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Tifanny mentioned that Keyper is kind of Stardew Valley the board game… being a big fan of Stardew Valley this might be a problem. Must resist! 😉
We made a list of all the games that we’ve bought, that were sent to us or games we’ve backed on Kickstarter this year and we once again came to the realization that board game collections have a sneaky way of expanding themselves. Ours certainly has! At the moment we’re thinking about organizing a big game day at our place this summer and we’ll give away games we never play anymore to the winners. 🙂
And we’ve finished Mechs vs Minions yesterday! It’s a game we love to play once in a while and it’s a blast every time we play it. It was great to discover that the game comes with a lot of fun challenges for players to complete after they’ve finished all of the missions. But maybe we’ll go through the campaign again with friends, we’ll see. This is definitely a game that we’re going to keep in the collection even though we’ve finished the campaign. <3
Charlotte
I bought A LOT of games in 2015 (the first year I started playing board games a lot, as a main hobby and not just occasionally) and have since cut back. But with the size my collection now has and the rate that new games are coming in, I’m still having a hard time getting many of my games played more than a few times, even games I love. And I do still spend a substantial amount of money on new games.
I have a few games I bought early on that I’m totally willing to get rid of, but I currently move around too much (with much of my collection in storage at any one point) for trading or selling being viable. But mostly I’m happy with my acquisitions, even though by now I’ve had to become a lot choosier. I own a few games that I now probably wouldn’t buy anymore because I’m more careful and know my tastes better — I guess that’s a problem with buying a ton of games while new to the hobby.
Not counting expansions, my partner’s and my joint collection (including games from before we were hobby gamers) is currently around 115, and I don’t think I want it to grow above ~140. It just makes it harder for good games to get the time they deserve.
He who shall not be named.
I’m going to chime in and say be very wary of Game Salute products. It might be a great game, but the company is notoriously shady, and the owner of the company personally left me in the cold (literally) working 12+ hours for them at PAX East one year.
Peter
Definitely agree about GS, but if they’re only _fulfilling_ the game and it’s produced elsewhere the situation isn’t quite as bad. When they’re producing the game – well, there’s a whole geeklist about that…. From what I can see, GS has rights to distribute the “Key” games in the US, but isn’t actually producing them.
(and an interesting related note – Game Salute now has 3 different brands they’re using to produce/publish games so worth noting those as well)
bene
Kickstarter can be really sneeky when it comes to games. They have this I’m-limited,so-I’m-something-spezial-Feeling and this If-you-don’t-buy-me-now-you-probably-will-never-get-me-Urge. Luckily not all of my friends speek english as good as I do, so I can resist the urge most of the time. It doesn’t make sence to buy them if I can’t get my friends to play them due to the language barrier.
I often buy Addons for games we have played only a handful of times. I’m curious what they add to the experience but sometimes of the time the games get too complicated with the Addon – we then say we gonna play with the Addon next time which maybe never happenes.
Sometimes it can help to get the rules from the internet and read them. The curiosity will be gone and you can better estimate if this is a game you and your friends will like.
hatori1181
I get this so much. I really wanted to back 7th continent, but $249 for the full bundle (which didn’t even include optional purchases like mini expansions and sleeves.) was WAY out of my price range. I hear it’s a fantastic game, but I don’t understand why Kickstarter is the only way to obtain it. Especially after making as much money as it has.
Peter
I think it’s the price point for the game. If the game goes through KS for $249 for everything, imagine what retail MSRP would need to be in order to stock it. Yes, discounts would probably knock it down some, but I think the base game coming from KS is close to $100 by itself. And that’s with the company maximizing its profits after KS takes its cut. That would probably translate to $150-200 MSRP and that’s just out of the range of most retail shoppers.
hatori1181
I feel like 7th continent could easily be broken up into easier to digest chunks, though. Bast game: $90~100. Mini expansions: $20~25, ect. Do that with all of the accessories, marking them up slightly to compensate for stocking, shipping and whatnot, and not only could more people be enjoying the game, but the company that makes it could be making a constant profit instead of fits and spurts through KS.
Charlotte
I think we should believe Serious Poulp when they say that they tried, but that 7th Continent with its extraordinarily complex production is not viable in retail. They specifically said nobody was willing to carry it, even just the base game. It always feels odd that gamers who know nothing about the actual economics feel like they know better how to make money than the publishers who literally do this for their livelihood and who definitely have an interest in doing what will earn them money.
Regarding “breaking up into manageable chunks” — it already is, more or less! Nobody should feel like they need to get everything. In the first Kickstarter, I got the base box and the 3 extra curses, but in retrospective I could have probably held off on those extras, since we’re still not through the first base game curse…
I think it’s great that the new big expansion comes with a short introductory curse; that should really have been in the base game.
I’m looking forward to playing the game again!
KennyB
It is a shame that R&D Games does not have a better US partner, but I believe semicoop is based in the UK, so I don’t know if this is a relevant issue over there, it is probably distributed by someone else.
PS: Yes, my game collection keeps outgrowing the space I allocate for it… I need to play (then get rid of) more games!
Heinze Havinga
We’re in the Netherlands, so same weather, less driving on the left side. Also we Keyper is not distributed by Game Salute here, but it is unfortunate for a lot of our readers!
Rob V
Can we get games developers to agree to, like, a five-year halt on new games so we can all catch up? The sheer number of amazing games coming out year after year is dizzying, it’s impossible to try them all and we’re all running out of room.
Boukje
I do that! Mostly I plan a game or competition for our (my husband’s birthday is a week from mine) birthdays and have several games as prices 🙂