How to Start a Board Game Collection Without Buying Everything

If you want to start a board game collection now, from scratch, what’s the best way to do it?

Board gaming is a rather niche hobby that, despite its growing popularity, still hasn’t quite cracked the mainstream. That means that a typical method of acquiring a lot of things, like heading over to a Goodwill or garage sale, isn’t going to help you get anywhere.

The fact is, games are expensive, and growing a collection of potentially expensive items quickly is a challenge.

Here is how we would start our board game collection on a budget, if we needed to restart from scratch.

#1 – Focus on Three Years Ago

At the time of this writing, that means looking at games from 2023. The principle is more important than the actual year, though: look at games released about three years ago.

Go to YouTube or BoardGameGeek, and take a look at the most popular games from three years ago. These are the games that are still going to feel modern, play smoothly, and often be found at half price. These are games that are past the point of hype but were selling well, right up until they reached critical mass – the point where most people who wanted it, owned it. Once that happens, retailers storing the excess merchandise will resort to sales that help clear out their inventory.

Until you came around.

And the fact is, three years ago, games were GREAT! This isn’t like the board gaming dark ages where there were only five or ten good games that came out at all. There are literally hundreds of quality games, so buying anything that was even pretty good at the time is likely a great value.

#2 – Shop for Variety

We have a gaming friend whose first hobby board game was Everdell. It’s a great game, and in no small part because it was his first game, he loved it. So, he did what any intrepid board game collector would do and bought the expansion. And then the next expansion. And the next. And he loved them all.

Then he bought Farshore, which is a similar game in the Everdell universe. Same thing with Silverfrost, another game in the universe that shares a lot of DNA with Everdell.

This friend has spent hundreds of dollars on his game collection, and has a game he just loves.

But he doesn’t have a versatile game collection.

He has an Everdell collection.

A very thorough one.

But not a game collection. 

And if he plays with someone who doesn’t like that game, or who simply wants to play something new, he doesn’t have much on offer.

Love what you love. But especially when starting out, shop for variety in publisher, mechanism, art style and player count.

#3 – Go to Conventions

Conventions offer you two major advantages in building a new board game collection.

First, you often get to try it before you buy it. You can demo games, or borrow them from the library, or even just see and touch the components. You can meet publishers, and sometimes the designers, and ask lots of questions. You can also meet with other gamers who are shopping the collection and find out what they think.

Second, you can shop at the consignment store or auction for low-cost, used games. There is no better way to build a collection quickly than to get in early on the last day, and load up on five or six big box games at their lowest possible prices, without having to pay for shipping.

And while you’re at the convention building your collection...

You’ve got the games figured out. You’ve got the strategy figured out. You’ve even figured out how to get five games home without paying for shipping.

Now you just need to look the part.

BoardGamingTees makes shirts for people who actually play board games — strategy-inspired designs, inside jokes, and shirts that will make sense to the people wandering the convention hall with you.

Because if you’re going to spend three days talking about worker placement, engine building, and why this game absolutely needs to come home with you, you might as well dress appropriately.

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What NOT to Do

Starting out with a brand new board gaming collection? Here are some bad choices.

• Going all in on crowdfunding– not only are you paying one of the highest prices you can pay for a game, you’re probably not getting it for a year or two.

• Buying the “Deluxe Edition” – these are often the most beautiful, collectible version of the game. If you buy the regular edition for $60, though, you can often afford two more additional games for the cost of the $150 deluxe edition. Or you can buy board game upgrade kits that are cheaper than the difference between deluxe and retail game costs.

• Buying New Games at Conventions – While conventions are a great bet for used games, and for trying games you’re curious about, it’s not a great place for buying brand new games. They’re simply too expensive to be cost effective when you’re considering how to fill a shelf. And in three years, they’ll be on the discount rack.

• Focus on storage. Wait on a permanent storage solution until you have some idea of how many games you plan on keeping in your collection. It doesn’t make sense to spend hundreds of dollars on shelves that you will want to replace once your collection doubles in size. Your collection will determine the storage, not the other way around.

Once you have an established collection, every one of these choices are totally valid. But for those without a game collection at all, they’re going to cost you an arm and leg.

Start Small. Buy Smart. And leave yourself some room to discover what kind of gamer you actually are.

A board game collection doesn’t need to be 300 games. It doesn’t even need to be 50. It just needs to be a set of quality games that you love that will fit a variety of situations.

When your party-game loving friends come over, do you have a game for them? What about your parents who just want to play a simple card game? And do you have a deeper, heavy strategy game you can play with your significant other on a night in?

If the answer is yes, you’ve got a board game collection.