This reminds me of our discussion back in 2020: Gaming Goals for 2021
I have not bought even one board game in 2021 though I asked for the Crew 2 as Christmas present.
So I will repeat the things which helped me and put them maybe in better words:
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Don’t listen, read or watch (almost) any board game content. I rarely meet new games, I never have a feeling of missing out. The few new games I meet, I either don’t need in my life / collection or they are so good I buy them. But that is a ridiculous low number. 1 in 2021 (expecting my Christmas present).
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Ignore Kickstarters completely. You are excited about a game, but till it arrives at your door step, there is a good chance your excitement isn’t as high anymore or you have a better game for that spot or your circumstances changed and you are not interested anymore. And even if all of that is not true, you will still be able to buy the game right when you want to play it.
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Don’t get expansions. Like Admiral Ackbar likes to say “It’s a trap!”. There are very very few games for which it is worthwile to get expansions. There are two reasons in my opinion. First, we (owners of big collections) don’t play the base games often enough and second, we (owners of big collections) tend to introduce new people to board games and it is most of the times a bad idea to include expansions if someone is unfamiliar with the base game. A third reason just came to mind: New games are coming in, occupying our interest, so even expansions fail to keep up the interest for the old timers sometimes.
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Just think about, how many of your games you have not played or only once. I am sure, for most of us this number is incredible high. Pile of shame is the right term for it and tbh I feel it for boardgames more than for pc games because they tend to be more expensive, take away more space and are harder to utilize.
It helped me to just accept that I have a fine collection with a ton of games and enough of them we never played. No reason at all to get even more. (At least not in huge numbers). I know that’s easier said than done, but still. I reached the point where I just feel saturated. It is a nice place