Have we debated this before?
I am just wondering, how many games do you need on average to
I wrote this post last night… and it automatically posted when I opened my computer.
Sry… so have we debated this?
If it has familiar mechanisms, 1 or 2. New types of games takes more. It took me a while to appreciate Imperial 2030 and Chicago Express because these types were new to me when I first played them.
It varies. It took T&E several plays to be my fave. Again, because it was different to the usual Euros that I become accustomed to when I started the hobby.
Stephensons Rocket took me just 1 play.
If it has familiar mechanisms 0 or 1 plays, usually. Games that are new and counterintuitive to me takes a while. 18xx, for example: it’s a new genre to me and takes a few plays for me to figure out if I dont like a certain game.
1 or 2. Space is at a premium in my 4x4 Kallax.
One
About 50, unless it takes ages to play, in which case about 10. My favourite games just get better with more plays.
One, but lots of games lose their shine a bit after 10 or so plays. For instance I’ve played Trajan enough to know that while it’s a brilliant design in various ways I’m just not excited about Feld point salads. I’d still play it though, whereas I’ll never play Arkham Horror again.
This isn’t really how I roll - I don’t buy many games and pretty much never sell - but I’d normally give any game 4 or 5 plays.
This is such an interesting question.
I think something has to be there on the first play for me to want to play a game again, although I couldn’t tell you what that something is.
I find my favourite games take 3-5 plays to reveal themselves, generally in strategy that I didn’t see initially. Great Western Trail, Terraforming Mars and Brass Birmingham all spring to mind. However, with so much choice, even when not buying games for a year the game has to have something to make us play it that many times.
Deciding a game is not for me is a state of flux, depending on how much I want to like it. Scythe and Teotihuacan both got 5 plays before being moved on, because I was sure I was going to like them and wanted to keep pushing to see if I could get over the hump. Sometimes you just know after one play. Sometimes a game I loved (Jamaica springs to mind) just gets stale. I’ve just finished Puerto Rico on BGA (I got the physical game in a Maths Trade); I like it, but Race for the Galaxy is miles better (IMO) and the theme is too problematic for me to want to keep it.
Now I’ve got used to selling and trading games this is less of an issue. If I can’t see a path to playing a game then I’d rather someone else has the chance to love it and I have the time to try something else.
decide you like a game
1 play
decide this game is one of your favorite games
Interestingly, compared to everyone else who has answered so far and said it took a long time, I can decide a game is a favourite very quickly. If the initial plays are amazing, it’s in.
decide that a game is not for you
Also 1 play, although if I’ve spent money I’ll keep trying in the hope I like it more. That doesn’t usually work.
decide that a game has to leave your collection
That’s determined by time UNplayed on the shelf 
Same as chrislear, apparently. But sometimes it even takes half a dozen plays for me to decide I like a game. Twilight Struggle is the key example there.
It depends on the game. Each play can have one of three outcomes:
Odds are probably something like 5%-90%-5%. If I got “it’s OK”, much the same seems to apply next time. There’s a game I’ve played 100+ times but haven’t decided to buy (Letter Tycoon).
If I don’t like a game that’s usually obvious by the end of the first session and I am unlikely to ever play the game again. Life is too short and there are too many games for me to revisit things I actively had a bad time with. Occasionally I might be willing to give it a second go if the original circumstances were clearly poor and I have some reason to find it interesting overall. So, I acknowledge that my first game of Machi Koro was a perfect storm of poor circumstances (too high a player count, too many people having extensive AP over a game with very few decisions to make, bad rolling luck, etc) and it wouldn’t normally take 3 hours…but also the game didn’t do anything that would make me specifically want to play it even at a more normal length. Just too little meaningful decision-making and the core mechanic that appeals (getting resources on other people’s turns based on their dice) is present in other games I actually enjoy playing, like Valeria: Card Kingdoms. A Touch of Evil, on the other hand - I had a miserable time with first time out, but it’s a cooperative game with a particular horror movie sensibility that I don’t see elsewhere, so I could see giving it one more go under the right circumstances (probably if someone else really wanted to play it - and owned it or we were playing on TTS, 'cause I sure as hell ain’t buying it).
Meanwhile, liking a game can take a while. Oh, some games just immediately grab me and don’t let go for a while if ever (Gloomhaven, Tainted Grail, Sentinels of the Multiverse), but others don’t necessarily show off all their virtues right away or take a while to figure out enough to get hooked (Spirit Island especially fell into the latter category for me). I haven’t really gone out and played stuff from other people’s game collections much in a while (pre-COVID, I mean, definitely not now either but TTS makes things both more and less accessible) so it’s usually not a question of whether I’ll buy a game - I have already - but whether I’ll get around to playing it more. If I’m in any doubt as to whether I’ll like a game I don’t put money down on it, so usually it’s just a question of how excited about playing something I am, not disliking something I’ve bought.
And as space dwindles, the ones I just never get around to playing are the ones up for being cut. A strictly theoretical cut, so far.
It doesn’t seem to take all that long with board and card games.
I played one session of Cards against Humanity and that convinced me never to play it again; the sentiments it invited players to offer were just too unpleasant to expose myself to for the length of a game. It was kind of like the old joke “If you can’t say anything nice about anybody, come sit here by me.” [I’d rather not even be in the same room where people are playing it.]
I think I loved Settlers of Catan almost immediately.
It took me two or three rounds of Race for the Galaxy to figure out that I really liked it, largely because it’s fairly complicated and I didn’t have an intuitive grasp of it till then.
When we’ve disowned games it’s almost always been in response to moving.
Sometimes 0? That’s not true. There are some games I went into thinking I would absolutely like but really bounced off of (Viticulture, Steampunk Rally, Suburbia)
Probably 1 or 2. I’m pretty quick to glom onto things that poke the right parts of my brain
Again, probably 1 or 2. Either it does something that gives me immediate feels or it doesn’t. I’m not sure there’ve been any games that have crept up on me with more plays.
Usually immediately within the first play. I occasionally give games second or third chances to appeal, but it, so far, has never worked out to be the case.
… hmm, what?
In all seriousness, there are about a dozen or so games that are awaiting dismissal from my collection, just as soon as I figure out whether I’m going to put up a BGG auction or whatever. I’ve been hoping to get some more of my unplayed games played so that I have more to offer on such an auction (and start culling the chaff). There are some games that just fall flat; if that game has no other redeeming qualities (table presence, amazing art, unusual or overly-appealing theme/setting), it’ll be on its way out.
-decide you like a game: Besides the fact that sometimes looks and themes can be a big lure to me, I will stick to having played them, quite likely just 1 or 2 games will do. Sometimes, just a playthrough video can be enough to give me a good idea of “I will like it” (Oceans comes to mind)
-decide this game is one of your favorite games: It varies. A very good impression in a good first game can do that for me (Everdell recently comes to mind, but I had seen playthroughs before). Also theme and serotonin levels (i.e: excitement) when somebody suggests playing it, or I do.
-decide that a game is not for you: I’d say several, although I’d play literally nearly anything. Perhaps length is a main factor here. Having played recently 1830, I know it will need to be under very special circumstances that I will play it again. But that is the only one that comes to mind.
*-decide that a game has to leave your collection:*Lack of play combined with lack of that tingle mentioned in question 2. I have been thinking of getting rid of Fog of Love for a while, though, and I haven’t yet, thinking, “maybe I need one more play”. That would be the 5th. If it ever happens.
decide you like a game
Typically 3. Usually once I’ve realized that I’ve completed a playthrough without having to correct for rules mistakes. There is a moment when I think "Ah. So that’s all there is! I [like/dislike] it!
decide this game is one of your favorite games
Again, usually 3. Or when I would rather play it than Jaipur with my wife. I measure my dedication to a game as a ratio of Jaipurs-to-X. Sagrada (which we love)=1:2, D&D Adventure System=2:1, BiosGenesis= 750:1 (I do not like this one)
decide that a game is not for you
Almost always after one play. It gets the stink-eye if I would dread teaching it, or if the annoyance of setup/cleanup outweighs the fun of playing, or if it is BiosGenesis.
decide that a game has to leave your collection
Depends on how long I’ve had it. My FLGS does a boardgame swap about every six months. This is usually when I do most of my clearing out. If it’s been played in the last six months, and isn’t setting off any annoyance alarms, it stays. If it hasn’t been played more than once, I’ll usually keep it until the next swap to give it a chance, but then it will usually go. Whatever is left in the game swap pile after the event is over gets donated to either my classroom for parts, or local youth groups.
Decide you like a game: Usually really like one or two games. This doesn’t mean I am never changing my opinion on it. The only times I need more plays, when I think I should like it, but I didn’t (lovecraft letter), or when I initially don’t like it, but am fascinated by it (funny enough, that happened with blood on the clocktower)
decide this is one of your favourite games: well, here I can’t pinpoint a number. I think I could never say right after the play if it is one of my favourites, I guess I decide more on irrational memories. Like when we have a “debrief” of a play, or when I simply look at a cover and must smile, because of the last time.
decide that the game is not for you rather quickly, however, I have very few games which I wouldn’t play at all. So if I think, I could commit to a game I usually don’t veto.
decide that a game has to leave the collection: I am rather reluctant when it comes to buying games, therefore I kinda know I am going to like it. So most games I own I really do enjoy (except some presents)
But when I have to get rid of a game, several reasons play a role: how much I like a game, do I play it a lot/need of space. I sold King of Tokyo, because the box was to big (for the game) I liked it less and less, and also a lot of other people already own a copy.
On the other hand, I own Gift Trap and I think there are better games out there, but my non-gamer friends sort of like it and we enjoy it for an evening, that’s why it still stays
Pretty much always once, with any of the questions. I only play maybe 4 games a month? Like at all. Unless you count 6nimmt on BGA. But I’m not going to waste those precious chances replaying something that I already know isn’t great. There’s so many great games out there, why play anything less?
Occasionally I’ll have something mediocre (Suburbia) or something mixed very good and very bad (Tainted Grail) that will take a few plays before I decide I dislike it. But typically, it’ll either be “This game offers something different from any other”, and I’ll play it when that something is what I want, or “This game fills the same niche, but worse”, and I’ll trade it off. Or there’ll be something like Space Alert, that will be so bad that it gets shutdown part way through, and becomes a byword among the people. 