by Bruce Whitehill
An editorial published July 2006 in Knucklebones games magazine
Why do we collect?
It’s easy to understand why people play games—the social aspects, the non-threatening competition, the fun of mastering a challenge, to name a few. What’s harder to explain is why people collect games (or anything else, for that matter). There seems to be some sort of “collector mentality”—something not shared by everyone. I’ve been in people’s homes where there was not one “unessential” item to be found. Bookshelves had only books (no knickknacks), walls were adorned with a minimal number of framed art pieces (no calendars or bits taped or pinned to any surface), and even the refrigerator was nearly bare, with just a magnet holding the grocery list. But most of us, I think, collect something.
I asked some colleagues why they collect games. Two-time “Jeopardy” contestant Helen Andrews said, “It started with one little card game I bought for a dollar; I didn’t know I had a ‘collection’ until I joined the AGPC (game collectors group).” She said we collect because of a “fear of being ‘without’—hoarding against future lack,” and, in her case and so many others’, “because my mother threw everything away.” Tim Walsh, author of “Timeless Toys” (www.theplaymakers.com) said people collect in “an attempt to recapture a part of their youth while conserving the past”; he affirmed Helen’s comments and remarked we collect anything because “we want to try and capture something we love, for that feeling of permanency in an ever-changing world.” Sally Sugarman, a researcher on the impact games have on children, feels that “As mass society develops, some people collect to establish identity.” A collector she knows “collected soaps from all the places she had stayed, as it helped remind her of the trips she had taken.” Sally goes on to say, “the ritual of board games, as well as their historical context, intrigued me….(Collecting allows us to create) a world one can control.”
A couple of decades ago, the toy collectors had the catchphrase, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins!” I changed it from “toys” to “games,” and had a tee shirt made. Unfortunately, months before each big planned event at which I hoped to show off my shirt, one of our group died. Eventually, I had a new shirt made that reads, “Whoever lives with the most games wins.” I have more games than I need, now, and I am finding new homes for many of them; I collect because the items themselves help me piece together a lost history of games and game manufacturing in American culture.
Why do you collect?
What do we play?
The games people play range from the simplest roll-the-dice-and-move to the most complex of strategy games. Plus a myriad of “skill and action” or dexterity games in which you have to balance, toss, roll, swing, or flip one item into, onto, over, under, or around something. All these games, and lots in between, were available at the 103rd American International Toy Fair® in New York in February.
On its website, the American International Toy Fair® bills itself as “the largest toy trade show in the Western Hemisphere.” Last time I checked, Nuremberg, Germany, was in the Western Hemisphere, and the number of exhibitors and visitors from 110 countries attending the Nuremberg Toy Show far exceeds the more than 20,000 visitors and “1,500 manufacturers, distributors, importers and sales agents” that went to the New York show.
The number of booths at the New York Toy Fair has decreased over the past few years. The Press Center now occupies the entire Gallery, which once housed a roomful of new exhibitors. The wall-to-wall booths of previous years are now curtain-to-curtain areas, some drapes placed many yards away from the walls. Perhaps in an attempt to try to raise more money, the TIA this year instituted a fee of $100 for inventors wishing to attend the show. Doesn’t the TIA realize that without the inventors, there would be no show?!
There has been a lot of talk about moving the Toy Fair out of New York, especially after a disagreement arose between the Association and the owners of the Toy Building, where the show was held for decades. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is where most of the action takes place today. The TIA announced that Toy Fair will stay in New York, but after the second blizzard in three years, many attendees are pushing for change. Rumors are floating that one of the top choices, Las Vegas, has been ruled out because one of the “-Mart”s didn’t want to shop Las Vegas, a city it sees as not conforming to good family values.
So what does this all have to do with the games people play? What I am leading up to is pointing out that the industry is not just fun and games. This is big business, complete with its politics, patronage and planned profitability. The games we play are the ones the companies provide. A slogan of the TIA is, “Where Play Meets Profit™.” For the most part, the games we play are dependant upon what the manufacturers and retailers feel they can sell at a profit. The larger the company, the more numbers of one title it needs to sell, the greater its need to find the lowest common denominator to reach the largest group of people. Americans, we’re told, want games that can be learned in minutes and played in under half an hour. There are lots of games that fit that bill, but most really good games demand a thorough reading of the rules (allow more than 15 minutes), and at least forty-five minutes for a good middle- and end-game to develop.
The large retail outlets that sell games usually don’t have personnel who know games, so the games must sell themselves—hence the need for so many games to be based on recognizable licenses—again, the need to keep games simple. And our culture doesn’t really promote games, so there are few sources we can go to, to learn what adult games might be fun or best suited to our interests. All in all, there seems to be a dumbing down in terms of what most American play.
But at Toy Fair and similar trade and consumer shows, we are seeing more and more smaller, independent companies producing better and better games. Though there may be more than 20 Sudoku games that have hit the market this year, there are plenty of innovative, rather than derivative products that have surfaced. The smaller companies—and, indeed, some of the larger ones whose philosophy leans toward quality rather than quantity—are taking the time to produce games that are intelligent and clever (or at least amusing). With fewer avenues of distribution open to them, less capital to invest, and, normally, little money for advertising, they have less chance of success. However, the achievements of the companies that do make it will have a lasting effect on the good games people play.
