Hilarious TOS troll

I guess you're right, Michael, that a lot of people in nerd hobbies are indeed running from loneliness, sadness, and/or lack of direction. And yes, both board games and RPGs (also) attract people who have a hard time socializing with other people in other ways. What I don't get is why that is so important? Couldn't you in fact argue that exactly the way gaming can allow introverts and socially akward people to, well, socialize is one of the things that make it awesome?

Absolutely. One of my store regulars was this kid named Matt. He was a basket case. Massively depressed, deeply troubled. The store (and games) gave him confidence to talk to people and it even emboldened him to come out of the closet.

I'm sure there are lots of other stories. But for every one of those, how many are there of someone just squandering time, energy and money on soma, an aesthetic, or distraction? I've seen people, known people, for whom games might as well have been cocaine and going to game gatherings may as well have been like going to coke parties.

Ah, I see what you mean. And yes, there is definitely an air of extreme consumerism in Essen trips and whatnot. But at the same time I know that for me each new game is a small world of something potentially special, so in many ways buying a game, reading the rules, and maybe playing it only once can be a great experience. Hell, even just having it and *maybe* playing it can be exciting in some stupid way, so I can see why binge-buying games at Essen has a certain allure.

Michael Barnes wrote: That's exactly right. Don't even try to point out that it's predominantely white, male, middle-class. "I saw a girl at a game shop once!"

I don't see how anyone not involved in the industry can justify flying to Germany, spending X number of days there in a convention hall, and spending Y dollars ON TOP of travel expenses to buy fucking board games. I see these "look at what I bought at Essen" posts with the same ire as the bald-ass middle-aged dude that suddenly thinks he's hot shit because he bought a Corvette. It is a way for people to throw money in your face and parade around with their spoils. I'm not impressed. I'm more impressed when I read some penniless F:ATtie post about actually PLAYING games and what they thought about them...whether they flew to Germany to buy them or not.

I've often wondered what an audit of the BGG financials would reveal in terms of the expense they incur to send Aldie and his entourage to Essen, GenCon, etc. all in the interest of " keeping their readership informed " or whatever it is.

Michael Barnes wrote: That's exactly right. Don't even try to point out that it's predominantely white, male, middle-class. "I saw a girl at a game shop once!"

They also hate it when you point out that this hobby, generally speaking, attracts an awful lot of awkward, maladjusted, socially inept and/or DIRTY individuals.

You know what? I'm starting to think that people that say this are mostly full of shit. I've met tons of people from Heroscapers and tons of people from here, and several from Boardgamegeek, and with very small variance they are all super-cool people who aren't social retards wearing week-old clothes. YES, there are SOME of those cunts in the place, but then again, there's people who will beat you to death in a parking lot over wearing the wrong jersey, so there's scumbags in all groups.

I don't see all that many rejects at Origins and stuff. It's the vast minority.

But let's face it, a lot of people invested heavily in ANY hobby are often running from sadness, loneliness or a lack of direction in their real-world lives. Not ALL, don't jump all over me for generalizing. Not everybody into games or whatever is socially fucked up, depressed or lonely. But don't lie to yourself. There are MANY people for whom a hobby like gaming is a way to either live a vicarious life or provide some sort of social "adapter" so that they can at least hold a conversation with other people.

You ran a game store, so maybe you saw more, but I've been to 10 years of Origins and Gencon, and a few more years than that of playing tournaments in 2 different games, and seriously, I just only see a very small subculture of these crazy people.

So this guy hit pretty close to home for a lot of folks, it looks like, and bringing in the economic angle just sealed the deal.

Sure it's not just hitting you close to home (no insult intended at all, honestly) and you're projecting? I mean, the F:ATties I've met are super awesome, well adjusted people with lots of interests. The Heroscapers I've met are the same (aside from two). I just don't see this being the overall case.

I don't see how anyone not involved in the industry can justify flying to Germany, spending X number of days there in a convention hall, and spending Y dollars ON TOP of travel expenses to buy fucking board games.

You can't play with Edinburgh Castle, but lots of people go there to see it. I have a buddy who just spent 10 grand flying to England to watch the Rugby World Cup. He can't bring anything back with him to play with...so, I don't see going to an overseas "con" as crazy.

I see these "look at what I bought at Essen" posts with the same ire as the bald-ass middle-aged dude that suddenly thinks he's hot shit because he bought a Corvette.

Dwayne Johnson is a middle-aged bald dude, and hot as fuck, and he buys Ferraris. I think you're way too judgmental. Why do you look at anything with ire?Whose place is it to tell someone that their fun is wrong? Maybe it's a "critic" thing.

It is a way for people to throw money in your face and parade around with their spoils. I'm not impressed. I'm more impressed when I read some penniless F:ATtie post about actually PLAYING games and what they thought about them...whether they flew to Germany to buy them or not.

I can see this being the one true thing. "X" PR0N is always "X" PR0N; food, game, whatever. Usually its narcissism.

It all goes back to this hobby becoming more about buying games than playing games. And now we have games that launch as ENTIRE PRODUCT LINES before the game is even _printed_ to appease this mindset. People used to wait for the review, now they wait for the Kickstarter trailer. Because you've got these people that are just aching to spend money on something that gives them some kind of feeling of fulfillment, belonging or superiority. It's really no wonder we're at a stage where $150 buy-in is looking like it's right around the corner. Because you've got "status symbol" games now.

In a lot of ways, the Kickstarter trailer is better than a review because you don't need to trust some third party to make up your mind for you. That said, I agree..it's about collection and addiction in great part for a great many people.

My experience (N=1) backs up Barnes, FWIW. I'd estimate about 60% of people in game stores I've been to more than a couple times (maybe 3) were of the type Barnes talks about... sounds like there are different crowds running in different places/stores.

The amount of support the smug responses are receiving is making it difficult for me to not loathe a large part of the BGG community right now.

Michael Barnes wrote: It all goes back to this hobby becoming more about buying games than playing games.

This x1000

Gamer culture is almost unrecognizable to me. I get bewildered looks when I suggest playing a game that (a) came out before this year, and (b) has been played before.

Yeah, I think Pete's seeing a different crowd because he's gravitating towards different games. It's hard to act like an "elite" gamer when your Gorillanators are charging a Deathwalker 9000. If you don't have a sense of humor about yourself you're not going to play Heroscape.

From what I hear on the Wings of Glory sites games (not just WofG) are generally much more expensive than we in the U.S. have to deal with. The Australians in particular complain about high prices and getting things much later than everyone else. I think those of us in big markets that speak the main gaming languages don't realize how blessed we are regarding price and availability.

S.

sagrilarus wrote: Yeah, I think Pete's seeing a different crowd because he's gravitating towards different games. It's hard to act like an "elite" gamer when your Gorillanators are charging a Deathwalker 9000. If you don't have a sense of humor about yourself you're not going to play Heroscape.

From what I hear on the Wings of Glory sites games (not just WofG) are generally much more expensive than we in the U.S. have to deal with. The Australians in particular complain about high prices and getting things much later than everyone else. I think those of us in big markets that speak the main gaming languages don't realize how blessed we are regarding price and availability.

YES! That's why this site exists. There are different kinds of gamers. Or gameurs. The local group here has like 30 people playing on Tuesday nights! I found that there's a mix of TOTALLY AWESOME DUDEBROS like me and PRETENTIOUS FARTYPOOPS like Stinky McGee over there. I kid I kid. But seriously, some folks take the hobby seriously. They want to play the games that are new, BGG-ranked, and got the buzz from Essen. The actual game itself is secondary to this urge to be current and liking-the-popular-thing. There are other folks that played CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD every week for five+ months. Guess which group I was hanging with, and guess which group you want to hang out with.

That's why we post here and BGG-folks post on BGG. We have very different views on exactly what this board game hobby is.

sagrilarus wrote:
From what I hear on the Wings of Glory sites games (not just WofG) are generally much more expensive than we in the U.S. have to deal with. The Australians in particular complain about high prices and getting things much later than everyone else. I think those of us in big markets that speak the main gaming languages don't realize how blessed we are regarding price and availability.

S.

Hell, you don't have to go as far as Australia to see this. Canada, between their current weak currency ( 3 years ago it traded even with the US dollar, now its worth 30% less ) , inspection fees, and generally high postage fees, pays a lot more for games than we do. Also it doesn't appear that are overseas equivalents of CoolStuff, Games Surplus, etc who sell new product at 30% off MSRP ( as is laid out as a god given right in the BGG Bill of Rights ) . So the gap between what many in the US pay for games vs the rest of the world is pretty steep.

I do side more on the side of Pete though in that I don't see the nerd shaming trends Barnes rails on over and over. Do I see more overweight gamers at a game convention than say an outdoor trade show convention ? Sure. I also see plenty of well adjusted people who are married, have kids, etc. In fact, they outnumber the smelly all dressed in black Jabba the Hut characters Barnes seems to see in every corner. Maybe GenCon/DragonCon attract a higher percentage than say a regional game con/WBC, don't know. I'd say about the only stereotype I see is that the traditional wargamer demographic tends to be on the older white guy side. But not the social misfits that some seem to constantly rail against.

Msample wrote: Hell, you don't have to go as far as Australia to see this. Canada, between their current weak currency ( 3 years ago it traded even with the US dollar, now its worth 30% less ) , inspection fees, and generally high postage fees, pays a lot more for games than we do. Also it doesn't appear that are overseas equivalents of CoolStuff, Games Surplus, etc who sell new product at 30% off MSRP ( as is laid out as a god given right in the BGG Bill of Rights ) . So the gap between what many in the US pay for games vs the rest of the world is pretty steep.

Damn straight. I went to check out Space Cadets: Away Missions at my local store the other day. $135!!

A couple weeks ago I was listening to The Dice Tower, and Tom Vasel said something to the effect that since board games are a luxury item, there is no room to complain about prices. If you are that on the bubble with your finances, maybe you shouldn't be getting any board games.

He's not wrong, but as someone who is able to spend basically zero money on this hobby it struck me as a little nasty, and rather presumptuous. It's true that someone who doesn't have a lot of money can keep playing the same stuff, but that's only as true as the group you play with. I'm lucky to have a bunch of people who are just as happy to play Tichu as Pandemic Legacy, which means that games have a much longer shelf-life for me than they do for others. I've been in situations where bringing in an old game is basically a non-starter, especially around this time of year when Essen releases are starting to filter into rotation.

Whenever anyone complains about prices, there is this huge rush to say "don't buy them then," and now and then people get really defensive about it, like it's a value statement about the people who ARE willing to pay that. I really don't care how other people spend their money, but the barrier for entry in this hobby is definitely going up, and the games that more and more people want to play are getting really expensive. For me it's never been an issue of how other people spend their money, it's an issue of how easy this hobby is to enter.

I'd argue this hobby has no barrier to entry with the exception of time commitment and desire.
That's the beauty thing about gaming...It needs multiple people, but only one game.

Stepping away from the social angle and on the economic...

We've been back and forth about price for years now...how long ago was it I wrote that article "Whatever Happened to the $50 Board Game"? And here I am now with a copy of Cthulhu Wars on my desk...a TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR GAME with something like FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS worth of expansions. It's a review copy. But I would never have paid $200 for it, because it is beyond my willingness to invest in a single game.

For someone like Vasel to say that about pricepoints is really beyond the pale, sorry Tom if you are reading this but I'm being honest. Tom doesn't buy games. A man who gets every cup of tea for free has no business telling the layman to hush up on the price of tea in China...or the price paid by the average consumer that doesn't get tea bags for review. I don't buy games anymore unless it's something older/collectible, but I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone to stop bitching about prices...because I'm going to be bitching about the prices myself. It has gotten completely out of control in some quarters.

Increasingly, a new "luxury class" of games has emerged and they are very high profile and they are in some ways setting the pace. These "Cadillac" games if you will are things like the WotR collector's edition, Space Hulk, Kingdom Death and so forth...of course Cthulhu Wars. But more significantly, you have single titles that now have "tiers" of luxury...so you can buy Scythe for $60 (which does look awesome, BTW), or you can buy it up to $300 or whatever with various optional upgrades to make it more Cadillac.

If I were 18, 19 years old...in college...maybe working a part time job or something...Cthulhu Wars and games in that tier would be completely unobtainable. Even as a middle-class salaryman, I look at that $200 and the "Lisa needs braces" effect kicks in. But I look on BGG and I see all these "backer support" posts and these cheerleading posts where everyone gets together to vindicate/validate their excessive purchasing. That to me, even as someone that can get most games I want for free, is very alienating and off-putting. And that is without taking into consideration that I live in America, where games are apparently cheaper than everywhere else. So if this dude really is in Latvia, I bet that really sucks to go on to this web site that is all about spending money and people talking about spending money.

I make OK money, my family is in a good spot financially...but I see this stuff like the Essen posts and the Kickstarter stuff and I'm just like "damn, where do people get all of this money to blow?" Off-putting and alienating. I was looking at the Cthulhu Wars posts and there's folks that are $1000 or more into that game. And it feels like I'm outside the window of the country club looking in at the "elite". Even though I actually own the game (the core set at least) and it's only going to cost me 10-12 hours or so of work.

Board games are a luxury item, Tom is right about that. No one needs them. But it is OK to want them...yet we are in a place now where it reminds me of the kinds of bullshit that Sony was saying about the PS3 when it first came out. That they wanted it to be a console that people "aspire" to own at its then-$600 MSRP. Which was, at the time, over three times as much as the Xbox 360. I don't want to have to "aspire" to own these games. It's ridiculous.

It doesn't help that so many releases now are not single purchase items. I was interested in Rum & Bones and I could have requested it from Miniature Market. But then I saw that it wasn't just a release, it was a product line. Day one, there was like four expansions and accessories for it. That immediately put me off it. It's $100 retail, and then there are all of these optional purchases that triple that. And they're not even trickled out, like X-Wing. I used to like the a la carte model, but now I think it's gotten us to the point where you can't just buy a damn board game and be done with it.

Adjunct to that, you can now buy Good/Better/Best versions of games, which is kind of fucked up. You can buy Scythe (which looks awesome, BTW) for $60 at the Good level. Better, it's like twice as much. Best is like $300 or whatever (not actual figures, too lazy to look it up). You can say it's "optional" all you want, but it's also content that is part of the design sold separately. DLC. And that sucks, because that missing puzzle piece is there as a sales tool. It puts me off from wanting the Good model, which then makes it a much more expensive proposition.

Finally, Nate Hayden for President.

Also, I have to admit that Cthulhu Wars, which is now the most expensive single game I own, is actually really damn impressive looking. You can't reasonably call them miniatures. They're more like statuettes.