BoardGameGeek Scraper — games, rankings, ratings & reviews

BoardGameGeek Scraper extracts board game data from BoardGameGeek (BGG): overall rank, Geek rating, average rating, number of ratings, complexity weight, player counts, play time, designers, publishers, mechanics, categories, images and user reviews. Scrape any list of games, the BGG Hotness list, the top-ranked games, or every game of a designer, publisher or mechanic, with no BGG account or XML API token. Export the data to JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or pull it through the Apify API.

What is BoardGameGeek Scraper?

BoardGameGeek Scraper is an unofficial BoardGameGeek API alternative. BGG's XML API now requires registration and returns 403 to anonymous requests. This Actor reads the same public JSON endpoints the BGG website uses, so you don't need an API key, an XML API token or a login.

It can scrape:

• Game details for any list of BGG game IDs or URLs (expansions too).
• Hotness: the games currently trending on BGG (up to 50).
• Top ranked: the overall BGG Board Game Rank from #1 down (top 100, 500, 1,000…).
• Games by designer, artist, publisher, mechanic, category or family, best-ranked first (e.g. all cooperative games, all Stonemaier games, all Uwe Rosenberg designs).
• Reviews (optional): the newest written user comments with username, rating, text and date.

Results land in an Apify dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or read through the API.

What data can I extract with BoardGameGeek Scraper?

Field	Description
name, id, url	Game name, BGG ID and page URL
yearPublished	Year the game was published
rank	Overall BGG Board Game Rank (null if unranked)
bayesAverage	BGG "Geek Rating", the score used for the ranking
average	Plain average user rating
usersRated	Number of user ratings
weight	Complexity, 1 (light) to 5 (heavy)
owned, wishing, trading	Users who own it, wishlist it, or offer it for trade
minPlayers, maxPlayers	Player count range
bestPlayers	Best player count from the community poll, e.g. "3-4"
minPlaytime, maxPlaytime	Play time in minutes
minAge	Minimum age
designers, artists, publishers	People and companies behind the game
mechanics, categories, families	BGG classification tags
image, thumbnail	Box art image URLs
shortDescription	One-line game description
reviews	Newest written reviews: username, rating, text, date (optional)
scrapedAt	Time the record was scraped

How can I use BoardGameGeek data?

• Board game publishers and designers: benchmark competitors' ratings, weight and ownership, and track rank movement.
• Retailers and e-commerce: enrich product catalogs with ratings, player counts, play time and images.
• Content creators and bloggers: build "top cooperative games" or "best 2-player games" lists from real data.
• Data analysts and hobbyists: study trends in mechanics, categories and complexity over time.
• Crowdfunding researchers: see what's hot right now and what reviewers say.
• Recommendation apps: feed game metadata and ratings into a recommender or search index.

How to scrape BoardGameGeek data

1. Click Try for free on this page to open the Actor in Apify Console (a free Apify account is enough).
2. Pick a Mode: specific games, Hotness, Top ranked, or games by designer / publisher / mechanic / category / family.
3. Fill the matching input: game IDs or URLs, or a link type and ID, and Max games. Turn on Include reviews if you want user comments.
4. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
5. Open the Output tab and download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or fetch it through the API.

How much does it cost to scrape BoardGameGeek?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing, so you pay only for the games you get:

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.005 per run
game-result	$0.002 per game ($2.00 per 1,000 games)

Reviews are included at no extra charge. Error items (games not found, invalid IDs, failed requests) are never charged.

Example: one run that scrapes 1,000 games costs $0.005 + $2.00 = $2.005.

The Apify free plan gives you $5 of credit every month, which covers roughly 2,500 games per month. You can set a maximum cost per run: when it is reached, the Actor stops cleanly and keeps the results already scraped.

⬇️ Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	games | hotness | topRanked | linkedItems	games	What to scrape
gameIds	list of strings	—	games mode: IDs (174430) or URLs (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/catan)
linkType	designer | artist | publisher | mechanic | category | family	designer	linkedItems mode
linkId	string	—	linkedItems mode: numeric ID, or a BGG URL (then linkType is detected from it)
maxItems	integer	50	Max games in listing modes (Hotness has at most 50). Ignored in games mode
includeReviews	boolean	false	Add the newest written reviews
maxReviewsPerGame	integer	20	Reviews per game when includeReviews is on

{
  "mode": "games",
  "gameIds": ["174430", "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224517/brass-birmingham", "13"],
  "includeReviews": true,
  "maxReviewsPerGame": 20
}

More examples:

• Top 100 games: { "mode": "topRanked", "maxItems": 100 }
• All cooperative games, best first: { "mode": "linkedItems", "linkType": "mechanic", "linkId": "2023", "maxItems": 500 }
• One designer's games: { "mode": "linkedItems", "linkId": "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/69802/isaac-childres" }

Find an ID in any BGG URL: boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2023/cooperative-game.

⬆️ Output

One dataset item per game. The Overview table view in the Output tab shows image, name, year, rank, ratings, weight, players, play time, owners, designers and URL.

{
  "id": 224517,
  "name": "Brass: Birmingham",
  "url": "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224517/brass-birmingham",
  "yearPublished": 2018,
  "rank": 1,
  "bayesAverage": 8.39,
  "average": 8.559,
  "usersRated": 60386,
  "weight": 3.86,
  "owned": 86682,
  "wishing": 22503,
  "trading": 388,
  "minPlayers": 2,
  "maxPlayers": 4,
  "bestPlayers": "3-4",
  "minPlaytime": 60,
  "maxPlaytime": 120,
  "minAge": 14,
  "designers": ["Gavan Brown", "Matt Tolman", "Martin Wallace"],
  "artists": ["Gavan Brown", "Lina Cossette", "David Forest"],
  "publishers": ["Roxley", "Arclight Games", "Funforge"],
  "mechanics": ["Hand Management", "Loans", "Market", "Network and Route Building"],
  "categories": ["Economic", "Industry / Manufacturing", "Trains"],
  "families": ["Country: England", "Crowdfunding: Kickstarter"],
  "image": "https://cf.geekdo-images.com/x3zxjr-Vw5iU4yDPg70Jgw__original/img/FpyxH41Y6_ROoePAilPNEhXnzO8=/0x0/filters:format(jpeg)/pic3490053.jpg",
  "thumbnail": "https://cf.geekdo-images.com/x3zxjr-Vw5iU4yDPg70Jgw__small/img/o18rjEemoWaVru9Y2TyPwuIaRfE=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic3490053.jpg",
  "shortDescription": "Build networks, grow industries, and navigate the world of the Industrial Revolution.",
  "reviews": [
    { "username": "powersland", "rating": 8, "text": "I actually think this is one of my favorite games...", "date": "2026-09-30 19:29:45" }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-01T01:39:59.406Z"
}

Notes on fields:

• reviews is present only with includeReviews: true. rating is null when the user commented without rating. date is when the comment was written (BGG server time).
• bestPlayers can list several values, e.g. "3, 5", and is null when the poll has no result.

Error items

If a game can't be scraped, the dataset gets an error item instead (free of charge):

{ "id": 999999999, "url": "https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/999999999", "errorType": "NOT_FOUND", "error": "No BGG item with id 999999999", "scrapedAt": "2026-10-01T01:40:02.112Z" }

errorType is NOT_FOUND, INVALID_GAME_ID, FETCH_FAILED or LISTING_FAILED.

Integrations and API

Run BoardGameGeek Scraper programmatically with the Apify API. Actor ID: istmobot/boardgamegeek-scraper.

Python (pip install apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("istmobot/boardgamegeek-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "topRanked",
    "maxItems": 100,
})
for game in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(game.get("rank"), game.get("name"), game.get("bayesAverage"))

Node.js (npm install apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('istmobot/boardgamegeek-scraper').call({
    mode: 'hotness',
    maxItems: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

HTTP: start a run and get the dataset items in one call:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/istmobot~boardgamegeek-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode": "games", "gameIds": ["174430", "13"]}'

You can also:

• Schedule runs (e.g. a daily topRanked or hotness snapshot) with Apify Schedules.
• Trigger webhooks when a run finishes.
• Connect the data to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack and other tools through Apify integrations.
• Use it from AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and others) via the Apify MCP server.

FAQ

Do I need a BGG account or API token? No. The Actor reads public data without logging in and without an XML API token.

How does "top ranked" work? BGG's browse pages are behind Cloudflare, so the Actor rebuilds the overall ranking from the ranked lists of BGG's eight game subdomains (Strategy, Thematic, Family, Party, Abstract, Children's, Customizable, Wargames). Every row carries the real overall rank. A ranked game that belongs to no subdomain would be missing; the log warns if any rank position is not found (none in the top 200 at the time of writing).

Does it support expansions? Yes, in games mode: pass the expansion's ID or URL. Listing modes return what BGG lists.

How fast is it? Are there limits? About 2 requests per game (plus review pages, 50 reviews per page), with 3 games processed in parallel. Rate limits and server errors are retried automatically with backoff. The Hotness list has at most 50 games; other listing modes go as deep as maxItems.

Can I track rank history? Yes. Schedule the Actor (e.g. a daily topRanked run) and compare the datasets between runs.

Can I schedule it? Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run it hourly, daily or weekly, and a webhook or integration to send each new dataset where you need it.

Is it legal to scrape BoardGameGeek? This Actor only collects publicly available data from public endpoints. It does not log in and does not bypass access controls. Reviews include public usernames, which can count as personal data under the GDPR and similar laws, so only collect and store it if you have a legitimate reason. You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws and BoardGameGeek's terms of service. If you're unsure, consult a lawyer.

This is an unofficial tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by BoardGameGeek, LLC.

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Your feedback

Found a bug or missing a field? Open an issue in the Issues tab and we'll take a look.