Two Kingston board game enthusiasts win award for their podcast

It might be an understatement to say that Michael Walker and Mark Bigney are passionate when it comes to board games.

Both men say their love for games started in their youth and continues today.

“It’s the interesting things that people come up with, the way it keeps you busy, the way it works your mind, the new and interesting things that people have come up with in this board game industry,” said Walker explaining why board games still fascinate him.

That shared passion for board games led them to launch a podcast called So Very Wrong About Games.

“We just talk about the games that we’ve played this particular week, and then we talk about news that has come up that week in the industry and then we focus on one particular game and deep dive into that,” said Walker.

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Bigney says the podcast is a great vehicle for conversation with fellow board gamers.

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“We really do want to emphasize that although we do have very strong opinions we’re not trying to present them as dogma,” said Bigney. “We’re just trying to get game criticism to more closely approach the criticism we see in books, films, television movies — things like that.”

That thought process has proven to be popular.

The pair won the 2020 Golden Geek Award in the podcast category for 2020.

Walker and Bigney say winning the award means a lot to them because nominations and winners are chosen by the board game hobbyists.

“Seeing as it’s the one and only place we can get sort of a peer award from, it’s a nice feeling to be recognized,” said Walker.

Bigney agrees, saying to win is nice after being nominated several times but never walking away with the award.

“The fact that listeners were moved independently to do this, we found exceptionally gratifying.”

The duo issues a new episode of So Very Wrong About Games every Tuesday morning and Walker says there’s never a shortage of material to cover.

“There are about a thousand board games that come out every year,” said Walker.

To date, there have been 167 one-hour episodes of So Very Wrong About Games.