$40? Really?? I think I got it for $20 at Funagain a few years back, which wasn't at much of a discount. I thought it was like $25. Maybe it went up, but I find it hard to believe it's that expensive. Now, if you're talking expansions, etc., then it'll cost you some money.

I miss the good old days of having our own nation of vassals. Now that our dollar has crumbled, those formerly polite denizens of the north just sneer and throw handfuls of raw bacon at me when I get too close to the border.

This must be how England feels.

Not to completely hijack this thread, but the plunging dollar is an intentional phenomenon to spur US manufacturing and trade. And its working very well. Youll never hear the government brag about it, because it hurts your average consumer. And as much as I hate W, it aint him either -- he's too stupid to even consider the manipulation of global markets.

And if your FLGS is selling Munchkin for $40, someone needs to be taken out behind the woodshed.

A lot more this year than it would have been last year!

The Canadian dollar is traditionally worth about US$0.90, but of late they are about equal, with the US being a hair less.

Canada is an expensive place. I'm not sure why though. More taxes, cost of delivery etc? Was just up there for a fishing trip. Case of Molson Canadian was almost 50 bucks.

I don't think you should be announcing this on a public forum!

What I really want is a copy of Stoner Fluxx. Looney Labs says they're going to reissue it someday but they keep dragging their feet. Copies on eBay are regularly going in the $60-$110 range.

Wonder why this has never been made into a boardgame:

I had to order Grass for some guy last week.

Yet people hate to play them. Word games rate abominably here. What's with that?

With that number, I'm pretty sure you do both.

I think you'll find thats "words IS hard"

Nothing says "I love you, grandma" quite like a gift of Arkham Horror...

Inventor of BanaGrams:

Although I'm not enamoured with it, I can see why it's a best-seller. Simple, fun, interactive game that serves (IMO) as a bridge between old fashioned roll-n-move games and more elegant Euros. Plus, the game isn't overproduced and is thus relatively cheap. An excellent choice for a gateway game (but I prefer TTR).

Heh. "Hey you kids get out of my yard!"

Awesome dude, thanks for sharing...

Its one of our top three for sure. Right up there with Ticket to Ride and Blokus.

Yep played basic Settlers 3-4 times a week for about 6-7 months. Which finally prompted me to screamm "No more sheep for $%(*&& wood!!!" and kick the table over.
Well figuratively anyway.

In reality I just found a FLGS and said "I am sick of Settlers what else is good?". Fortunately that turned out to be Puerto Rico and I've never looked back.

You had me at PEW PEW PEW!

It's a game with FRICKIN' LASERS. The only thing that'd be better is if they could incorporate lasers into Aquaretto. Is that too much to ask?

Yeah, but then you'd have to remember your "Laser Light Show Programmer" coworker gives you negative points when combined with alligators, because they get blinded and bite people.

Does Aquaretto have ill-tempered sea bass?

Of course if you own this game, you absolutely MUST get the add-on Khet: Eye of Horus Beam Splitter!

Aquaretto, nothing. Set up Twilight Imperium with some of those babies! Giggity!

Yay, Redwings!

GO WHALERS!!!!!



What?

Go Nordiques!

GO FISH





Sorry, what were we all talking about again?


edited for spelling (no, really)

I hated this one, it is a giant defensive game where the winner is the guy willing to do nothing but move marbles around, boring. You have to use a different set up, or it is a giant stale mate

Ah, baloney.

I don't know how well it sells at your store, but it's a lousy game.

I think during the Christmas season, we sold around 60 of them and cleaned out our inventory. It's funny because we essentially got a double order and were afraid of having many leftovers.

I don't mind the game at all although I understand where you're coming from. You can't be aggressive in this game.

If you have any GIPF series games you can sell those instead of waiting for Abalone.

Tzaar is the awesome.

Some decade, the makers of Blokus will realize this game would **sell** better as a "puzzle" than an actual game!

Old joke: "I told them the cupholder they were interested in can also be used for their CD's."

My retail experience (in a book + music store) backs this up.

There are the customers who like to be greeted (quickly and informally) and left alone to do the shopping they came to do, and the customers who really want your more involved help whether they are bold enough to ask for it or not. The mark of a great retail shop worker is being able to tell the difference, because each type of customer will often leave without buying what they came for if treated the wrong way.

The one thing that always drove me crazy, though (and I see it when hanging out at the FLGSes as well), are the customers who want help, and ask a million questions, and then abandon the advice completely anyway.

"Hi, my nephew is really into games. There are these ones called Twilight Struggle and Power Grid that his mom tells me he likes. He has a dog, so I was thinking about this Dogopoly game. Do you think he would like it?"

[20 minutes of FLGS employee talking through dozens of great medium-heavyweight strategy games the nephew would have a good chance of liking....]

"You know, I think I'm going to just play it 'safe' with the Dogopoly game." (Oh the irony of that word 'safe'....)

From the store's revenue perspective, better Dogopoly than nothing at all, but it's astounding how many of the customers who even want help from the employees still don't really do much with that help.

But I think it really boils down to a couple of bits of human nature:
1. Most people don't like to ask for help
2. Even if they do ask for help, most people don't like to be talked into something, even if they know it's good advice
3. Most people don't like to give a gift that they don't like or understand

So I don't see it changing.

Brilliant. Especially the third point.

Uhm, if your boss is the owner, he certainly IS working "on commission"!

Yah - I stopped going to the local Games Workshop store even though I like to buy minis for Warhammer Quest and WFRP solely because the creepy Brisbyland employees would tackle me, hit me with a crit WAAAGH and an insanely toothy grin, and proceed to ask me "WHAT ARMY YOU PLAY? DO YOU PLAY? WHAT ARMY DO YOU COLLECT? DO YOU PLAY GAME A OR GAME B? I FEAST ON YOUR SOUL WHAT ARMY ARMY ARMY ARMY ARMY?!?!?!?!!?"

The funny thing is GW put games like WHQ out of print because it did not fit their mold of selling endless minis for a revamped army of some sort, but I was spending way more money to collect the world for roleplay purposes than I would if I was playing a battle game. And yet the drove me off...

I wouldn't really say it's similar to Rummy. You just collect enough cards of one color to grab a track of that length. Although, I guess if people like rummy, it could be a way to sell them on it.

We call this game "drawing cards." And still somehow we play it almost every week!

On BGG this game is probably the one most often called overly simple and just a glorified card game. Sometimes simple is great though and the fact it can be played with almost anyone makes it a staple. I imagine this has to be the biggest consistent seller among "big box" boardgames in almost every FLGS.

However, if your spelling does not...

I could have gotten into Mensa as a kid as I was reading and playing music and stuff very early. I liked Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Not sure what the seal is supposed to signify.

OK, this from the Mensa member is hilarious! Can you imagine the playtesting sessions?

Einstein: "So then we come to Phase 5 of the resource-gathering Turn, after which point it will be time to begin the Conflict-resolution Turn."

Kasparov: "This learning curve is way too steep, you lost me at Phase 3. Let's just play Candyland 2: Revenge of the Cane again and give that the Mensa seal!"

Einstein: "Well if this is too complicated, we could just play the new Arkham Horhouse expansion..."

Newton: "HUNGRIER HUNGRIER HIPPOS!!!!!"

Considering how popular Mensa-bashing is, I'm mildly surprised their award helps sell boardgames.

Point one

ANY game that takes more that 5 minutes to learn and explain will fail. In two days I reckon I could learn a maximum of 6-10 new games depending on weight. In other words rules and one play only (but then again I'm not in MENSA ). To give 30 games a fair shot in two days is impossible.

Point two

Face it none of the games in the top 100 on BGG are ever going to get in. All of them have a learning curve that is at least 3+ games to master any kind of skill/strategy level

Point 3

Tbh this is a valid point. So the MENSA mark relly means "here is a mark of a fun and simple to learn game that people good at IQ tests might enjoy"
Just don't expect it to mean "A pinnacle of gaming goodness that will truly stretch you" go for the DSP list instead.

Oh and RGG submitted a bunch of games but none of them won - go figure. Picture the poor soul who is trying to explain power grid.

demo - so we lay out the power plants for auction...
MENSA - Ah! An auction game?
demo - no not wholly. Then we fill up the commodity market
MENSA - Ok? so it's a buying and selling game
demo - In part but then we have to connect cities...
MENSA - Hmmm, so it's a travelling salesman optimization game?? No? Oh actually times up I have another 27 to go yet today.
demo - *sigh*

Pass the Pigs is fun for what it is.

As someone mentioned above, BGG is a small population of the individuals who play boardgames.

Most of this site consists of people who play mostly euros and believe anything else isn't worth their time, or anyone else's time.

I'm down with dice and pigs!

DarrenM sums it up nicely.

For every person on BGG who has played hundreds of games, there are thousands of people out there who can count on two hands all the boardgames they've played, and vote/speak with their dollars with what is obviously greater volume.

That doesn't mean they're more selective or possessing of a more discriminate taste - quite the contrary. But their money is the chum that keeps the likes of Monopoly selling in obscene numbers.

After having played what must be over a thousand, different games in my life, there is no way in hell I would voluntarily pick (what I would guess to be) any of the top ten selling games in the U.S., as an interesting way to spend my time. That isn't being snobbish - that's being knowledgeable about what I want out of a game, and having considerable experience with the full panoply of products to back up that assertion.

If the question before me is playing Pass the Pigs, or staring at a TV showing Oprah, well yeah, I'll play Pass the Pigs.

But don't expect it or Oprah to have a chance in hell, when there's someone around willing to play any of several hundred other games I prefer, that are at hand.

Lots of highranking games here, incl Puerto Rico, have random elements. If the hivemind has prejudices it's against dice specifically, not randomness as such.

People like to think they are smarter than dice.

Every Monopoly boardgame version ever made since about 1935 would attest to that.

What gets me are board games licensed from video games. With LAN parties being so easy now that everyone has a laptop and wireless, why even bother getting together to play a four hour board game when you can jump on your computer and play the same game in half an hour? If you want, you can even sit facing each other and shoot the breeze while you do it.

Interesting to make this point right after "dice games sell."

With all the re-themeing of "classic" games besides Monopoly (I saw Simpsons Clue and Operation at the Thrift Store Yesterday) I'm sure your right, BUT there is a bit of other marketing/packaging to consider as well.

Signed--Captain Obvious.

But really, I had passed on picking up Liar's Dice many times before I found out here that it was a cool game. It just looked like a stupid game to me.

We don't play WOW online at all and my gaming group still breaks this one and its expansions out once a month. It and a few other large licensed games have replaced AD&D and Squad Leader from our line up.