This year I went to GenCon and have bought about 50 board games I would say, but I also bought a bunch of stuff to give to friends and family ( Politico ). THe last 3 years it was all just Heroscape stuff, but I was buying a lot of it.

I think it's going to be skewed as a lot of people around weren't here before ~2006. As I spent a ton of money in every year before 2007 my purchases as almost nothing this year. But I think you are going to see a glut of buying in the last couple years with the huge influx of people into the hobby.

Yeah, I didn't really get into the hobby until this year, so this is year is the source of the vast majority of my spending.

I think I underestimated the spending. I guess I should have added one more upper level.

One problem with this poll: It doesn't account for the fact that spending on things like games is not consistent apart from whatever is going on with the economy. Some people will buy more in one year to start a collection; some will buy less in one year because nothing looked interesting; some people will trade rather than buy; etc. Good thought, but I'm not sure the poll results are really going to tell you what you're after.

For me, the values just don't go high enough. I've probably spent around $1500 on games this year. But that's probably about 1/2 of what I spent in 2007 or 2006.

I think my wife could give a better estimate to my spending on games, let me ask her ........

ON SECOND THOUGHT ..... BAD IDEA

you are going to have to live with my answer

Ask me again in two weeks or so, i.e. after Essen - I expect the 2008 figures to look very different then (in line with prior years).

There needs to be a 2009 poll along with it. I've honestly dropped a lot of purchases because for the same ammount of money in 2007, I'm now getting... a whopping 3 games. 4 games if I wiggle things around and if I'm not too picky. I used to be able to buy 7-8 games, at least.

I feel that a game is probably the best money spent for entertainment.

In times of economic stress we'll try to make our dollar go further and gaming is one form of entertainment that, with careful consideration, can pay for itself over and over again.

If I had to sell some mutual fund shares to buy games I might not have any money to buy anything. What a mess.

Another problem with this poll is that my spending has dropped precipitously in 2008 not because of the economy, but because in my opinion almost nothing has been worth buying this year.

I don't think it's so much the purchase dollar amount that matters than what your dollar purchases. In 2004 you got more boardgame, miniature, CCG, etc. for your dollar. By 2007 and even this year major boardgame companies have announced price increases (GW, FFG, etc.) and reasonably so since the prices of materials and cost of delivery have increased. Combine this with the low of the dollar against international currency and you're getting a lot less today than what you got a few years ago.

Lots of folks are still holding on to the same pay scales they had in 2004. It's inflation that's killing us. I think that gamers will still want to purchase new games, so they'll start looking for cheaper places to find them rather than purchase fewer games. If the polls here are any indication, most of the folks on BGG are middle to hard-core class gamers that aren't slowing their spending when it comes to boardgames. But there's no doubt in my mind that in the coming year we'll see a few more FLGS's go under and possibly a few online retailers as well due to the current economic downturn.

Oh, and have no doubt in your mind that the economy sucks for right now. But IMHO it's far from broken and will recover.

EDIT: In looking at the poll questions again, I think a better question to determine belt-tightening would be how much more or less have you spent in a given year over previous years.

I gave up going out to eat so I can afford more games.

My recent lack of game purchases has nothing to do with the economy so much as the fact that all of my close board gaming friends moved away or live out of state because I moved away. I am working on it. Last night I went to the local FLGS for their BG night for the first time. Good Fun!

I've heard from a friend of mine in the banking industry that when the economy is bad people tend to buy more low cost items rather than big ticket items. I would guess that there are a lot more games, gadgets, etc. being purchased right now than new cars and homes.

I spent the same as usual this year at GenCon and just dropped $300 on Monsterpocalypse.

With that said, we are tightening our belts this year. It has less to do with the current economy and more with the fact that my wife's position was eliminated while she was on maternity leave back in February.

In order to keep my gaming fund up to its usual levels, I'm cutting back on other expenses. (That includes dumping two of my five websites, canceling XM, switching my XBox Live account from Gold to Silver, cutting back to basic cable, and replacing my AT&T land line with Skype. Total savings: $400 per month)

I also sold off about a third of my game collection at the GenCon auction, partly to clear out space taken up by games that weren't getting any table time (or weren't likely to) but also to offset this year's spending. (Which reminds me - I really need to update my BGG inventory...)

Let's see, I've been buying games seriously for about a year, during which I've accumulated about 350 of them... figure $35 a pop on average... carry the two...



Oh God...

Did you stop? No wonder consumer spending is down, you were 27% of it ...

Well, now that I have a better selection than my FLGS, I've certainly slowed down.

But a year of rent-free living leads to a lot of extra money, so we'll see how the market goes next month when I start paying again.

I must confess that, as I'm getting back onto boardgaming, my buys and trades have much increased this year. But next year, by the look of things at present, next year will be $0.

Yeah definitely a upper bracket or two would serve the poll better.

I track my gaming expenditure each financial year and came up with these disturbing results -

'04-'05 - Just over 2K

'05-'06 - Just under 3K

'06-'07 - Just over 3K

'07-'08 - Just over 3K

'08-'09 - Under 1K to date

I should preface these numbers with a couple of facts too. First we (Aussies) do pay much higher costs for our hobby than the US. I also buy the majority of my games from my FLGS, which are inflated on account of being a regional bricks and mortar store.

But perhaps most importantly the above numbers are not necessarily all cost, but rather an accumulation of value in games. I do a fair bit of work for my FLGS over each year and we have....an arrangement.

I'm investing in board games, stock prices go down, real estate prices are going down, gold isn't safe anymore, but Board games are a sure thing! At least, that's what I'm trying to believe!

To all those who spent over $1000 US on games: come on over and bring your collections, unless they're all copies of Agricola.


Seriously, though. In the past three years we have spent over $500 US on board games. But, then again, we run stuff at a major con and needed the stuff. Before that, it was a little slower.

I will say that since finding BGG my buying habits have increased. Lets see, this year we bought 30+ games; some cost $10, most around $35, and a few in excess of $50. So at an average of $30 a pop, that's a little much.

Last year and the year before that, there were about 20+ games at the same $30 a pop.

Prior to that 15-20 would be a good per year average, and most of those were at $25 per game.

I created a spreadsheet in mid September by going back through my on-line banking and credit card records for six months. That's as far back as I can check on-line.

I was tracking how much I spent on gasoline versus hobby and entertainment expenses like guns, games, guitars and dating from mid-March through mid-September. Gasoline was first and the $690.47 spent on games was the 4th highest expense.