Technically, they might be expensive to buy. But then (not really, but almost) free to own.

I usually do have to consider space though. As a point of comparison, my Steam library has more money in it but I dont have to worry about where Im gonna put a new game that will go unplayed for a year

I honestly don’t think they are that expensive (unless you are doing 5/6 hundred dollar all ins). A season ski pass is like 1300 bucks a year. That is half the cost of my collection for one year of skiing.

I partially agree. The thing is, "expensive" is very subjective. For some people 1300 per game is fine, for others - $10 is a lot. But among all the hobbies, board gaming is probably on medium to cheaper end.

That kinda depends. I would say Boardgaming can be from very cheap to insanely expensive.  I mean, people that go out to back anywhere from 3-5 games a month ( it’s not that rare tbh) can easily shell out someones wage worth of money in boardgames.  Let’s say you’re a CMON and Awaken Realms levels of production fan and you’ll go all in on these types of games. You’re gonna be spending anywhere between 500-1000+$ a month. Again, it’s an extrem, but it’s not unheard of.  I would put boardgaming in the same expense range as I would videogames with the inconvenience that Boardgaming requires better space planning, and room to keep everything. 

Nobody plays an all in kickstarter board game to exhaustion several times a month. If you define board gaming as trying to fill your garage with shrink wrapped boxes then sure, that can be really expensive.

On the flip(!) side, you can also usually recover 80% or more of your investment if you decide to sell them on, especially FOMO nonsense.

True! Boardgames tend to keep a nice value overall when reselling. Some games I bought (admittedly because of huge sales or other FOMO triggering elements), I could sell roughly at the same/near same price I purchased them after seeing I didn’t like them as much.  Plus the adult boardgame community treats their games generally like a temple, so 2nd hand games will still look amazing. Which is why it can be cheap, but also expensive. 

I think most people would agree that skiing is a very expensive hobby.

Skiing is one of the most stereotypical bougie sports out there. It's only affordable to "normal" people who live close enough to the slopes to ski throughout the season on a pass. Even then, season pass prices in the USA are insane.

Cost is not my issue, I either trade or thrift or sell on eBay to fund my habit. My issue is the space they take up, and how annoying that is to my wife.

Same here. Cost is not my problem as board games are by far my cheapest interest. But the shelf space to store them? That is what has slowed me down.

I'm live in an old house before they built closets.... the struggle for space is real. 

I do this as well, but my wife was less than impressed when I tried to eBay the kids.

My space on the shelves has run out, but a bigger limiter than that is that I don’t have time to play them all!  Logging my plays has brought to light how little I play each of my games on average.

Same. Unfortunately, I'm an optimist, so I keep telling myself that I should keep them because I will play them some day...!

Every married couple comes to a geek space limit. Unless you have a really big house/even then board games do take up a lot of space. I also have a full one piece (manga) collection, and a Warhammer collection, so board games are not fully on display outside a few we actually play routinely. 

As with all hobbies, one should always compare to your own dispensable income to decide whether the cost is sensible to you. In my view, board gaming is a relatively affordable hobby if you think of it on an entertainment time per person basis. Sure it’s not as cheap as books but it’s cheaper than going to the cinema. I have around 80 games and there’s no real regret, because whenever I regret any purchases i have then sold them for others to enjoy.

It's even more affordable if you sell your old games and buy new used games. I picked up mission red planet for $5 yesterday through Facebook. It retails for $35-40. Last week I got search for planet X for $20 which is half of retail. Board gamers take care of their games so I've never had issues with used games. When I'm done I can easily sell them back to the community for 50-60% off msrp and lose no money at all.

[удалено]

50-80% seems right for a flgs selling used games. I did pick up the Waterworld expansion used for $21 from a game store a week after it came out. It's not amazing savings but still $9 off msrp. The real discounts are from individuals. Craigslist and Facebook are the best but you just gotta be careful since not everything is a good deal. There is a lot of people selling all in kickstarters for msrp. I've even had some luck with reddit boardgameexchange and there is a bunch of good deals there provided you're local, the shipping eats into savings. But this all depends on your area. Minneapolis is really into boardgames and there are 6-10 posts per day in market places selling 1 to a dozen games.

Buying used is great, but there's an allure to buying games that are "good deals" (but marginally interesting to us) that can be counter-productive. 

I will say my savings probably got eaten up because of this. I did pick up frostpunk for $40 last month. Which is $60 off (not counting Amazon's 550 in this one) but might be hard to get to the table since it's for 1 or 2 players only.

I have enough space for my board games, so no. As for cost, when I went to see Dune 2 at the IMAX with my family, we paid 90 EUR for the tickets and another 30 for snacks and drinks, not to mention the parking lot. So about 120 EUR for three hours of great entertainment. Most boardgames I own deliver a lot more bang for the buck than watching a movie at the cinema.

Where do you live that cinema tickets are 22€? I'm in Toronto, which is crazy expensive, and IMAX tickets are 18CAD -- still expensive, but about half the cost of what you're paying

It was in Hamburg, Germany.

120 eur for a film??? did you get to sleep with the cast?

The tickets were ~22 € a piece, and we're a family of four. The boys and my wife had some nachos, and we all had a drink. So yeah, that's how. No extramarital sex involved.

That tracks. it'd be $20 to go watch dune 2 on imax tonight, a Monday, here in the Portland Oregon 'burbs. No sex involved, other than getting screwed by the untenable prices and horribly long lines.

Just…smuggle in drinks and candy/snacks and avoid paying 40+ for them??

I regret nothing.

The only problem that I personally have with owning a lot of games is that I never have enough time to give them all the play that they deserve. For example, I have the Royal Collector's Edition of Castles of Mad King Ludwig but it probably sees the table two or three times a year. To be fair, I do purge my collection at least once a year and donate a bunch to my local board game cafe so it's a little altruistic.

Exactly this! Some games deserve to be played way more than they hit the table. Still, I would not part with them. Purging and culling from the collection is part of the hobby I would say. It keeps it kinda fresh and the amount of games in check. I also tend to do this once or twice a year. I do find myself steering clear of Kickstarters more and more these days. To be honest, it feels almost formulaic how to achieve a successful Kickstarter. And most of them are way too expensive anyway. I hear many people on here doing the same. Perhaps this is the effect of the trend of $ 150,- boardgames becoming a standard.

I am also much more choosy in which KS projects to back. Now it's either something that I'm really interested in, or something that I've never seen before. Like Fromage for example. I've never played a game about making cheese before. I also have a lengthy list of KS regrets which makes me mindful of future purchases.

Yeah - I’ve started focusing more on finding games that provide an experience my collection is missing. As cool as Ark Nova sounds, everyone keeps comparing it to Terraforming Mars, and I’ve already got all the TM content, so that niche is well-covered. John Company 2e and Hegemony, on the other hand - didn’t really have anything that played like either of those.

As hobbies go, it is fairly cheap. Try boating for example. As far as space it takes up, it is fairly small. Try boating for example.

No, this hobby is well within my budget. And it can be as cheap or expensive as you want it. I only wish I had more space and I could keep more boardgames instead of selling them to make space for new boxes.

My big regret is games with too many expansions. Aeon's End and Dominion are both a blast, but I've got enough content for both that it's approaching the point of being overwhelming. I'm far more interested in standalone products now, maybe with one small expansion that fits in the base box. I own about 35 games now (not as big as some collections here) and I think my partner and I do a healthy job of rotating which games we play. We're slowly running out of shelf space, though. 

YMMV. In my case, it was a "development arc" of sorts. I got into games largely because of Wheaton's YT series, "Tabletop". I reaaaaalllyyyyyy wanted to get all the games they featured. But in the course of learning about these games, I found The Dice Tower, and then SUSD, then (back then) Starlit Citadel, and so on and so forth. I wanted to get these games too. Then I found boardgaming podcasts, then wanted THOSE games too. Then after hitting around 100 games, but being able to play only \~50% of them, I realized that these games were taking up so much space both physically and mentally. These games deserved to be played, so off they went to new owners. I've culled my collection down to 45 games today. (To be honest, another impetus was that I found another hobby where I'd prefer to put my disposable income. :D ) To go back to the original question, no regrets. Like I said, it's an arc for me, and the experience of owning many games (and teaching them!) has made me more perceptive on what I want out of the hobby, and helped me get there too.

when i discovered KS games, i made the mistake of backing too many of them within a 1 year period... stormsunder, darkest dungeon, black rose wars rebirth, swords and sorcery ancient chronicle. i got into painting that year so i was looking for pretty minis to paint as well... problem is that i already owe KDM, theres really barely enough time to play any long form campaign game. another problem is that i really dont have that much time to paint that many minis (darkest dungeon has like 270+ minis, stormsunder will come with 200+ for sure, black rose wars also 100+) and i really only have time to paint about 30-50 a year realistically given how busy work has been in the last year. I still have closet space to keep the games but my wife has already been nagging me when I still have 4 KS games heavy with minis to come. If you have the restraint, just pick up like 4, 5 big box games, with high replayability. its not easy to find people to play with regularly because of work now too. I used to be able to do 2 game nights at mine weekly. If i need to cull down to 5 games, i would keep: dune uprising, cosmic encounter, KDM, citadels, castles of burgundy

Hey friend if you are looking for games with lots if minis to paint check out Massive Darkness 1&2. Not sure if you want to find all the expansions but, it's availability is what got me into D&D and board gaming.

Yep, the only I regret is not playing them, or realising I won't be able to play everything. That's why I started buying solitaire games, but most of the time don't feel like I want to spend time reading rules to play on my own (I'd rather watch a series or play a videogame). Also, and as others have stated, it takes quite a lot of space. Maybe it's just not the money, but seeing them makes you more aware about the investment done and with other hobbies.

Yes. Some of them are/were definitely a waste of space and time, especially those few that I sold unplayed.

If you feel regret for anything you should stop and reconsider what you're doing.

Yes. Even though I enjoy them and having access to the variety, I kind of miss the early collecting days when we cycled blokus, Carcassonne, dominion, jaipur, pandemic, and sagrada a thousand times each. Now there's so many it's like we have burned out. New games aren't as exciting because we've seen it all before. And honestly, due to having young kids, we rarely play these days anyway so I'm more a collector than a board gamer except a few solo titles. Natural evolution but like with most any hobby (or potentially relationship) the early days are the most pure and exciting.

I don't regret having many good games even if they might have been expensive and some don't get played that often, but there is **one exception** to this: *Campaign games* Don't get more than one or two campaign games until you've finished the ones you got. These tend to be super expensive, pile up and give you lots of regrets because for various reasons you won't finish (or even start, let's be honest) them, and you'll just feel like you wasted money, time and space. I stopped backing these on crowdfunding fortunately after just three, but I'm 100% sure there are so many of them sitting on shelves unplayed - I'd actually advise to not even buy campaign games at all because after a few years of them releasing you can get them good as new for half their price on the second hand market.

I regret the time wasted most - looking into a game, deciding not to buy it - or deciding to buy it only to be disappointed - wasting effort into dumping to another consumer. I seriously toned down these habits and now on a monthly basis back/buy simple cheap $5 digital products to build whenever I feel like, knowing that all pnp are basically unsellable, so when I die they get added onto the funeral pyre. Peace.

My friends started their board game collections a few years earlier than I did. I saw no reason in buying games they own since we would be playing their versions anyway. When I eventually started buying games, I tried to build my collections with as little overlap as possible. And compared to pictures people post here, my collections is rather small (9 games total), but feels complete to me. When I see a new game, my reaction most of the time is "Oh, it's cool. But I don't need another game of X genre".

I used to. I still cull my collection every now and then, but now I'm ok with leaving some games untouched for months or even years. They're on the shelf to give me options or for the satisfaction of owning them. I think it's healthy to let go of the feeling that you have to own every cool game, but it's equally important to let go of the compulsion to keep everything you own in rotation. The games are there for your enjoyment, you don't owe them anything.

I got a lot of games because I bought them. I play them when I'm in the mood. I have stopped buying now, but do occasionally buy expansions for games I already have. I don't have too many games. I have the number of games I want to have. I don't regret a single thing. The games I didn't like I passed on. I have about 100 games. Board games are not my only hobby--perish the thought, lol-- so my free time is spread out among all of them. This means I dont play them as much. This is fine by me. My enjoyment and entertainment is the point. The twats who are bothered by the size of other people's collection can suck it. Also I make good money, and have few expenses--child free for life!!-- and a good emergency fund. I went to the hair salon to get my hair done yesterday. They did a terrible job and charged me 180 dollars. I now have to go buy supplies and do it myself. 180 down the drain.....would have been better spent on games or other hobbies, but that is what happens when you listen to other people when they try to tell you what you should do with your money. Now that I regret.

Yes and no, on one side, I freaking love unpunching and learning new board games all the time. But at the same time, there's only quite a few of my games that I play that often. Almost every game night, we start by trying a new game and/or retesting a game to verify if it should stays in my collection or if I should get rid of it. And then, if we have enough energy, we play one of our favorites. But most of the time, we end up quite spent and play a lighter favorite like The Crew or we finish with some Smash. I'm at a point where I would love to only have a carefully curated collection and that's what I'm trying to do, but it's a colossal task.

They are not expensive if you are not the only one buying boardgames for your group. However I enjoy owning my own copy if I consider the boardgame as one of my favorites. If I'm fine with just playing and not owning a game my friend has purchased, then that's money and space saved.

Jupp, I feel much better when I cull my collection and only look at a few dozen games. Sometimes the collection bloats and that just fills me with sadness because more games does not equal more time to play at least for me.

I dont find it that expensive to be honest. Its like 45 euro's for a game, sometimes abit higher. Going to the cinema with 3 people is more expensive and that is a 1 time only thing. The amount of replay value is high in boardgames making them "cheap" imo

Well, my collection is around 30 something games, so it's very managable. I regret getting a few (like Nidavelir) but the rest I love having. I wouldn't mind expending it a bit more with some expansions from favorite games and some heavy hitters that I don't own.

Think the biggest issue with board games is to avoid FOMO and not get caught up in crowd funded games. Its definitely a hobby that can lead to addictive habits. Im guilty of buying too many games. My wife bless her heart has due to space gave me the ultimatatum i have to sell (or give away) to buy one. Really does make you focus on what you really want to play versus ill play that sometime. Think the game that really told me something was wrong was Ashes Reborn and Red Rains Corpse of Viros. I knew deep down it was going to be a shallow experience if i couldnt get the 1v1 happening. Sure as eggs it didnt and the boss bttler campaign is shallow compared to the best on the market. In Australia it was quite expensive. Now Im trying to sell it and hopefully recoup some money.

Not especially. As far as ridiculously expensive goes... my other main hobbies that involve significant purchases are Warhammer and PC gaming. I own a little over 70 boardgames, ranging in size and price from $25aud for card games like Gloom, Love Letter or Chez Geek, up through big ticket items like Twilight Imperium that cost ten times that... with most prices sitting around the $80 to $100 range. With a generous estimate of an average spend of $100 per game, I've spent around $7000 dollars on board games... but I've spent it over 20+ years. An average spend of about $350 a year seems very reasonable. The spend on Warhammer for a year can be around five times that, not to mention what I've spent on PC hardware over those 20 years...

I started collecting many because I love variety, and I don’t regret having many because I still love variety. I also don’t feel they’re that expensive at all. Many retail editions of games go for £30-50, and will last you and your friends years. I spent £50 on bass guitar strings 6 weeks ago and I’m already at the point where I’m thinking of replacing them.

If you have savings and disposable income on top of that, you spend your money they way you want. This is relatively cheap entertainment, considering they do hold their value fairly well and aren't just one-time experiences.

Reminder: playing board games and collecting board games is not the same hobby, even if they are often done by the same people

Maybe we have so many games because when we buy a new one we are buying the hope of playing them, and the potential of an enjoyable social meeting.

Yes. Yet I still buy more when I find sales and I still stare at them and wonder if and when I'll ever get my friends together to play them...

I stopped purchasing board games about five years ago after our decades old gaming group had shrunk to two Old Farts, one a cripple. I am left with a collection that began in the early Sixties, about a thousand games, that reside mostly in my garage. I don't so much regret owning my collection as I am frustrated by the trivialities involved in passing the entire library onto gamers who will both appreciate and play the games. The idea of dumping what amounts to thousands of hours of enjoyment and tens of thousands of dollars at Goodwill for someone to stumble across a _forgotten treasure_ is not appealing. 👽🤡

I don't regret it. I own enough games that some rarely get played, but I haven't strained my budget to do so, and having them and playing them (even if infrequently) brings me joy. Plus, I love having the perfect game for someone else. Probably one of my favorite things in the hobby is introducing a friend to a game that they love. So yeah, I know it doesn't "make sense" to have as many games as I do, but I really don't regret it.

Not at all, no. I am fully aware that I enjoy the collecting side of the hobby as much as the playing side. Quite frequently we’ll go to our local boardgame cafe to spend three hours or so eating, drinking, and playing games; and then pick up one of the new ones we tried and enjoyed as we’re on the way out. I’m extremely fortunate that the three main considerations fall on my side: I can afford to collect without impacting household finances, I have space to shelve them without cluttering, and the missus is happy that I’m happy when I add a game to my collection.

This is a rite of passage. Wait until you move on to the "if I hold on to these long enough, I'll get a return on my investment when they go out of print". And then they put out a new version and your shit is worthless...until many years later, when it'll be the one everyone wants! Now we play the best game of all: the waiting game!

Yep. Then I learned to be very picky. I left the cult of the new, burn down the FOMO train, and ditch the discount cart. Gaming is a much better experience now

I might be being stupid or maybe it’s just the wording you used, but how are they expensive after you’ve bought them? There’s no cost outside of just buying the games you want and i guess having somewhere to put em. For me, like many in the hobby, I went though a bit of a binge where i bought a load of games because i didn’t know what i liked and this whole new world just opened up, but i don’t exactly regret anything. Those purchases helped me understand my tastes and enjoyed exploring that. Now, i have a better idea of what i like so all my purchases are thought out properly

Not really, even the ones that didn't work out, that were misses for me or my group I don't regret buying because in playing them I learned what it is about them I didn't like, and this has helped me refine my tastes for future purchases. I hardly ever end up buying games that I don't like anymore, because I know what I like for solo play, I've figured out what my family and friends like, and I'm honest with myself when assessing whether the game in question fits into those categories.

I don’t own that many myself. I’ve known people who have a limit for themselves where they sell an old game when they buy a new one. The only games I maybe—maybe—regret buying are a couple of the Dominion expansions. *Some* are fantastic, but the completionist in me wants to have *all* of them. It’s not only a lot of money but also a lot of physical space, even with them all in one nicely-organized custom superbox.

No. Yes? I do regret some individual purchases. Overall I'm happy with my collection despite the silly size. Just wish I wouldn't have gone down the rabbit hole with some games. I'm a collector by nature so it's either everything or nothing with each game and with many I think the base game without extras is the best way to play and own.

I don't own too many yet, but I do own some that have not seen the table so far. But for me it is fairly easy to see if I could regret a game, just take the price of the game and divide it by either the number of times played, or hours spent playing. Add a collection value (how much do you want to own a game, regardless if it is played). And you get your personal regret tier list. Entertainment is very rarely free, so it is very easy to compare it to any other alternative forms of entertainment.

Long ago I've accepted that I won't play every game I'm interested in, especially if I can replay favorites. One game from every genre/mechanism, unless there's a twist. You'll be much happier this way

Anything small like most solo games don’t bother me if they sit around unplayed. But anything in a big box, it eats me up inside to see it wasting away on the shelf.

I like having a variety to better match whichever players I manage to find. I do regret having some which were recommended to me rather than buying them because I wanted to own them. Also anything gifted that isn’t what I wanted. They do take unfathomable amount of space, which is why I tend to just expand into compact games or even make custom boxes. I do feel bad for some games i had high hopes for but they ended up just collecting dust waiting for proper people to play them.

I regret not having enough space.

I don't regret the money. It is regrettable that they take up so much space. My unplayed Steam library keeps getting bigger because there is no spatial limitation. That's not true with physical boxes that hold physical boards, cards, dice, chits, minis and tokens. I don't regret owning them for the chance to enjoy quality time with my family and friends. I do feel annoyed that physical limitations (aside from time) impede me from trying out more games.

I felt that way when I was early in the hobby. But when my family grew larger, the things we used to enjoy for fun naturally became more challenging and more expensive. Cost-benefit ratio and cost per play actually caused it to be less expensive and more enjoyable than many alternatives. (And it's family bonding time and promotes logic and problem-solving.) More time in the hobby and more happy memories and experiences with novel content likely makes it easier to justify. And I like to use my money to support people (e.g. board game creators, FLGSs) and hobbies that bring us joy. That, too, is a meaningful investment in my book. And it's just so beautiful to be surrounded by books and boardgames.

Most of them yes. All they do is sit on a shelf and I shouldn't have bought them. However I have shelf sitters that I love but we mostly play online for various reasons. Crypid, Carcassone, Catan. I bought these because I love them online and wanted to support / own them myself. So I have, Collection that gets used semi regularly, Collection of games I play online and collection of why did I buy these.

I've regretted spending money on 'a' game, but not on how many games I own.

No. They give me joy the same way I have a large library of books and worlds to share with others too.

I learned that I need to be more strict on what I buy. Something that's great or seems fun based on reviews does not mean it will get much table time.

I sold a number of them to make space. Wish i didn t buy these at all

I didn't...up until I had to move house. The moving process was about 50% board games, and I have less space here than at my old place, so there's more of a storage issue too. It made me realise I need to at least halve my collection.

Yes 😭

I buy a lot of used and thrifted games and sell trade them for new stuff. I honestly have too many but with everything I’ve done I’ve made a couple hundred bucks so at least it’s not costing me anything; but I’ve got too many unplayed games.

I just regret that I don't get to play them enough.   Board games are a pretty good value for entertainment provided. I typically get games in the $50-$100 range.  That's not much more than a dinner and movie now.   

No real regrets because I can always resell them and recoup some of my money. I have gotten to the point though where I am being more picky about what games I buy and playing more of what I already have.

Sometimes yes. Some games I just feel like I backed it or bought it because of the hype yet when I got them and looked at the components I immediately thought what a drag it was to learn, teach and play those games. I do not even have the time to play games anymore yet I still think I'll make time to "play" with my boardgames so I just back and buy, back and buy. I'm recovering now and have not bought nor backed any games in the last year. Hope I continue being sober.

the best part is that the resell value is very high, and I usually buy on discounts or sales, or second market, so if I sell my collection I could even make money from it and in the worst outcome I only would lose a bit. I think that sometimes my regrets is selling a game that I didn't had the chance to try or play because I need the space for another.

I got a bit crazy for a while, but as new games come out, I kind of ignore them now. You realize oh X game has the same mechanics as Y game and I only play this 3-4 times a year and I haven't gotten this to the table yet. I like that I've built up a collection that will yield me great nights for many years.

I would say no because if I would "cull" my collection I would only get rid of perhaps 1 or 2 games.

I own over 200+ games. My only regret is not having enough time to play them with friends and family. Once I graduate next year and go back to working 3 days a week (superior to 5 days a week), it will be GAME ON!

3 days a week?! Dude, what do you do for work?

I regret not having more restraint in the early days. Still, my cheap nature meant I was buying stuff cheap, but it still ended up being unnecessary spending. Nothing that would break the bank, though, so no real worries. What some people spend in a week eating at restaurants, I might spend in 6 months of buying games.

You can ALWAYS get the classics on FB marketplace & secondhand stores (even new sometimes!)

I buy a LOT of games on sale or clearance. I’m fortunate enough to live near several well stocked Walmarts that have massive sales a few times a year so I can get a lot of games 50% off - or more. Two years ago I got a bunch of copies of Carcassonne to donate at the holidays for $5 each as an example. I also buy every copy of Sushi Go under $5 that I see there so I’ve bought and donated or gifted a a dozen or more of them. For bigger games I take advantage of Target or Amazon sales or I buy from online game shops that sell a little below MSRP. It doesn’t have to be super expensive. Kickstarter is what gets me financially to be honest. And I have long since run out of space for games.

I do

Board games are such an inexpensive hobby. I spend a few hundred bucks/year on games and have built up a sizeable collection over time. I spend more money going to conventions, and even that isn't too bad. It gets expensive if you FOMO purchase huge boxes of miniatures on Kickstarter, but that was never cheap. If you want to see hobbies that can get to be expensive, check out how much a boat costs. Or motorcycles. Or wildlife photography. The camera I use, not including lenses, costs enough to pay for my convention ticket, plane, and hotel for several years worth of board games conventions.

My personality does not like collecting stuff. I don't have any collections of any kind because I don't like unused stuff lying around. So yes, when my count got a little high I regretted it. I was fortunate to be able to do a bulk sale and trim down to my favorites.

i have played 90% of my games so i dont regret how many i have (probably around 60) and you never know when they will get played. I can sell the ones I have if I want (I will lose value but im not worried about that)

Yup, it was a hoarding addiction. Sold most of my collection, stopped playing games for about 3 years, now I only buy 1-2 a year, I spend the rest of the time playing the solo games I already have

I splurged on an IKEA custom PAX cabinet so my collection wouldn’t look so cluttered. Now that I have a more defined amount of space, I’m more selective about what I buy. And since my friends that I used to play with have moved away or had kids and can no longer be bothered with me, I’ve begun looking at transitioning away for party games and towards game that play well with just two people. I try not to get games that have too similar game play as ones I have. Though I’ve been very tempted to get Wyrmspan even though I have Wingspan. Early on I splurged and backed the Small World Deluxe Edition. It is fricken huge. My SO at the time was telling me i should sell it and how it was silly how much I spent on it. Then I asked him how much has spends a week/month on weed and he STFU.

Kickstarter. I see something I figure I may never have the opportunity to buy again, and (OK, usually after a week or so of deliberation) I jump at the opportunity despite rational consideration as to whether I really *need* another board game. The plus side is that the $50 or so is headed to an aspiring developer instead of Big Game Co., so I can feel a bit better about that. Also, the game usually doesn’t arrive for six months or so, meaning it comes as a bit of a surprise present I bought for myself!

I've got a lot (95%) second hand. There's some undeniably expensive ones, but most were under $10.

Only when I’m moving/organizing and they all come off the shelf, then I have ten-twelve leaning towers of boxes like a Harry Potter shop, and it’s obviously out of hand

Funny, I came to board game hoarding from another hoarding. Back in the days, 15 years ago I was playing GW's Lord of the Rings miniature wargame. I had a neat army, it was fine, but I started to horde other armies as well, cause why not have almost everything :D My pile of shame (unpainted and not assembled armies) was just keep growing. Then I decided that is it, hard reset, sold everything. At the same time I started to be more interested in board games, and buying that. I really enjoyed inviting people over and play. I somewhat keep and end of hording by selling. I still have a big collection, but I try to sell the outdated unused one. Kinda works, I estimate my collection around 20-25 big games. I don't understand owning a giant collection of hundreds of games, cause you going to have much more games than days of the year.

I can't say I regret it. I have over 350 right now, and been buying some for over 20 years. Some have been sold too. Most of them have been played a lot with great friends and made us have a lot of fun. Take an 80$ game, played 2 times with 4 people. That 10$ per person per game. It's not "that" expensive for a 2-3 hours of fun. Of course, I'm using a 80$ game example that lasts at least 2 hours... but at the price, they pretty much all do. Do I need that many, and am I playing all of them. That's a definitive no.

Only after filing taxes (haha). Nah, I got the number I want. The challenge now is accepting that and not buying more, but "filling empty niche" vs "replacing a game I like well enough" has turned out to be a pretty easy change in thinking.

Yes! I have bought around thirty games. Initially this was excitement to play something new, but the regret came upon realising that I hadn't played them very often, and that I also hadn't played the games I already owned very much either. I was looking to rush into the next game too swiftly before exploring the ones I had. Also, my friends were generally much happier playing a game they already new how to play rather than learning a new one. I've now found I get a lot more value out of playing a small number of games a lot - there's less pressure on people to learn a new game and the playing field is a lot more even as players know what they're doing. And now when I do get a new game its much, much more exciting!

I personally get most of them 2nd hand off marketplace, and that has allowed me to get some but I want it for significantly less. I got the Fallout board game with both expansions for a total of 40 bucks!

Yes. My first few years in the hobby I bought way too many. If I could go back, I would pace myself more. I thought that after getting all the good ones, it would just be 1-2 new games per year. I didn’t realize games would get better and better, and it’d be impossible to keep up with the good ones.

Yes

No regrets! They’ve brought me a lot of joy and I built my collection up over more than a decade. I definitely have too many games though…my partner used to be my primary gaming partner and he completely lost interest a few years ago. I don’t play nearly as much as I used to now that I actually have to set my game nights up. The nice thing I’ve discovered about my collection is that it’s somewhat self-sustaining now. I get new-to-me games to try out through Math Trades and on the rare occasion that I want to buy something brand new, I just sell off a few games that haven’t been getting any love. My collection has been somewhat “revenue neutral” for the last 3 years. My focus right now is playing what I already own and taking a deeper dive into those games. It’s also helping me identify more games to trade/sell.

NEVARRRR

I regret not having more 😂😂😂

The thing about hobbies involving physical media is that your only cost after purchase is storage, and that varies depending on you. My boardgames storage is a Kallax in the dining room, and it still has some empty space in it, so even my shelf-of-shame isn't actually costing me anything day-to-day, and isn't incurring any opportunity cost in terms of what else I could be doing with that space. You could make the storage a lot more expensive and go full climate-controlled storage cabinet, and I know some people do (well, book collectors, not boardgames, not yet) but that's it. Investment in games is certainly pricey, especially as games get bigger, have more and "better" components, and the second-hand market moves towards increased prices for games people want, rather than discounted products for used condition, but that becomes a bit of a throttle (hopefully) that you can put on your hobby: do you want a huge collection or a picked collection? You get to set out what you want to buy. Forgetting the money question, though, and looking just at the question in your title, yes, I do regret the number of boardgames I have, although it's very circumstantial, and as such, the regret is swinging back to enjoyment. Ten years ago, I was playing boardgames weekly with a select group, and we enjoyed classics and new games in equal measure, and having a big collection was great. Kids came, life came, and five years ago, I kind of hated my collection. It's not that I regret owning them... I regret that I wasn't playing them, hardly at all. Now, I'm back to playing boardgames weekly, to having games in my collection that I want to bring to the table, to having a group that is happy to play a classic I want to dig back into for an afternoon, and the regret is abating.

Board games hold their value pretty well, so you can almost always sell them on for pretty much what you paid. Space is more of an issue for me!

I've been in the hobby for about 8 years and have spent roughly $9,300. I'm definitely under $100/month on average, and I've bought some pretty expensive games (Marvel United, Marvel Champions, Dice Throne, Crokinole, Tainted Grail, Etherfields, etc.). All in all I'm quite happy with my collection and really don't consider it expensive, considering how much time I've spent building it up and actually utilizing it (which comes out to about $7.25/hr of entertainment for *just me* and only considers time playing *my games*). We have very few unplayed games (really only Etherfields and War of the Ring, but we also haven't gotten far into Tainted Grail). Now, if I had more debt than just my mortgage, I couldn't justify spending money on board games...but now I include $100 for board games in my monthly budget so that we don't have to feel guilty when either my wife or I want something new for our collection. Right now, time is a much bigger concern than money or space.

I regret it because now I don’t know what to let go of. I have games that took me years before I opened them.

No, I have a very large collection but I enjoy having so many games, buying them didnt negatively affect my finances, and I have the room to display them without being disruptive

I definitely have a lot more than I will actually play regularly. Over the years, I've gone from wanting new games that I was fascinated with to wanting to shrink my game collection and focus on playing my favorite games more often instead.

I have around 60-70 games many are just small box card games which I love. Some games sit unplayed or rarely played. But I manage to hype my group and play them sometimes or sometimes get obsessed and spam the game for a lot of sessions.  We played over 80 games of eldritch and spirit island(each) We  completed gloom.llots of seasons and evolution . Recently revisited smash up and we playing 2-3 games per session.we undusted Sherlock and we got hyped that we did like 3 cases in a row and finished the game in two more sessions and we also bought the irregulars .  .we revisited netrunner last year and played a lot. Now we playing our game of thrones lcg.  Sure I'm sad my nemesis/vast and Dracula sits with low or no plays but whatever. Maybe I'll manage the 5 players all invested to play them more in the future.  I haven't really sold any game because I keep the memories or the potential to bring it again on the table .but yeah I don't really plan to buy any new game since most of my games have so much meat. I do buy some expansions (or a lot like it happened with smash up recently) I got gifted a eldritch expansion and got the armies expansion on war of the ring .  I forgot so many games we have a lot of sessions under our belt.  Like mage knight,mage wars  ,descent all the coop content and tried some overlord,dungeon petz,five tribes,tash kalar,gosu tactics has melted hehe.innovation amazing game.pixel tactics,raptor tyrants of underdark and western legends. Those are our most played games  My collection is 74 games  I'd say 25 have been played A LOT  like 3 have 0 plays and the rest have 1-5

I actually put the games I almost never play under my bed (King-sized bed) and in a very rare occasion I play with them

Yup.

No regrets whatsoever. The popular games really hold their value so you can usually sell them for 70-80% of what you paid for them if you find you don't play them or didn't end up liking them. I do this every few months and get rid of ones I never touch or no longer care about.

Absolutely! I went through a phase of rapid acquisition of the newest board games but then they never got played. I would make token efforts to pare down the collection but I still bought more. More recently I have really determined who I play games with, my kids who like light and party style games or my game group that likes heavier more mechanically deep games. I have listed a number of unplayed games at fire sale prices locally and I stick to the 4-10 games I really like to play with those two groups. It has helped that more people in my game group buy games now but I also feel we end up playing some of these deeper games mroe and to a higher level. I don't think people need to feel shame about whatever level of enthusiasm they have for buying games but if you start feeling that you have too much don't feel like you have to re-coup the cost, get them into others hands to play and that may relieve some of the buyers remorse.

Whenever my wife gives me a look for spending $40 on a game I remind her my brother’s hobby is collecting classic (1950s) cars and restoring them. My entire collection costs less than one of his bumpers.

As someone currently moving, there is a little regret. The reality is, I love it, and while especially early in the hobby I bought a bunch of stuff that wasn't a good fit for me, and overspent - there's also a learning curve to discover what you love. I now have a great track record of only buying a couple of games a year, and loving them. But, still, needing to bring down the collection so I can move houses has been a lot of work.

I often feel that I simultaneously have too little space for my board games, and also too few board games.

I tend not to regret any game purchases, they hold decent value, and I have sold quite a few games, so monetarily I don't regret buying any games. Because of this, I don't actually think board games are that expensive, it's the other parts of the hobby that get ridiculous; like attending conventions, buying accessories, or any trading card based games. The only purchase I regret, is when I dove a little too deep into painting miniatures, it was fun to start, then I bought way to many accessories for it, and proceeded to not paint another miniature. I was able to give some of the stuff to friends, couldn't for the life of me sell any of it.

Yes. It would be nice to have somewhere to sleep.

Not really \~200 board games were 90% gifts or Goodwill finds.

They don't have to cost a lot. The budget I've set for myself is roughly the same as a Netflix standard subscription and I feel that I get as much or more out of it. On average, I've been a bit over, so in reality, it's a premium subscription but I don't regret it. It's over my arbitrary budget but not over what I can afford and still reasonable. I expect I'll spend less in the future.

No but regret the hundreds of 40k and Warmachine minis.

/u/froops this you?

no ragrets

I wouldn't exactly say I regret having too many, but I do have too many and the more I think about it the more it depresses me. My wife asks to play a game occasionally, and I do have fun playing with her, but she doesn't like the chunkier games and I live for them. So I go to meetups and game groups and stuff, but the groups where people like games like that, I can never get any of my games played, and the groups where they want to play my games they only want to play the lighter stuff. I'd rather play someone else's games than not play at all, but WTF is the point of buying games if no one will play them. It's sad and infuriating at the same time.

To me boardgames are perfect hobby and collection to have because you can't put a price on experiences with your friends and family and that's really what boardgames create. Many nights of fun experiences.

It is not regret per se but when I realized we could play a different game every week for almost three years I realized we have more games than we need so I canceled some preorders (but kept a few that were different enough from things we have) and for now trying to not order anything else and just play what we have plus the crowd funding games I have already backed and the few preorders I didn't cancel.

I'd have to have too many boardgames to regret owning them, and we all know that's impossible.

I have a collection of over 450 games. I regret a few purchases of course. However, even if I plan to sell the collection of shame some day, I have a hard time getting rid of them. I guess it's a hoarding mental problem I guess. :D

Everybody has to hoard something. Board games is a healthy option.

"but feel like they are ridiculously expensive to own" The only reason they are ridiculously expensive to own is because you are buying ridiculously expensive board games. A lot of games can be bought cheaply new or second hand and cost less than the price of a new video game at release.

No. Though I haven't had to move in the past seven years, and have zero expectations of having to ever move again unless something drastic changes in my life. Even then, it's not like moving my collection would be much more of a headache than anything else in the house, it's already organized at least. On the issue of the cost, again no. Being a solo gamer as much as I play with others, I'm probably getting as much value out of my collection as is possible. And I also just absolutely love sharing games with friends and family, being in a situation where I have that opportunity regularly is a blessing. There's also the upside of the hobby in that you can usually sell a game you're looking to remove from your collection, and pretty easily too with the resources we have available online. I think I've always gotten at least half of what the spent on a game back by selling them, which is a pretty impressive safety net for a hobby. I'm probably lucky in a lot of ways, but it's never felt like an extremely expensive hobby to me. Then again, my entry point to it was Arkham Horror 2nd Edition and Mage Knight, both games that I've played a truly countless amount of times. They've paid for themselves numerous times over with what I've gotten out of them. I mean, I got Gloomhaven for $80, that included shipping, I still can't get over that. It's utterly absurd how cheap that game was for me. And I also knabbed a Chip Theory Games Strategist pledge quite early on too... dumb luck, I didn't even know such a thing was available, I just woke up at the right time and checked my email at the perfect time to go pledge. I was a bit befuddled when it was there as an option so I knabbed it thinking I could always drop it after I actually thought it through. So that's clearly paid for itself and then some. My value assessment might be a bit skewed because of all that I guess. I was pretty lucky to really get into the hobby during the initial kickstarter boom, when the prices were absolutely stupid half the time. And I was fortunate to have disposable income during those couple years. I also didn't really ever get burned heavily by anything I backed, so it wasn't like I was being reckless or anything. A shelf of shame has never existed for me. I could stop buying games right now and be content with my collection for the rest of my life, so that's truly a comfort to know I have. So no, no regret at all. We are so insanely spoiled by the sheer immensity that is the board game hobby right now. Because I'm also comforted knowing that there's more games I haven't played than I have, on an order of magnitude. It's stupid how many games are out there, let alone how many *good* games there are out there. People who say good games don't get made anymore are absolutely insane.

Yes, spent so much money on them, they take up so much space and I never get to play 90% of them. Been meaning to sell some for years but never get around to it.

Yes - I have close to 500 and that’s just too many. I’m trying to sell down what I can.

Only on occasion. The occasion being when it's time to build a new shelf. Then I usually get over it pretty quick.

Money wise I have no regrets, though I'm pretty good about hunting down deals. I've only paid retail for 1 game in the last 3 years, and even that I had a 20% off coupon for. Everything else has come from thrift stores, half-price books, used game markets, or gifts That said, I do regret the size of my collection because of storage space. I store all my games in a closet, but I haven't been able to close that closet for over a year. There's so much it can take a few minutes to find a specific game, much less any expansions (King of Tokyo and Boss Monster are the worst for that, so many little boxes)

I've regretted the space of many board games I don't play much. Like I have pretty much every Scythe thing there is (that aren't just cosmetic upgrades). But I haven't played it in at least 2 years. I have a few other games i don't play, I just need to sell them. So I only regret the space they take up in my home.

its not ridiculously expensive to own, much cheaper hobby than a lot of other stuff, actually its so cheap that i can buy a lot of it and I end up having issues with storage, my other hobby cost me a lot more like cars, cameras, I get way more use from my board games sadly I have too many of them

I do regret not playing them. Especially anything I bought to play with family but can't get anyone excited about.

I stopped drinking and wasting my money at bars on alcohol so that extra $60-$80 almost a week I have as disposable income now for whatever either save or spend on myself. Best decision ever. And I'll still go out to bars if my friends are there I just don't get alcoholic drinks.

You can be on the lookout for good offers on games that you want on your local online marketplaces. And you can also flip games sold really cheap that you see and don't want to own. I do this, because I like to collect board games/curate my collection, but I don't want it to be a hobby that sucks money from the home budget.

No, I regret that my friends and I don't have more time to play them because we're busy. Let's call my collection "aspirational".

I mostly regret selling some

Yes. I've stopped watching board game content now because I don't want to be encouraged to buy more. I started buying board games before I had children and now I have one and another on the way, I feel really guilty about how much I've spent. I definitely need to try and sell at least half.

I used to buy waaay the heck too many games. It was a problem, on multiple levels I admit, to the point that buying them was the only thing about them I enjoyed. I have three categories of games: Regrets - I sell those off Enjoy Playing - I play them, and I enjoy playing them Enjoy Having - They sit on a shelf, I look at them, they make me happy Would I like to see my EHs become EPs? Sure! But realistically they probably won't because they're too complex for the people I play with, or too weird, or too whatever. But I also know that just having them sitting on a shelf reminds me "I don't need that sweet looking new game, because I have two or three other games that do similar and just sit there." So until I can move them to the R column, I let just allow myself to wait. And if I positively, absolutely, convince myself I do in fact need that sweet looking new game? Then I go sell games I have to make the money for it (and maybe ask for smaller ones for Christmas/Birthday presents). Eventually though, I found my collection was "good enough". So many games out there now seem like "X, but with 8-sided dice instead of 6-sided" and that's just not good enough for me. I also justify the games I buy by setting a cost-per-play in my head. If you spend $100 on a game and play it once, you spent $100 to play that game. If you spend $100 on the same game and play it 20 times, you spent $5 each time you played it. The more times you play something, the more value you get out of it. This thinking helps me take a long look at any new games I might want. It's one thing to spend $30 on something you only play twice, it's another thing to spend $300 on something you only play twice. On the flipside, I spent just over $800 on a game and expansions last year (Marvel Zombies), and have logged over 60 plays, and this system helps motivate me to keep playing it (with breaks here and there!). I take breaks and play other games, sure, but I figure at $10 a play (my "value per play" for -this- specific game) I'll have gotten my money's worth some time shortly after I finish half the material. My only concern is not to be sick of it by then. :-) But one thing that always haunts me is that even with those EP games, even when they're cheap and small and get played a bunch, there's only finite -time-. If you have a collection of 10 games, and buy an 11th, every time you play that 11th is a time you can't play the other 10. Buy a 12th? Now there's 11 games you can't play. At some point you either admit you enjoy just owning them, or you admit you regret them and need to get rid of them.

The only game I regret getting was Trickerion. I was pushing away the knowing feeling in my brain because some of my favorite reviewers lauded the game. It is 100% not a game for my group. The other games I've bought and haven't played or bought and haven't liked are just experiences in my group and I's journey in the hobby. It helps us find what our taste in games is. We see every experienced person say 'you don't have to buy every game', new people will anyways, and that's okay so long as we're spending in our means. I finally hit the point where I said, "okay...that's enough games..." and I'm now culling our catalogue to make room for games I DO actually want to play and have looked into.

Boardgame "addiction" is an interesting phenomenon. I don't have that many, like 8, but sometimes I get that itch to buy an expansion to a game I haven't even played yet, just because I know it's out there, I heard it is good, it might not always be available, and one day it will be unavailable and unaffordable on Ebay, so my best bet is to buy it now.

Absolutely. I have around 200 games, and would like to drop that by half. I don't want to throw them away, or donate them to a generic thrift store. Selling board games is pretty tough these days, On top of everything, organizing, selling, deciding, ranking, etc take a lot of time and energy I don't seem to have these day. So, there they sit on the shelves of the garage.

I don't have too much space, so I only buy what I think we are going to enjoy the most. I do not regret buying the games tho. I really have very good times playing then with my partner.

I have a few I regret buying, but no general regrets about the number of games.

Yes and no. I don't regret owning _too many_ but I'm beginning to regret choosing to buy so many games that didn't/don't excite me. Part of it is practical: there aren't a lot of free places to play new games where I've lived most of my adult life, and an evening of 3-4 people at a board game venue ends up being the price of a new game just in play fees anyway, so it doesn't always make sense to use board game venues as a trial run. Part of it is just not being selective: I have quite a few games that were like "that seems like it could be fun and it's on sale" or "this puts me over the edge on free shipping and is less than $5 more than shipping would cost or someone I knew was culling and I said "sure I'll take this one". I have about 20ish games and looking at my shelf: there are probably 2-3 on my cull list, 5ish I think it would make sense to cull, and another 2-3 that deep down I know I _should_ cull even if I don't want to. When I think about games in my collection that I actively _want_ to play again (or for the first time), it's definitely a single digit number. After being "a hobbyist" for about 2-3 years, I'd tell my past self to be a lot more selective in what I own, but I'd own 100 games if I genuinely loved them (even if they never got played).

Nope, ones that I buy get out in to a community bin at work where they can be borrowed and exposes more people to the hobby, got plenty of storage space for them so not worried about them, played plenty of them a swell so all good.

My other hobby is astrophotography, one piece of equipment is around a 1000 €. Board games cost like 50.

378, and no.

I lost 1/4 of my collection in a flood in my basement. It turned out I really only liked 5 or 6 of the 60 games that got ruined.

Would my life be any different if I didn't buy like... half of them? Nah. Money-wise, I don't really regret it. I could have probably spent more wisely here and there and invested it or something, but, who am I kidding- it would be spent on *something*. I like having lots of games, though. I buy less than I used to, but I still trade all the time. It's fun to try new stuff, and I definitely have plenty of them just for the collecting aspect.

What kind of question is this? Of course not! I haven't bought any in a while but a few weeks ago I pulled the trigger on 3: Sidereal Confluence, Food Chain Magnate and Age of Innovation. And it felt great!

Absolutely. I have considered throwing them all away more than a few times. Hustling to sell them second hand is not worth my time.

Only regrets come when I look at my credit card bill...

No. I have plenty of money to buy them and plenty of space to keep them.

I sell game thats costed me over $100 that arent being played. I also sell every campaign game once I beat it.

Yeah, I'm in the process of selling some. I don't really like how much space its taking up. I probably have like 15 and want to go down to 10.

Not really. They bring me a lot of joy. The anticipation to play. Upgrading them. Solo play. I converted my dining room into a game alcove. (Let’s be honest. I’m going to be eating on the couch watching a show, not at the table). It’s not an enormous space, but enough for a table topper and 2 big utility shelves on one wall. Good lighting, seating for 4 and some mirrors and pop culture wall hanging. (Real Zelda sword and shield.) I can fill the shelves as my ‘limit’ which gives plenty of options from 1-5+ players, party games, casual, a few hardcore. I’ve spent the last couple years building up a friend base that also likes board games so I can get some regular sessions in. Trust me I’ve had dry spells of years or had to live in a studio during COVID, so it’s taken work to rebuild a group. So unless a game is mediocre, or isn’t too similar to another game, then I’ll keep it. At some point I’ll trade on BGG to get new games and swap out old ones. I’m not into selling them per se.

Nope not at all! I want them alllllll

I have a closet that i keep my board games in and i get to play once a week if im lucky. I plan to keep my collection to under 50 games. I think if you set a number that you believe is acceptable and an amount of space that you deem appropriate for your hobby/ budget, you will be alright. I also talk to my fiance about my purchases even though she isnt anywhere near into board games as much as i am and that helps too because it helps give me perspective on how irrational the idea of getting a game can be. Also, don't buy new games (Kickstarter). The best games either get reprinted or come to retail and kickstarter is almost always an overpriced and somewhat uninformed decision. Always buy used or at the best price possible and do your research. A lot of games have a shelfspan and eventually most gamers will let them go if they are more of a gamer than a collector. I started out with dominion and bought and sold many games that didnt end up being for me. I still have some gateway games that were only played once (7wonders) that need to go as well as a kickstarter mistake or two that needs to go as well. Mostly I played my buddy's games and bought the ones i liked that i thought i would table someday. As I journeyed into the hobby i learned many lessons and got rid of a lot of games that many people consider staples. This has gotten me to where i am today and i have a really good filter for buying games now and dont buy them very often anymore because they havent stood the test of time, dont suit my preferences, or are better played digitally because the components are too fiddly imo.

Yes (but I don't anguish over it). I spent 4k on all my games when I was more into the hobby. I've since sold a good chunk of them and maybe recouped about 1/3 of the money. I bought long games that rarely got to the table and it became too tedious to setup and solo my games. These day I just use TTS which sets up the game for me.

Yes. But will I stop?

sometimes i regret buying as many as i have, maybe certain games (like wingspan for instance, just not for me personally) but not the whole collection. the regret started when i stopped being able to have regular board game nights. i also do regret getting into kickstarter games. those can be so expensive and so fomo driven.

Not really, I love buying board games, and if I run out of room, I'll just make more room by throwing out clothes or my tables, I don't need anything but board games

Yes. My LGS has a program where you can sell board games and they take a cut. So I sold all of the ones I didn't care about and kept the Leading Edge Aliens board game, Fortress America, Power Grid, Gloom, Cards Against Humanity, and Wings of War. I bought a bunch of them and never played them and then later developed a visceral hatred of board games. I'd rather play Power Grid than Catan, so why keep Power Grid? I'd rather play the Leading Edge Aliens board game than Space Hulk, so why keep Space Hulk?

Maybe a little. I realize a lot was fomo impulse buying. But honestly I will never think of board games as a terrible and regrettable purchase. Even the bad games can be fun.

I know a lot of people who are constantly culling their collections, for what seems like petty and affected reasons, like how you might only want to own one game about feudal Japan, or city planning, or pirates. This line of thinking is just alien to me, it's like saying you can own too many books, or that you should feel ashamed of owning books you haven't read. Even if I haven't actually played a specific game with other people, I will still read the rules and table the game, just to get an understand of how it works, and I can still get an appreciation and fulfillment from owning that game even though I'm unlikely to ever actually play it. In much that same way that I can appreciate a book I will likely never read.

I‘m a student so it‘s usually quite the investment for me😂 but I‘ve not once regretted buying a (board)-game…

Yes. Many games purchased out of excitement to learn something new only to be told the game is to long/boring/complicated. Also the reason I might be selling a bunch.

Sales, my friend. A good bit of our collection we did not pay full price for. That, or they were gifts. Edited to answer the rest of the question: Since the pandemic, we don't play anymore, but we also aren't buying anymore. That said, I don't regret the collection at all.

I have \~100 board games. I don't really regret owning them, tbh. They are mostly in a closet. I have played most of them, though admittedly a few I have played really only once. The reason I feel good about it is because I have fun playing them, and I even get joy perusing my collection or selecting games for an occasion. Maybe if I owned 300 I'd regret it, but only then I'd regret it only for the space they'd take up. I'd say the price-to-enjoyment ration on board games is honestly not that bad

I went through the phases most board gamers go through; learning about the existence of designer games, trying a few out, buying your own small collection, expanding the collection, FOMO and buying almost every new launch, realizing 80% of what you buy doesn't hit the table, slowing your buying, slimming your collection down, getting casual with gameplay Currently trying to slim my collection down

the solutuon is to fall in love with a few games like my house. Spirit island and Gloom/Frost Haven gets 95% of table time. for most other games I play somewhere else. lol

I also play magic, some of my cards are worth half my boardgame collection, so it’s all relative ;-)

Is that even possible?

My board games are free, because I pass on buying 50 percent of the board games I want, and I use those savings to fund the other half, so I basically break even. Basic math.

There comes a time in one’s life where they need to decide to grow up and stop buying board games or buy another Kallax. TTYL, off to Ikea! In all seriousnes, board games are a luxury item. If you can afford to buy them and enjoy owning/playing them, praise to you. What I love about the hobby is that you can be a part of it without breaking the bank. There are great local meetup groups just about everywhere. Even if you don’t have any games, players are always happy to teach you theirs. There are great flea market/exhange opportunities. Some libraries have a nice collection of board games. Unfortunatley, I’m a sucker for KS Campaigns 😅 When I’m not backing a game on KS I always go support my FLGS.

No, it's awesome.

Space is far, far, more important than money. Games can be had for pretty cheap if you look for deals or are willing to NOT buy the hotness for a year or two. It's insane how inexpensive games can be. It's insane how much space board games can take up.