Things, Things and More Things
I've always collected things. Over my six decades I've amassed many collections. Some are typical: DVD's, LP's, postage stamps depicting the space race, cameras, event posters, old computers that still work. Some are strange: energy drinks, flattened pop cans found by the side of the road, old toothbushes, curly wood shavings. Anything, as long as it comes in a variety of forms, can be collected.
Board games come in a great variety of forms. There are different styles of games, that utilize different mechanics for gameplay, and sport different themes to illuminate their rules, clothed in different artwork to entice and motivate players... If you've been drawn to this site, I don't need to explain how eminently collectable board games are. It was only a matter of time before I stumbled on this hobby, and upon doing so, it was inevitable I would begin building yet another collection.
The question remains. Why? Why does the collector collect? And why doesn't my significant-other (a non-collector) understand the addition of another collection to my collection of collections?
This collector collects for a number of reasons. I like culture and its artifacts, I delight in details, and I enjoy libraries.
Of these three points, the third is the most important. Point one is straightforward: a person doesn't collect things unless they like things. Point two has already been touched on: variety in a set of similar things makes the things in that set more interesting. But for me, the main reason I collect is to build little reference libraries of sorts. I like being able to offer my friends and myself a selection of this-or-that, which selection represents more or less the range of what's available in this-or-that, and what I find excellent or interesting about this-or-that.
That's the essence of it. I like being a curator. The process of carefully selecting things for the collection becomes a hobby of its own. It takes time and can be taxing but it's enjoyable. The finished collection has (sometimes, depending on its type) utility, but most importantly it reflects my tastes.
April, 2016
Pie Charts!
Here's a snapshot of our game collection as of the spring of '16.
Part of the fun of a collection, for me, is appreciating the assemblage as a whole. Nothing helps this quite so much as a spreadsheet and charts!
Here, for example, we learn that my partner and I prefer euro games that aren't too heavy, and that I'm the one who brings kooky filler games based on bluffing to game day.
We also learn that I have a penchant for Italy and film noir, and that I like archaeology. (In fact, that I like archaeology and biology more than I like politics and sci-fi, and that I like politics and sci-fi more than I like history. None of which is true.)
Lastly, we can see that great games are being published in ever greater numbers these days — that the board game renaissance is in full swing. Slicing and dicing a collection with a spreadsheet is almost as much fun as building the collection, admiring it on its shelf, or using it!
April, 2016
Small is Beautiful
UPDATE: the collection continues to grow. To any collector, especially a collector of games, this is not news.
The following chart is from my BoardGameGeek.com profile. In addition to being a great place to research games, BGG is also a great place to slice and dice the stats of your board game collection.
This snapshot of my board game collection includes 71 games. That may sound like a lot games (and it kind of is) but compared to many game collections this one is quite small.
BGG awards a badge to people with over 100 games in their collection — and a range of badges for even larger collections!
As described above, I take great pains to only add games to the game cupboard that offer something (mechanic, weight, excellence) not already present in the collection. I'm feeling more and more like I've got the bases important to me covered.
With luck, I’ll avoid earning that first BGG collector badge.
July, 2017
How Does Your Garden Grow?
UPDATE: so much for all my tough talk. In the year since the last update, I bought another 22 games (one at the grocery store in the toy aisle). Yikes. That takes the collection to 93. Phew, still below 100 games. I’m holding the line, people. Holding the line.
So many games. How did this happen?
I started board gaming on a regular basis in 2011. A group of friends had a good assortment of games. The first game I played with them was Twilight Imperium. Yes, my introduction to the group, to group gaming, my first experience with a modern board game was with TI3 with all expansions. It was pretty fun. I was not deterred.
Sid Meyer’s Civilization, Agricola, Caylus, The Settlers of Catan, The Castles of Burgundy and 7 Wonders were also in rotation in my new game group. After playing a range of games, I identified my preference for Euro games. My partner was on the same page. She had played lots of Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. It was the only modern game we owned, i.e. the only game we owned that was designed as part of the board game renaissance spearheaded by German designers in the mid-1990's.
In 2012 we visited our friendly local game store and asked for recommendations. We went home with Ticket to Ride Europe. The dreadlocked clerk at our FLGS didn’t steer us wrong. We had (and still have) tonnes of fun with TtR. While at the store we had spotted another magical box, Catan Histories: Settlers of America - Trails to Rails. We soon bought it too. Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Catan. The kernel of a collection had formed in a cupboard in our guest room though we didn’t yet know it.
Somehow, somewhere, I started reading about games. I can’t remember how it happened. I probably went to BoardGameGeek.com on the recommendation of a buddy. I became interested in Tsuro. It wasn’t stocked locally. I bought our first game online. It was the beginning of the end, although again, I didn’t recognize this at the time.
In 2013, the levee having been breached by Tsuro, we ordered Agricola and Pandemic online. We wanted to have our own copy of Agricola and I was interested in the novel idea of a co-operative board game. For almost a year I’d dragged Tsuro to game days. It never got any play with the group. Too light. We didn’t need an opener or closer. The boys liked heavy cardboard and wanted to dive right into Through the Ages or Runewars without wasting time. When I introduced Pandemic however, they liked it. Quite apart from how fun the game itself was, bringing a hit to the table was addictive.
Next, on advice from our FLGS game guru, I brought Small World to the group. We played the crap out of that and my new career as a game researcher was cemented.
By 2014 I was consciously collecting games. I commandeered a whole cupboard for games, and started this Web site (a photo of that cupboard still introduces the reviews section of this site). And, my rate of acquisitions accelerated...
Despite my continued acquisitions, it appears my rate of purchase is declining. Hooray for graphs!
July, 2018
Reality Check
UPDATE 2020: 120 games. The 100 game limit is shattered. More importantly, the collection no longer fits on the game shelf, which violates a core promise I made to myself and my partner when the collection starting growing.
Here's the shelf in 2017 when everything fit.
In 2016, I had moved the collection out of the cupboard and onto a Kallax (the quintessential game shelf from Ikea) that we coincidentally already owned. More space! And technically not in violation of the 'shelf rule'.
In 2019, I pushed the letter-of-the-law even further when I reconfigured the Kallax to open up another row of shelves for games. Such is the human condition in Canada in the 21st century, a slippery slope of consumption and denial. Game storage limits? Much like the world's carbon budget, they get no respect.
Here is the collection in November, 2020. Can you spot our copy of Kingdom Builder? It has been boxed with the KB Nomands expansion (smaller box), and stuffed behind other games in the bottom row of games. This is the final desperate compression. Games we rarely play are now stacked behind those we do.
"What are you complaining about?" you ask. "There are clearly spots left on the shelf for more games." Yes, there are. For now. Those spots have already been filled with acquisitions that Santa and Kickstarter will deliver in the future...
November, 2020
Collecting Games for 10 Years
UPDATE: 2023 is the 10th anniversary of our game collection! Whoa. We've got a lot of games.
The good news is that the collection feels mature. Acquisitions are way down. This is a function of our goals for the collection: owning games that we enjoy playing; games that are great for two players; and a variety of games that represent the many different game genres and mechanics that exist.
This last criterion is most responsible for the slow down. We've now got a game we love in just about every game category. We often try a new game (at a friend's place or at a convention) and although we enjoy it, we resist buying it because a game already in our collection scratches that same game itch.
However, we continue to discover new kinds of games we like. For example, we finally played the classic real-time building game Galaxy Trucker. So fun. No wonder it's a classic. Then we bumped into Fit to Print, a new real-time builder. We didn't own an RTB, so yeah, I added Fit to Print to the collection.
There will always be great new games. It looks like two or three new games are making it into our collection each year now. One of these years I'm going to have to start getting rid of games we're not playing, but I'm loath to cross this line. I've been so careful building the collection, that almost any elimination would remove something unique and decrease our collection's variety.
Sure, some games don’t get played often —and some games (mostly the wargames) have yet to be played— but every now and again we return to a neglected title, which, after all, is the purpose of keeping a library.
Most importantly, although the collecting has slowed, the playing hasn't.
As before, the dates in this chart refer to the year a game was first published, not the year it made it into our collection. Mouse over the chart to see the 2020 state of things. Hmmm. 146 minus 120 equals 26. Divide that by 3... What? That’s more than three new games a year! It’s nine!
Also note that only 45 of the games we own were published before 2013. Slightly more than two-thirds of the games in our collection were created after we started collecting. If we look at the date we began regularly playing modern board games in 2011, only 25% of the games we love were then in existence. In the last 12 years, board gaming has exploded. No wonder I can’t stop buying games!
May, 2023
Collection Big. Or Collection Small?
The answer to the age old question, "How big is big?" is, like most things, a matter of perspective.
Here's a current picture of our game collection.
The wargames have escaped. They now sit apart from the other games. Aloof. Elevated. They rejoice. They always knew they were different. Special. Gotta give them something, since they are so little played.
The two cubbies that the wargames vacated were just enough to fit this year's sprawl and to accomodate most of the tiny games that had been banished to drawers for the last few years in order to save space.
Shelving games, another game game collectors like to play!
If you count, you'll find 117 games in the pic. 103 are in the Kallax cubbies. 14 are on top of the unit. Over the years I made a fuss about not breaking the 100 game threshold. We're actually a good 50% over that number now. (Not all of our games are on display. Only those likely to make it to the game table make front-of-shelf.)
But step back and look at the shelf. Numerical quibbling aside, how big does this assemblage strike you?
If you don't play board games regularly like we do, it probably looks huge. Before we got the board game bug, we stored our games on one end of a closet shelf. Scrabble, Mastermind, Backgammon, Monopoly, Uno, Trivial Pursuit. The standard Canadian collection. It had variety. It even had game. But it was staid.
There's nothing wrong with the classics, of course. Or with a six game collection. But, if you're aware of the board game revolution, you know that many more games exist today than in decades past, and many of them are more fun and engaging than the old standbys.
Perhaps you've visited a store specializing in selling board games, or visited a board game cafe that keeps a library of games for patrons to play. These establishments have walls lined with board games. Or maybe you've browsed the game database at boardgamegeek.com. It contains 25,708 games at writing. Walls of games. And a virtual Great Wall of games. If you've seen such wonders, our bookcase of games probably looks small.
The BoardGameGeek website provides even more perspective. On BGG users can track the board games they own. Being a site for enthusiasts, many (like yours truly) do, and this yields some interesting stats.
We own between 100-250 games, a state we currently share with
156,196 other BGG users.
55,847 users own between 250-500 games.
19,678 own between 500-1000 games.
5,310 own between 1000-2500.
623 own between 2500-5000.
And 88 people own more than 5000 games.
Five thousand games? Imagine a game room large enough to house 50 Kallaxes. Or a room filled with Kallaxes lined up parallel to each other like library shelves.
Kallaxes are open, front and back, so they could be filled from each side with small and medium sized games. This would reduce the K-factor, and make storage even more efficient.
Maybe 5000 games is doable. As long as there's room for a card catalogue!
January, 2024
The Battle of Six Armies
Who can resist a flying lady ninja? I couldn’t.
Herein lies the compleat tale of the Dust 1947 armies I built over many years. It is a cautionary tale because this collection ballooned far beyond this collector’s intent. It is a tale that can finally be told because, although it might have gone on forever, the collecting was cut mercifully short when Dust Studio closed its doors for good in September 2021.
March, 2022