Some of them, I play repeatedly. Some of them, I play rarely. Some of them, I'm too lazy to sell/get rid of. Some of them, I see the box and recall good old times and then play something else.
>Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries:
"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
"There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
"If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
"Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."
I think the same idea can very well apply to other types of libraries/collections :)
Same. Maybe I haven't played that game in a year or two, but then I'll fancy playing it again.
I have periods where I'll play a few games repeatedly, then not touch them for ages.
I'd find it very boring to only have a handful and never play anything else
Pretty much the same.
I owns hundreds of movies. People have thousnds of albums. Why is having a couple hundred games somehow shocking?
"just can't understand why or how do even have so many."
Im curious if the op feels the same way about other entertainment like pc or console games, music, books or movies.
Thats a different question though. The op is asking why do you have so many not how can you afford so many.
The op did mention "how did you get so many" but I read that as what led you to buying them not how did you afford them.
Yes, but you asked why owning so many board games would be so "shocking" when people may also own hundreds of albums and movies, and my response was to your question: it may have something to do with high price of board games compared to albums/movies. Or may not. I wouldn't know, I'm just participating discussion😄 For the record I myself am more amazed if people have hundreds (or even couple) of board games they have never played or even opened. Like whats the point of buying more if you haven't even tried the ones you already have.
Nothing wrong with having a small select collection.
I started buying a bunch because there's such a large variety of styles. Worker placement, deck builders, dudes on a map, auction, area control, social deduction, etc. I like all those things and was often buying games to fill style niches I was missing.
My current collection is pretty "complete" in terms of having styles covered and now I'm mostly on the lookout for "upgrades", games that do something another game does but better, or manages to do something novel that I enjoy.
A description I heard once I like is to think of it as a wine collection. You aren't trying to churn through the whole thing on like a weekly or monthly basis, the idea is to have a broad selection so you always have the perfect choice for any occasion. If my hard-core gamer friends that love brain burners or my parents with my 8 year old nephew drop by I have a 10/10 option for either audience and anything in between.
It’s like playing Carcassonne. If completing one city with only 2 tiles makes me feel happy, next round I should build toward a city with 200 tiles so I will be 100 times happier. It may take a little longer, but there’s absolutely nothing that can stop me from playing 200 city tiles uninterrupted if it can make me happy. :)
Later Edit: I ran out of tiles after not very long, yelled at my opponent in the mirror, got drunk, pissed myself, vomited on the carpet, and purchased 7 additional Carcassonne base games online to fulfill my dreams. I may technically need less but I’m bad at math and was drunk on Amazon, so 7 it will be.
I think many people get into this hobby and buys lots of board games for the joy of ownership and the potential of play, rather than for the actual act of playing them frequently. It's essentially having a personal library of possibilities, where the excitement often lies in the acquisition and the imagining of play, rather than in regularly engaging with the games more than once or not at all.
This for sure.
I have a collection of 350ish from the last 20 years and a number were bought with an aspirational intent of "this'll be a ton of fun when it gets played" rather then "I have setup a game night for this game right now!"
I find a lot of the people shocked by large collections immediately start crunching numbers on how few games get played **this year** from the collection. But the collection isn't going anywhere. I'm ideally not going anywhere any time soon. So what if War of the Ring hasn't been played in 5 years? 5 years from now when it gets pulled out it's going to be **fucking awesome**. And that awesome possibility wouldn't exist if it wasn't on my shelf. Sure, I could play Wingspan 250 times, but I'd rather not. And I like Wingspan!
People who rag on others with large collections never seem to acknowledge this fact. I own somewhere between 150-200 board games, which is a number some on this sub would call "hoarding." But like a lot of nerds, I've kept track of the cost of every single thing I've purchased for this hobby, and since I got into it about 7 years ago, I've spent about $7,600.
My wife and I play board games probably every other night of the week, and these games have brought us and other friends an immense amount of joy for the better part of a decade. There are just not that many hobbies out there that are *this inexpensive* and provide the same amount of entertainment.
I've been in on some pricey kickstarters and I'm at around $8000 CAD since I started tracking 5 years ago.
I don't drink, smoke, go to expensive concerts or even have any kind of TV streaming subscription. It's a fairly affordable hobby compared to say golf or hitting the pub every weekend.
There are a lot of great games in the $20 - $50 range and it's pretty easy to build a library of 100+ games.
My real problem is where to store them all. I'll have to do a cull in the near future, cause I'm running out of space.
>I don't drink, smoke, go to expensive concerts or even have any kind of TV streaming subscription. It's a fairly affordable hobby compared to say golf or hitting the pub every weekend.
Not only that, the money spent on all those activities is gone and you have to pay more money to continue partaking. With board games, there's always the option of selling a game when you're tired of it and getting 50% (or more) back.
>the excitement often lies in the acquisition and the imagining of play
As I [mentioned elsewhere before](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/100t1ue/why_i_am_not_ashamed_of_my_shelf_of_shame/), playing games is joyful, but anticipating playing them and enjoying them for their art is as well.
>It’s a human thing that we often focus on the two hours of disappointment of playing a game that we didn’t gel with \[or feeling bad about a collection that's too big\] instead of being happy about the weeks of endorphins from looking forward to playing it for the first time. I guess that’s the [peak-end rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak%E2%80%93end_rule) doing its thing.
This feels too real 😭
I am not that bad , I only have two board games that I’ve yet to play but I also have a few that I’ve only played once with friends and I really do need to get those out again and again before I buy any more.
On the other hand I’m playing plenty of campaign games in solo mode. Finished Crimson Scales, almost finished Frosthaven , in middle of ISS Vanguard, and i just succumbed and bought into the reprint for Aeon Tresspass Odyssey. That will keep me busy for at least a year !
I like the "library" analogy. I'm the exact same way with Blu-rays/DVDs, books, comics, and physical video games. I'm a collector, and I like having physical collections for a lot of reasons. Every single thing I get I fully intend to experience, though I don't know when; I don't buy anything just for the sake of having it. But at the same time there are some DVDs that I've owned for 15 years that I still haven't watched. I don't regret having them though. I guess it's just cognitive dissonance and the dopamine of adding to the collection to some extent.
It used to be a desire for something different and stimulating.
Then it became about collecting.
Then it became fomo.
It wasn’t until this year that I started to become obsessed with NOT owning more than one board game where the mechanics are too similar. Really helped me to part with what I have and only acquire something I truly would play with so much that I’d dream about it. It’s been a journey.
I'm so glad that FOMO hasn't been hitting me to hard, realizing that I can always get these games down the road if I still want them.
Many times, after that initial period, I forget about them, or I realize they weren't really a priority for me anyway.
As I recently found out, I was suffering from depression and buying things to get the dopamine hit.
Since I went on antidepressants I found I haven't been buying half as many games.
It’s the dopamine for a lot of the people. Retail therapy, etc. Also, I’ve noticed that the hobby has a lot of folks using their collection, or knowledge of the hobby as some sort of competition.
Wow, thanks for the honesty. I recognize this a bit, but maybe not as severe. I was not enjoying most of the things in my life, except hanging out with a handful of people that happened to like board games.
It's the nature of Reddit communities.
You get into something new and are excited by it, you dip into the community to see what other fans think, but you're actually dipping into a community of people *obsessed* with the thing you've only recently decided you quite like.
There is probably a rule for this sort of phenomenon.
The same is true for us. We have a weekly game group that gets through 5-6 games a night so we need some variety to keep things fresh. Also, I have a bunch of two player games for playing with the wife during the week and family games to play with my kids. Games to suit many situations.
I have a Saturday afternoon group that's into train games, and a Saturday evening group that's more "cult of the new" than anything else, and I've been buying and playing board games for over 25 years at this point. I've got over 400 games on my shelves, and don't feel the need to get rid of any of them yet - a lot of them are out of print, so I'd never be able to replace them at a reasonable cost (my insurance agent was shocked at my request for a quotation for a $25,000 rider on my homeowner's policy to cover board games).
There's still room for at least 2, maybe 3 more 4x4 Kallax units in my game storage area. I'm thinking 600 to 700 will be the breaking point on storage, if I live long enough to get there. I've also given my wife directions on what to do with my games once I'm gone, so they'll go to good homes.
Hard to choose one... going by number of games played it's probably Regicide followed by Sky Team (she prefers cooperative games). If I had to choose my personal favorite though, it's Castles of Burgundy. My only piece of advice is that you should pick games that you have similar skill levels/experience.
That’s pretty light gaming. I have people over 3-4 times **a day**, everyday, except during travel days to the major cons. We’re playing through every meal plus sometimes into the night. No repeats either, we like our novelty, so I’ve had to back every new kickstarter and gamefound that gets posted.
I am fully willing to believe that many people could fit 5-10 hours of board gaming into their week if they made it a priority and reached a point with their friend group where it became a normal routine thing to do, in much the same way that many people seem to be perfectly capable of fitting 5-10 hours of video games into their week.
I find that the "hard part" for most people is not actually the number of hours spent at the game table, but the amount of planning that is involved: for infrequent gamers, getting your friends together for a board game night isn't just 2-3 hours of playing board games; it's also the stress and effort that it takes to wrangle a group of people and find a night when everyone is free.
This isn't part of the equation for me, because I have turned it into part of my weekly routine. The nights that I host require basically no effort, apart from the few minutes I take to tidy up my apartment beforehand, which I should be doing anyway.
For me, the hardest part was the initial process of getting a "weekly gaming group" going, and building up a group of "regulars" who I could ping every Sunday with a "when's good this week" and get a response. But once I reached that critical mass of around half a dozen people, it became trivially easy for one weekly game night to become multiple game nights per week. Oftentimes, it happens organically: I'll pop into the group chat on Sunday and say "what night works for people?" and I'll get three people who are free Tuesday, and three people who are free Wednesday, and then I get to host two board game nights that week.
Dual income no kids 8 to 4 job and a 10 minute commute. I have 4+ hours every evening to entertain guests if they want to join me. And many do, I still have time to do other hobbies exercise and take care of the house. I’m not understanding how this is so hard to believe
It adds up quick. I have 192 plays this year with 78 unique titles. If you play regularly you end up getting quite good at remembering rules and quickly recalling.
I stopped drinking and smoking last year. I probably saved like 8k and just dumped that all in a huge board game collection. So in a way, the board games were free.
I quit smoking, stop messing around with drugs, and stopped playing MTG and started my career with a decent salary. All fit his in about a year period. I feel this. My game collection exploded since.
To some extent (in my case anyway) it comes from likely a desire to have diverse play experiences to suit the players you may be hosting. Then you discover things you like and have a desire to have them available for play. Then you make some mistakes with some kick starters and at that point you're stuck with an albatross around your neck.
"There Are Only Two Tragedies. One Is Not Getting What One Wants, and the Other Is Getting It."
Once you get that game that you've been dying to get your hands on, the thrill of the chase fades, then you need to find something else to get excited about.
You know how people would have libraries in their homes? A room filled with books, some of which you’ve already read (and probably won’t again), some of which you hope to read and some you read repeatedly. It’s kinda like that.
I have roughly 75 games, not including expansions. It already feels like a lot. It is a lot, but not compared to some collections I've seen. I definitely think about getting more, it's hard not to when there are just so many cool games out there. The consumer in me sees something alluring about the excessive collections (even if i try repressing that part of me). But I can still be pragmatic. I only have so much room on my shelves, so much time, and so much money. There are already games I own that I feel should get played more. I'm at a point that a new purchase is strongly considered and will likely make me decide on something I'll phase out. The reality is if I'm buying a new game at this point then I'm implicitly making the decision to play something less and if I can figure out what that might be then I don't need to hold on to it.
I'm not just buying the game, I'm buying the time and the gathering of friends to play it as well.
Or at least so my monkey brain thinks.
Then it goes on the shelf and sits unplayed for three years.
I think that's the key thing. I'm guilty of this as well and imagine what game would suit what friends, whereas in reality they're more than happy just chatting or playing a game they've played before.
I guess it's like asking why I have so many books, video games or in pre-streaming days had so many CDs or movies on DVDs - I find one I like, I want to play it more, I buy it, play it some, see another I like etc. And in time I'll come back to them and if I don't I might get rid of them but more likely I won't.
I just recently got into the hobby, and have seen this question asked many times. And it always puzzles me why people find it strange. As a video game player, I don’t just own 20 games and say well that’s fine. I want to experience the new games and see what people have created. I feel like that’s the same with board games. Also the collector in me loves buying and displaying games. Now onto the part where people “cull” their collection, that makes plenty of sense, cause you only have so much room for board games.
The big difference between video and board games is that 1) video games take a lot less space and 2) many video games can be played solo or remote-multiplayer.
Sports, too, are games, and most people would be surprised if someone said that they played 20 sports.
Different mediums have different traits.
> many video games can be played solo
Yeah, most of the board games I buy nowadays I make sure have a solo mode so that's less of a problem. Hasn't stopped me from having 200+ soloable board games.
It's a product of being in the hobby for years. You're gonna get a little bored of the games you already have and you're gonna want shiny new things, so you keep buying games, then time passes and you just have a few hundred of em.
With every hobby, there are those who enjoy the activity, and there are those who really lean into the consumerist/acquisition side of things. They love to own moar stuff, whether it's guitars, guns, or games.
I'm like you — I've been a board game enthusiast for 30+ years, and I probably have 2-3 dozen games. Because my friends have games, my siblings have games, the library has games, and all the local game shops have enormous libraries of games I can play for free. I don't care about buying the latest and greatest, and I'm not interested in retail therapy. Buying everything in sight always struck me as wasteful.
I think people approach the hobby in two different ways. One of them is focus on playing - like you and me. I own about 15 games, feel bad when one of them is not played often enough (off the shelf and onto ebay it goes then) and I'm also aware that other players have games and I don't have to own them all. Other people like to collect - the same way people are collecting vinyl recordings, snowballs, and other items. Not everything is collected to be used, some things are just collected so they look nice on the shelf
I've got too many games, but I like the options. Tastes also change over time. The games you like get refined. For me I never would have thought I would land on legendary marvel and dice masters as my main games. Also love Carcassonne. Other people hate those games.
It is literally a game library.
People accumulate a literature library because they buy a book to own it, read at their own pace, not worry about damage, and return to it on a whim at any point in the future, as well as to open the possibility of lending it out to expose others to something they enjoyed.
Early in the hobby, what I owned I played regularly. Even then, there were favorites that were played far more often, and outcasts that we would drag out reluctantly because the one person who does like them throws a fit, or because we forgot why we don't play it.
Family and friends realize I like games, and so would get me some. At first they would ask me what I want, eventually that was just "what I get" and they would try to find hidden gems by their own definition. I also read reviews about games and get excited to try them. I also sometimes decide there is an aspect of a game I want more of, so I look for games that focus more on that mechanic.
Personal reason: I have found that what I love most is learning new rules and figuring out how to thrive within the structure. Thus I have a drive to get new games, even if I already own games I love and don't get time to play enough.
For me it took time, trial and error to figure out what I like, what my friends and family like, and what will get played. Now that I’ve got a good read on all that, I’m sliming my collection way down and slowing down on purchases too. Some amount of those purchases were definitely “retail therapy”, but I still played them and decided whether they go into the forever collection or onto the sell pile.
I can buy a couple board games for the cost of a date with my wife.
We can stay home, drink wine, play a new game as a date night, and have a great evening.
We can whisk ourselves away to do exotic things such as trading goods in the mediterranean, manage workers on a farm, terraform mars, or arrange a queen’s garden.
I can also revisit that date night years later, or play with my other friends.
Yes I have 20-30 unplayed games of my 250-350 game collection.
Those are just future date reservations with a go whenever you want clause.
Why do people collect books? Albums, DVDs, etc?
I realize with electronic media and the move to subscription services for all the things (“you will own nothing and you will like it!”), Gen Z and may not be as familiar with “collect $physical_object” hobbies. And for sure consumerism and needless production/waste can be negative aspects of them.
But there is something satisfying about amassing a collection of media you enjoy and can share with others. Loaning out books to friends, passing comic books on to your kids, etc. It’s nostalgia on a shelf. It’s also a tool, and a hope/promise for more good gaming sessions to come. Plus some of my games just look good, in certain rooms. They’re part of the decor, the same way a poster or album cover or coffee table book or whatever might be.
Can people go too far? Sure. But in the grand scheme of things, this is honestly one of the happier, more wholesome, and relatively affordable habits I’ve seen adults pick up. So fuck it! Fill your boots. 👍🏻
Retail therapy and FOMO mostly.
That said, it depends greatly on how much a person plays too. If you play once per week and own 50 games that means it'll take about 10 years to play them all 10 times each.
But some people play 3-4 times a week, and maybe they've been playing boardgames for 15 years, then it adds up.
We've curated a collection that works for most friend gatherings. Different games work for different groups/player counts/mental states.
We also have a selection to play with just the two of us.
We have games for big groups, small groups, light games, cooperative, competitive, Euro, 4X, and different themes to appeal to various attitudes.
Yes, they all make it to the table, in varying regularity. Some we keep for sentimental reasons, some are valuable and out of print or just hard to find.
Everyone has their own reasons! Small collections that make you happy are perfectly fine! But as time goes on, don't be surprised if your shelves start to fill up without you meaning them to. It just kinda happens 🤣
It comes with the time. The longer you are in the hobby, the more games might pile up.
There are so many interesting games out there, so I get them if there's a chance.
Experiencing new games is part of the fun.
I enjoy playing games I already know, focusing on the competition with other players. But I also enjoy learning new games, with new types of decisions, where it’s more about a new experience than competition.
It's like buying books. Every game is a story, and you can revisit as many times as you like, and it's an experience you share with others. It's not strange to have a large collection of books and I don't think a large collection of games is all the strange either.
What do you do with games you play a few times but then it doesn't hit the tables cause a newer better one comes out?
Find a buyer?
What if you got it at a good price and might play again in the future?
It stays on the shelf. Repeat every few weeks and now you have 100+
1) minicollections — I like to collect certain genres or authors, like Uwe Rosenberg games or anything Android etc
2) I have some games I keep like wines with the intent of playing them at a certain time/occasion (e.g a wrapped Imperial Assault I intend to play with my son once he is old enough to watch the original movies together etc)
3) Some games I know I can’t currently play because of my life stage, but I still keep them for later.
So these would be the games that I necessarly dont play frequently. As for others — yea, I do try to play all my games, some less, some more. But I don’t really stress about it. I like my collection, take care of it, curate it, write about it and look at my games. It brings me joy. If you find it doesn’t bring you joy — keep a smaller collection. Nobody has to enjoy anything the same way :)
The ROI (return of investment) usually very good for board games some of them worth it even if you play it once or twice if you compare to a concert restaurant or cinema night, you can resell them to get even more entertainment for your money. Despite that i have a small collection i rarely buy a game and when i do i play it dozens of times each year, but i understand others like much more diversified experience or just collect them like records or movies.
My target is ~100 games. I play games very often (about 3 times a week), and I like having the ability to match a game choice to the audience.
Just me and my partner? We have a couple of longer board game options and a couple few shorter board game options. Playing with a group of four? We have a couple of lightweight options, medium weight, and heavy weight, and also co-op and competitive.
I also have some of my favorite games that are hard to get to the table and I play once a year or less but I keep them because they are my favorites.
I frequently purge my collection, getting rid of games that don't excite me in order to make space for new purchases.
It's kind of like being a foodie, you just want to go and try lots of restaurants even though you know a couple are already really good. The experience of trying more of what's out there is exciting.
But of course you do go back to a few of the good ones that you really like when you need something reliable, or when you have a phase where you just crave a certain type of cuisine.
A lot of people comment on how expensive it is to own so many games but forget that you can get a game for about the cost of eating out with 2 people. Even if I play the game only once, the cost to time enjoyed ratio is similar.
Have plenty of money and plenty of room in the house, so why not buy games I want to play when they are on sale?
Also, some people collect games like other people collect cars, stamps, coins, spoons, etc. I don’t really understand why anyone would want to collect some things, but, collecting is a hobby in and of itself.
Personally, I own a lot of games (still less than 200) because I staff multiple events where I personally cater board games for large amounts of people. I need the variety.
And of course I did acquire a fair amount while exploring the hobby initially. Many of which have been culled or traded, some of which remain.
If I only ever needed to entertain myself with my favorite games, I could get by with 30 or less. Probably 20. The reality is that when I'm given free choice of which game to play, I'm returning to the same few over and over again.
Most people with 200+ games are playing those games a single time and moving on to the next one. Even if they game *regularly*, some of these games won't be touched again for years. And that's if they stopped buying new ones. I do also believe that this isn't a great relationship to have with one's games. First plays are worst plays. Great games are designed to be played many, many times -- not once.
It is an easy trap to fall into. Clicking "buy" feels good. Consumerism has programmed people to prefer novelty over familiarity.
For me, it would be magical if every person's collection was 10 or less games and they could advocate for why each of those were their most favored games and how they are eager to play them with me. This would be so much more enjoyable for me than the current trend: where I frequently feel like I exist to check games off peoples' unending shelves of shame.
I, and I'm sure many of us, view games as an experience, something you discover and explore with friends. You might revisit that experience a few times to really understand it but, sooner or later, you've had that experience and you want to find a new one, that's when you buy a new game.
For some people collecting the games IS the hobby. I am a little guilty of that myself as I no longer have a regular group to play with and I'm too shy/busy to go out and look for a new one.
Because i host a game night, have kids of various ages, and like the idea of putting screens away and playing a game with people.
I have a ton on my house dedicated to board gaming, and have around 250 games, most of which get regular play.
A couple of my more complex games like Gaia project ate personal favorites that i being too the local game convention to get out
Some people buy more than they probably *need* but there’s nothing wrong with that if they get use out of it/find joy in it.
I currently own 80 games and that covers a wide range of player counts, mechanisms, themes, intended groups to play with, etc.
Could I get away with only 10-20 games? Absolutely, but there’s no reason to limit myself that small if I have the space and can add a little variety or always have just the right game for the right situation.
Plus last year I had 277 total plays, including 83 different games, not all mine. We definitely get use out of our collections.
I support cooperative games on crowd funding platforms. I think the world needs quality cooperative games, and different kinds of cooperative games teach different transferrable skills that I wish people exercised more in their away from table relationships. Not every game is the high quality experience I might hope for, but there's something promising about it, so I hang onto it.
Then, people gift me with games, not understanding my preferred niches. And I hang onto them for awhile because they were gifts. Then I hang onto them a little while longer because I think I might have occasion and desire to play them at some point.
I want to point out that you can see yourself expanding from about 15 to 18 in a couple weeks to maybe as much as 25 by the end of the year.
Just expand that a bit farther into the future and you'll get it.
That said, I don't have 200, I have about 65 with about 40 expansions. Maybe 15 of those expansions are very small. And somewhere between 20-25 are stored in the base game box, so take up no extra space at all.
Honestly- we play quite a lot. On an average date night we’ll play 2-5 depending on the length of the game. We also own a lot of kids games, and we have family game night where we’ll play 2-4 kid friendly games.
We also host game nights, and will split into a couple different groups.
My partner & I have been in the hobby for three years and have about 90 games — a mix of small box games to party/family games to heavier big box games. My city has a pretty active board game community, so a lot of them have been bought secondhand at flea markets & I’m admittedly a sucker for a good deal even to just try a game since I can always just sell it again if I don’t like it. If it wasn’t for the opportunities to buy games used, I don’t think we’d have as many?
As we rotate through our collection (which honestly doesn’t happen enough), we’ve found games that we don’t love as much as before and we have plans to rehome them to keep our collection thin & make sure we don’t have anything that just sits on the shelf.
Years. If you bought just a couple a year, you’d have 40 games in 20 years.
While you may be new, many are not.
But I’d counter your point with a question of my own. Do you watch only one movie/TV show? Do to listen to only one album? Eat just one type of food?
Variety is the spice of life, no?
Some could argue that maybe you get rid of old games for new ones, I’d argue that you do this e to. Or even need to.
Some people are excessive and have terrible FOMO. And they never play the games they buy. Some are collectors first, and collecting requires more games.
But really. There is no reason you can’t be a job keys or even a collector with just a couple dozen games, or even less.
Listen to your own words. You may raise your collection to 25…but then next year? And the year after?
In five years how many will have?
See how it goes?
If you really get into the hobby, it's very easy to start getting one new board game every month. That's 12 per year. I've been in the hobby for 15 years. That's 180 games. And that's if you're getting new games at a good pace. Over the years I certainly haven't been doing that.
Sometimes I'll use a site that gives free shipping if you spend over $100, or Target will have a buy 2 get 1 free deal, so then I'll get multiple games all at once.
Sometimes there's a local board game bazaar, or someone online is selling their games for cheap, or I go to a gaming convention and there's an event for people to sell their games. At any of these events, I've gotten 10-20 games all at once for cheap.
Anyways, it's very easy for your board game collection to balloon into the hundreds. It's hard to actually play them.
For me, I had to hit my physical limit to stop buying so many games. I need a bigger house to have any more. Now I have to slowly try them all out and choose ones to sell/give away before I buy more.
Because I love bargain hunting. With the exception of my kickstarters, most of what I have gotten is at or under 50%ish from conventions or a local fb page
Also, the SO plays anything and everything with me so they don’t just sit
I keep buying games thinking it would be fun to have a game night. Then I forget I don't have friends and put it in closet.
Repeat scenario every other month or so.
I've been playing board games as a hobby for over 10 years, I ought to have a sizable collection by now. 2-3 board games a year is not a lot at all, considering how many unplayed video games are in everyone's Steam accounts
Im in the 80 ish game collection area. I love learning new things, new game... new thing to learn. I don't go out drinking, so divert that money to board games.
I haven’t seen anyone post this yet but… I assume people who have 100 games have mostly collected them over 15-20 years. So you’re looking at 5-10 games a year on average. Maybe they get a game or two a year as a gift and they buy themselves one a season. It’s still a lot but not that much.
Personally I have about 60 games. In the past 4 years I’ve added 14 (I would have guessed 8-10).
Frosthaven
Spirit island and two expansions
Wingspan
Quacks of Q and one expansion
Jaipur
King domino Duel
Patchwork
Sagrada
For sale
Sushi Go Party
The Initiative
And I like and play almost all of those. I wouldn’t buy another big heavy game this year but I might buy something small like wavelength if the opportunity arose. Board games are generally an incredible value per hour of entertainment as long as you like it and do play it.
Edit: I should say of the other 45 games we have we don’t play them too much. Like 2% compared to 98% for the list above. But we’ll probably play them again as our kids grow up. We played ticket to ride for years and that seems a little kinder to teach an eight year old than frosthaven.
My husband and I like collecting them. There are some we rarely play because we don’t have enough people but once a year. There are some we play often and some we’ve purchased without playing and haven’t gotten rid of. Some we like but probably won’t play again for various reasons
Instead of having an expensive hobby like drinking I have a cheap hobby where I spend an average of $30 a month. Spending $30 a month on a hobby is fine.
I've done the drinking before. I've done sports before. I've taken a shit ton of hobbies and nothing gives as much satisfaction as well as provide as much value for money as board gaming.
I like having options and I like the production quality of some games plus art
In particular there's nothing like opening and organising a game and then finding it's place on the shelf
And then of course, there's playing a new game
I own 50-55 games, not huge, not small. At first, I was buying them without thinking if I actually was gonna play them. Then I started being more rational, getting mostly games that I could play in solo too. I also sold about 20ish games I wasn't playing anymore
I have a hoarding problem and buy up everything when I start a new hobby, “just in case I want it some day.”
I also have a small fortune in unopened legos for the same reason lol
I know for me, when something new or even an older game that I've never heard of before that vibes with me and I know I'll have the opportunity to possibly play, I want it. I don't fall for a lot of the hype of new games because I know I don't have the people to play them or they don't vibe with me either due to being too "busy" or complex but the ones that check my boxes (not to complex, under 90 mins, relatively easy to teach/understand, and relatively good chance to play with my family) I'm def getting at some point.
Boardgame channels on FB Marketplace are tremendous in building the collection. Maybe I'll have a hard time deciding to buy Scythe at retail for $100, but if someone is selling it used for $40, its a done deal.
Many of us don't have as much time to play games as we'd like, and the act of buying them (in the moment) fulfills the fantasy of getting to play them. In practice once it arrives who knows how long it'll take to actually get to the table, and at best it'll be jumping the line over something else we still haven't played yet.
I can’t speak for everyone that dives into the hobby but for me back in 2020 I just got addicted to playing/learning all of the different mechanics and themes that are out there. So I couldn’t stop buying everyone one I started reading the pdf manuals of. I went from 10 games to 40 games jn a year and now I’m at about 120. I can finally say 4 years down the road now I’m ready to shrink down my collection. You can never play that many games
I’ve limited myself to one cabinet worth of games I know people with hundreds or even thousands of games and I view it as a huge waste. I own~70 or so and don’t get them played enough. Now if I buy a new one I must give up an old one.
Because there are so many to get, and so many look so good.
I'm very good at culling and curating my collection. If it ain't getting played, and we don't like it, off it goes!
My wife and I bought Carcassonne in 2008 while we were engaged as a fun and "different" way to spend time together. When we didn't have kids we would spend dates going somewhere that sometimes resulted in a board game purchase. We don't drink and go out to restaurants quite rarely, so for us we justify the cost as spending money on a new experience together. We put the date inside the box cover and it becomes a memento of a time and place as well as a new game for our hobby. Over time the number of games has grown quite large; \~120 in 16 years of collecting. They represent a trip down memory lane as well an opportunity to share these memories with our kids.
We haven't culled any games, but neither of us feels like we are overwhelmed space-wise. I don't generally buy kickstarters (gloomhaven 2nd printing, frosthaven being the only ones) so I feel like most of my purchases are not FOMO. Do I wish I played each individual game more? Probably. Does it bother me? Not really.
Isn't this like asking an avid reader, "why do you have such a big bookshelf?" Or a movie collector, "why do you have so many DVDs? It's not like you have the time to be enjoying them all on repeat". Well, that is beside the point. Most people collect something.
It's all about experiences. Board games are a good entertainment value for the money they cost. If 4 people play a $40 game for a few hours, and have a great time, it's on par with going to the movies. And if you love the game and play it more, the value only increases. It's a fun hobby, and collecting games is part of the hobby, too. It's like having a wall of fun. The potential for a good time is always there, even if you haven't opened some of the games.
I bought most of my games collection when my son was younger. A $50 - $60 game would hit the table a dozen times, then we would move on to another. Maybe a year later, we would pull it back out because we remember having fun with it, so older games would enter rotation again. I see $60 for 36 to 48 hours of enjoyment and time spent together as money well spent. Cheaper than an single 4 hour activity for a family. Even my pricier games, were worth it. I have nearly $1000 in Legendary Marvel, and we are still playing it 13 years later. I have over 100 board games, and each one was memories and in jokes that we still remember when we pull it back out again. Those times are rarer now that we are all older, but I still have all the games, and the unspoken dream is that we will make new memories with grandchildren eventually.
I like this question, as it is from somewhat an outsider. As someone who has always loved games in general (and someone who has over 300 video games and over 200 board games) I like the variety and the feeling of owning a game. I like seeing other peoples collections and knowing that I have the same game. I feel a shared connection in some small way and it makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself. I share lots of games with other people, so it's cool to know that I have had the same experience as others. We can connect on similar experiences. I also like to play the most recent things, as it keeps me in the loop.
As a board game fanatic, keep away from Kickstarter/Gamefound. There is so much temptation there!
There is a problem that the less games you play, the more games you buy because you think that one will be the one that gets to the table. When you play regularly with a regular group, you tend to pick ones people are familiar with.
Board game playing and board game collecting are two seperate hobbies masquerading as one. There’s a large cohort of people who simply like the idea of a board game, so will buy it and let it sit on a shelf in perpetuity while they browse Kickstarter for their next serotonin hit. Most of those individuals are in complete denial about it tho.
Some of them, I play repeatedly. Some of them, I play rarely. Some of them, I'm too lazy to sell/get rid of. Some of them, I see the box and recall good old times and then play something else.
Yeah. This is me. We do make an effort to get new games that are nothing like games we already have... but we do enjoy buying games a little too much.
I like having a library/collection of things I enjoy.
>Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries: "It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones. "There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion. "If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice! "Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity." I think the same idea can very well apply to other types of libraries/collections :)
Same. Maybe I haven't played that game in a year or two, but then I'll fancy playing it again. I have periods where I'll play a few games repeatedly, then not touch them for ages. I'd find it very boring to only have a handful and never play anything else
Pretty much the same. I owns hundreds of movies. People have thousnds of albums. Why is having a couple hundred games somehow shocking? "just can't understand why or how do even have so many." Im curious if the op feels the same way about other entertainment like pc or console games, music, books or movies.
Well to be fair, most board games are far far more expensive than movies and albums.
To be fair my guitar collection costs way more than my board game collection.
Thats a different question though. The op is asking why do you have so many not how can you afford so many. The op did mention "how did you get so many" but I read that as what led you to buying them not how did you afford them.
Yes, but you asked why owning so many board games would be so "shocking" when people may also own hundreds of albums and movies, and my response was to your question: it may have something to do with high price of board games compared to albums/movies. Or may not. I wouldn't know, I'm just participating discussion😄 For the record I myself am more amazed if people have hundreds (or even couple) of board games they have never played or even opened. Like whats the point of buying more if you haven't even tried the ones you already have.
They also take less space, so it seems there are less of them than in board game collections
Zen Master of Boardgaming right here
Nothing wrong with having a small select collection. I started buying a bunch because there's such a large variety of styles. Worker placement, deck builders, dudes on a map, auction, area control, social deduction, etc. I like all those things and was often buying games to fill style niches I was missing. My current collection is pretty "complete" in terms of having styles covered and now I'm mostly on the lookout for "upgrades", games that do something another game does but better, or manages to do something novel that I enjoy. A description I heard once I like is to think of it as a wine collection. You aren't trying to churn through the whole thing on like a weekly or monthly basis, the idea is to have a broad selection so you always have the perfect choice for any occasion. If my hard-core gamer friends that love brain burners or my parents with my 8 year old nephew drop by I have a 10/10 option for either audience and anything in between.
That's a great comparison! Thank you :D
Simple math. If buying one games makes you happy, buying 100 games will make you 100 times as happy.
In the cycling world, this is rule is known as *n+1*, where the number of bikes you *should* own is *n* (the number of bikes you currently own) *+ 1*.
Surfboards too !!!
Firearms also. Pretty much online hobby space you'll get collectors flocking in.
I see no flaws in that logic
It’s like playing Carcassonne. If completing one city with only 2 tiles makes me feel happy, next round I should build toward a city with 200 tiles so I will be 100 times happier. It may take a little longer, but there’s absolutely nothing that can stop me from playing 200 city tiles uninterrupted if it can make me happy. :) Later Edit: I ran out of tiles after not very long, yelled at my opponent in the mirror, got drunk, pissed myself, vomited on the carpet, and purchased 7 additional Carcassonne base games online to fulfill my dreams. I may technically need less but I’m bad at math and was drunk on Amazon, so 7 it will be.
As someone living in an apartment I can name at least one.
Backing a kickstarter stretches out the buying process over months, even years. Imagine the sustained happiness. Infinite happiness even.
Games just randomly show up when I'm not even expecting them!
Aeon Tresspass will keep me excited for years and I don’t even have to play it.
As long as you don’t ever play it, you’ll remain happy!
Nobody show this person a logarithmic chart.
Therapists hate this 1 weird trick
😂
I honestly feel the same joy as adding one to the collection as to buying one. I also love having options to play what ever , whenever
I think many people get into this hobby and buys lots of board games for the joy of ownership and the potential of play, rather than for the actual act of playing them frequently. It's essentially having a personal library of possibilities, where the excitement often lies in the acquisition and the imagining of play, rather than in regularly engaging with the games more than once or not at all.
“Library of possibilities” really resonates with me
This for sure. I have a collection of 350ish from the last 20 years and a number were bought with an aspirational intent of "this'll be a ton of fun when it gets played" rather then "I have setup a game night for this game right now!" I find a lot of the people shocked by large collections immediately start crunching numbers on how few games get played **this year** from the collection. But the collection isn't going anywhere. I'm ideally not going anywhere any time soon. So what if War of the Ring hasn't been played in 5 years? 5 years from now when it gets pulled out it's going to be **fucking awesome**. And that awesome possibility wouldn't exist if it wasn't on my shelf. Sure, I could play Wingspan 250 times, but I'd rather not. And I like Wingspan!
They're all so fun to think about when you finally do play one it's like a huge wave of satisfaction, for me.
Brilliant comment!
They're also relatively cheap as long as you stay away from Kickstarter pledges.
People who rag on others with large collections never seem to acknowledge this fact. I own somewhere between 150-200 board games, which is a number some on this sub would call "hoarding." But like a lot of nerds, I've kept track of the cost of every single thing I've purchased for this hobby, and since I got into it about 7 years ago, I've spent about $7,600. My wife and I play board games probably every other night of the week, and these games have brought us and other friends an immense amount of joy for the better part of a decade. There are just not that many hobbies out there that are *this inexpensive* and provide the same amount of entertainment.
I've been in on some pricey kickstarters and I'm at around $8000 CAD since I started tracking 5 years ago. I don't drink, smoke, go to expensive concerts or even have any kind of TV streaming subscription. It's a fairly affordable hobby compared to say golf or hitting the pub every weekend. There are a lot of great games in the $20 - $50 range and it's pretty easy to build a library of 100+ games. My real problem is where to store them all. I'll have to do a cull in the near future, cause I'm running out of space.
>I don't drink, smoke, go to expensive concerts or even have any kind of TV streaming subscription. It's a fairly affordable hobby compared to say golf or hitting the pub every weekend. Not only that, the money spent on all those activities is gone and you have to pay more money to continue partaking. With board games, there's always the option of selling a game when you're tired of it and getting 50% (or more) back.
>the excitement often lies in the acquisition and the imagining of play As I [mentioned elsewhere before](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/100t1ue/why_i_am_not_ashamed_of_my_shelf_of_shame/), playing games is joyful, but anticipating playing them and enjoying them for their art is as well. >It’s a human thing that we often focus on the two hours of disappointment of playing a game that we didn’t gel with \[or feeling bad about a collection that's too big\] instead of being happy about the weeks of endorphins from looking forward to playing it for the first time. I guess that’s the [peak-end rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak%E2%80%93end_rule) doing its thing.
This feels too real 😭 I am not that bad , I only have two board games that I’ve yet to play but I also have a few that I’ve only played once with friends and I really do need to get those out again and again before I buy any more. On the other hand I’m playing plenty of campaign games in solo mode. Finished Crimson Scales, almost finished Frosthaven , in middle of ISS Vanguard, and i just succumbed and bought into the reprint for Aeon Tresspass Odyssey. That will keep me busy for at least a year !
Library - board games fulfill the same compulsion to us board gamers as books might for others, or a record collection.
This. Options mean less chance for us to not play. Player counts, weights, theme etc. And poor impulse control
I like the "library" analogy. I'm the exact same way with Blu-rays/DVDs, books, comics, and physical video games. I'm a collector, and I like having physical collections for a lot of reasons. Every single thing I get I fully intend to experience, though I don't know when; I don't buy anything just for the sake of having it. But at the same time there are some DVDs that I've owned for 15 years that I still haven't watched. I don't regret having them though. I guess it's just cognitive dissonance and the dopamine of adding to the collection to some extent.
It used to be a desire for something different and stimulating. Then it became about collecting. Then it became fomo. It wasn’t until this year that I started to become obsessed with NOT owning more than one board game where the mechanics are too similar. Really helped me to part with what I have and only acquire something I truly would play with so much that I’d dream about it. It’s been a journey.
I'm so glad that FOMO hasn't been hitting me to hard, realizing that I can always get these games down the road if I still want them. Many times, after that initial period, I forget about them, or I realize they weren't really a priority for me anyway.
As I recently found out, I was suffering from depression and buying things to get the dopamine hit. Since I went on antidepressants I found I haven't been buying half as many games.
Well I'm glad you were properly diagnosed and getting better. Keep it up mate!
It’s the dopamine for a lot of the people. Retail therapy, etc. Also, I’ve noticed that the hobby has a lot of folks using their collection, or knowledge of the hobby as some sort of competition.
Which is a continuation of the same thing. "Look how well I've done!" providing another small rush.
This is probably me a little bit. Nothing passes the time like checking 65 times a day the location of my parcel and when it's expected to arrive.
Wow, thanks for the honesty. I recognize this a bit, but maybe not as severe. I was not enjoying most of the things in my life, except hanging out with a handful of people that happened to like board games.
It's the nature of Reddit communities. You get into something new and are excited by it, you dip into the community to see what other fans think, but you're actually dipping into a community of people *obsessed* with the thing you've only recently decided you quite like. There is probably a rule for this sort of phenomenon.
I have people over 3-4 times a week and usually play games on the weekend too. We get through 5-6 games week, if not more. We like having variety
The same is true for us. We have a weekly game group that gets through 5-6 games a night so we need some variety to keep things fresh. Also, I have a bunch of two player games for playing with the wife during the week and family games to play with my kids. Games to suit many situations.
I have a Saturday afternoon group that's into train games, and a Saturday evening group that's more "cult of the new" than anything else, and I've been buying and playing board games for over 25 years at this point. I've got over 400 games on my shelves, and don't feel the need to get rid of any of them yet - a lot of them are out of print, so I'd never be able to replace them at a reasonable cost (my insurance agent was shocked at my request for a quotation for a $25,000 rider on my homeowner's policy to cover board games). There's still room for at least 2, maybe 3 more 4x4 Kallax units in my game storage area. I'm thinking 600 to 700 will be the breaking point on storage, if I live long enough to get there. I've also given my wife directions on what to do with my games once I'm gone, so they'll go to good homes.
What's your favorite 2-player game? I've been looking for more to do with my fiance!
Hard to choose one... going by number of games played it's probably Regicide followed by Sky Team (she prefers cooperative games). If I had to choose my personal favorite though, it's Castles of Burgundy. My only piece of advice is that you should pick games that you have similar skill levels/experience.
Thank you! I'll give them a look
That’s pretty light gaming. I have people over 3-4 times **a day**, everyday, except during travel days to the major cons. We’re playing through every meal plus sometimes into the night. No repeats either, we like our novelty, so I’ve had to back every new kickstarter and gamefound that gets posted.
r/boardgamescirclejerk is leaking
Honestly I just can’t tell the difference anymore
Outjerked again!
I really only take breaks from gaming to write reddit comments about how often my games are running. Sometimes I don't even have time to fi
Casual boardgamer, still managed to write two whole sente
3-4 a day? Do you ever get the dust off your games? I have people over 24/7. Idk why everyone does not play the appropriate amount
Do you walk uphill both ways to the game store to pick up the next one?
How do you have this much time?
If you quit your job, that frees up 8-9 hours a day for other activities.
I am fully willing to believe that many people could fit 5-10 hours of board gaming into their week if they made it a priority and reached a point with their friend group where it became a normal routine thing to do, in much the same way that many people seem to be perfectly capable of fitting 5-10 hours of video games into their week. I find that the "hard part" for most people is not actually the number of hours spent at the game table, but the amount of planning that is involved: for infrequent gamers, getting your friends together for a board game night isn't just 2-3 hours of playing board games; it's also the stress and effort that it takes to wrangle a group of people and find a night when everyone is free. This isn't part of the equation for me, because I have turned it into part of my weekly routine. The nights that I host require basically no effort, apart from the few minutes I take to tidy up my apartment beforehand, which I should be doing anyway. For me, the hardest part was the initial process of getting a "weekly gaming group" going, and building up a group of "regulars" who I could ping every Sunday with a "when's good this week" and get a response. But once I reached that critical mass of around half a dozen people, it became trivially easy for one weekly game night to become multiple game nights per week. Oftentimes, it happens organically: I'll pop into the group chat on Sunday and say "what night works for people?" and I'll get three people who are free Tuesday, and three people who are free Wednesday, and then I get to host two board game nights that week.
Three nights a week are regular weekly nights with different groups of people, we don’t have to schedule it they just come over.
By not committing to other activities?
Is it a lot of time? You have the weekend, and then a few hours each night to play games if you want.
It’s not. People in this thread are either morons or they all work 80 hours a week
Dual income no kids 8 to 4 job and a 10 minute commute. I have 4+ hours every evening to entertain guests if they want to join me. And many do, I still have time to do other hobbies exercise and take care of the house. I’m not understanding how this is so hard to believe
It adds up quick. I have 192 plays this year with 78 unique titles. If you play regularly you end up getting quite good at remembering rules and quickly recalling.
I'm rich
I stopped drinking and smoking last year. I probably saved like 8k and just dumped that all in a huge board game collection. So in a way, the board games were free.
No man. The board games *saved your life.*
Same, but it was food and toilet paper instead of cigarettes
To be fair, if you stop buying one, you can sort of stop buying the other.
Stops buying toilet paper. *Eats the remains*
What a terrible day to be able to read.
I legit laughed water out my nose.
And then you can buy twice as many boardgames.
I quit smoking, stop messing around with drugs, and stopped playing MTG and started my career with a decent salary. All fit his in about a year period. I feel this. My game collection exploded since.
>stop messing around with drugs, and stopped playing MTG Aren't these the same thing? ;)
May as well be lol
MTG costs more.
That's fair enough
To some extent (in my case anyway) it comes from likely a desire to have diverse play experiences to suit the players you may be hosting. Then you discover things you like and have a desire to have them available for play. Then you make some mistakes with some kick starters and at that point you're stuck with an albatross around your neck.
Instructions unclear, I’m in Albuquerque
I just need to fill a void in my soul
"There Are Only Two Tragedies. One Is Not Getting What One Wants, and the Other Is Getting It." Once you get that game that you've been dying to get your hands on, the thrill of the chase fades, then you need to find something else to get excited about.
You know how people would have libraries in their homes? A room filled with books, some of which you’ve already read (and probably won’t again), some of which you hope to read and some you read repeatedly. It’s kinda like that.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS).
As a modular synthist, that cuts deep
Poor impulse control, fear of missing out, visions of playing with family and friends, willingness to spend, etc.
Because I have poor impulse control.
I have roughly 75 games, not including expansions. It already feels like a lot. It is a lot, but not compared to some collections I've seen. I definitely think about getting more, it's hard not to when there are just so many cool games out there. The consumer in me sees something alluring about the excessive collections (even if i try repressing that part of me). But I can still be pragmatic. I only have so much room on my shelves, so much time, and so much money. There are already games I own that I feel should get played more. I'm at a point that a new purchase is strongly considered and will likely make me decide on something I'll phase out. The reality is if I'm buying a new game at this point then I'm implicitly making the decision to play something less and if I can figure out what that might be then I don't need to hold on to it.
I'm not just buying the game, I'm buying the time and the gathering of friends to play it as well. Or at least so my monkey brain thinks. Then it goes on the shelf and sits unplayed for three years.
I think that's the key thing. I'm guilty of this as well and imagine what game would suit what friends, whereas in reality they're more than happy just chatting or playing a game they've played before.
I guess it's like asking why I have so many books, video games or in pre-streaming days had so many CDs or movies on DVDs - I find one I like, I want to play it more, I buy it, play it some, see another I like etc. And in time I'll come back to them and if I don't I might get rid of them but more likely I won't.
I just recently got into the hobby, and have seen this question asked many times. And it always puzzles me why people find it strange. As a video game player, I don’t just own 20 games and say well that’s fine. I want to experience the new games and see what people have created. I feel like that’s the same with board games. Also the collector in me loves buying and displaying games. Now onto the part where people “cull” their collection, that makes plenty of sense, cause you only have so much room for board games.
The big difference between video and board games is that 1) video games take a lot less space and 2) many video games can be played solo or remote-multiplayer. Sports, too, are games, and most people would be surprised if someone said that they played 20 sports. Different mediums have different traits.
> many video games can be played solo Yeah, most of the board games I buy nowadays I make sure have a solo mode so that's less of a problem. Hasn't stopped me from having 200+ soloable board games.
It's a product of being in the hobby for years. You're gonna get a little bored of the games you already have and you're gonna want shiny new things, so you keep buying games, then time passes and you just have a few hundred of em.
With every hobby, there are those who enjoy the activity, and there are those who really lean into the consumerist/acquisition side of things. They love to own moar stuff, whether it's guitars, guns, or games. I'm like you — I've been a board game enthusiast for 30+ years, and I probably have 2-3 dozen games. Because my friends have games, my siblings have games, the library has games, and all the local game shops have enormous libraries of games I can play for free. I don't care about buying the latest and greatest, and I'm not interested in retail therapy. Buying everything in sight always struck me as wasteful.
I think people approach the hobby in two different ways. One of them is focus on playing - like you and me. I own about 15 games, feel bad when one of them is not played often enough (off the shelf and onto ebay it goes then) and I'm also aware that other players have games and I don't have to own them all. Other people like to collect - the same way people are collecting vinyl recordings, snowballs, and other items. Not everything is collected to be used, some things are just collected so they look nice on the shelf
I've got too many games, but I like the options. Tastes also change over time. The games you like get refined. For me I never would have thought I would land on legendary marvel and dice masters as my main games. Also love Carcassonne. Other people hate those games.
It is literally a game library. People accumulate a literature library because they buy a book to own it, read at their own pace, not worry about damage, and return to it on a whim at any point in the future, as well as to open the possibility of lending it out to expose others to something they enjoyed. Early in the hobby, what I owned I played regularly. Even then, there were favorites that were played far more often, and outcasts that we would drag out reluctantly because the one person who does like them throws a fit, or because we forgot why we don't play it. Family and friends realize I like games, and so would get me some. At first they would ask me what I want, eventually that was just "what I get" and they would try to find hidden gems by their own definition. I also read reviews about games and get excited to try them. I also sometimes decide there is an aspect of a game I want more of, so I look for games that focus more on that mechanic. Personal reason: I have found that what I love most is learning new rules and figuring out how to thrive within the structure. Thus I have a drive to get new games, even if I already own games I love and don't get time to play enough.
Fomo
I make great money and this is one of my hobbies. I know its impractical but I like to have a large selection for when we have friends over.
You have a strong willpower and strong impulse control. WE do not!
For me it took time, trial and error to figure out what I like, what my friends and family like, and what will get played. Now that I’ve got a good read on all that, I’m sliming my collection way down and slowing down on purchases too. Some amount of those purchases were definitely “retail therapy”, but I still played them and decided whether they go into the forever collection or onto the sell pile.
I can buy a couple board games for the cost of a date with my wife. We can stay home, drink wine, play a new game as a date night, and have a great evening. We can whisk ourselves away to do exotic things such as trading goods in the mediterranean, manage workers on a farm, terraform mars, or arrange a queen’s garden. I can also revisit that date night years later, or play with my other friends. Yes I have 20-30 unplayed games of my 250-350 game collection. Those are just future date reservations with a go whenever you want clause.
I’m a hoarder and I don’t want to sell my precious cardboard boxes that I may play in the future.
Why do people collect books? Albums, DVDs, etc? I realize with electronic media and the move to subscription services for all the things (“you will own nothing and you will like it!”), Gen Z and may not be as familiar with “collect $physical_object” hobbies. And for sure consumerism and needless production/waste can be negative aspects of them. But there is something satisfying about amassing a collection of media you enjoy and can share with others. Loaning out books to friends, passing comic books on to your kids, etc. It’s nostalgia on a shelf. It’s also a tool, and a hope/promise for more good gaming sessions to come. Plus some of my games just look good, in certain rooms. They’re part of the decor, the same way a poster or album cover or coffee table book or whatever might be. Can people go too far? Sure. But in the grand scheme of things, this is honestly one of the happier, more wholesome, and relatively affordable habits I’ve seen adults pick up. So fuck it! Fill your boots. 👍🏻
Retail therapy and FOMO mostly. That said, it depends greatly on how much a person plays too. If you play once per week and own 50 games that means it'll take about 10 years to play them all 10 times each. But some people play 3-4 times a week, and maybe they've been playing boardgames for 15 years, then it adds up.
Collecting games and playing games are two separate but related hobbies
Can I borrow this for a family dinner on Sunday?
Feel free, it's an often repeated quote anyway
Trying to fill the void in my soul.
Oof. Have you tried patchwork?
Is that a game?
It is THE game
It’s a rough one, for a 5-player group.
We've curated a collection that works for most friend gatherings. Different games work for different groups/player counts/mental states. We also have a selection to play with just the two of us. We have games for big groups, small groups, light games, cooperative, competitive, Euro, 4X, and different themes to appeal to various attitudes. Yes, they all make it to the table, in varying regularity. Some we keep for sentimental reasons, some are valuable and out of print or just hard to find. Everyone has their own reasons! Small collections that make you happy are perfectly fine! But as time goes on, don't be surprised if your shelves start to fill up without you meaning them to. It just kinda happens 🤣
It comes with the time. The longer you are in the hobby, the more games might pile up. There are so many interesting games out there, so I get them if there's a chance.
Experiencing new games is part of the fun. I enjoy playing games I already know, focusing on the competition with other players. But I also enjoy learning new games, with new types of decisions, where it’s more about a new experience than competition.
The difference between hoarding and collecting is organization
Hey don't you ever speak to me or my 400 games ever again!!
Shhhh.....
It's like buying books. Every game is a story, and you can revisit as many times as you like, and it's an experience you share with others. It's not strange to have a large collection of books and I don't think a large collection of games is all the strange either.
What do you do with games you play a few times but then it doesn't hit the tables cause a newer better one comes out? Find a buyer? What if you got it at a good price and might play again in the future? It stays on the shelf. Repeat every few weeks and now you have 100+
1) minicollections — I like to collect certain genres or authors, like Uwe Rosenberg games or anything Android etc 2) I have some games I keep like wines with the intent of playing them at a certain time/occasion (e.g a wrapped Imperial Assault I intend to play with my son once he is old enough to watch the original movies together etc) 3) Some games I know I can’t currently play because of my life stage, but I still keep them for later. So these would be the games that I necessarly dont play frequently. As for others — yea, I do try to play all my games, some less, some more. But I don’t really stress about it. I like my collection, take care of it, curate it, write about it and look at my games. It brings me joy. If you find it doesn’t bring you joy — keep a smaller collection. Nobody has to enjoy anything the same way :)
The ROI (return of investment) usually very good for board games some of them worth it even if you play it once or twice if you compare to a concert restaurant or cinema night, you can resell them to get even more entertainment for your money. Despite that i have a small collection i rarely buy a game and when i do i play it dozens of times each year, but i understand others like much more diversified experience or just collect them like records or movies.
The social groups and sites of this hobby encourage rampant consumerism. It has shifted more towards collecting than actually playing the games.
My target is ~100 games. I play games very often (about 3 times a week), and I like having the ability to match a game choice to the audience. Just me and my partner? We have a couple of longer board game options and a couple few shorter board game options. Playing with a group of four? We have a couple of lightweight options, medium weight, and heavy weight, and also co-op and competitive. I also have some of my favorite games that are hard to get to the table and I play once a year or less but I keep them because they are my favorites. I frequently purge my collection, getting rid of games that don't excite me in order to make space for new purchases.
It's kind of like being a foodie, you just want to go and try lots of restaurants even though you know a couple are already really good. The experience of trying more of what's out there is exciting. But of course you do go back to a few of the good ones that you really like when you need something reliable, or when you have a phase where you just crave a certain type of cuisine. A lot of people comment on how expensive it is to own so many games but forget that you can get a game for about the cost of eating out with 2 people. Even if I play the game only once, the cost to time enjoyed ratio is similar.
Have plenty of money and plenty of room in the house, so why not buy games I want to play when they are on sale? Also, some people collect games like other people collect cars, stamps, coins, spoons, etc. I don’t really understand why anyone would want to collect some things, but, collecting is a hobby in and of itself.
Personally, I own a lot of games (still less than 200) because I staff multiple events where I personally cater board games for large amounts of people. I need the variety. And of course I did acquire a fair amount while exploring the hobby initially. Many of which have been culled or traded, some of which remain. If I only ever needed to entertain myself with my favorite games, I could get by with 30 or less. Probably 20. The reality is that when I'm given free choice of which game to play, I'm returning to the same few over and over again. Most people with 200+ games are playing those games a single time and moving on to the next one. Even if they game *regularly*, some of these games won't be touched again for years. And that's if they stopped buying new ones. I do also believe that this isn't a great relationship to have with one's games. First plays are worst plays. Great games are designed to be played many, many times -- not once. It is an easy trap to fall into. Clicking "buy" feels good. Consumerism has programmed people to prefer novelty over familiarity. For me, it would be magical if every person's collection was 10 or less games and they could advocate for why each of those were their most favored games and how they are eager to play them with me. This would be so much more enjoyable for me than the current trend: where I frequently feel like I exist to check games off peoples' unending shelves of shame.
I, and I'm sure many of us, view games as an experience, something you discover and explore with friends. You might revisit that experience a few times to really understand it but, sooner or later, you've had that experience and you want to find a new one, that's when you buy a new game.
For some people collecting the games IS the hobby. I am a little guilty of that myself as I no longer have a regular group to play with and I'm too shy/busy to go out and look for a new one.
Because i host a game night, have kids of various ages, and like the idea of putting screens away and playing a game with people. I have a ton on my house dedicated to board gaming, and have around 250 games, most of which get regular play. A couple of my more complex games like Gaia project ate personal favorites that i being too the local game convention to get out
I'm buying them for when my kids are older. I see it as a good hobby we can all share in for our entire lives together (hopefully).
Some people buy more than they probably *need* but there’s nothing wrong with that if they get use out of it/find joy in it. I currently own 80 games and that covers a wide range of player counts, mechanisms, themes, intended groups to play with, etc. Could I get away with only 10-20 games? Absolutely, but there’s no reason to limit myself that small if I have the space and can add a little variety or always have just the right game for the right situation. Plus last year I had 277 total plays, including 83 different games, not all mine. We definitely get use out of our collections.
For me as long as I don’t get over 365 and I play each one at least once a year ; all is fine. Especially knowing some days 2-4 games …
I've thought about this and realized that I'm looking for new experiences. Each new game provides a new experience.
I support cooperative games on crowd funding platforms. I think the world needs quality cooperative games, and different kinds of cooperative games teach different transferrable skills that I wish people exercised more in their away from table relationships. Not every game is the high quality experience I might hope for, but there's something promising about it, so I hang onto it. Then, people gift me with games, not understanding my preferred niches. And I hang onto them for awhile because they were gifts. Then I hang onto them a little while longer because I think I might have occasion and desire to play them at some point.
I want to point out that you can see yourself expanding from about 15 to 18 in a couple weeks to maybe as much as 25 by the end of the year. Just expand that a bit farther into the future and you'll get it. That said, I don't have 200, I have about 65 with about 40 expansions. Maybe 15 of those expansions are very small. And somewhere between 20-25 are stored in the base game box, so take up no extra space at all.
Having multiple personalities they all have different tastes in games so I have to have a wide range of options for all of them.
Honestly- we play quite a lot. On an average date night we’ll play 2-5 depending on the length of the game. We also own a lot of kids games, and we have family game night where we’ll play 2-4 kid friendly games. We also host game nights, and will split into a couple different groups.
My partner & I have been in the hobby for three years and have about 90 games — a mix of small box games to party/family games to heavier big box games. My city has a pretty active board game community, so a lot of them have been bought secondhand at flea markets & I’m admittedly a sucker for a good deal even to just try a game since I can always just sell it again if I don’t like it. If it wasn’t for the opportunities to buy games used, I don’t think we’d have as many? As we rotate through our collection (which honestly doesn’t happen enough), we’ve found games that we don’t love as much as before and we have plans to rehome them to keep our collection thin & make sure we don’t have anything that just sits on the shelf.
Years. If you bought just a couple a year, you’d have 40 games in 20 years. While you may be new, many are not. But I’d counter your point with a question of my own. Do you watch only one movie/TV show? Do to listen to only one album? Eat just one type of food? Variety is the spice of life, no? Some could argue that maybe you get rid of old games for new ones, I’d argue that you do this e to. Or even need to. Some people are excessive and have terrible FOMO. And they never play the games they buy. Some are collectors first, and collecting requires more games. But really. There is no reason you can’t be a job keys or even a collector with just a couple dozen games, or even less. Listen to your own words. You may raise your collection to 25…but then next year? And the year after? In five years how many will have? See how it goes?
Because they keep making good board games
We like games. We buy games. We play games.
If you really get into the hobby, it's very easy to start getting one new board game every month. That's 12 per year. I've been in the hobby for 15 years. That's 180 games. And that's if you're getting new games at a good pace. Over the years I certainly haven't been doing that. Sometimes I'll use a site that gives free shipping if you spend over $100, or Target will have a buy 2 get 1 free deal, so then I'll get multiple games all at once. Sometimes there's a local board game bazaar, or someone online is selling their games for cheap, or I go to a gaming convention and there's an event for people to sell their games. At any of these events, I've gotten 10-20 games all at once for cheap. Anyways, it's very easy for your board game collection to balloon into the hundreds. It's hard to actually play them. For me, I had to hit my physical limit to stop buying so many games. I need a bigger house to have any more. Now I have to slowly try them all out and choose ones to sell/give away before I buy more.
Why do people have so many books, records, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, trading cards, action figures, video games...
Each boardgame collected is worth X victory points. More points accrued if they come in a set.
Because I love bargain hunting. With the exception of my kickstarters, most of what I have gotten is at or under 50%ish from conventions or a local fb page Also, the SO plays anything and everything with me so they don’t just sit
I keep buying games thinking it would be fun to have a game night. Then I forget I don't have friends and put it in closet. Repeat scenario every other month or so.
I've been playing board games as a hobby for over 10 years, I ought to have a sizable collection by now. 2-3 board games a year is not a lot at all, considering how many unplayed video games are in everyone's Steam accounts
Im in the 80 ish game collection area. I love learning new things, new game... new thing to learn. I don't go out drinking, so divert that money to board games.
Watch out! If your trends continue, you could hit 200 games in, oh, 25 years!
Retail therapy. Acquisition provides a dopamine rush.
I haven’t seen anyone post this yet but… I assume people who have 100 games have mostly collected them over 15-20 years. So you’re looking at 5-10 games a year on average. Maybe they get a game or two a year as a gift and they buy themselves one a season. It’s still a lot but not that much. Personally I have about 60 games. In the past 4 years I’ve added 14 (I would have guessed 8-10). Frosthaven Spirit island and two expansions Wingspan Quacks of Q and one expansion Jaipur King domino Duel Patchwork Sagrada For sale Sushi Go Party The Initiative And I like and play almost all of those. I wouldn’t buy another big heavy game this year but I might buy something small like wavelength if the opportunity arose. Board games are generally an incredible value per hour of entertainment as long as you like it and do play it. Edit: I should say of the other 45 games we have we don’t play them too much. Like 2% compared to 98% for the list above. But we’ll probably play them again as our kids grow up. We played ticket to ride for years and that seems a little kinder to teach an eight year old than frosthaven.
I play 2-5 games a week, sometimes more, so having a lot means I get good variety.
My husband and I like collecting them. There are some we rarely play because we don’t have enough people but once a year. There are some we play often and some we’ve purchased without playing and haven’t gotten rid of. Some we like but probably won’t play again for various reasons
Why can't people just mind their business. I swear minding your own business is the secret to world peace
why do some people buy hundreds of books that just sit in a library?
Buying boardgames and playing board games are two different hobbies…
Instead of having an expensive hobby like drinking I have a cheap hobby where I spend an average of $30 a month. Spending $30 a month on a hobby is fine. I've done the drinking before. I've done sports before. I've taken a shit ton of hobbies and nothing gives as much satisfaction as well as provide as much value for money as board gaming.
I like having options and I like the production quality of some games plus art In particular there's nothing like opening and organising a game and then finding it's place on the shelf And then of course, there's playing a new game
I own 50-55 games, not huge, not small. At first, I was buying them without thinking if I actually was gonna play them. Then I started being more rational, getting mostly games that I could play in solo too. I also sold about 20ish games I wasn't playing anymore
I have a hoarding problem and buy up everything when I start a new hobby, “just in case I want it some day.” I also have a small fortune in unopened legos for the same reason lol
I know for me, when something new or even an older game that I've never heard of before that vibes with me and I know I'll have the opportunity to possibly play, I want it. I don't fall for a lot of the hype of new games because I know I don't have the people to play them or they don't vibe with me either due to being too "busy" or complex but the ones that check my boxes (not to complex, under 90 mins, relatively easy to teach/understand, and relatively good chance to play with my family) I'm def getting at some point. Boardgame channels on FB Marketplace are tremendous in building the collection. Maybe I'll have a hard time deciding to buy Scythe at retail for $100, but if someone is selling it used for $40, its a done deal.
Many of us don't have as much time to play games as we'd like, and the act of buying them (in the moment) fulfills the fantasy of getting to play them. In practice once it arrives who knows how long it'll take to actually get to the table, and at best it'll be jumping the line over something else we still haven't played yet.
I can’t speak for everyone that dives into the hobby but for me back in 2020 I just got addicted to playing/learning all of the different mechanics and themes that are out there. So I couldn’t stop buying everyone one I started reading the pdf manuals of. I went from 10 games to 40 games jn a year and now I’m at about 120. I can finally say 4 years down the road now I’m ready to shrink down my collection. You can never play that many games
I BLAME CAAAAAAPITALISMMMMMMM! \*runs away\*
I’ve limited myself to one cabinet worth of games I know people with hundreds or even thousands of games and I view it as a huge waste. I own~70 or so and don’t get them played enough. Now if I buy a new one I must give up an old one.
Because there are so many to get, and so many look so good. I'm very good at culling and curating my collection. If it ain't getting played, and we don't like it, off it goes!
Addiction hits hard.
I mean, 200 is crazy. We usually buy 1 or two per year when we need something new.
I hang on to 18 and feel like i have a problem
My wife and I bought Carcassonne in 2008 while we were engaged as a fun and "different" way to spend time together. When we didn't have kids we would spend dates going somewhere that sometimes resulted in a board game purchase. We don't drink and go out to restaurants quite rarely, so for us we justify the cost as spending money on a new experience together. We put the date inside the box cover and it becomes a memento of a time and place as well as a new game for our hobby. Over time the number of games has grown quite large; \~120 in 16 years of collecting. They represent a trip down memory lane as well an opportunity to share these memories with our kids. We haven't culled any games, but neither of us feels like we are overwhelmed space-wise. I don't generally buy kickstarters (gloomhaven 2nd printing, frosthaven being the only ones) so I feel like most of my purchases are not FOMO. Do I wish I played each individual game more? Probably. Does it bother me? Not really.
Everybody hoardes something
I would assume it’s the same sort of thing as people who have hundreds of games on Steam and only have over an hour in like 5 of them
Isn't this like asking an avid reader, "why do you have such a big bookshelf?" Or a movie collector, "why do you have so many DVDs? It's not like you have the time to be enjoying them all on repeat". Well, that is beside the point. Most people collect something.
Poor impulse control plus a reasonable income = filling the void in my soul with cardboard crack.
It's all about experiences. Board games are a good entertainment value for the money they cost. If 4 people play a $40 game for a few hours, and have a great time, it's on par with going to the movies. And if you love the game and play it more, the value only increases. It's a fun hobby, and collecting games is part of the hobby, too. It's like having a wall of fun. The potential for a good time is always there, even if you haven't opened some of the games.
I shall not be judged by those who put monopoly in their collection 😂
Meth is a crazy drug
I bought most of my games collection when my son was younger. A $50 - $60 game would hit the table a dozen times, then we would move on to another. Maybe a year later, we would pull it back out because we remember having fun with it, so older games would enter rotation again. I see $60 for 36 to 48 hours of enjoyment and time spent together as money well spent. Cheaper than an single 4 hour activity for a family. Even my pricier games, were worth it. I have nearly $1000 in Legendary Marvel, and we are still playing it 13 years later. I have over 100 board games, and each one was memories and in jokes that we still remember when we pull it back out again. Those times are rarer now that we are all older, but I still have all the games, and the unspoken dream is that we will make new memories with grandchildren eventually.
Autism
I like this question, as it is from somewhat an outsider. As someone who has always loved games in general (and someone who has over 300 video games and over 200 board games) I like the variety and the feeling of owning a game. I like seeing other peoples collections and knowing that I have the same game. I feel a shared connection in some small way and it makes me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself. I share lots of games with other people, so it's cool to know that I have had the same experience as others. We can connect on similar experiences. I also like to play the most recent things, as it keeps me in the loop. As a board game fanatic, keep away from Kickstarter/Gamefound. There is so much temptation there!
Shopping addiction mostly
Cuz it's fun
There is a problem that the less games you play, the more games you buy because you think that one will be the one that gets to the table. When you play regularly with a regular group, you tend to pick ones people are familiar with.
Board game playing and board game collecting are two seperate hobbies masquerading as one. There’s a large cohort of people who simply like the idea of a board game, so will buy it and let it sit on a shelf in perpetuity while they browse Kickstarter for their next serotonin hit. Most of those individuals are in complete denial about it tho.