"Everybody's somebody's weirdo" sounds like some kind of Hee Haw wisdom, but for me they're Words To Live By. Somebody out there wonders how your gaming life is complete without a copy of the latest big thing. Someone else wonders why you wasted 2 cents on anything more complicated than a deck of playing cards.
Just deal with games and gaming in the way you like best, and don't sweat over how the other folks deal with it on their end. Feel free to point and laugh, and be aware that someone else is doing it to you.
I hear you, Jeff. I've never been able to keep up with this hobby. It took me years after Battlestar Galactica, Choas in the Old World, Mage Knight, etc came out before I played them. I've just always lacked a consistent gaming group, especially the past few years of moving to Texas. And there are still classic and recent classic games I've never had the chance to play. To make up for not being able to play games a lot, I used to spend a lot of time here and on BGG, researching games, reading reviews, reading play sessions and what not. It was a way for me to participate in the hobby even if I'm not playing much. But with that participation comes the desire to buy new games. I've managed to slow my intake of games to a mere trickle because I hate looking in the closet where the games are kept and see them just sitting there, unplayed. I always keep that in mind when I'm tempted to buy something. Especially around the holidays and my birthday and people give me money and I can't figure out anything I really want to buy with it.
As for the woman asking for advice, don't be too judgmental. You may be concerned about your kids falling into the well of consumerism, but she might be worried about prying her kids away from the TV/video games and interacting as a family again. So suggest Ticket to Ride or Carassone or whatever and be on your way. It's not like you're peddling heroin.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Mr. White, JEM
The fact of the matter is that my wife already knew to mention that the family enjoys TtR and Zooloretto, so those are already covered.
There's a ton of games on the shelves and the local target that a family can play. When I was a tyke we played Risk and Monopoly with the folks every holiday. It was a fine time.
With mass consumption being a sensitive topic for me, I don't want to be the person enabling others into getting into 'hobby games'. It's not a comfortable spot.
Anyway, Casey, wanna get in a game this Tuesday or next?
I tuned out Kickstarter long ago . Even putting that aside, there is a lot of stuf being published. One of the unfortunate side effects is that it is becoming harder to establish consensus among a group for what everyone wants to play - interests have become so fragmented that inevitably you resort back to older stuff that came out before the glut. This makes it harder for newer titles, no matter how good - to gain traction.
Mr. White wrote: With mass consumption being a sensitive topic for me, I don't want to be the person enabling others into getting into 'hobby games'. It's not a comfortable spot.
I think the best thing you can do is answer her question politely and not feed into a stereotype of anti-social or arrogant gamer behavior.
If you want to steer away from directing her towards another game purchase offer up some ideas about making a map for TtR of TX with the family or other ideas of how to stretch or reivent a game that doesn't involve a new game...Kind of like making up quests for HeroQuest.
EDIT: With her new to the hobby she might be in that mindset that changing a game is blasphemous. So offer up some suggestions along those lines and let her know it isn't a bad thing to change up the game to make it more personal to the family.
Bah...Reading/Analyzing buying habits is about as interesting as reading about study to find out if there are cultural differences that factor into a person's decision to hang their toilet paper with a front or rear dangle.
I've really enjoyed this thread and it's got me realizing that I suffer from Fear Of Missing Out on games. I don't want to miss the awesome thing. It's terrifying to me, but that's something deeper. Unfortunately it's wound it's way into my hobby.
I found that the number of games I "had to have" dropped to almost 0 just by deciding to ignore BGG and Kickstarter. I never kickstarted much, but the sheer number of board and videogames running through there just completely burned me out. I never really understood the amount of hype and excitement that gets generated about projects by people they've never heard of. Now my mindset is "wake me when you finish making your thing and I can read reviews."
BGG is a cesspool anyway, but the hype train for upcoming games is just madness. I'll go there for isolated rules questions, because that's where the designers are, but that's it.
It really comes down to "is this the kind of game I know I will like, will I actually be able to play it, and will I be able to play it right now?" If any of those are "no", then you can ignore that game. I had to force myself to stop paying attention to RTS games when those were the rage because I hated actually playing them, no matter how cool they sounded. Does the game sound cool, but your game group won't like it? No sale. Will they play it, but maybe only once, then have it get ignored for the next game to come out? It'll be available to buy later.
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