GAME STORE CONFIDENTIAL ~ Sex, Collectible Games & Expanding Universes

Sorry about missing a few Mondays. It's all about this new "job" I accepted and since nothing about the job has anything to do with board gaming... I'll skip the details. Suffice it to say I'm pretty confused about how anybody stays in business. Working for a large company does nothing to dispell the gloomy sense I have that the earth is spinning madly out of control.

Anyway. Games.

I visted BGG several times over the last 2 weeks and discovered that the same-old, same-old is being discussed. While there is a good deal of content dealing with actual game descriptions, reviews, session reports and other items that I would call "information", the bulk of the content that draws a crowd is about contentuous subjects.

So today, I figured I'd address something that keeps cropping up and attracting at least as many posts as The Great RR Tycoon Vs. Age of Steam debate. Or the even greater Local Merchant Vs Online Discounter argument. That is -- the seriously impaired discussion about collectible/expandable games.

First off, let's define, for purposes of this article, what collectible in the gaming or entertainment "sense" means.

Collectible refers to a product that has an intended rarity level for specific key parts of the entire product range. It does not imply that the gaming product is useless unless it's all "collected". Merely that some parts of the game aren't sold in a manner that the consumer can be assured they are getting the more rare of the items that make up the total game or system.

The tradition of collectibility in board games is not a long one. Starting with the Magic CCG in 1993 and perhaps somewhat pre-dated by publishers and manufacturers such as Games Workshop who produced LE, or Limited Edition, items, collectibility in board games is a more recent phenomena. One of the main talking points on BGG (and I suppose other web sites) is the supposedly covert and even evil nature of the publishers who produce collectible games. There is the typical outrage and cries of "foul" from gamers who, I suppose, view games that cost more than $20-30 as evil and somehow intended to make their personal lives unlivable. The idea here, I think, is that if the publisher had any morals or ethics they would never design and publish a game that wasn't already complete. In fact, the main argument seems to be that if it costs more money than the whiner is willing to spend to get the game, it's the publisher that is greedy, not the mooch who wants a $60 game for $20.

Oddly, I've never read where anyone suggests that maybe the gamer who desires ALL of a collectible or expandable product might think about making enough money to buy it all. But that's not really the point from the "victim's" way of looking at things. Their point is simple... they want it all and they want it cheap. Any publisher who fails to deliver is therefore evil and greedy.

Right.

Board gaming politics is like real politics. Words and phrases are crafted specifically to support a theory or platform and any information that doesn't bolster the "point" is left out of the dialog. So... that means a game like the upcoming Battlelore is collectible... at least to those too frickin' cheap and niggardly to pay retail and get some .10 cent hunk of Hill Giant plastic. Whereas games like Carcassone are not collectible. Despite the fact that the Carcassone pantheon of products includes some items that are "more rare" and limited than I suspect the Hill Giant will be for BattleLore.

In the war of words against collectibility WOTC, the publisher of Magic, is the one true God of Evil Publishers. The argument basically runs that MTG is designed in such a fashion as to create a "need" in the gamer to constantly dip into their pocket book for the next booster pack, the next expansion.. the next big thing. Okay. I'll buy that. That's exactly how MTG is designed and marketed. What is hilarious is that the execution of that design and marketing is somehow evil. Because, if MTG is evil then so are the following:

Comic Books
Trading cards
Diecast cars
Movies with sequels
Console games
Cars
Motorcycles
Boats
Houses
Children
Marraige
Music
Furniture
Art
Books
Wine
Stocks
Education
etc...

My point being, most things in life are expandable. Some actually are collectible in the sense that there is a limited availability of certain specific pieces of the whole. If you want those items that are rare, then you have to pay up. If you either are incapable of paying up or unwilling to... then too bad. The only thing wrong in that case is that you're a loser because you are unwilling to make the sacrifices and have the discipline needed to be able to easily afford the rare and expensive items, yet you insist they be given to you at a price you set. The manufacturer is commited to the idea of getting you to part company with your money. If they can do it, then they are what I call "successful". If they can't, then they are what I call "unsuccessful".

Wouldn't the same be true of an outraged gamer who wants something they either can't afford or are unwilling to afford?

So let's use marraige as an example. Assume for a moment that you're a man. And being a man, you'd want a hot chick in your bed every night. She ought to be sexy, good looking, a gracious hostess, a fantastic cook, a skilled masseuse, have a six figure income, be faithful to a fault, agree with you in every way, laugh when you fart or leave the toilet seat up and believes in her heart that the Kama Sutra is the finest book ever written.

Now, if that ain't a rare item then I don't know what is. What I do know is that she exists. In fact, there are multiple copies of her. The problem in getting a wife like that into your collection is this --- she costs a lot. Not just in money either. Getting a rare wife means you too have to be rare. You have to be smart, funny, healthy, talented, understanding, a skilled masseur, a hard worker, a fantastic listener, strong, courageous, helpful, disciplined, compassionate and most of all... you have to be in touch with your feminine side.

Phew! That last one is a real deal breaker for me.

Collectibility always has a price. Frankly, I'd like to have a wife or two like the one I described above. But damned if I'm willing to do what it takes to get one. So... no Black Lotus of marital harmony for me... I'll be plenty satisfied with a few Vesuvan Dopplegangers or the occasional Stone Troll.

Children are the same. You want a good one? Then quit being so effin' selfish and greedy about your personal time or your own needs and wants. You can get a good kid only by sacrifice, the enduring willingness to put up with bullshit for several thousand days in a row, constant vigilance, a total commitment to the future and well-being of another life and a case-hardend outer shell that is immune to the fact that, for the most part, you will spend a good portion of your life being hated and reviled by the very people who sprang forth from your loins and who you gave up damned near everything you hold dear so they could have a good future.

With that in mind... is it really suprising that the planet is teeming with socially retarded drug-users who jam sewing needles through their genitals, tattoo tribal death symbols on their foreheads, dress worse than an Ethiopian refugee, treat everyone they know like dirt, spend their days free-basing and playing GTA and only work when it's time to get a new bong or a concert ticket?

You might think I'm stretching things just a bit to compare games to something as deadly serious and important as marraige and child-rearing... but to me there are similarities in the amount of emotion and anger that spews out when publishers don't do what some gamers think they ought to do. Gee, being upset about someone not doing what you think they ought to do? And there is some question about how I see that as similar to wives and children?

Game publishers who produce games that have a collectible, or even expandable nature are actually doing what we, the main gaming public, want. They are extending their franchise deeper into our gaming lives. That's exactly what we want. That's how I felt when I first played MTG and that's how I feel about Memoir '44. When I got hooked on Formula De I realized that above all else, at least regarding Formula De, I wanted more tracks. And more and more and more tracks.

When I read some condescending jerk on BGG asserting that publisher X is a greedy and unethical publisher because they designed the product to have expansions, I shudder... because I get claustrophobic just thinking about how cramped and tiny a mind you'd have to possess in order to be so thoroughly tunnel-visioned that you'd actually announce publically that you're a cheap screw who is childishly pissed off because you didn't get a Mercedes for the same price as a Ford.

BattleLore, Carcassone, Settlers and games like them are NOT collectible. But if you make a personal decision to own all the parts to them, they are more expensive than say... Monsters Menace America. Which is neither expandable or collectible. That's the way the games are designed and anyone who is suprised or angered by that is, to put it nicely, a total idiot. Not to mention a greedy and quite possibly evil little screw. The agenda of these greedy attack-gamers seems to be simple... if a publisher gets positive reviews for a game that somehow can't be purchased with all of it's parts at a drastic discount... then it's the publisher that is greedy. So long as the reader's attention is focused on, in this case, Days of Wonder, it won't be looking at why a person would spend any time at all bitching about something that doesn't even cost as much as a concert ticket to any of the popular geriatic rocker bands from the 60's and 70's.

Some people are just cheap. It's not an illness, it's a condition. And it's more than okay to be cheap. Hey, I shop at Costco too. That means a game system like the upcoming BattleLore or Settlers or any of the dozens of popular systems designed with expansions in mind probably aren't targeted at the uber-cheap game geek. My beef isn't with a gamer who understands what he wants and needs and adds that to his life within a budget. No, my beef is with the screeching freebie-whores who rant and rave endlessly on BGG about how awful publishers are for having the temerity to target a game system at someone other than them. And, to top it all off, to produce the system in a manner that makes it cost over $30.... even with the mega-parasite online discount.

Anyway, I'm mighty pleased to be writing about games again. I'm even happier that BGG has provided me with a new source of enjoyment and amazement. If I get the time I'm going to head over there and troll for a while.

Have a great Thanksgiving and keep the shiny side up!