It’s coming up to that time of the year again. We get to the new year and everyone wants to make some commitments, some changes, some kind of difference to their life. When it comes to board games this looks like things like the 10x10 challenges, promising to only play the games already in your collection, or even slimming your collection down to some arbitrary number.
There’s often a bit of Alpha Nerding in the hobby, especially in large online communities. People decide they’re the voice of what you should do, looking down their noses at anyone who dare to not conform to their views. These views, in my experience, include some which fly in the face of new, enthusiastic board gamers.
Buy all the games!
I’ve been there. You’ve been there too, admit it. You get swept up in your enthusiasm and buy games you’ve never even heard of before, much less been interested in. You spotted a bargain on BGG, someone on Facebook showed off a pretty game, or you found out about a game that’s got the same name as your dog.
Add to cart. Checkout. Lie in wait for the postman. Job done.
You might reach a point where you think “Wow, I have too many games!”. I used to be amazed at people who had a shelf of shame. I couldn’t imagine a world where I had so many new games that some just went on the shelf without coming out of their shrinkwrap, only to be sold on again somewhere along the line.
If this sounds bonkers to you too then just wait. It can, and does happen. Then you can start facing some dilemmas. Some self-imposed, some foisted on you by others’ opinions.
“Why do you have all these games? You can’t possibly play all of them. Look, you haven’t even opened all of these. Why do you keep buying them?”
Emotional security blankets
Many of us are privileged to live in parts of the world where we have leisure time and disposable income. This doesn’t mean life isn’t stressful or hard though, and we all need something to make us happy. Hobbies, sports, cinema, concerts - we have our happy places. Time when we don’t have responsibility, where we don’t have to worry about work, relationships, or health for a few hours. As someone who suffers from various mental health issues, I can attest to just how precious that time can be.
If you’ve ever been to a games convention or attended some really good games nights, you know how happy you can feel afterwards. Maybe it was the people, maybe the snacks they served. Maybe you’d had a hideous week at work, and playing games made you laugh so hard you snorted. Whatever the actual reason was, the thing that ties it all together in your mind is the games that you played.
It’s with these cardboard boxes full of bits that we weave our emotional security blankets. Well, we would, if cardboard wasn’t a terrible thing to try to weave with. Maybe a security wicker basket is more apt. I digress. In our heads we associate the games with the happiness we feel, and that’s fair. It might well have been spending a few hours in the company of other people which made you happy, but the games are what brought you together. They were the social glue that bonded you for that time.
So what do you do in a world where you associate games with good times? You buy more games. More games = more good times, right?
Something to cling to
Of course, the act of buying more games doesn’t magically grant more opportunities to play them. But we do it anyway. Read the sentence below and tell me if you feel even an ounce of familiarity with it.
I’m going to buy this game, because maybe later in the year I can get together with this group of people, and I know we’d all have a good time with it.
Yeah, me too. More than once. More than that even. I’ve got a ton of RPGs saved and sorted, for instance, because I can envisage very specific use cases that may or may not happen. They probably won’t but if they did, I’d have it covered.
So we buy games. We collect games. Sometimes we’ll try to fool ourselves into thinking it’s because we’ll definitely get that group of people who don’t even like Dominion to sit down and play five hours of 1830. You know what, though? It doesn’t matter.
If it makes you happy to think about those maybe times. If it makes you happy to see the edge of the box slowly gathering dust while it peers down at you, longingly, so what? You’re not hurting anyone, and if you’re not spending money you can’t afford, go for it. It makes you happy, it makes you think about time you spend with the people you love, and it offers you the promise of future joy. Embrace it.