First play of Imperium Classics (live): if there had been a game vendor there I’d have bought it on the spot.
Second play (TTS): yeah I enjoyed that but maybe I won’t rush to buy.
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Oh noes. It wasn‘t my intention to…
So I should address that…
I am not opposed to getting new games. This is more about stopping myself from continuously buying more games. Presents or trades are fine.
Please, Santa, don‘t misunderstand this one -.-
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The wishlist advice is great. It’s good that bgg wishlist comes in tiers.
One thing I ask myself about buying a game is: can I just get it later? Preferably, a year later. Idk how the 2nd hand market looks in Germany but Im sure you can forgo the hotness in the meantime. Retail price also gets slashed after a year, since our hobby is driven strongly by the hype cycle
Why not make a rule about no games released from this year and last year? This stops you getting sucked into the hype. Then, you have to make a strong justification if you want to break that rule.
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I only buy games in SPIEL and UKGE if i have tried the demo. Con stores are usually pricier than retail stores
- SUSD (50+)
I dont watch their vids and listen to their podcast anymore. Their vids hype you up and I feel that their podcast is a waste of time, except Tom and Ava sometimes makes some spicy takes. Spicy takes that Im happy to skip nowadays, alas. I still kept my monthly donation to them tho.
- Crowdfunding (30+)
This is easy for me now since the EU (and the UK) crackdown on their VAT dodging.
- Spacebiff (20+)
We have similar taste, Yash. But I never got into Spacebiff. His podcast is great tho
- FLGS (30+, over the years though and have a bad keeper quota)
Why not get games from Geekmarket or eBay Kleinanzeigen in the meantime? 
- myself
Same. Being self reliant on finding info of new releases myself has its drawbacks.
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I absolutely try to demo as many games as I can at SPIEL. But one does get swept up by the excitement of it all and the fun of playing with other players just waiting to play this particular game. Also bundles, used game sellers, promos etc. make SPIEL a shopping spree. But for most of those years I would get home with 10 games from SPIEL and buy maybe a couple throughout the rest of the year. Still, I bought a lot of games at Spiel that I ended up getting rid of but I also encountered some of my favorites there.
As for SUSD videos. I still watch. I enjoy them but I feel less compelled to buy the games over time. I only bought Burgle Bros 2 when I read the Spacebiff review.
Crowdfunding remains difficult, but more and more I am learning that to find that “one” niche game that is worth going that route I have to back too much other stuff along the way that I won’t end up keeping.
Spacebiff writes some great articles not only reviews. I also like the special segments SVWAG do when they do not do a game of the week. Or the sprawling videos NPI makes these days. In general, I wish there was more Meta writing on games–there are too many reviews and too little thoughts.
ebay Kleinanzeigen Right now, I am trying to sell games there. The problem with me and ebay Kleinanzeigen? I bought a few older games there that sit on my shelves unplayed all of them category “classic and OOP”–fomo par excellence. So I have a certain ambivalence about this.
Overall, I love discovering new games and learning new games. That will not go away anytime soon. And while digital games allow for a whole lot of that these days, they are not quite the same–as we’ve previously debated a few times on here. While I do play digital games a lot, to truly understand a game, I need to be able to touch it. Normally, SPIEL and meeting friends for games and possibly playing at other places like FLGS would help me play more new games. But I missed SPIEL 2 years in a row, FLGS doesn’t have game night these days and game night at friends has been sporadic at best.
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I’d also prefer this as my main source of engagement with board game media. I’ve cut down to SVWAG being my only subscription across all formats and platforms. Trying to avoid finding out about games helps.
I feel like my game collections had plateaued except now it’s the same size for light, medium and heavy games but now has a chunk of 18xx on top.
In terms of understanding it might be helpful to be realistic about why games are bought. Buying games a bit blind for me has had some great successes. Maybe it started with Warriors and Attika. Warriors all these years later I still laugh and get tense throughout every game and Attika remains a classic euro that I enjoy playing despite the 100+ games. Both these games I bought around 2004 and both with no research. Warriors cover made me laugh and Attika because I did classical history at school and seeing an amphora as the main detail on the cover plus knowing what the name referred to drew me in. Irrational reasons in many ways but the first of many successes of spurious purchases that lead to a lot of good times had with friends and others.
This brings to me the main point, that at it’s best a game purchase leads to a wonderful social time. Maybe a way to make new friends or maintain ties with existing ones or spend quality family time. We all experience great highs with games and this can be enhanced with the thrill of a surprise at just how good a particular game can be on a first play. Maybe many of us purchasing a lot chase that thrill? Sadly like a drug the more in to it you get it actually makes it harder. Fortunately in the case of board games it’s just the pressure of that exploration no longer being fun but a chore.
I’ve grumbled about mental health being a factor in games purchases before. When in a period of depression I’m definitely more likely to buy more things in general and games are a big part of that. I also went on some splurges during covid lockdowns. That isolation left precious few dopamine hits.
I bring this all up maybe to suggest that those of us who buy and own more games than we’re ideally comfortable with should possibly look at the emotional side as much as the practical. Making peace with ourselves to be kind but firm with ourselves could lead greater success in quelling the acquisition lust than anything else?
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I am always lagging behind on listening for reasons. One advantage I am noticing is that I miss out on all the KS announcements.
(Interestingly, the current episode of SVWAG on my phone is the one with “Keepers”)
Absolutely. The emotional aspect of my purchases should never be underestimated.
I know I’ve been stress-buying games in since about last year March.
This worked for me with Tzolkin’. Maybe I should try to recruit some of you to try out games with me on TTS and BGA more often 
Although playing Antiquity is not helping at all in that regard 
Yes, I would have a much easier time parting with Fields of Arle if I had not bought that expansion last January (it had been OOP for a bit) and I added the content to the base game and was so overwhelmed that I haven’t touched it since and now I have 4 bigbox Uwe games two of which I don’t really expect to play over the other two but cannot let go b/c expansions.
No, I have already sold on games unplayed. I need to figure out how those make it here in the first place though because that should not happen. I think it’s a mixture of FOMO and emotional buys. When I am not excited to immediately try a game when it arrives that is a bad sign and for a long long time I couldn’t understand how one could have dozens of unplayed games… now I am there myself.
My space is not all that limited but my ability to keep a grip on the collection is. I own quite a lot of stuff but I have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when a certain threshold of stuff ownership is reached. I feel like my boardgame collection threshold is somewhere between 150 and 200 games. More than that and it starts feeling stressful.
That is impressive. I was going to trade a bit and did do that. But I missed the one German math-trade besides the no-ship SPIEL trade which I could not participate in.
When I told my partner I was going to try and cut down the buying he was like: Why would you do that?
Not helpful when I have an enabler at home
I am. I’ll probably use this one to talk a bit to myself about this topic on here. If we don’t want to dedicate a new thread to this, obviously everyone is welcome to talk about decisions to reduce collection size and cut back on buying here.
I think a good start is to stop looking at shops and kickstarters. That is the easiest way to not buy anything. Don’t go any places where games are sold
Plus cut down on watching any reviews outside the small circle of my favorites and be aware how easily SUSD convinces me to acquire games.
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In any case, 3 games sold already.
Tomorrow, I’ll put up some more for sale. There will be some hard hard choices of games that I do like but realistically won’t be playing anymore and there are only so many games I can keep for “nostalgic reasons”.
Here are some that I do find difficult because I like the games or in some cases the idea of those games:
Games I hope I am able to let go, look inside at risk of seeing me say un-nice things about some games I own:
- Istanbul: bought at Spiel introduced it to friends, realistically we will only ever play their copy anymore and I have the app.
- Kingdom Builder: a friend just got Winter Kingdom for her birthday, she’s the only one in my local group still enamored of the game(s). I like it fine but I have the app, it is on BGA and realistically we will only ever play their copy of either game. Not sure I can let go of this one as it sits in a certain sweet spot of simple rules, weight and yet there is enough strategy to it to make it not boring. Of all the game on this particular list this copy has seen the most plays and is most likely to stay.
- Cosmic Encounter: bought in a bundle with expansions and made my own insert for it and then it fell completely flat for my group. Two player version is long sold as well. I like the idea of it so much. But should I really keep it for the idea?
- Goa: one of my older games. So old in fact that I believe others when they say it is a good game with colonialist issues but I do not even remember playing it though I know we have in fact played it a number of times. I wish I had kept Princes of Florence instead of this. I regret giving away Princes…
- Perfect Match aka Wavelength: I don’t quite remember why I bought it. The cover looked fun. I think there was a SUSD review… I only ever played this online b/c pandemic and I didn’t feel like this was working with my friends. I’d rather play Codenames, Decrypto, Just One or Concept.
- Letter Jam: the teach. I don’t want to teach this again. Also I have other word games I like better see previous point and Hardback?
- Awkward Guests: I am telling myself I need to play this more before letting it go. But while I like the idea the process of playing it–the game interface–was not at all pleasant. I’d play this to death as a digital game with full automation. On the table it felt tedious.
- Alchemists: another deduction game (Loot of Lima is already sold). Why is it so hard to get deduction games right? I enjoy the deduction puzzle of this but not the game aspect. It doesn’t work with my partner and it just takes too long. I would really like it better if the game play revolved more around teh deduction part. I’d rather play Planet X and I am not even sure that one gets it right. But at least that has a good solo mode.
- Carpe Diem: why did I even buy this when I already own Castles of Burgundy which I enjoy and which has a solo-mode? I am not a big Feld fan. But I demoed this at SPIEL and somehow when the new edition with the pretty white cover came… I thought I needed another one. I played a 2 handed solo to teach myself and after that was pretty much disillusioned about ever getting it to the table over several other games. This one will probably leave unplayed (not actually but I didn’t track that learning game)
- Obscurio: this one is soooo hard. Both letting it go and the game. I love the idea of it. I love all games with the big picture cards first introduced in Dixit. And this one takes those cards, and some of the ideas behind Mysterium and adds a traitor mechanic and obscuring the circular cards sometimes. But really there is too much game here and a difficult real-time game, too. It is almost unwinnable for anyone but the traitor. Not as much fun to play as I hoped and then there is Detective Club which is so much better. But the game is so beautiful. The whole idea… if I could make up a different game for the materials… it’s probably staying for now. We played this one at SPIEL…
- Barony: played at SPIEL, loved it, got as Christmas present that year and haven’t played since then. Turns out my partner doesn’t like that style of game at all. And this one is distilled down to the area control mechanism like few others nothing to distract from it at all. Great but never getting to the table because of it. I have listed this for trade and unlisted it half a dozen times. Recently got an offer on BGG for it but my price plus postage ended up being to high for them…
- Among the Stars: this one was also bought amid some SPIEL hype (without demo-ing) and tons of “look guys we have all the KS extras here” because we were looking for SF games and my partner liked the idea. We have played it a couple times back then. But it isn’t really all that great and I keep forgetting the rules between plays. There is also an app and not even that made me play an awful lot (unlike Kingdom Builder which I played to death on the app)
Can anyone spot a trend? I shouldn’t buy anything I played at Spiel… but that is not true because I also played Spirit Island and Terra Mystica at Spiel for the first time and those are favorites of mine.
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Those all sound like good sales.
Except Istanbul, for me it’s a keeper. All the others (that I know) are games I passed on or passed on… better said passed over or passed on.
I’ve got two working strategies for decreasing purchases:
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Review my spreadsheet 'o games and make a new list on games I haven’t played or games I own and really want to play right now. It gives me that dopamine hit of all that I already have and generally satisfies my urge. I have new and/or good experiences already in the hopper.
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A cool off period, at least a week. If I want a game, I wait a week or two before buying it. Often, like 51st State, at the end of the wait I can do without it. Other times, like Fantasy Realms, I still want it and then hunt it down.
I write down these games, as well, a la @Whistle_Pig, because it keeps them off my mind. I don’t have to remember them because, if I’m ever wondering about what those games were that caught my eye, I know where to find them.
That’s not a buy nothing strategy, but generally a good reduce buying strategy?
As for getting rid of things, that’s the hardest. The best way is to play play play - opinions on what I like or don’t like, or what I prefer between comparable games, always emerge and then the sale is easy. Play more, sell more. I don’t get to play often these days, so I’m in something of stasis. Like @Pillbox, I’m not willing to sell something I haven’t at least two-handed a few times.
A few more years and the kids might start helping me sort through at least the lighter stuff!
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Still in our first game! Like I said, playing a game half-a-dozen times should be the bar to set. If you just try all the games under the sun, yes, you’ll probably end up buying more.
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This is going to sound like “let me tell you how to sort out your life”, but it’s really more “ooh, I wonder if this might work”.
Might it help to try recalling demos you played at Essen for games you have now sold or don’t want to keep, versus demos for games you still like? Is it possible to tease out some pattern in differences between those two classes of demo session?
I have definitely got better at saying “that was a good demo, but no thanks I won’t buy” since my first Essens, but of course I may now be too negative and miss out stuff I would enjoy.
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Similarly, I’ve found myself in the position before where I play a friend’s game and think, “Oh, I gotta have this!” And then I try to reason with myself, “Well, why do you need it? Can’t you just play this copy?”
And then my argument has always been, “What if I want to play it with <a different group>?”
And then I realized that most of my friends are, actually, quite nice and would probably let me borrow a game if that situation ever came up (so far, it hasn’t – so I guess that’s Point #2)
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I focus very hard on the distinction between:
- I really want to play this.
- I really want to own this.
It doesn’t always work (especially with games costing $25 and less (including shipping!)), but it weeds out a lot.
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Me too! I almost never own the games I actually play 
My collection is actually weird in that regard, because it’s basically just decorations; I only have about a dozen games that I would even consider playing from 100+ but it makes me feel nice just to have them 
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This is encouraging me to downsize my collection again. About a decade ago I had it down to 21 titles… that was a huge purge, and I used it to clear out most of my first-and-second wave Euros (Catan, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Thurn and Taxis, Caylus, etc… etc…) to hold on to a few games that I was still playing.
I was trying to get it down to 10 at the time, but there were a few I just couldn’t bear to part with. Hard to find, out of print, impossible to replace if I changed my mind a few months later… but looking back now, I can honestly say there was only 1 game I had to rebuy (Catan, because my partner genuinely loved it at the time… she’s over it now, thankfully).
My current problem is the pandemic. I don’t want to ship anything (Post Offices in Canada are in pharmacies, and I avoid those like, if you’ll excuse the phrase, the plague), I definitely don’t want to have people, especially strangers, over to my house to pick up sales, and I don’t see my friends so I can’t give them my games that I’d like to keep in the circle.
So when all of this is over, yeah, I’m going to drop, like… 150 games back out into the wild. My gaming shelves runith over, and I’m still picking up 2-3 a month (which doesn’t sound like a lot, but gosh does it add up). Maybe I’ll try to get it back down to 10 again (and fail, and land around 20-30, which is okay! Just… less than 300+ which it is currently).
Anyway! Thanks for the thought, I’ll put some time into constructing lists of games that I’m going to get rid of, see how much space that clears up, and then probably brutally cut many more after that.
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I am doing a pubmeeple (without my favorites and those that already didn’t make the cut) and it put Die Knuffies vs Cosmic Encounter. That’s completely unfair because everyone I know loves Die Knuffies 
It’s probably a sign.
Also, I wonder… there are some uncanny matchups like
- Lunar Base vs Moonrakers (the latter but that is a close call)
- Fall of Rome vs Concordia Venus (I like both, so unfair but the latter)
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If you hadn’t played them at Spiel, do you think you would never have become interested in those games?
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If that’s actually the case… does it really matter?
There’s too much ‘stuff’ in the world to try it all in the hopes of discovering the best bits. I think one of the important tricks is to just accept that you’re definitely going to miss out on all kinds of things you would have loved. You will likely never read that book, or see that film, or hear that album, or play that game, or visit that place, or, or, or…
Unless it’s your full-time job, you’ll never have anything remotely close to the time to try everything (and even then, it’s probably not possible); so I reckon that you can either let the "what if"s drive you crazy, or you can accept it and have more time for the things you already know you enjoy, and get that much more out of them.
Writing this is partly to reinforce this in my mind – I certainly have too many of most of the things I’ve collected. Part of me likes having the choices, but I definitely don’t need them, don’t have time for them all, and might very well be happier if there was less to choose from.
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What is the best way to efficiently downsize? How do y’all unload your games? I have games I’d be willing to sell, but I don’t know the best means to do this. Assume I’m both lazy and greedy. 
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I’d say it depends on the country you live in, but Facebook tends to be a really good place to trade.
I know BGG has some sort of trade system going on, and ebay or similar websites can be helpful as well.
And there is always the LFGS that could sell them for you, but they would likely give you a worse deal for them
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Facebook gaming buy/sell/trade groups are likely the best bet. If you have a game worth, roughly, $50 retail, you might be able to sell it for $35 (remember, buying retail makes it really easy to get free shipping from the retailer). So the customer is going to want to spend $35… and that includes how much they have to pay you to ship it. So a customer won’t offer $35… they’ll offer $18, expecting to pay $17 in shipping.
Local buy/sell/trade groups are a good way to get more money due to not needing to include the cost of shipping (assuming local/porch pickup)
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