Boardgamegeek Scraper
Pricing
Pay per usage
Boardgamegeek Scraper
Boardgamegeek Scraper. Extract structured data with automatic pagination, proxy rotation, and JSON/CSV export. Pay only for results.
What it does
BoardGameGeek Scraper extracts board game ratings, reviews, player counts, play times, and category details from BoardGameGeek (BGG), the world's largest board game database. It uses the BGG XML API v2 to search for games by name and fetch comprehensive details including community ratings and statistics. The actor handles BGG's queuing system automatically with built-in retry logic.
Why use it
BoardGameGeek is the definitive resource for tabletop gaming data, with millions of ratings and reviews across hundreds of thousands of board games. This actor is perfect for board game publishers, reviewers, retailers, game designers, and hobbyists who want to analyze game trends, compare titles, track ratings over time, or build recommendation systems. Instead of manually browsing the BGG website, you get clean structured data ready for analysis.
How it works
- The actor takes a search query and searches the BGG XML API v2 for matching board games.
- It collects game IDs from search results up to the specified maximum.
- Game details are fetched in batches of 20 using the BGG thing endpoint with statistics enabled.
- The actor handles HTTP 202 responses (BGG queue processing) with automatic retries.
- XML responses are parsed using regex-based extraction to avoid external dependencies.
- Results are pushed to the Apify dataset in a clean, structured format.
Input parameters
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
searchQuery | string | "catan" | Search query to find board games |
maxResults | integer | 20 | Maximum number of games to return (1-200) |
Output fields
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
gameName | string | Name of the board game |
yearPublished | string | Year the game was published |
rating | number | Average community rating (0-10 scale) |
numRatings | number | Total number of user ratings |
minPlayers | number | Minimum player count |
maxPlayers | number | Maximum player count |
playTime | string | Average play time in minutes |
categories | string | Game categories (e.g., Strategy, Family) |
url | string | Link to the BGG game page |
Cost estimate
The BGG XML API is free and requires no authentication. The pay-per-event pricing is $0.00075 per result. Fetching 100 games costs approximately $0.075. Memory usage is minimal at 512 MB default.
Tips
- The BGG API has rate limits; the actor includes automatic delays between batch requests.
- Search queries match game titles, so use partial names for broader results.
- BGG may queue API requests during high traffic. The actor automatically retries up to 5 times.
- For gaming data from other platforms, check out Steam Game Stats Scraper and Twitch Channel Scraper.
