"Value Gaming"?

dragonstout wrote: "Value gaming" is playing one of the hundred games you already HAVE; no matter how cheaply you pick up a game, it's not "value" unless you're getting more out of playing it than you would've gotten out of everything else. It's just sucking value from the rest of your collection instead.

Colorcrayons wrote: Since I have heavily consolidated my collection from 200+ games down to under 20, I am mindful of potential replacements if a game outshines another in my collection.

Recently those two posts were put up here in the forums, and I posted something not totally unrelated over at BGG in regards to consolidating like games into fewer boxes: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1206854/box-consolidationtoo-crazy

True, the quotes and my post aren't the same, but they are both part of what has been an understated theme of mine the past several years in regards to my path in this hobby of boardgames.

We are a 'less is more' family, and have been leaning more and more towards that as the kids are getting older. We feel it has had a positive impact on our lives. I say this only to give a little background on me...this has nothing to do with supporting the philosophy of minimalism, consumerism, the idea of 'your money do what you wish', 'only buying budget titles', etc. Not an attack on anyone's personal philosophy, more a voiced mental exercise for myself, and anyone else who is of like mind.

I currently have about 30+ games, but feel that is too many. However, there are a few I'd like to get still. That said, I like seeing less boardgames on the shelf rather than more. That photo I posted a few weeks ago of just BattleLine, Legend of Robin Hood, and Condotierre was very liberating when I imagined that was my sole collection. I don't think I can get to that point yet though...

What I've currently done is move along a game if someone else in my game group has a copy that can be played. It was hard to do and it sucked to see some favorites go, but they weren't doing me any favors croaking on my shelf. When those games would be played there was only a chance it would be my copy anyway, so the odds of me getting value from them were cut in half (or more) of what they already would have been amongst the hundreds, if not thousands, of titles across our collections.

So, The next step for me would be to move some games out, but I feel I'm already close to the marrow. I love, love playing Columbia block games and have narrowed my collection down to my 5 favorites and moved the others. Still, do I need 5? Playing Julius Caesar takes value away from Crusader Rex. I play Texas Glory the least of the 5, but I enjoy the times I do get to play it and like having a game on Texas War of Independence on hand. Again there though...if I play Texas Glory, value is going away from Napoleon or Hammer of the Scots. Also, getting played less means more rules reviews than the others. Do I move it? Are JC and CR similar enough (not really, but those two are more similar to each other than any of the others are to one another) that I should move one?

Do I need two American Civil War games? Two Napoleonic games?

How about having extra, redundant packaging? Academy's 1812 and 1775 both fit in the same box and use pretty much the same components. Should I consolidate them together and only have one box on the shelf? It also helps because if we're planning for a 5 player game of 1812, but someone can't make it...boom...4 player 1775 is on hand. It also shifts up the other way...game of 1775 planned, but an unexpected buddy is brought along...out comes 1812. So, I can put these in the same box, which would be heavier and require a little more sorting around on set-up and tear-down...but should I do it? Sure resale may take a hit, but so what. The games I've kept to this point have been played more than enough for me to have already gotten my money's worth.

Same could be said for Lunar Rails and Iron Dragon. Lunar Rails easily fits in the ID box. Hell, I could put LotR, LotR Confrontation (maybe even Colossal Arena and Kingdoms) in Beowulf's box and have one big box 'o Knizia fantasy. Is all of this cheating though? I'd be keeping the same game count, but just tossing unneeded packaging. Regardless, it seems a hard thing to do.

And though it seems hard, I have no problem doing it with expansions. Those boxes go right out the window.

The issue with packaging in regards to stand alone games is obviously a mental thing on my end.

Still, to cut this whole thing even deeper, if I'm really honest with myself, I could keep Condotierre and get rid of every sort of Doam/Wargame I have. It's got a cool setting, armies, bluffing, fog of war, negotiation, plays great up to 6, etc. The FFG edition even has a lot of neat variants to include defending territories and what not. This silverline, $25 msrp game could replace a large portion of the games in my collection and the value to dollar ratio I'd be getting would be enormous. Don't know if I'm ready to do that though.

Tying this into the ERP, I recently bought Detroit Cleveland Grand Prix. It's awesome. However, it totally takes value away from other family favorites such as Ticket to Ride or Zooloretto. Does owning yet another box add anything more? No. We're still a family enjoying each other's company...it didn't take me bringing in a new game for us to achieve that. A new game, I might add, that no one in the family asked for (or knew existed). So, even if I'm cognizant of the issue, I still don't make the best choices. I suppose it's the addiction.

I'm not sure if I'm ready for a true solution yet. Perhaps my journey still has a way to go before I'm looking at a collection of less than 10 boxes, but perhaps I really should peel off that second copy of Titan.

I collect games and enjoy having them on my shelves. I love to think I could play anyone of them whenever I want.

This is because I am collector, as much as a player, so it isn't the same for everyone. I certainly don't want to shave my collection down (and can't unless I literally bin them because they can't be sold over here). I actually WANT a lot of variety.

When I'm dead and gone my wife or son can dispose of them as they want but I certainly won't be doing it.

I specifically added a portion of text because I was hoping to avoid comments like that. In fact, I was thinking it'd be Thirsty that would chime in as so.

Carry on, dude.

What, I'm not even allowed to comment on these 'shutting game collections down' threads anymore?

Hoping to avoid comments. WTF. Do you see me being offensive?

I've seen a lot of these posts lately, guys cutting their collections down and being happier for it. I have over 100 games, not including expansions, and I'm giving serious consideration to having a big ol' sale. I doubt I could cut it down to less than fifty. There are games I own I've never played, yet I couldn't get rid of them. Others, I could sell, easily. A lot of Kickstarter shit, games I would be happy playing someone else's copy, games that will never see table time.

I've never played Age of Conan. I might like it, I don't know. I think I could sell it though. Horus Heresy hasn't seen many plays, but I couldn't get rid of it. My love of Warhammer 40,000 grimdark won't let me. City of Remnants is great, I think it's very clever, but I could sell it I think. I'm going to have to appraise my feelings on each and every game, and that's not easy.

No, not offensive, but not adding anything to the topic besides voicing a contrarian opinion, of which I've read plenty of over the years in regards to this topic (not saying from you). The last thing I wanted to start up was another 'culling the herd' thread, but perhaps it's unavoidable.

I plainly wasn't looking for someone to convince me to keep more games. Hell, even if I got rid of _all_ of my games, I'd have more than I can play based solely on everyone else's collection.

We all enjoy having games to play...tell me what you meant to add to the topic of the OP that I missed? What did I miss in your comment that adds to the discussion of value within our collections?

I think focusing or rationalising the value you're getting from a board game is a spiral into madness. most of their lives they sit there and you can't do anything about it as you need multiple people to agree to play a game. I game often but I rarely get to game more than twice a week. Sure, if you had 10 games they'd all see regular play, but if you have the means (money/space) to have more games (to a non-excessive amount) what's it matter?

I don't want to keep any games I don't want to play, but I will keep games I only play occasionally though are fun when I do, because they're providing me entertainment and that's what they're there for.

Your point IS about minimalism, and your question is "what's the fewest number of games I can own without losing any entertainment?", but only you can answer it.

I have on big shelf that contains pretty much all of my well-liked games. A couple of stragglers are in a closet, and I have a tub to keep smaller stuff that doesn't really shelve well. The shelf is kind of my mental limit for what I'll keep. If it grows too far past that I start thinning it out.

I'm typically a box-combiner myself, but there is a point where having too much stuff in one box is actually just as irritating as having everything in a separate box. You have to dig through a box to figure out what you want to use, and the box itself becomes heavy and annoying to lug around. I think some bigger "system" games (like Dominion and Duel of Ages II) don't actually have a good way to organize them without a fair bit of money and effort. Keeping stuff separate is a part of organization and ease too.

I know a guy who keeps all of his games in an elaborate system of plano boxes that can be swapped in and out of various carrying cases.

I swear, this hobby is beginning to completely outstrip the time/effort/money that I'm willing to put into it. That says as much about me as the hobby, but part of it is throwing up my hands and just deciding to not care very much. Even the ERP, which I generally applaud for its celebration of the past, is something that moves faster than I can really keep up with. I don't even really mean that as a complaint. More like I'm discovering that my own equilibrium in this hobby is far afield from how most other people I know experience it.

*edit* I was ninja'd by Bull, but I agree that being as "efficient" as possible with the hobby is one more way to complicate life. The minute anything in this hobby becomes more than I want to deal with for my own enjoyment is the minute that component gets dropped, and for me that now includes the obsession with flipping stuff.

San Il Defanso wrote: I swear, this hobby is beginning to completely outstrip the time/effort/money that I'm willing to put into it. That says as much about me as the hobby, but part of it is throwing up my hands and just deciding to not care very much. Even the ERP, which I generally applaud for its celebration of the past, is something that moves faster than I can really keep up with. I don't even really mean that as a complaint. More like I'm discovering that my own equilibrium in this hobby is far afield from how most other people I know experience it.

*edit* I was ninja'd by Bull, but I agree that being as "efficient" as possible with the hobby is one more way to complicate life. The minute anything in this hobby becomes more than I want to deal with for my own enjoyment is the minute that component gets dropped, and for me that now includes the obsession with flipping stuff.

I agree, Nate. You'd surprised by how frequently I post, but I'd add 'browsing game sites' to that list. In fact, I'm supposed to be off this site this year. I did a pretty good job for about 3-4 months and it was a very positive experience. So positive in fact, it made me want to check in on the rest of you lot.

Perhaps I should recommit to my initial goal.

I'd be happy to.

Value gaming" is playing one of the hundred games you already HAVE; no matter how cheaply you pick up a game, it's not "value" unless you're getting more out of playing it than you would've gotten out of everything else. It's just sucking value from the rest of your collection instead.

I do not believe that this is the only descriptor of 'value'. You may be getting more out of a particular game for the simple reason that it holds emotional or nostalgic value to you or even satisfies the collector itch in you. I gain great value (as I tried to mention before) from simply knowing that I could take it out and play it whenever I want. This is important to me but it clearly is not to you.

Since I have heavily consolidated my collection from 200+ games down to under 20, I am mindful of potential replacements if a game outshines another in my collection.

I tend not to think of games as beating others or firing others (as in a previous thread) or outshining others. Sometimes I do actually give away games because they don't have an attraction for me anymore but, I have to admit, it is rare. I enjoy keeping innovative games and don't deliberately seek to get rid of them if a game comes out with a better refinement. Also I don't have a storage issue which is probably the biggest thing of all.

I do hope I qualify as having a relevant contribution to your thread.

Obviously everyone's threshold is different, but F:AT is basically the last spot I still talk about games online, my own blog notwithstanding. A big reason is because we can have conversations like this. If I were to try to talk about this on, say, /r/boardgames I would get people actually angry with me for not being ra-ra about the hobby all the time. On BGG I would probably just be ignored.

I understand wanting to step away from online discourse for a stretch, because I did it for about a month. It was good for me too.

I'm not much of a collector, but I do have a handful of games that I very rarely play that I still won't get rid of. They aren't losing value monetarily, and when I see them I remember how much fun I had with them and how much fun I'll hopefully have again at some point. If I sold those games I'd be exchanging extrinsic value for intrinsic value, but not necessarily gaining anything from a value standpoint unless I start assigning value to shelf space or decision space (number of games to choose from). I do assign value to both shelf space and decision space, which is the primary driver for getting rid of games.

I don't totally agree with the idea that having two similar games reduces the value of one (or the other or both). I'd rather state that having a lot of games reduces the playtime-to-cost ratio of each individual game. Having a lot of games has caused me to not thoroughly explore some of my favorite games because my game selection decision space is so large that they aren't often selected. I don't feel that having both Thunder Alley and Formula De and choosing to play one over the other decreases the value of the unplayed game, but simply having a large number of games decreases the (non-monetary) value of every game that I have.

I think what you've done is certainly commendable. That dragonstout quote has weight behind it and in some ways is profound, however, I don't exactly espouse many of these ideas.

I don't have an enormous collection, although it certainly is big. I have about 70 games and you'd have a hard time making me cut it down. I typically look to sell something if I'm bringing something new in, and I often go through my collection and ask myself what I can live without. I think my previously owned stat on BGG is actually higher than my owned for this reason.

However, one thing that is often discounted or ignored when these conversations come up is the joy of content discovery. I game with a guy that likes to look through the even deck before the game begins where I'm completely the opposite. I don't want to know what my Mekanoid Dragon's Evolution cards are before I draw them, I don't want to know that the church could possibly burn down in Yedo before it actually happens, and I sure as shit don't want to know what evil monstrosities could be around the corner when I'm playing Space Alert.

If I restricted myself to playing only 10 or so games, none of that magic or mystery would be there. I wouldn't have those "oh shit!" moments of surprise. Those are some of my most memorable moments in past years and I don't want to give that up.

Jeff White wrote: Also, getting played less means more rules reviews than the others.

To me, this is important and is probably the #2 reason for slimming down a game collection (particularly wargames/more complex games). #1 being the fact that, since I have too many damn games, we don't get to play my favorites nearly often enough, so yeah, buying a new game, even if good, takes away from the games I love. If I gamed a lot more often, that might not be as much of a concern.

PS: I tend not to think in terms of "value", though, maybe to my detriment; I was just responding to Barnes' absurd claim that buying like a hundred new games this month, even if cheap, was good "value".

PPS: The user "rarevos" on BGG has a nice series of blogposts and comments about a streamlined game collection; I'd say he's the best over there on that subject.

PPPS: I'm not hardcore on this at all. I have like 8 Magic draft-sim cubes, which are both really expensive, and, from an outsider's perspective, all the same game. I also think that selling is dumb a lot of time, because of what Wadenels said: the great games are more likely to GAIN value as you wait than lose value, assuming you picked good games. I wish I'd waited to sell Jambo, from what people are saying about it's $100 price. It depends on how much you value your shelf space, cash on hand, and not having to even look at a game you would rather not play.

I've been tearing apart my game collection and when added to my trade pile I have about 100 games I'm getting rid of, so hopefully none of you all are too minimalist because I'm going to be pushing wares soon (including a few ERP darlings).