$380... All I'd ever need

Round about 2 and a half years ago I first jumped into the hobby and I made a promise to myself then that I wouldn't become one of the collectors, people with hundreds of games sitting around collecting dust. Like many, I'm sure, I broke that promise fairly quickly. Looking at my BGG profile I own 107 games. 31 of those are expansions, many of those are expansion decks to Warhammer Invasion and Runebound small expansions. Another dozen or so more are games I had laying around before I started, your risks, your strategos, etc. This leaves me with about 60 games, half of which are unplayed, although all of them were bought with the best intentions and I still hope to get all of them to the table at least once or twice.

Even so, being very conservative and kind to myself, that's a $3000-$3500 collection. I don't feel like I've wasted my money, and I am extremely fortunate to be young, childless and insured and thus have 4-5k a year in money to spend on things that I like.

I recently purchased some new renters insurance (which protects against theft) and while I figure any thief that got into my house would probably skip over the board game collection it gave me a moment to think about just how much it would cost to replace my collection.

I sat down and went to coolstuffinc and thoughthammer and started looking at prices for games I've already purchased, many of which have increased in the 18 or so months since I made most of my buys and I came to the very sobering realization that, were I to start from scratch, I'd spend about $380 rebuilding my collection, and.... likely never buy another board game.

Somehow I think I'm going to be spending far less on games going forward.





I didn't really want this to be a "desert island" games list, but for those of you curious:

I'm looking over here at my collection and here's what I can come up with:


Set me up with those and I'd never need another. I have others and they're great, but these are the ones I really would miss.

I only own about 20-25 games and don't think it would be hard to get it down to 7:


Hard to estimate the cost of that as 2 are OOP and one is a miniatures game. There are others that I like having in my collection but wouldn't be heartbroken if they were lost (eg Nexus Ops). There are two there that I have yet to play which might make it into that must own list. My wife and I know we are under-insured with our possessions, but also know that probably half our possessions are non-essential and are those 'nice to have' things.

I've felt this way myself many times. I know that my consumer impulses get the better of me more often the not. Comics, Instruments, C.D.'s, Books, Games, Beer, Pot, Nice Shoes... I feel like I'm most of what I spent my 20's critisizing.

Is this what the Hippies went through in the 80's??

I've being trying to curb my spending on games and hardly buy anything now, except I just spent 2500$ on a Octo-Mandolin!! Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick!!

I think there is a sickness in me... in most of us. However much I convince myself that it's about the social interaction or that I'm not a collector or ... I still bought Runewars as soon as I could and I'm sure that there are other games I will buy in the next year (less then four though). I could hold it to ten games, I really could but they would need to represent a few genres to give me my proper fix...

Won't bother posting my own list, but if you replaced Carc + expansions with Alhambra Big Box in Stonecutter's original list, and throw in some more Catan expansions (e.g., Das Buch), that's a doable list for me.

Fuck all you monklike nerds. I want it alllllllll

I certainly have a good number of dumb games I got at tag sales and the like, but I'd have a damn hard time getting rid of the vast majority of what we've got. We're up to 350-400ish and while I don't feel some great need to run out and buy buy buy, there are still plenty of games that I'd really like to have, games that I only don't have cause I try to be cheap and friends have (like TI3) and then bunches of games that look interesting enough for me to think if I was rich I'd likely buy at least some of them.

Not counting expansions, it seems that I own only 81 games right now, including 10 CCGs. If push came to shove, I could cut that collection down to about 50 games. The funny thing is that I am very attached to some of my obscure, OOP games, even though they rarely get played anymore. I played them a lot in the past, and have fond memories.

Shellhead wrote:

Not counting expansions, it seems that I own only 81 games right now, including 10 CCGs. If push came to shove, I could cut that collection down to about 50 games. The funny thing is that I am very attached to some of my obscure, OOP games, even though they rarely get played anymore. I played them a lot in the past, and have fond memories.

You sound like me, Shell. I have a LOT of games that have not been played in some time, but it is more so the nostalgia of playing them, and the times remembered, keeps me from parting with them.

I can whittle mine down with relatively little effort, but since I have the Bean, I'm reluctant to part with some of them, mostly because they are geared for his age and I would love nothing more than to play them with him. I still enjoy playing The Hobbit with him, even though he loses interest by the time he gets to the Lonely Mountain. He loves Bakugan and he is nigh undefeated when I play him (I have won once to date). He even has the "You LOSE!" song and dance down.

The ones I can part with off the top of my head:

Blue Moon and the decks.
Block Mania
Mega Mania
Talisman 4th Edition (Still have my battered second one thank you very much)
Rogue Trooper
Gangs of Mega City One
Assassin
Dark World (sans the cobra Big Bad, he's my Serpentor in my Cobra themed WH40k army).
Princess Ryan's Star Marines
Nexus Ops
Tank Battle
Mission Command Land (ala Tank Battle the next generation)
Risk: SW Original Trilogy
Zombies!!!
Dante's Inferno
Hidden Conflict

and I could think of a bunch more, but since I'm not in my garage, it's hard to think of more.

I also have a strange attachment to OOP games I used to play, maybe because I hope I'll get to play them again someday and I would hate to miss out on such a nostalgia trip.

The games I'm probably always up for playing are the games I am the happiest about owning. Namely:
-Settlers of Catan
-Talisman 4e with expansions
-The Adventurers
-Citadels
-Ca$h 'n Gun$
-Magic the Gathering (drafting)
-Nexus Ops
-Space Hulk
-History of the World
-Star Wars CCG (strangely attached to my cards)
-Wars TCG

-Thunder Road would be on here if I owned it
-Cosmic Encounter may make it on here as well, I only played it once so I'm not sure yet.

I've got about 115 games at this point, which is about fifty too many. I'm kind of ashamed, I thought I had reduced the collection more than I have. I have a couple of OOP games that I just like owning, but some of this stuff really needs to go.

Aaron, I didn't know you liked WARS. The next time I see you, I'll give you all the cards that I have. I've got a bunch of them from the old AGF days.

Hmmm. $380 may be stretching so of the ones I have on this list, but here it goes. To the chagrin of the folks here.

I'm not sure if you win this competition by owning fewer games, or by being unable to live without more...

There's a few more I want, and a few I wouldn't replace if I lost them, but my collection is smaller than some of the "must-keep" lists here.

Of the shit I have, pretty much everything that's critical to me is OOP, except Cosmic, (which did its fucking time as an OOP, so you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands now).

Ever since 'The Great Purge' from a few years ago where I sold off a large closet full (including nearly every GW board/minis game), I'm down to about 15 games. My dream is to get it down to 10, but there's a few I'd like to add and play first to see what's making the cut and what isn't. Twilight Struggle, Neuroshima Hex, and a new DungeonQuest have reserved spots til I can play them.

This '10' wouldn't include standard card games nor family games such as Boggle or Hiss.

Fortunately, other guys in my group have no problem buying games. Add to that other hobby distractions (playing minis games and the occasional rpg) and I don't need a ton of boardgames.

Not Sure wrote:

I'm not sure if you win this competition by owning fewer games[...]

It's the new Straight Edge.