I Hate Culling Games

by Josiah Matson

But It Is A Necessary Evil

The Grim Reaper is coming for some of my games.
I. Hate. Culling.

There's something about the idea of having to give up something that brought me a lot of joy and selling it that just stresses me out to the max. Even if it's games that I haven't touched in years, I still keep them with the "what if?" mindset, potentially to play with my daughters as they get older. Despite knowing full well that I'm probably never going to pull them out and would rather play other, better games with them.

Part of why I have so much difficulty with getting rid of games is that I'm a bit proponent of selling my games. Unfortunately, this means that I have to post my games on a website such as Facebook Marketplace or GeekMarket or a Facebook Buy/Sell group, and while those aren't awful, I'm an absolutely horrid salesman. I either overvalue or undervalue the price of items and generally I think that my games are worth far more than people are willing to pay for them.

I usually end up culling games for two reasons, and they usually are intertwined with one another, so it makes it even more pressing when I do get to the point where I'm culling games. The first reason is that I'm running out of room at my house and I need to make room for new games. The second reason is that I need money for buying new games and that usually goes hand in hand with making room for new games. I'll typically go through my games that have been banished to the basement shelf (the shelf of DOOOOM) and figure out which ones haven't been touched in over a year. If it's been long enough that I cannot remember the last time I played the game, onto the sell pile it goes.

It's both a stressful and cathartic moment for me, choosing which games that I'm going to sell, as I know that this makes room for better games, but it's also part of my history and memory, even if the game isn't that good. This last year has seen the largest number of games enter my collection ever, and also the largest output of games that I've ever had, so today's post is about what's left my collection and why it had to be sold off.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

The Deadliest Dowager is the one who took this from my collection.
I thought that I'd start off with some positive reasons for culling games before I get into some of the more mediocre parts of my collection and why they were removed from it. This last Christmas, I did something that I never thought I'd do: I gave away some of my personal collection for Christmas presents. It was difficult and I had a really hard time letting go of the two following games, but in giving them away, I made two very special people feel very loved for Christmas.

Deadly Dowagers was the first, and honestly, one of the hardest games to leave my collection this year. For those who have been following my blog over the last year, you'll know that it was one of the first games that I received a review copy of, and like a first paycheck, it is special to me in that regards. However, I gave it to my sister this year as it was something that I knew that she would adore, especially the ironic and dry humor that was present throughout the entire game. She of course laughed uproariously when opening the gift and I look forward to hearing her thoughts on the plays that she had of them.

For my second game that I gave away this year, I gifted Above and Below to my friend Anthony as he has Near and Far and his wife noted that Above and Below would be cool to play with him. As he's always looking for ways to play games with his family (his wife especially), this seemed like the perfect gift to get him for Christmas, since I knew that he would enjoy the game significantly more than I would. Naturally, Anthony enjoyed the gift and while he hasn't been able to get a chance to play the game yet, he's very eager to play it and seems like he's going to really appreciate the journey.

Both games were difficult to give away, but when it came down to it, I knew that they would be played by the individuals that I gifted the games to and that they would be thoroughly enjoyed. That and potentially being able to play them again with the giftees, it helps to soften the blow of losing some excellent games in my collection.

Bigger and Better

Upgrading from the basic version to the MAXIMUM CHROME edition was an excellent choice.
Other games that have left my collection in this last year were upgraded to bigger, better versions and I sold the previous versions that I had for them. The base game of Thunder Road: Vendetta was replaced by Thunder Road: Vendetta – Maximum Chrome, which in my opinion was an excellent upgrade, plus it came with the Carnival of Chaos expansion. I also got a second copy of The 7th Continent with all the Kickstarter expansions to fill out what I was missing, which cost significantly less than trying to piecemeal the various missing expansions. Thunder Road: Vendetta was sold to a friend for the same price I purchased it for and the second copy of The 7th Continent (minus the Kickstarter Expansions that I needed) was traded for a NIS copy of Lost Ruins of Arnak, which was a pretty good deal for me, I must say.

Those were fairly easy to get rid of since I had upgraded existing copies of games already in my collection, but the games that didn't have a second copy in my collection were a bit more tough to part with. Especially the games that had sat in my collection for a long time without any plays and that I was holding onto due to nostalgia.

While not a big fan of Risk, the LOTR version held a soft spot in my heart.
Image credit to [user=TMJJS]Todd Sweet[/user].
The Lord of the Rings, Risk: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition, Monopoly: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition, and Trivial Pursuit: The Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy Collector's Edition had all been part of my collection for years, but they had sat on my shelves unplayed for probably two decades. It was with a heavy heart that I sold them earlier in 2024 to make more room for other games, but that didn't soften the blow any more. These games were some of the first ones that I ever purchased and hearkened back to my fervor over everything Lord of the Rings when I was in middle/high school. It was a blow to get rid of them, and probably the hardest thing I had to get rid of this year, but it was a necessary choice, since I knew that they wouldn't be played at all, and were just taking up space in my home. I like to play my games, and the fact that these weren't being played, hurt me to my core, so I had to give them up.

The next group of games were purchased when I was in college and had either outlived their time in my collection and were just gathering dust, or were just not for me and never really saw any plays. Cards Against Humanity and Betrayal at House on the Hill as well as Pandemic and Munchkin were all fantastic parts of my collection to begin with, but as the years went by and my tastes changed, they hit the table less and less and were eventually relegated to the "sell" pile. These were tough to get rid of, but also understandable for me since I didn't really play them anymore and I wanted to get games that I played more.

Codenames, Llamas Unleashed, King of Tokyo, Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination and Story War were all decent games (well most of them were), but they didn't really hit the notes that Sarah and I wanted with our games, so they ended up being sold. A few games, like Jumanji and Latice Hawai'i absolutely fell flat and we almost immediately agreed to sell them after they had been on our shelves for some time.

I love Jaws, and the board game is an excellent rendition of the movie, especially with hidden movement.
Image credit to [user=hackryder]Tiffany Leigh[/user].
My last few games that I have sold this year were some of the most difficult ones, especially since I had wanted to keep them, but knew that inevitably they would be not played, even if I owned a copy of them. The Jaws game was excellently designed by Ravensburger, but unfortunately, it really wasn't my wife's cup of tea, so it was sold to a good friend for a decent price. It's hopefully going to be brought back to our weekly Friday game days and I'm hoping to have another crack at eating some swimmers as the giant, man-eating shark.

CATAN is a classic, but not necessarily one that needs to remain in my collection.
Image credit to [user=jamesmattbob]Matt Walsh[/user].
CATAN was another one that became destined for the sell pile, especially after getting to a point where it's only played possibly once every four to five years. The fact that the game was at minimum, a three player game, really didn't help keep the game on my shelves, since many days were just a two-player foray with Sarah and I. Onto the sell pile it went and I bid adieu to one of the games that got me into modern board gaming. It was a tragedy, but one that is fairly easy to rectify as I have multiple friends with a copy of the game and can play it anytime I want to.

I enjoyed Mice and Mystics, but it's been replaced by other games, despite how good it is.
Image credit to [user=ronster0]Ronster Zero[/user].
The final game that I sold this year (or technically the first game that I sold in 2025), was Mice and Mystics. I had managed to get a copy of the game second hand from a local used book store and got it for fairly cheap too. My wife and I played through the first two games of the storybook and once we got used to the rules, it was a very well-made and designed game. However life got in the way, as it often does, and our plans to play this once a month were derailed heavily and we only got two plays of this game in before we had to set it aside for other games. It was hard to say goodbye to this impressively designed game, but when it came down to it, we knew that we'd have other games that we'd prefer to play two-player with and that this was not the time for us to attempt a story-driven campaign with rules-heavy gameplay. I sold this game to someone who's daughter was heavily into D&D and her hope was that she would be able to play this with her without having to learn all the rules of D&D.

Final Thoughts

Selling games means that I get to add new things to my collection, like PARKS: Nightfall.
As much as culling games really stresses me out, I know that it is for the best, especially for the games that I own that aren't getting any plays in years. My tastes change and being willing to change out games that don't really fit that taste profile is totally fine, and even healthy. Any mental health guru or home organizer guru will tell you that getting rid of old items is important as it just brings more clutter to your environment. Naturally as board gamers, we have a different view on what "clutter" is, but as someone who has limited space and needs to keep it updated when new games come in, culling games from my collection is important.

There are a few more games that are sitting on the chopping block, including Dungeonology: The Expedition and it's expansions, as well as Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All among them. It's a point in my journey through board games that I hoped that I would get to much further down the line, but without getting a bigger space to store games, I'm pretty much out of luck and have to get rid of games that aren't necessarily going to hit the table for those that I know that I'll play.

In an ideal world, I'd be able to build out a collection of several hundred games without having to cull them, but reality is often a harsh mistress. So I find myself in a situation where I'm occasionally looking at the games I own and having to make hard decisions about them. I would say that most of my collection is going to be around long-term, but there's always one or two games that enter that don't really hit the mark for me and end up on the sell pile. Being willing to let go of things is something that I struggle with and I consider this a version of "mini-therapy" and helping me learn to give up things that I don't use anymore.

It's tough, but I'm learning to adapt and grow. Just like I've been doing all year long.

Give me your thoughts:What are some games that you've culled out of your collection, for any reason at all? Were there any games that you've culled due to your partner not enjoying them or because you don't have a reason to play it more? Have you ever culled games for the monetary side of things, especially if you're like me and need money for more, better board games?

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