Where are your games? Displayed?

So a major (unrelated) subquestion that came out of the debate over Catacombs art was if you put your games out in the open. I find it an interesting question. Do you put all your games away in a closet or basement? Is that for storage, to keep random company from seeing it, or both? Alternatively, do you put them in the front room as a conversation piece? Or do you do something in between?

For me: for years, throughout my teens and twenties, I was so mortally embarrassed of my nerd interests that I threw virtually all of it away and put most of my video games away, hidden. I've gotten over that a lot, but I still definitely have a strong sense of non-kosherness from my boardgames. So I put my games in our library with all the books, open and on IKEA shelves. It serves as a middle ground---people would have to come into my library, which is upstairs near my bedroom, to see it. That means random company does not see it and I keep the tacky, nerdy shit under wraps. On the other hand, I think it fits in the library, and it serves a bit of a symbolic function. I put my games in the open and don't intentionally try to find a space where I and others cannot see them, like they've got the plague. But that's a context specific decision, for my circumstances and background.

The side problem, of course, is that from an artistic perspective games are tacky. But I put this up there with paperback books, which have the same problem (not hardback, which do look fairly put together, esp without sleeves). Sure, people think reading is a fancy pants, high class design statement decoration, but most paperback books look horrible and tacky.

Really curious to hear everyone's responses, I have sort of a complicated relationship with the social acceptability of my hobbies that my wife is constantly trying to get me over.

Sag has a really good point: Age: 32

I'd like to add age to the responses.

I'm 49, so I've gotten to the age where I don't care so much about what other people think. I'm married, and I have four kids in the house so I'm essentially immunized. I don't need to care what people think and it's not unreasonable for them to assume that the games with teeny-bopper covers aren't even mine.

My Dad used to come home with a little tin toy train car and when my Ma ask how much he paid for it he'd say "fifty-five." When she'd mention he already had one like it he'd point to a flange on the wheel and say, "this part right here is copper on the one I have, it's nickel on this one."

She'd end the conversation with this phrase -- "it could be drugs or women." That's a killer response to anyone who asks.

For the record mine are in the finished basement where people do occasionally go, they're visible and take up the better part of a whole wall and look like a disheveled mess because all the boxes are different sizes and colors.

Also for the record -- I told a publisher I wouldn't purchase his game because the anime girl on the cover was in her underwear and had the face of a nine-year-old. I can't buy a game like that with kids in the house and don't want it for adults showing up either. One parent raising the issue with the school district or the scouts could get me on a black list and, though highly unlikely that would happen, that would have a major impact on my kids' upbringing. Covers can make a difference, though this is certainly an extreme case. Were I to want that game I would have to discard the box.

Catacombs isn't within 100 miles of that by the way. I'll concede that it has a distinct look, but isn't terribly interesting to me. A C+.

S.

mine are locked in a cabinet beside the bed, I think. You can't even see what's in the cabinet unless you unlock it and open it. I think random people would figure it was full of sex toys but really it's just my filthy board games.

One of the nice features of the house we bought is that it is a California Split (I think that is what it is called) so we have our "basement" which is on the same level as the entrance to the garage, and then the sub-basement which is half a flight down. So the sub-basement because my domain where my wife allows me to display whatever nerd/geek/dork stuff. So that's where I keep my games, my silk screened warelephant art, but also our media like movies, books and what not is all down there as well. Stuff does spew forth into other areas when I'm reading a rule book...stuff like that. But otherwise it is contained.

Edit: To add I'm going on 34 this month.

I put my games, digital or cardboard on shelves in a similar way one would with movies and books except the size of the shelves themselves is bigger, of course. I do not think a games library is any less reputable than any other collection of art so I don't think there's any shame in displaying them.

Boardgames, however, somewhat more difficult to display in an artistically sound manner than books or videogames simply because of their irregular size. I think the ways games are being displayed is very nice in these pictures:

boardgamegeek.com/image/731653/manutd03
boardgamegeek.com/image/687997/pdoherty

I also like how this (digital) game room looks even if I'm not a fan of keeping system boxes and the systems themselves have to be plugged into the screen to play:
www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=45657

You can be nerdy and have a lot of taste. I mean, this is a D&D room and it looks pretty damn great despite, well, being a D&D room!
www.acaeum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?cache=1&t=8714


Concerning bad game art...well, as long as you don't have Sentinels of the Multiverse or Twilight Imperium, you should do fine. My ugliest game is The Republic of Rome and the seen from the side it's more than perfectly fine.

If you are going to display miniatures you should invest on a glass box, though.

My entire 1st floor (we have a bi-level, if you know what that is) is my living space, dungeon, den, and Man Cave. The best shit is down there. I have the Xboxes, big ass TV, and best furniture sitting on one side of this enormous open room, and on the other is my office, and my bookshelves. Board games go there, on those shelves.

I also have two big ass shelves along one wall, 2 tiers of 12 foot shelves, that house SOME of my miniature terrain. in front of my L-shaped "executive-style desk" (a term I have come to loathe) I have some 6.5 foot, 6 tier pine shelves I built that houses my Heroscape, my miniatures, and the smaller miniature terrain set pieces. In the closet behind my desk lies my 6 tubs of Dungeon Forge terrain and some maps and whatnot. My walls are adorned with Star Wars Epic Duels terrain, a Crokinole board, and a Heroscape map.

Anyone entering this room that has any objection to my decor can eat a bag of dicks. It's my house, and my dude dungeon is set up the way I like it.

I've got mine out in the living room, one big shelving unit. I want people to see them and ask about them.
But for practicality, I've been thinking about putting them in the library and putting some type of gaming conversation piece in the living room. Something like a clock made out of Catan or Tikal tiles. Should be pretty easy to throw together with one of those clock movement kits from Michaels.

I'm 40 and I live in a Condo. Vancouver is crazy expensive and full disclosure, my Condo cost me 370, 000$ Yes, you read that right. So no house for me. A million for a house in my neighbourhood is very common.

So I don't have the option of buying hundreds of games and I don't have the option of displaying or not displaying. We do what we have to to utilize the space we have. So that means that some games end up being "displayed" (sitting on a book shelf) and some end up "hidden" (in a closet) based on a Tetris like system of what fits best where. There is a tiny amount of attention payed to aesthetics but it's mostly space and availability we consider.

Looking around my living/dinning room right now I can see I'm the Boss, Love Letter, Space Hulk, Railways of the World, Earth Reborn, X-Wing, and Cutthroat Caverns. Just through happenstance. If I stand up I can add Tide of Iron, Ninja, Mansions of Madness, Puzzle Strike, Betrayal and yes... Catacombs to that list. No plan in place at all. There are dozens(?) more hidden in various location around the place.

To be fair to me I don't give a shit. I don't like clean style, I don't like everything in it's place, organized looking living spaces. It bores me and reflects poorly on the occupants in my mind. I have instruments hanging off the walls, book cases all around the room, various bits of family mementos around the place, lots of art on the walls and floor in various states of completion. We are an art household (my wife is a painter and I play music) and the house looks like it's occupied by artists who have stuff on the go, constantly.

It is clean though, we vacuum every day, sweep non stop, etc.. Clutter I like, mice I do not, and if the place was dirty as well that would suck. So it is a very 'lived in' place and the games... even though several look tacky as all fucking hell, kind of add to the place. They make us look more balanced because at first view you might think we were pretentious fucks but a couple cheesy looking board games kind of balance it out a bit.

One bedroom of our house is my office. I work from home, so that's where my computer is. There's a wall of shelves in there, 2 of which are comics and one of which is boardgames. I have a smaller shelf of strictly 2p games and there's a little room in the closet for the trade pile and for games that don't get much play but are sticking around. My legos are on the other side of the room, though I've been thinking if packing them up for a bit, since I haven't done much legoing lately.

So I guess it's a sort of "man cave" tho I just call it the "geek room" or office. I wouldn't really care if they were in a more public area (nobody really goes in my office because it's usually a mess); this is just where it makes sense for them to be.

Oh, and we don't have DVDs or Xbox games "displayed". They're in a cabinet that the TV sits on (we don't have too many of either). Books are on a bunch of bookshelves in the living room. We still have a shit-ton of CDs that are on shelves in the TV room that I would LOVE to get rid of because I think it clutters up the room and looks junky (same reason I don't want the DVDs and Xbox games displayed).

JonJacob wrote: So I don't have the option of buying hundreds of games

Minivan.

Gonna be 46 this year.

I have my games buried in a shallow grave in the back yard lest my guests come in contact with some of the played out, over wrought, kitsch that adorns the box covers. Can you imagine the talk that would be all over the Country Club if they did?

In seriousness, my games are on shelving units I got at *gasp* K-mart. They are in the second bedroom that I use as a game room. When we lived at the old place they were in a closet because that's where the shelves were.

I don't have casual visitors at my house. If you are here it's because I invited you and if I did that it's because we are friends. My friends know about, if not actually like, my hobby. On the other hand, games don't embarrass me and I don't worry too much about the artistic sensibilities I project. So if a person had a problem with them...



And yes that is a fabulous artistic rendering of a poster for the Star Trek Episode "And the Children Shall Lead" hanging framed on my wall. Proudly displayed.

I nearly have a perfect setup for my gaming storage. 2/3 of my basement is finished, with carpeting and wood paneling, and I have a long Ikea table down there that is just big enough for Arkham Horror with eight players and all the expansions. Right next to that area is a 6'x10' storage room with wide shelving on three sides. However, there is one catch: the air in the storage room is always chilly and clammy, suggesting that humidity is a threat. I run a dehumidifier in my basement about half the year, even so, I store everything in that storage room in plastic totes. I don't have enough suitable (transparent) containers for all of my boardgames to go in there yet, so I keep half of them in my very dry attic. Unfortunately, the attic gets pretty hot for 2 or 3 months of the year, so that isn't an ideal long-term storage solution either.

EDIT: I'm 48 and in a long-term relationship with a woman who is moving in with me this year. She is less geeky than me, so would probably want me to put away all my gaming stuff if we had non-geek company over.

EDIT #2: Although my current unemployment status has cast a long shadow over all my plans for the future, if we do have kids, that storage room has a handy lock on the door to keep young kids out.

They used to reside in an open shelving unit built into the wall in our lower living room, right next to the TV. We have a split level house and the lowest floor is where we spend most of our time, but visitors rarely venture to. When I remodeled it, I tore out the shelves and we replaced it with an entertainment center setup, with a 72" tall cabinet with door to house my games.

I didn't mind that they were out on the open previously. However I do like the sleeker, cleaner look of the closed cabinet. I'm 32.

On shelves in the dining room. Nobody ever eats in there. Its mostly used for playing games so its the most convenient place to keep them. I can't say I care about ugly game boxes or stuff with nerdy scifi or fantasy themes. They're just board games.

Age: timeless