad. Y entiendo que el ajedrez y el parchís estén donde están en la bgg, de verdad. Pero ojo, no olvidemos que no todos los juegos son ni tienen que ser para jugones o para los usuarios de la bgg. El parchís no será el mejor juego del mundo pero, hablo por mí, es el único juego con el que puedo jugar con mi madre (80 años). Y de verdad, ver a una anciana que normalmente es muy tranquilita y muy educada comportarse como se comporta jugando al parchis no tiene precio. Poder disfrutar de esos momentos con ella es algo alucinante y algo que nunca olvidaré y solo por eso para mí el parchis es "lo mejor".

[Maeglor]

Bueno, y verás cuando pruebes el "Parchis-Cube" de Gelete. Vas a flipar. Está cubando el parchís y se le ha ocurrido un sistema de draft revolucionario del copón. Cremita. Arde el hacha y tiembla el misterio.

Esó sí, por ahora solo hay formato "legacy", el "pauper" está costando más.

jejeje no se si tu mensaje es troleo (del bueno, del divertido), o sencillamente buen sentido del humor, pero si puedo decirte que derrocha mala leche en cada palabra (otra vez, mala leche de la buena) joder, ya podía haber más gente con este sentido del humor! 

Esto viene de aquí, que alguno estará fuera de contexto.

Dadme el parchís y lograré cubarlo

Coñas aparte.

Cada juego tiene su nicho, es evidente. Monopoly tiene el suyo y por supuesto el parchís. El 'Snakes and Ladders' de Dora la Exploradora es el juego que más juega mi hijo y no hay nada malo en ello.

La lista de la BGG hay que ponerla en el contexto de que está hecha por votos de jugones normalmente, luego refleja los gustos de los jugones. Si hicieras lo mismo con las familias españolas tradicionales saldría otra lista diferente y es que el parchís, el tute, dominó y muchos más son juegazos en el contexto adecuado. Lo que no quita que a mí me guste más un Le Havre.

[Mérek]

Bueno, y verás cuando pruebes el "Parchis-Cube" de Gelete. Vas a flipar. Está cubando el parchís y se le ha ocurrido un sistema de draft revolucionario del copón. Cremita. Arde el hacha y tiembla el misterio.

Esó sí, por ahora solo hay formato "legacy", el "pauper" está costando más.

jejeje no se si tu mensaje es troleo (del bueno, del divertido), o sencillamente buen sentido del humor, pero si puedo decirte que derrocha mala leche en cada palabra (otra vez, mala leche de la buena) joder, ya podía haber más gente con este sentido del humor! 

Esto viene de aquí, que alguno estará fuera de contexto.

Dadme el parchís y lograré cubarlo

Coñas aparte.

Cada juego tiene su nicho, es evidente. Monopoly tiene el suyo y por supuesto el parchís. El 'Snakes and Ladders' de Dora la Exploradora es el juego que más juega mi hijo y no hay nada malo en ello.

La lista de la BGG hay que ponerla en el contexto de que está hecha por votos de jugones normalmente, luego refleja los gustos de los jugones. Si hicieras lo mismo con las familias españolas tradicionales saldría otra lista diferente y es que el parchís, el tute, dominó y muchos más son juegazos en el contexto adecuado. Lo que no quita que a mí me guste más un Le Havre.

Si, con la diferencia de que quien ha jugado a un TS ha jugado tambien a un parchis, Monopoly, Dominó, etc, y puede comparar. Al revés no ocurre lo mismo

[cartesius]

<mode-nolstágico-on>
Aaahhh... qué tiempos aquellos cuando entraba a este hilo para saber la evolución de los juegos en el ranking de la BGG...
<mode-nolstágico-off>

Ooooooooooooooooootra vez discutiendo sobre lo mismo??? Bueno, ahora metiendo al Monopoly de por medio!!

Maeglor en su día publicó un post cojonudo sobre esto. Como soy un vago para buscarlo, lo resumo: EN ESTE P. HILO SE HABLA DE LAS ASCENSIONES (y bajadas) DE LOS JUEGOS EN EL RANKING DE LA BGG.

Y personalmente me gusta porque son datos OBJETIVOS y me da una IDEA de cómo se mueven ciertos juegos. Al que no le guste el ranking de la BGG o el que crea que el Monopoly es la hostia... que se cree otro hilo, c*j*nes!!!!! GRRRRRRRRR!!!

Moderadores!!!! Acudid a mi auxilio!!!

PS: perdón, ya sabéis que yo no soy así pero es que es taaaaaaaaaaaaan cansino el offtopic en este hilo... Eso y que me han secuestrado la cuenta y que me caí en una lancha

[Maeglor]

Jajaja ¡cartesius! ¡Has sido poseido!!!!!

[Quas4R]

<mode-nolstágico-on>
Aaahhh... qué tiempos aquellos cuando entraba a este hilo para saber la evolución de los juegos en el ranking de la BGG...
<mode-nolstágico-off>

Ooooooooooooooooootra vez discutiendo sobre lo mismo??? Bueno, ahora metiendo al Monopoly de por medio!!

Maeglor en su día publicó un post cojonudo sobre esto. Como soy un vago para buscarlo, lo resumo: EN ESTE P. HILO SE HABLA DE LAS ASCENSIONES (y bajadas) DE LOS JUEGOS EN EL RANKING DE LA BGG.

Y personalmente me gusta porque son datos OBJETIVOS y me da una IDEA de cómo se mueven ciertos juegos. Al que no le guste el ranking de la BGG o el que crea que el Monopoly es la hostia... que se cree otro hilo, c*j*nes!!!!! GRRRRRRRRR!!!

Moderadores!!!! Acudid a mi auxilio!!!

PS: perdón, ya sabéis que yo no soy así pero es que es taaaaaaaaaaaaan cansino el offtopic en este hilo... Eso y que me han secuestrado la cuenta y que me caí en una lancha

No te falta razón! Pero tomate la pastilla, que te sube la tensión.

[eldibujante]

[...] porque puede haber un juego muy popular al que han votado negativamente muchos. Y puede haber un juego poco conocido al que han votado positivamente todos.

Por suerte la Geek List, aunque la critiquemos, ha buscado un sistema para minimizar eso y que no pase como en Tripadviso, ya que la BGG evalúa no sólo las puntuaciones que tiene un juego, si no la cantidad de gente que lo tiene, las partidas que se han jugado... etc, con lo que es una lista bastante fidedigna de los juegos más populares y de calidad (aunque por supuesto luego no compartas gustos con la mayoría) de cada momento.

[augustoaag]

[...] porque puede haber un juego muy popular al que han votado negativamente muchos. Y puede haber un juego poco conocido al que han votado positivamente todos.

Por suerte la Geek List, aunque la critiquemos, ha buscado un sistema para minimizar eso y que no pase como en Tripadviso, ya que la BGG evalúa no sólo las puntuaciones que tiene un juego, si no la cantidad de gente que lo tiene, las partidas que se han jugado... etc, con lo que es una lista bastante fidedigna de los juegos más populares y de calidad (aunque por supuesto luego no compartas gustos con la mayoría) de cada momento.

¿me cuentas ese sistema que usan en la bgg, esa fórmula matemática que tiene en cuenta todos esos factores ?

[javos]

Está en la misma bgg explicado a grandes rasgos, pero no en detalle para evitar manipulaciones.

The BGG Rating is based on the Average Rating, but the number is altered. BoardGameGeek's ranking charts are ordered using the BGG Rating. To prevent games with relatively few votes climbing to the top of the BGG Ranks, artificial "dummy" votes are added to the User Ratings. These votes are currently thought to be 100 votes equal to the mid range of the voting scale: 5.5, but the actual algorithm is kept secret to avoid manipulation. The effect of adding these dummy votes is to pull BGG Ratings toward the mid range. Games with a large number of votes see their BGG Rating alter very little from their Average Rating, but games with relatively few user ratings will see their BGG Rating move considerably toward 5.5. This is known as "Bayesian averaging" and a quick search of both BGG and/or the Web will reveal much discussion on the topic.

[raik]

Pero habrá Earlybirds?

[Betote]

Pero habrá Earlybirds?

¡Pues claro que habrá Earlybirds! Seríamos tontos si no hubiera Earlybirds.

[Manchi]

Eldritch Horror se ha colado en el top 100, puesto 92 mas concretamente.
Robinson Crusoe en el 15 y Los Castillos de Borgoña en el 11. ¿Conseguirán colarse entre los 10 primeros?
Dominion baja hasta el 19.

[vendettarock]

Está en la misma bgg explicado a grandes rasgos, pero no en detalle para evitar manipulaciones.

The BGG Rating is based on the Average Rating, but the number is altered. BoardGameGeek's ranking charts are ordered using the BGG Rating. To prevent games with relatively few votes climbing to the top of the BGG Ranks, artificial "dummy" votes are added to the User Ratings. These votes are currently thought to be 100 votes equal to the mid range of the voting scale: 5.5, but the actual algorithm is kept secret to avoid manipulation. The effect of adding these dummy votes is to pull BGG Ratings toward the mid range. Games with a large number of votes see their BGG Rating alter very little from their Average Rating, but games with relatively few user ratings will see their BGG Rating move considerably toward 5.5. This is known as "Bayesian averaging" and a quick search of both BGG and/or the Web will reveal much discussion on the topic.

Y en cristiano?

[Manchi]

Está en la misma bgg explicado a grandes rasgos, pero no en detalle para evitar manipulaciones.

The BGG Rating is based on the Average Rating, but the number is altered. BoardGameGeek's ranking charts are ordered using the BGG Rating. To prevent games with relatively few votes climbing to the top of the BGG Ranks, artificial "dummy" votes are added to the User Ratings. These votes are currently thought to be 100 votes equal to the mid range of the voting scale: 5.5, but the actual algorithm is kept secret to avoid manipulation. The effect of adding these dummy votes is to pull BGG Ratings toward the mid range. Games with a large number of votes see their BGG Rating alter very little from their Average Rating, but games with relatively few user ratings will see their BGG Rating move considerably toward 5.5. This is known as "Bayesian averaging" and a quick search of both BGG and/or the Web will reveal much discussion on the topic.

Y en cristiano?

A grandes rasgos: se sabe que hay un algoritmo secreto pero no se sabe cual es, pero se cree que lo que hace la bgg es añadir 100 votos de 5,5 a las notas de los juegos para que estos tiendan a la media. Es decir, minimizar los 1 y los 10 del tipo "porque yo lo valgo", soy el diseñador y le casco un 10/odio al diseñador y le casco un 1. Si el juego tiene muchos votos estos 100 votos extra supondrán poca diferencia. Si el juego tiene pocos votos tenderán hacia el 5,5 de nota media.

Edito para añadir, por si no queda claro, que esto se hace para evitar que juegos con muy pocas notas, pero muy altas, se encaramen a las primeras posiciones de la lista.