I’m still on the Sentinels of the Multiverse crowdfunds because that way I get the shiny cards to match the shiny cards I already have.
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/endthread
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Surely we’d have to know how much whistle_pig has ever spent on raffle tickets, and the value of all the things won to date, in order to work out exactly how much of a best deal that crokinole board was?
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Forgive me I presumed that the £6 was spent on raffle tickets in that particular instance.
If we’re talking about lifetime winnings, then who knows.
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It’s a board game charity raffle group on facebook. I reckon I’ve spent about £60 over 3.5 years:
Holi ~£25
Taverns ~£35
Crokinole board ~£400
Link for anyone who’s interested
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I got quite a few good deals on (ebay) kleinanzeigen at some point but somehow none of those games really got played. So they probably don‘t count. It also used to be that you could get really good deals at SPIEL. But unless you scour the used-game shops for the one bargain … games are now regularly more expensive than they are later at OLGS. Sometimes you get a couple of extras but even that has become rare.
The first year I was really „collecting“ games and checking the milan-spiele advent calendar I got a whole bunch of games among them Nusfjord which is a favorite of mine. There are some really good deals on those advent calendars but only of course if you wanted the games in the first place. This year I saw a few tempting ones but my shelves are too full and none of the games had been firmly on my wishlist or extended „nice to have“ list.
First big gaming money sink was MtG of course closely followed by RPGs …
Most of my more recent money sinks were big Kickstarters.
- Zombicide (I went all in on the Season 3 Kickstarter and that was one huge package). I got the broken token inserts for the 3 base boxes and tons of extra minis and stuff…. but we got a lot of mileage out of the game. It played well at all kinds of player counts and it was a blast to play back when we didn‘t know about Gloomhaven. I do have a 2nd edition plus campaign somewhere and we have not been able to get it back to the table despite knowing that the rules changes would resolve some of the gripes we later had with the game. Ah well… I think I got my money‘s worth out of it but it is taking up a lot of shelf space for likely never returning to the table. In general though the amount of money that vanishes into CMON games put me off… so I never got into another one of their campaigns (I got my copy of Ankh without all the bells and whistles at a very bargainy retail outlset at some point)
- I also went all in on Dwellings of Eldervale. I think I played it twice? It‘s a nice production but I fell for all the KS hype stuff and I have so many better games that I would rather play. But I keep thinking that at some point I will get it to the table (no I won‘t,I should sell it, it‘s not even a collectible with all the reprints)
- One might think this would cure me… but I went all in again a bit later… on a game I already owned a copy of: the Spirit Island Jagged Earth Kickstarter had soooo much stuff and I decided to replace my German copy of Spirit Island + Branch and Claw with an English edition and all the deluxe they had on offer (mostly the big wooden box that could be better and the wood tokens). Spirit Island remains my favorite game—even though I have played it less recently. I absolutely got my money‘s worth and don‘t regret this one for a moment.
I have a few more „expensive“ games or editions… and some games become more expensive over time as expansions are released.
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I think the most I’ve spent on single games is either Root or Wingspan, because I have a lot of expansions.
Biggest regret, courtesy of Kickstarter, of course, is my all-in pledge for Shasn, which is a great concept and production, but a fairly lightweight game. It was far too expensive…
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Depending on the view of the charity it could be considered to be free games with a charity donation.
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Ah Kickstarter tried that angle. DIdn’t work.
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Oh goodness, how could I forget MtG? And also the Decipher Star Wars CCG, which I kind of switched to instead of Magic. I spent quite a bit on both of those over the course of probably three years? Then I went to college and didn’t really have anyone to play them with, so stopped.
After college, some of my friends started getting into Magic, so I broke out some of my old decks to play with them, but refused to purchase any more cards. I got to see how very much the game had changed with tons more keywords, rulings, card types, etc. that made me feel like the old cards are barely even usable anymore.
Even with as much as I love Star Wars, I refuse to jump into a CCG ever again, so the new SW Unlimited game will not be something I pick up.
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Best Deals
Spirit Island (free): A neighbor was giving it away for free. The Mrs was scrolling and saw some boxes and said, “hey, anything here you want?” I ran a quick diagnostic to make sure this was really happening, then said, “ah… yessssssss.” That lightning hasn’t struck twice.
Ark Nova (free): Saw a deal and grabbed it. Saw a better deal and grabbed it as well, figuring I could sell the first box on for the good price I’d gotten. Damaged in shipment, got an insurance refund for the more expensive box, then sold the more damaged box for the lower price. That is hard to write, net net free.
Forbidden Stars: -$106 I was eyeing this when it went out of print and caught wind quickly that it was permanent. I bought four boxes, waited a year, and sold three for then market. So I got my box for free and a tidy profit to put toward other games.
I’ve tried this trick again with only about 50% success rate. Troyes absolutely refuses to go out of stock again. Lesson learned, speculating is speculating.
Arle Tea & Trade: Miniature Market did a physical inventory and sold everything they found. Including about 20 boxes of T&T during it’s long out-of-print phase. I was lucky enough to just click the email as it came in and got one of them.
I think it came back into stock about 6 months later, but I still feel good about this.
Steam: I was waffling on what version to buy. Eventually got Railways of the World. Changed my mind and was able to find a lot of Steam and every single expansion for about the price of base RotW I’d just canceled. Feel good about how that one all turned out.
Unmatched: Bought this on a whim but found a cheap lot with Deadpool included. Kept everything but Deadpool, which I sold on for about 90% of the price of the lot. Arbitrage!
Two other successful exploits - got Sons of Anarchy for $12 but never played it due to theme. When Wise Guys came out I was able to sell SoA for about the price of Wise Guys, and so the $12 was “inherited” to the reprint. Same for Libertalia, got it for $20 and then sold for the price of Galecrest when the 2e came out.
Regrets:
These come to mind.
I almost bought Battlestar Galactica for about $26 when it was pervasive and unwanted. A friend got fired, and I thought let’s make an afternoon and have some dudes over. It didn’t come together so I didn’t buy. We all know what happened next.
I agnonized for a long time about Arctic Scavengers or Quantum. I decided on Arctic Scavengers. That’s been sold, and Quantum is no longer available at decent prices. Still think about that one from time to time.
Catacombs and Castles maybe goes in the next section. I liked the idea, pre-ordered it for what I thought was a discount ($60). Of course it comes into stock in the 30-40 range. And it was disappointing every time I played it. Won’t get into the why, but C&C 2e comes out which changed things to make it into what I initially wanted 1e for. So I buy that too, but now it’s deluxe. And I can’t sell the 1e because no one wanted it even before there was a 2e to be had… lot of money sunk there.
Biggest Spenders:
I was horrified when I found out how much I’d spent on Dominion. It’s good but it had no right to be the most expensive game in my collection. I sold off a few expansions to get it into line with it’s actual value.
Looks like today it’s Agricola for my most expensive game. Z-man, folded space, A, B, C, Wm, and Fr decks. Oh, and Farmers of the Moor. Happy with that, though.
Empyreal is tough. Good game, mispackaged. It needs to be a 1-5 player game with fewer factions and upgraded bits for board readability. But it comes as a 2-6 player, solo and alternate captains in one expansion, upgraded bits in a different one. I found good prices so got the whole caboodle for ~130 but I have a lot I don’t need in that giant box.
Oh, sidequest. Best deal. When Empyreal did the Far Corners reprint, they almost didn’t reach their goal. I poked around and couldn’t find it announced or discussed anywhere, so I wrote a big Reddit post reviewing the game with a link to the KS. I also sent them an email telling them there was a big boardgame community that had no idea this KS was going on, you’re welcome. They sent me the M Bison Exceed box and the Street Fighter playmat as thanks.
Concordia sorts up to the top of my spreadsheet. Salsa, Venus, Solitarica, and Aegyptus/Creta inflated that one.
Then we have in the “over $100 club:”
- Keyflower (+Merchants, +Farmers)
- Dune: Imperium (+Ix, +Immortality)
- Eagle Gryphon rogue’s gallery (Rococo, Kanban)
- Dominion (Base 1e + 2e, Intrigue 2e, Dark Ages, Renaissance, Adventures, Empires)
- Eclipse Second Dawn
- Galactic Renaissance all in
Managed to get these big bois at big discounts, not good enough to be a “best deal” but kept them under $100:
- John Company
- Odin + Norwegians
- Twilight Imperium 4e
- The Gallerist
- Outer Rim + Unfinished Business
Then the game systems:
Magic the Gathering (in the 90s). Who knows, probably about $200 but that was all allowance so it felt like $2,000. Did get a lot of play out of these.
X-wing TMG: With the 1e to 2e transition I got two conversion kits and some giant lots of people who were swearing it off. So about $400 spent but over $1,000 of value. Gotten to the table only twice. A New (perennial) Hope.
Imperial Assault: Got a Lot with Base, Heart of the Empire, Twin Shadows, Han and Chewie. Later added Jabba on clearance. Never touched this one, I think the advent of children moved this from “this year” to “as the decade winds down,” but certainly holding onto it.
Netrunner: Ever since Magic I’ve been looking for “that” again without the money sink and repetitive cards. So this really caught my eye. I was working through the early cards when the whole thing shut down, so I have the first two or three cycles, Kitara (last cycle), and Terminal Directive. I had one of the deluxe packs but sold it after the shutdown because the money was too good. I also got NISEI. I’ve played two handed (long story but it worked) and tried to teach someone once but halfway through the teach it wasn’t taking. One day.
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Oh that reminds me. Years ago I was trawling all sorts of forums trying to hammer out the differences between 1e (I had) and 2e (upgrade was long gone). It was shockingly difficult. In the end I was basically there, and you can definitely do the upgrade with a sharpie and 1 reference sheet, but someone said “hey, I have an extra upgrade kit. I just wanted the sleeves. Give me your address.”
I tried to pay him but he wouldn’t take it, not even shipping. Some nice people on the internet.
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And now you remind me of my X-Wing and Imperial Assault collections. I have a smattering of X-Wing, but that still puts it probably in the $200-300 range. And I have almost all of Imperial Assault. I don’t have any of the play mats, and I think I don’t have the Alliance Smuggler Ally pack, as I believe it was only used in the Skirmish play mode, which I have never used, but have everything else. Most of the stuff I got when it was on sale, and a couple of the expansions were gifts. A bunch of the packs are still sealed as I have not had the time to get it to the table lately, but someday…
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Oh, your post reminded me about Yura Yura Penguin!
I heard about the game on So Very Wrong About Games podcast and thought it sounded like something worth keeping an eye out. Eventually, they talked about it again and I realized I had never seen it mentioned anywhere else, neither retail-wise or community-wise, so I did some Googling and tracked it down via the publisher’s website, selling directly from Japan.
Well, at the time, there were 5-packs of the game available for a discount, and you could also buy the promo/expansions as well; I reached out to the publisher/designer and asked if there was a bundle/discount for a 5-pack of the expansions and they said that there hadn’t been, but it seemed a good idea. So I was able to add the expansion bundle to the order I had already placed with a discount applied. I paid about $40 to ship, but overall I was getting a good price on the bundles for a game that just wasn’t for sale in the US, so that made it a no-brainer. When my order arrived, I listed the other four for sale for about $40 each, including the bundled promos/expansions. They sat around for a bit, but eventually the mini version of the game hit Kickstarter and within a couple of weeks of that, I had sold all 4 and if you do the math, I ended up with a copy of Yura Yura penguin for about the cost I would have paid just to ship 1 copy.
Yeah, I probably could have charged double what I did, but I really just wanted to break even… and… did the math wrong (because I misread the receipts)
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Haven’t found a lot of deals. I don’t enjoy the sorts of games you typically find cheap at secondhand shops and don’t buy a lot of secondhand boardgames in general for fear of missing pieces and the like. I did get Gloomhaven on the initial KS for less than half the eventual retail price and have had similar boons on things like Aeon Trespass and Isofarian Guard. But that’s pretty rare and I wouldn’t chalk Aeon Trespass up as a deal really considering that it’s going on the bottomless hole list.
Bottomless Holes:
Too Many Bones: okay, this has probably hit bottom as they’ve promised they won’t be doing anything for it that can’t fit in the Trove Chest and there’s barely any room left, but I believe I spent on the order of $950 on my all-in set. Maybe almost $1000, actually, since I picked up Riffle during one of the brief windows they made him available.
Aeon Trespass: the initial KS hit me for nearly $500 with my purchase of the expansions. Despite the fact that I likely will never get through the Odyssey core box cycles, let alone Cycles IV and V, I then went all-in on the 12 Sins of Herakles campaign for another like…$600? $650? and neither of those count shipping. Because the game is just that good, and I am, I suppose, aspirationally purchasing.
Aeon’s End: not a massive sinkhole there as individual sets aren’t that bad, but apparently they have no intention of ever ending the product line despite remaking it as Astro Knights, and I’m a completionist, sooooo.
Glorantha: The Gods’ War: $500 up front, another couple hundred on expansions that currently look about as likely to release as peace eternal breaking out on Earth forever more. And I’m sure they’d keep going if they weren’t effectively out of business.
Planet Apocalypse: $300 up front, more on expansions, see above re the expansions.
Chronicles of Drunagor: I think the Apocalypse all-in w/ the first crowdfunding project’s content included was $500 or so, but they’ve said Apocalypse was part two of a three part story arc, so I’m expecting another $200-300 on that project.
Awaken Realms in general: so, so much money. I can’t resist basically any game they put out. They’re all terrific in my experience.
Zombicide: I went up through season 3 before I realized I didn’t like it enough to keep doing that or waste all that shelf space. (It was fine, but so bloated.) Never have done another CMON project since, nor likely will I.
I should note that apart from Zombicide (which I sold on), none of these are regrets apart from the Petersen Games expansions that likely won’t be coming, and then only because they likely won’t be coming. I love these games. Aeon’s End probably the least of the lot but it’s still cool.
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My problematic trait is that I am seriously contemplating Glorantha (I enjoyed my game of it)
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Bottomless Holes
My entire collection of… oh, probably $5,000CAD worth of WarMachine. When they released MkIV of the rules they made all previous models unplayable (you can still play MkIII, but at the end of MkIII the game already had a lot of problems).
I’m… a little bitter about that.
I also have a shocking amount of Infinity, Legion, Armada, Aristeia, and Battletech. Safer to not think about.
Bottomless Board Games
GKR Heavy Hitters is a gorgeous game that I just gave away. The rules were… fine. They were fine. But considering what I paid for all of it… ugh.
Heroes of Air, Land and Sea is way too expensive for the amount of game it is. It’s not bad, but gosh it’s too much. Too much money, too much space, and way too many expansions.
Lastly, I tracked down all the expansions for the original Game of Thrones board game at enormous time, money, and energy. Had to drive two hours to an American border crossing for one of them. A week… one week… after I finished the collection and three days before I played the whole thing they announced GoT Second Ed including all the best parts from all the expansions for about 15% what I paid.
Such is life.
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RPG games too - I currently have all but the very latest of Cubicle7s WFRP 4ed books - each at about £50 a pop if you include postage. Thats over 20 books…
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Me too. At least I am using them, unlike a chunk of my other RPGs (not enough time in the world). Fill a lot of shelf, but not as much as my Traveller books …
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Last week I bought a pristine copy of Fortune and Glory for $5. Go to your local library, folks.
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