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What have you learned from culling?

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04 Jun 2018 13:42 #274658 by jpat
I learned I actually enjoy boxing things up nicely and occasionally going down to the local Mailboxes place, which ain't the cheapest way to go (and I only have to do it for odd-size things) but at least here is a super pro place that just exudes the kind of confidence that you're in good hands that makes going there a pleasure. (I kid you not. I actually gushed to them one day about how much I liked going there.)

I agree that it's mostly the holding that keeps people from selling/trading. There's a fair bit of psychology around it--for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect .

Conan really convinced me about the big-box vice. It's all promise and then burden. (And Conan isn't a bad game, either.)

I have to demur on the "if you have to relearn it" rule, at least personally, because there are relatively few games I'd feel confident pulling out and running without rereading. But I understand the idea.

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04 Jun 2018 13:58 #274659 by Jackwraith
Jeebus. The number of people that must have that endowment effect foremost on their mind every time they come to BGG... I can't count the number of people who have had games up for trade for literally years that won't even respond to a trade suggestion. I've been more than happy to trade things of "greater value" and still get people fencing with me about why they don't want to trade this or that item. If there's something that I want in trade and you're interesting in something of mine, that's almost always a deal on my end. Why would I hold on to something I don't want when someone is willing to give me something that I do want?

Have to agree with jpat on the "relearn" thing. Just to take block wargames for example: I don't inherently remember all of the little facets and aspects of each game's rules, so it might take repeated rulebook consultation to remember how reinforcing works in Hellenes, as opposed to Crusader Rex. But I don't consider that an impediment to enjoyment. Obviously, you don't have to reread the ENTIRE rulebook, since most block wargames function pretty similarly. But it's the small rules that tend to trip people up from game to game and I don't have a problem delving into those again to make sure we're getting it right.

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04 Jun 2018 14:40 #274660 by ubarose
I don’t have a lot of trouble making decisions regarding which games I want to get rid of. It’s simple. I don’t like it. I have trouble actually getting it out of my house.

Getting rid of anything is too much work. When I run out of shelf space, I just move the shelf toads to the closet next to the shelves. I guess if that space ever gets so cluttered that it annoys me, I’d haul it over to our local game store’s semi-annual auction. But that would require dragging the boxes down two flights of stairs, loading them into the car, driving to the store, unloading them, pricing them. So I’d have to get pretty super annoyed at the closet clutter to bother doing it.

Sometimes I’ll try to do no-ship math trades at cons, but no one ever has anything I’m really interested in. And on the rare occasions I do make a trade, I trade away something that has been played twice in like new condition and the person I traded to hunts me down to complain that it is incomplete because it’s missing the cardboard sprues, while I receive a game that looks like it was dropped out a three story window and is missing pieces.

Sometimes, I’ll rumage through the toad closet and hand out games to The Spawns friends, like party favors. That’s the easiest way to get rid of stuff.
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04 Jun 2018 15:23 #274663 by barrowdown
I've started just posting items for sale on BGG's marketplace and then forgetting about them. If they sell, great, it did not take much effort to move them. I started the 1st of May and have sold six items I was not able to move here or in BGG auctions for what I thought was worth taking the effort to move. I set the price and then forget about it.

The local shipping/packing store near me is terrible. Huge markups (+30-40% on base shipping rates plus packing costs) and relatively unfriendly. When I lived in Oregon, there was a shipping/packing place that was like jpat describes, super competent, friendly and reasonably priced. Here, I much prefer using the UPS or FedEx store for packaging if I go through them (where the price is reasonable and the service is very helpful), otherwise I just stuff it in a USPS flat-rate box and ship.

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04 Jun 2018 21:29 #274679 by SuperflyPete
For YEARS I kept all the boxes I got from Amazon or anywhere. I just stored them in the garage, and so I always had a wide array of boxes. Same with the packing material - bubble wrap in one bag, peanuts in the other.

I got a postal scale that does oz to 25 lbs, cost me 10$ which made it easy to do all my shipping thru PayPal and made it way cheaper than shipping places and even the post office. Gives you a competitive edge against the flat rate sellers.
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05 Jun 2018 01:25 #274688 by Ancient_of_MuMu
Just because you like a game doesn't mean that you have to like every expansion you bought for it, and you can cull them, even if they fit in the box with the main game.
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05 Jun 2018 09:00 #274701 by Shellhead

SuperflyTNT wrote: For YEARS I kept all the boxes I got from Amazon or anywhere. I just stored them in the garage, and so I always had a wide array of boxes. Same with the packing material - bubble wrap in one bag, peanuts in the other.

I got a postal scale that does oz to 25 lbs, cost me 10$ which made it easy to do all my shipping thru PayPal and made it way cheaper than shipping places and even the post office. Gives you a competitive edge against the flat rate sellers.


I've got a ridiculous box collection right now. Instead of just recycling them all, I might try to match up my shelf toads with boxes and pack them up for shipment. Clear out some shelf space and motivate myself to finally sell those toads.
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05 Jun 2018 09:03 #274703 by Shellhead

Michael Barnes wrote: #1 rule of culling- if it ain’t playing, it ain’t staying.

#2 rule of culling- if you have access to a copy, you don’t need a copy.

#3 rule of culling- if you have to relearn it every time, It should have already been culled.


We need a F:AT nicknames #3. And another one for the #2s that everybody has. For example, more than half the people I play boardgames with these days have their own copy of Arkham Horror and several expansions. When everybody already has the game, it's less exciting to play it.

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05 Jun 2018 09:37 - 05 Jun 2018 09:39 #274708 by SuperflyPete
1. Shelf Toad
2. Shelf Pet Rock (everyone has, nobody knows why)
_or_
Shelfbiquity
3.Shelf Traumatic (Seems to promote amnesia)
_or_
Shelfhypnol (Shelf roofie)
Last edit: 05 Jun 2018 09:39 by SuperflyPete.

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05 Jun 2018 10:42 #274716 by Chaz
I did a massive culling years ago when I split up with a girlfriend, and needed to move into a smaller, solo apartment. I split my ~140 game collection into a pile of about 30 "keep" games. Then I called my buddies over, pointed at the other pile, and said "Take what you want, but with the caveat that I might request it back later." They mostly cleaned it out, and the rest, one of them took to give to some friend of his that sold used games or something.

Of those, I requested back two: Here I Stand and Galaxy Trucker. Of the rest, the only one I regret losing track of is the massive tub of Heroscape, which I think got donated to some school one of their wives worked for.

By now, I've managed to build my collection back up to something like 75 games. I never get to play anything, what with having no time and no local game group, and no time to find one. Basically, everything I own is a toad. I'm still hanging on to everything though, in the hope that one day, I'll get to play them again. I am being good about buying new stuff. I think I got maybe one or two games within the last year or two, and almost everything still fits on the shelves in the basement*.

What's extra annoying is that every once in a while, my wife suggests we play something, but I've forgotten the rules to all but maybe two games I own, so any "let's play a game" is really "let me do a half hour or so of re-reading the rules and then trying to teach them." So we usually don't.

*Except Mechs vs Minions, because that box is goddamn huge.
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05 Jun 2018 12:22 #274729 by Colorcrayons
At least the Heroscape went to a good cause, Chaz. So there is that.

Funny how we spend so much time refining our tastes, only to find that, in the current way society allows us to behave at least, we find little time to engage in the very same pass times we want to enjoy.

Ive come to terms knowing the likelihood of getting a solid game group to engage in is not likely to happen again.

Which is why I spend so much time augmenting the games that I have which I enjoy immensely. For example, 3D Wiz-War, making Gorechosen into the best damn Kaiju game I can make it, etc.

So when I actually do get to play them, it feels like I'm participating in a noteworthy event, even though it's just a casual pick up game with strangers or family. The effort I put in gives just as much back, not only to me, but to all participants. That sense of satisfaction is quite priceless.

Putting this effort in a small group of games pays more dividends than having a larger collection of eminently forgettable titles that I'd play even less.
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05 Jun 2018 18:32 #274775 by Erik Twice
I haven't needed to cull my boardgame collection because I've learnt from all the mistakes I made collecting video games.

1) Collect games that you care about owning. I used to collect games that were good, because I abscribed value to owning good games and thought that owning good games would make me happy. But it didn't, I didn't care about most good games I owned and I wasn't really in a position to enjoy most of them.

Now the games I try to own are games that I care about owning. I like having the Fire Emblem Super Famicom titles on my shelf. They make me happy there and I like checking their covers and thinking about them. On the other hand, I don't care about Street Fighter and it wouldn't really make me happy to own it, so I don't.

2) Why own things that don't make you happy? This is harsh, but it's the truth. Why own things that don't make you happy? Why not sell them or use the space they are taking to do something else? Why not donate if they are not providing anything to you?

Interestingly enough, this line of thought has not impacted my gaming much. What is has impacted are my books. I used to be a huge reader, I could read one book a day and gathered a sizable collection. But here's the thing: I don't read most of my books again. I own books I haven't read in 10, 15 years. Is it worth owning something you haven't used in 15 years? Is it realy a good use of my small living space? Are they making me happy?

3) The thought of what will make you happy is not what will make you happy. I think that often, when we buy a game, we think we are going to play it and get this cool experience that will make us happy and improve our lives. But chances are, it won't because we won't put the effort to make it happen. I believe most people will be happier playing the same game 5 times in a row than buying a game thinking it's going to be great.

Here's a note: People who play games the most don't tend to have huge collections, or the best gaming hardware.

4) Contrary to popular thought, it's easier to get your money's worth out of longer, involved games than short ones. For example, if I play The Republic of Rome once a month, I'll get my money worth (65€) in less than a year. And it's not really that hard to play RoR once a month given the proper environment. You are also not going to miss much if you play it once every three months, either.

However, it's a struggle to recoup costs on a short, less involved because you can't play it as much. One game of RoR per month is 5 hours per month. For many games that's more than a half a dozen plays. How many games do you play that much each month? You really need to have the game in fast rotation and that's much more difficult and more fickle than playing an event game every now and then.

5) Games compete against each other. If I have one event game, I can play it once a month which means the game is in fast rotation and strategy will be learned. If I have two, I can play each every couple motnhs, which means people will be rusty. If I have half a dozen, they are not going to hit the table and every play will be from scratch.

Like San Il Defanso says, it's very easy to end up with a bunch of these games. Personally, I'm working hard to play many of these games as they tend to be my favourites.

6) Second-tier games are not worth buying and they are not worth owning. I believe the main limitations in the hobby are willingness and time and second-tier games don't help with either. I think you would be happier playing a classic or a game you really like or a game that does something special than a game that is just like another but worse. There's no reason to own a Worker Placement game in the BGG 3000s when you could play your favourite again.

7) Your group(s) will be the biggest factor in what you play, not your games. If you want to play certain games, you'll have to work hard for it.
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06 Jun 2018 20:25 #274880 by wadenels

Legomancer wrote: If you have a big enough collection to be culling, you will not miss the thing you're waffling on.


This is what I’ve learned. I’ve repurchased a few games I thought I missed. I also ended up reselling them. I’ve also stopped caring about what mechanics I have on the shelf and focus a lot more on how a game feels. The LotR LCG felt like a questing game, but I’d rather quest through the old Knizia LotR game. The LCG got sold.
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07 Jun 2018 13:40 - 07 Jun 2018 13:46 #274911 by Jexik
1. The first rule of Cull Club: do not talk about Culling.

2. The second rule of Cull Club: DO NOT _TALK_ ABOUT CULLING.

3. The third rule of Cull Club: FROZEN.

4. The fourth rule of Cull Club: NIKE.


Erik has a lot of good points; I can't do much better. I don't like Fight Club enough to do a full 8 rules, and it's not necessary.
Last edit: 07 Jun 2018 13:46 by Jexik.

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