The Frugal Geek: Games
“Games lubricate the body and the mind.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Games, in general, are expensive. The games geeks like are even more so. While some might be able to make due with a simple deck of cards, geeks are well known for their love of both intricate and pretty games, be they board games, card games, or role-playing games. There are two reasons for this: (1) geeks tend to skew higher on the IQ scale and appreciate complexity and (2) they love the ego boost of playing a game that the masses have either not yet discovered or do not have the patience/time/math to play. Let’s face it: we like to be the elite, and being the elite makes for an expensive hobby.
If you want to save a little cash, here are some things to consider when you go to your next convention or money-drunk binge at your friendly local gaming store.
Be Sure You Have Someone to Play With: Be sure you have some people to enjoy the game with you. Do you have a gaming group? Have you wanted to form one? This might be a good opportunity to do so, but you need to plan for the different tastes of the people involved. You might love playing Settlers of Catan with all of its countless expansions, but if your group wants to role-play or play card games, you’re going to blow your hard-earned cash on something you might never be able to play. What good is a game that sits on a shelf?
Transcend the Shiny: It’s easy to be seduced by the pretty art, the number of pieces, the cool board, the slick dice. You need to strip away all the pretty and take a hard look at what the game has to offer. Is it particularly interesting, or is it just a repackage of last year’s fifty-dollar box set that sold thousands of copies? Does it offer something different: a unique mechanic, extra playability, or an opportunity to foster skills that your kids need to learn? If you cannot explain why you want it, you’re giving in to your inner child. While we do need to indulge the little tyke from time to time, you wouldn’t trust a five-year-old with your cash, would you ?
Try Before You Buy: The game is AWESOME. Positively everyone says so. Have you tried it out? Have you played it? How do you know you’ll enjoy it? The Geek Universe is no less susceptible to groupthink than any other part of society. Do not bow to peer pressure. If everyone loves it, then someone has a copy you can borrow, or there’s a friend that will run a game for you. “It seems really cool” is a weak excuse to buy a game. Not all is what it seems to be, and you work hard to get the mad money you have. Shouldn’t you try hard to make sure you’ll like what you’re buying?
How Replayable Is It? Will you play it more than once? How often? Once a month? Three times a year? Once a year? Or will it just look really cool on the shelf and make for great stories about the one time you played it? Just as stuffed animals need to be loved and Nerf guns need to fired into the cubicles of your co-workers/foes, games need to be played. If you cannot find a way to play them more than once a year, they might not be worth the money.
Hold Off on the Expansions: Don’t buy all the expansions at once. Exhaust the main game first. Get bored with it. Beat it time and again, and THEN look at the expansions. How many people have purchased all the expansions for Arkham Horror only to find that they almost never play because it’s nearly impossible to schedule a block of time long enough, what with family and work commitments? It’s far better to wear out the standard rules and then make an informed purchase than it is to buy all the toys and never use them.
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Tags: frugal
Episode 0048: The Great Old Pumpkin
Direct from my brain to your screen:
1. Thank you so much for introducing to my mind the image of a lubricated Benjamin Franklin.
2. From what I’ve seen, someone who loves X is willing to pay more for high end X. If geeks love games, then it naturally follows that we’re willing (although not always able) to pay more for games with a high wow factor.
3. Regarding your Arkham Horror expansion example: I have found that particular game to be complicated to the point that the notion of adding an expansion (with more rules) is daunting even before considering financial costs. I accidentally purchased the Dunwich Horror expansion instead of the main game a couple years ago. Since then, I have purchased the Arkham Horror game (not another expansion, thank you) and my gaming group has played it perhaps three times. Because we have yet to feel really comfortable with the main rules, though, we still haven’t integrated the Dunwich expansion.