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I spent some time reorganizing my game shelves the other day. I was really trying to get stuff to fit onto two shelves. I’ve mostly succeeded, I’ve got a side shelf which mainly has stuff I’ve marked for trade or flea markets in the future, as well as harboring some party games and the small OSBG library. I was due for another collection picture. So here it is:
Uggh, I haven’t been very good lately. I’ve bought a couple of games I really shouldn’t have simply because I got a good deal on them or something.
The biggest offense was picking up a copy of Titan from Tanga. I can’t believe I did that. I’m not even that big a fan of the game. But it was like $30 bucks. Oh well, maybe I’ll give it a couple of plays and unload it at a flea market.
Most of the others were circumstances. I picked up a couple of titles at Goodwill, simply because they were insanely cheap. Hisss, Conspiracy, and Sorry Sliders are the main ones that come to mind.
As far as game orders, I can only think of one that I made, and that was for a copy of Glory to Rome, which should come back in to stock basically any day now. I’m about to order the historical versions of Battleground Fantasy Warfare and the Expansion. I kind of thought Arcane Legions might satisfy my historical want for a mini like wargame. But I think it has some flaws people are talking about. I’ve decided that Battleground is sufficiently tiny, and gets sufficiently good reviews for me to give it a shot.
Anyway, I digress. So in order to curb the recent trend, I decided to try to reign in my growth a little this week, and looked to cull some more stuff out of the collection. I’ve decided to finally let go of some oldies but goodies that I’ve been hanging on to.
I’m getting out of the Formula De business. The game just takes way to long for the amount of fun contained, and I’d much much rather play Snow Tails nearly every time, or even Turfmaster. So I just had to finally give up on it, especially since the tracks are worth so much. In an effort to speed this up, I’m sending my Spa Francorchamps, USA Track Pack 1, and USA Track Pack 2 to Troll and Toad. For these three Track sets, they have offered me $220 bucks, and I can’t keep them sitting on the shelf unplayed when they are worth that and somebody will get them that wants them. They only offered me $15 for the base game though, and I could get that at a Flea Market without going through Troll & Toad for them. Plus I really think I might be able to get $20 or so at a flea market anyway, since I have painted pewter cars and stuff in mine.
I also posted some old Martin Wallace Treefrog things on BGG, one has sold this week. My copy of Tinners’ Trail Signed & Numbered 1128 of 1500 has already sold. Hopefully I’ll get an offer on my signed and numbered copy of Steel Driver sometime soon as well.
I liked both of these games well enough, but can’t keep them around when I’d rather play Chicago Express over both of them, despite my love for Martin Wallace and his games and designs. I still can’t get rid of Perikles though, I haven’t gotten to try it yet, I need to get that one to the table to see if it makes the cut or not.
We were having a discussion on our local Game Group’s mailing list a week or so ago about collection data, size, etc.
I had made reference to my collection numbers and it was asked why I care. GW wanted to tell me that his philosophy was that if he liked a game, he would get it, and later if that changed, he would purge it, without regard to the actual number.
My response at the time was that the collection number was sort of like a temperature gauge. Not something I’m overly concerned with, but I like to look at it to see a numerical analysis of the situation at one time or another. Over time the number can show me trends etc.
But that got me thinking about the number. And I wanted to elaborate on that number and the way it is used. Personally, for my own personal game thinning, I was using the Boardgamegeek ‘Owned’ number on each members profile page. At the time I began, I felt like my game collection was running rampant (coincidentally when it outgrew the current two shelves and started being added to dining room and piles around the game room) I was using this number to reign in my collection and try to minimally keep it to the two shelves plus a little bit of spillover on certain occasions or situations. (90% of my collection currently exists on those shelves. But I do have a trade pile as well and a pile of party games in the Kitchen. These are the spillover situations that I am referring too. )
But as we were chatting about this number I admitted a few things.
First. I list some games that everyone can list. Chess, Backgammon, Bridge, Euchre, Hearts, Spades, Cribbage, maybe a couple of others. I do not list Checkers, Tic Tac Toe, Bingo, and a bunch of others by choice.
My idea behind these philosophies is that the first set, I would happily play and have the means to be able to play them should anyone want to. There is no specific box on the shelf that has these up there, but If I printed out a sheet of all the games I could play, they would be on the list.
As far as the ones that I don’t list, I would rather they not show up on said printout, because I would hope that nobody would pick it.
There are a few other items I do not list on BGG. I only list Zendo and Icetowers (I think) as Icehouse games even though I have a lot of Icehouse pieces and can play essentially any Icehouse game. I also own a piece pack, but do not list any of the Piecepack games. I do this because I don’t want these games inflating the numbers I display on BGG. The main reason I don’t want this artificial inflation… Because I’ve been using this as my metric for game purges over the last couple of years.
The second thing I had to admit regarding this number, is that I cheat on the number a little bit with expansions.
I do not list things like the Chuck No-Rice Card from Ghost Stories, Certain Agricola Decks, Bang Expansions, or even the new Cosmic Encounter Expansion, simply because I don’t want these inflating my metric as well. I have these things. But when I log a play, I typically don’t want to log play expansions and not listing them in BGG won’t throw off my play statistics. Especially with the Friendless Stats.
Some Expansions I do log. Mostly Age of Steam and Power Grid Expansions, which I want to track different games of on different expansions. I typically do not list expansions if every time I play that game, it’s probably going to be with the expansion, usually because the expansion doesn’t really change any game rules. If it does change the game or rules, then the expansion typically gets listed. Unfortunately, this is not a hard and fast rule.
What this entire post is alluding to though, is that I think using the BGG Owned number as my purge metric may be fundamentally flawed. I feel like a lot of these things, for completeness sake should be listed. But it would blow my number out of the water completely so I refrain.
Recently I’ve created my own Boardgame Database, I haven’t completely populated it yet, and mostly it contains data imported from BGG. I can enter a play in the database and push a button to have it duplicate that entry into BGG’s database now (For global statistics) but If I didn’t care personally about being able to work with others BGG Data, I could happily stick with my own Database Design at this time. It fits my profile of a game database much better, and I’m about to begin throwing Piecepack, playing card games, and Icehouse games into it as well.
But I can’t bring myself to use it as my purge metric yet. It needs a little bit more work I think, but eventually, I’ll probably want to switch to it. I think I need to add some sort of indicator about game systems so that Piecepack, Icehouse, Playing Card games will not show up in the collection numbers, because these would not be things I trade, but that they will show up when I print out ‘Decide what to play’ sheets.
So After all my cleaning up around the house and stuff, I decided to clean up my game collection, it’s gone through some changes over the past year, including much of my purge. So I thought I would renew my collection pic, which was last done in February of 2008.
So, As of 07/24/2009 This is my Boardgame Collection:
It may be hard to notice, but I’ve dropped a lot of games since last time. I still have a lot of work to do. Most of the collection fits on these shelves now. I still have a few of the Mass Market Hasbro (Monopoly/Risk/Scrabble) games in my walk in closet. Along with a few party type games sitting in the dining room for easy access at the end of a long game session. But that’s the bulk of it as of now.
Next thing I’ll probably do is track down a green box english copy of Torres and get rid of Java, Tikal, and Torres. That will be a pretty big chunk of that shelf right there. I like all three of these games, but Torres is the only one I consider critical, and I can’t bring myself to get rid of Tikal and Java because they match the current box I have for Torres (I might be sick.)
There is also a couple of other titles I can’t seem to get rid of at all, even at boardgame flea markets too. I don’t know what I’m going to do with those eventually. Kablamo (a math trade pickup) and Tongiaki (Courtesy of Tanga) seem to be permanent fixtures, despite my best efforts.
As I’ve stated before, I have been very good this year, and only purchased two real games. (Cities and Fits) I did kind of cheat though and picked up the Switzerland expansion for Ticket to Ride, but I got it to fit in the TTR box. So that doesn’t count. Also grabbed the Bang the Bullet a couple of weeks ago, but It’s replacing my copy of Bang and the Dodge City Expansion. Which are both quite well worn.
So, I need to work on figuring out what should be in the OMGA Game library this Saturday April 4th. (Procrastination is great isn’t it)
This typically needs to trend toward lighter stuff or stuff that works with the Ole Miss Gamers association demographic. We will also have a couple of children that I may need to cater to. So, here’s what I’m thinking for preliminaries. Caveats being that I need to have access to a game for it to make it on the list. If anyone wants to give me suggestions on what I might have access to, or what would be good to add before next year let me know.
Gateways
Qwirkle
Ticket to Ride (and 1910)
Zooloretto
Ingenious
Crokinole
Carcassonne
Blokus
Bang
Strategy
La Citta
Agricola
Dominion
Samurai
Through the Desert
Medici
Cooperative
Ghost Stories
Pandemic
Theme
Last Night on Earth
Battlestar Galactica
Galaxy Trucker
Bolide
Nexus Ops
Filler
Can’t Stop
No Thanks
Felix: Cat in the Sack
To Court the King
For Sale
Covert Action
Guillotine
Party
Say Anything
Three Commandments
Liar’s Dice
Attribute
Time’s Up
Werewolf!!!
Childrens
Tier auf Tier
Gulo Gulo
Dancing Eggs *ducks behind a table*
Just in Case
Manoeuvre
Age of Steam
I wish I had access to the Red Dragon Inn’s. Those would go perfect with this group and get them to come try. But I haven’t been able to justify purchasing them because I don’t think I have room for them in my collection. But they would go so great with the game club. If OSBG Charged Due’s it would probably be a purchase for our club library.
This is just a working list. There are a few others I will bring as well. But these are the highlights I wanted to ensure that I hit because I believe these are the strongest ones in each class that I have access to. If there’s something glaringly obvious that I overlooked please let me know!!!