Shut Up & Sit Down

Shut Up & Sit Down (often abbreviated to SUSD) is a board game review website and YouTube channel headed by Quintin Smith, Matt Lees, and Tom Brewster.[2] The channel formerly had Paul Dean as a member, and has featured Ava Foxfort, Philippa Warr of Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer, Emily from Emily and Things, and Brendan Caldwell of Rock Paper Shotgun.[3]

Shut Up & Sit Down
The logo for the SUSD website
YouTube information
ChannelsShut Up & Sit Down
Years active2011[1]-present
Subscribers409 thousand
(September 2023)
Total views87.7 million
(September 2023)
Associated acts
Websitewww.shutupandsitdown.com
100,000 subscribers2018
Last updated: 11 September 2023

Content

The Shut Up & Sit Down YouTube channel mostly features reviews of board games with dry and surreal sketch comedy. The website features blog-style reviews, and has a podcast, Shut Up & Sit Down: The Podcast![3]

A guiding principle in the critics' work is "social togetherness" and bringing people together through board games.[4] A frequent criticism from SUSD concerns the prevalence of large plastic miniatures in some board games, which they find fault with due to their high cost.[2]

The channel has featured playthroughs of megagames, the first of which prompted renewed interest in designing and playing megagames, particularly in exporting the hobby from the United Kingdom to the United States.[5] Noam Strassfeld and Shyamal Ruparel of the New York MegaGame Society, who organized the first American megagame, were first made aware of megagames through Shut Up & Sit Down.[6]

Background

In 2017, Shut Up & Sit Down debuted SHUX, a yearly board gaming convention at Vancouver Convention Centre centered around the website.[7] In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team behind the convention instead created AwSHUX which was an online and free version of the convention.[8] SHUX has had four in-person conventions in Vancouver (2017, 2018, 2019, 2022) and three digital (2020, 2021 x2).

Reception

The Guardian credited Shut Up & Sit Down (alongside the website BoardGameGeek and Wil Wheaton's YouTube show TableTop) with opening "a window of interest" on the internet for tabletop gaming.[9] Polygon deemed Shut Up & Sit Down: The Podcast! the best board game podcast of 2016.[10] In 2018, IGN recommended the SUSD YouTube channel as "a great way to explore a hobby that is growing fast".[11] Gordon Calleja praised SUSD for accelerating the "belated process" of "sensitivity to inclusiveness with regard to ethnicity" in board games, but criticised their reviews of miniature-based board games.[2]

The channel's popularity is seen as very influential in the wider tabletop game industry. In 2021, board game company Z-Man Games sunsetted its production of a line of "classic" euro board games, implying in a blog post by its studio head, Steve Kimball, that Shut Up & Sit Down and other UK board game reviewers "hold massive sway over the current industry’s focus".[12] The post also stated that "if you do attempt to re-release a game via traditional distribution channels, then you need to pray that any number of witty UK board game influencers take notice and give you coverage."[12]

References
  1. "Season 1 - Episode 1". Shut Up & Sit Down. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
  2. Calleja, Gordon (2022-10-04). Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-54395-8.
  3. Mann, Douglas (2016-03-02). "Watching People Play: Introduction to Board Game Videography". PopMatters. Retrieved 2022-10-21.
  4. Calleja, Gordon (2022). Unboxed : board game experience and design. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0-262-37028-8. OCLC 1333708305.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. Shuck, Derek (4 February 2017). "The Intrigue Of Massive Scale MegaGames". Vice News. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  6. Fulton, Will (7 August 2014). "XCOM Meets Model UN in the First American Megagame". Digital Trends. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  7. Jones, Nicola (14 February 2020). "Game On". Pique Newsmagazine. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  8. "SHUX Posts and Announcements from ShutUpandSitDown.com". Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  9. Jolin, Dan (25 September 2016). "The rise and rise of tabletop gaming". Guardian. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  10. Hall, Charlie (9 March 2017). "The best board games of 2016". Polygon. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  11. Griffin, David (3 August 2018). "9 YouTube Channels That Are Just as Addictive as Netflix". IGN. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  12. Carter, Chase (17 March 2021). "Z-Man Games sunsets Euro Classic line of board games, including in-progress Princes of Florence". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
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