Tuesday 23 September 2014

Games that fail the Value principle.

I've completely lost track of this hence why I've not done an updated post on the value assessment of my hobby.  Plus as I said in my last post there are some games which on the value scale just haven't earned their position to stay in my collection.

So there's a couple of options here.

  1. Play them.  Sounds easy enough doesn't it and in many respects it should be that easy.  After all these are games and I, y'know, play games so surely I can play them?
  2. "Sell them".  I've put quotes around that as there are limited options to how this can play out.  Sure eBay is an option but I always find eBay a bit of a pain. There are Facebook groups for selling stuff so maybe that's an option instead.  Of course I could donate them to charity shops or gift them in some way.
Before determining which option is the right one it's worth looking at the games on the list of those failing the Only Buy It If You're Going To Use It principle test.
  • X-Wing (plus 2 Y-Wings) - It's really a 2 player game and I have since learned to avoid 2 player games as they just don't get played.  At least not by me. Sure it's Star Wars and I am a huge Star Wars fan but it's a 2 player game and given that I've not played it for erm actually I can't remember the last time but it was more than a year ago it probably is time for it to move on.
  • Star Wars LCG (plus numerous expansions) - Again it's a 2 player game (ok so it can be more than that with one of the expansions) and again it's Star Wars.  There's probably a lesson in here around my weakness for games set in the Star Wars universe.  At least I can say that I play the Edge Of The Empire RPG though and I've (so far) not bought Age Of Rebellion or Force and Destiny (currently in Beta). I had high hopes for playing this (hence the expansions) but I just don't see me playing it.
  • Snake Oil - So this one isn't a 2 player game. It's a 3 to 10 player game.  Surely that means I'll play it, right?  Well actually no.  I suspect the game will never be played because whilst I find the concept and theme amusing and I'm sure it's a lot of fun it will just never reach the top of my "to play" list (not that I have a "to play" list but you take my point).
  • Catan Junior - So I bought this as an impulse purchase near the beginning of this 2nd Chapter because I'd been looking for it for a long time and I believed it would be a great family game to introduce my daughter (and wife) to board games. Unfortunately (for Catan Junior) other games took that slot instead.  Specifically games like Hey, That's My Fish! have taken that slot. Plus now that my collection has grown and I have more family orientated games that I think I will play it's probably time for Catan Junior to move on.
  • Panic Station - A game I bought when we went to London and at that time I think it was a gamble but I had been looking for a sci-fi themed co-operative game. The thing with Panic Station is that it feels too fiddly. Ok fiddly isn't a good descriptor. The approach of having essentially 2 characters per player to manage just feels like a hassle and whilst I can't really explain why it's always put me off.  Now out of the list so far this game might not actually go as my original reason for buying it remains - I still want a sci-fi themed co-operative game and as yet I haven't found an alternative one.
  • Stonehenge - I've talked about this before here.  I am still intrigued by it but as with Snake Oil I just don't see me playing it...
So there we have it.  It's a small selection of my overall collection but they fail the principle and so I need to make a decision on how to move them on.

It's probably not a one size fits all solution here for each of these as some will likely not be that easy to sell on eBay or elsewhere.

Of course there is the other option of just keeping them...

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