“To be, or not to be…” is the opening phrase of a soliloquy in the “Nunnery Scene”^[1] of William Shakespeare‘s playHamlet.

In the speech, a despondent Prince Hamlet contemplates death and suicide while waiting for Ophelia, the love of his life. He bemoans the pains and unfairness of life but acknowledges the alternative might be still worse.

We face the same challenge but on a lighter note! For we must decide daily, weekly, monthly to play or not to play? Ahh the first world problems!

2 years ago this was the status of my learning ‘new games’ [not new systems] per annum.

 

As we can see in 2015 the rate of new titles played was higher and at about the same rate ( The right hand column tells us the # of games learned during a given year. While the blue triangles show us cumulative over time games learned against the right axes) but slowing slightly in 2016. The overall trend of new titles played is an accelerating one up until the end of 2015.

Some quick back of napkin math from BGG stats provides us with a total of 550 games owned or previously owned, as a base line to look at gross numbers of titles and ownership. 26% of the total games owned at some point have been recycled out to new homes.

From the pool of 550, 310 or 56% were not played. 44% of the total were played! Not entirely awful overall. Sometimes you cannot know if a game is really for you until you open the box, peruse the components and read the rules. It is one thing to read the rules from a pdf, while glancing at a VASSAL module it is another to physically hold a game and interact with it!

Around 141 games have entered the BigBoard shelves and exited (date stamps would have been cool…:)). Of those games that left us 48% were played and 52% remained unplayed and were traded or sold, Now this does include games that were perhaps a bargain find, and flipped, or given to me by a friend and traded. But in general most of the games are hard earned dollars going out to only grace a shelf for a period of time.

Current ownership is at an embarrassing 314 titles (note there is some duplication and doubles here but not enough to be meaningful). Of the current 314, 158  (50%) remain un played, and the same percentage have been played. Pretty balanced!  Much better statistically when compared to total games owned/previously owned.

Another interesting detail, there are nearly 100 games that I have played that I do not own! 85 in fact!

Some are gems like Angola, others are new titles that were played and I have not yet decide to buy or titles that were played once or twice enjoyed but were not deemed desirous enough to own a copy of , or perhaps competed with scare resources.

How many games a year are you playing? Are you enjoying the experience? Do you feel happy with the rate of play versus your rate of acquisition?

Do tell, Yorick and I are dying to know.