Recently I’ve found myself reassessing my collection, in part due to needing to raise funds to help pay for a broken down car, but also a realisation that I can’t reasonably justify owning as many games as I do. I’ve realised that having games sat unplayed, makes me feel bad, because I can’t get them all to the table and there’s so many games I love. Not enough time, always comes to mind. If it was actually a source of income would I play games all day? I suspect not, I’d most likely get bored. I need a mixture of hobbies and I go between a few hobbies and turning a hobby into a job or a constant has never worked out well.
So then its about priortisation? Or is it focusing on games I love regardless of how long it is between plays?
I took a look back last week and saw that some of my favourite games, games that I’d placed in my top ten, I’ve not played it years.
I haven’t played in over a year:
Castell
Santorini
Blood Rage
Carcassonne
Capital Lux
Jaipur
Heckmeck
Dice Hospital
Tyrants of the Underdark
In over two years:
Khora Rise of an empire
Concordia
Star Realms
Targi
Lost Cities
Thunder Vs Lightning
Qwirkle
And in over 3 years:
Five tribes
Twilight imperium
Raiders of the North Sea
Sun Tzu
Looking at those games in the 3 year bracket, Five Tribes has sat in my top 5 games for years! But actually Raiders of the North Sea, I feel a bit indifferent to. But it serves a purpose on the square boxed shelf, yes I have a shelf of games that are all square. And they look great! So can I count that game as part of my collection? I guess I do, but after discussing the list at home, maybe it actually needs to go. To be replaced as its not going to make it to the table anytime soon. So now I’m all sales itchy! But equally we want a complete square shelf of games.
My collection also encompasses the local game night library, as I couldn’t see a better way to list it on Boardgamegeek. So although my collection is 73, a number of those games sit purely because their game night games. I dont see myself ever playing Coup, Heckmeck and a few others. So actually my total games are 59.
Prior to covid-19, I went on a massive reduction plan and applied the rules of:
Have I played it in the last 12 months? No, it goes.
Is it new and not played within 6 months? If so it goes!
Everything that was left (which was still over 100) we seperated into 3 piles of:
Love and will ask to play
Will play if the other wants to
Don’t really want to play
And that’s how we culled some 120+ games in one go.
But is another way to look at it, values and number of plays? Does that change the perspective on perceived value? Using the Boardgamegeek collection value tool my collection comes in at a hefty £2 .3k value allegedly, which I struggle to believe, looking at some of the values on my games and even if I sold my games for an average of £20 each (which I wouldn’t) I’m nowhere near that! But its a useful number to bring to break down into perspective of values of play.
Using the what I’ll call inflated figure, my plays have cost me to date £1.41 per play. Or using a more realistic figure is a mere £0.87 per play.
And if you’ve got this far, you might be wondering what’s the point of all this? For me, it’s been a method of selecting what games to sell, to raise the funds to fix my car, but secondary its a time to essentially reset and refresh the collection. Now my collection isn’t back into the 100’s that it had been, but it had spread from the kallax in the corner of my office to lots of other shelves and even the living room.
And even after this, there’s still games I’m pretty certain will hit the sales pile, and that is in part why I’ve organised a local bring and buy event, because I’ve a ton of stuff to sell! And I’ve already sold 20 games, I’ve another 15 or so that I’ll be looking to sell too.
But what this process has realised is that an organised, refreshed collection actually gives me a clear state of mind. Being able to look at my shelves and not feel overwhelmed by a sense of burden of must play, but rather picking what I want to play feels great.
So anybody want to buy some games?
You can see my full upto date collection here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/sardonic%20wolf?own=1&subtype=boardgame&gallery=large&ff=1