"If anyone is willing to do useless paperwork for no apparent benefit it would be a Kingdom Death Monster Player" -- That line had me laughing. Shots fired.
@Ape2020 xxx the models are indeed advanced level assembly, but @Alex... as a hobbyist, if I were forced to sell / throw all my board game but one. I would keep KDM without an hesitation. :D (but I would be pretty pissed)
In general: The worst value are games - however good they are - you don't play, be it because you don't like it, or even worse, you love, but don't have friends to play it with.
I absolutely adore Kingdom Death Monsters, Twilight Imperium 4E and Gloomhaven. But I never get to play them. Even though I can solo 2/3 of them, I don’t have the time.
Here’s the tragedy of KDM. It is the only game in existence that makes me truly immersed in the world. You assemble the miniatures but it’s more like character creation as you get to pick what hairstyles, poses, weapons, Armor and face it has. You spend hours upon hours painting it, and then when you finally assemble your team, you give them a name, they wake up like babies in a brutal world, you develope this small tribe into a society. You pick their dispositions and their culture, you are their god. Then you use them to hunt, and they inevitably die but their culture and society lives on. And you realised you spent an entire week playing it and the time flew by (by entire week I count the miniature assembly). Then you pack it up to continue the game next week. But then life catches on. You don’t have time. Then when you do have time, the amount of time you need to devote to picking it up again is too high of a barrier to entry and you’d rather play a quick euro with friends. Get that quick win. But you promise yourself you want to play KDM again sometimes, get bought back to that magical immersive time. But that day never comes. Life goes on.
@@Straddllw I mean, Ive successfully completed i dont know how many campaigns with various groups of people and that was with other responsibilities too.
We're playing on TTS and it's a really incredible game. I may end up being that friend that owns it. I'm holding off as the secondary market is *crazy*, but if they have stock of the core on black friday I might not be able to resist...
How GW can increase prices for models from molds that are over 30 years old is a rip-off. That's not "making a profit", that's ripping people off. But people apparently love giving Games Workshop their money. Whatever.
@@theoven344 Just wait until the feminist virtue-signalling cult gets their claws into WH40K.....they will destroy it just like everything else they've done! On their way already with 9th!
There is a quote we refer to for making big item purchases. "The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten". Being gaming is a luxury item, is it are you a "collector" or are you playing each of these games repeatedly. Based upon this, that "value" goes up by a set amount you play the game more often but with diminishing returns for that game as it is played often. Do you factor in when playing the game you bought keeps you from buying a different game? Based upon your suggestions, RPG books like a D&D or a Pathfinder rule book would be the most bang for your buck. (but none of us buy just one book).
I can't stress how much my Gloomhaven has been worth it. The four of us have played roughly 40 games, and we have enjoyed every one. We still have much more to go. Totally worth it
Let's see. A movie is $10 for 2 hours. So, 4 people would $40 for 2 hours. One game, roughly = 2 hours of gaming. $40 x 40 games = $1600. Yeah, Gloomhaven is a good value for you.
To be fair, and in a different light, I've paid way more for artwork... and at least these pretty games have potential even if they don't get played. #Justification 😂
The most over priced game I've ever bought was an out of print fourth edition Space Hulk. Not only was it at a premium price, but I had to have it shipped internationally, and then paid 30% import tax on top of that. I ended up paying over three times it's original price. It was worth every cent to have something I had wanted for close to thirty years and for it to be just as good as I've always hoped.
Thanks for the video! I totally disagree on Crokinole. It's so easy to teach and play and leaving out on a table guarantees you'll be playing some games. If the assumption is that the worst values are games you don't play or play very little, this one has a lot going for it because if you like it it will become one of your most-played games. The game will last forever and it is a game you'll get better at over time. I'd rather have this than a couple Kickstarters or 4 new games.
I very much appreciate the realistic and frankly blatant message of, “dude. I got impulse control issues too… but just don’t. Be real with yourself” It’s something as I started this hobby, I reallllly still struggle with. But it’s good to hear I’m not alone, and that there are things that I can/should just straight up pass on.
"If anyone is willing to do useless paperwork for no apparent benefit it would be a Kingdom Death Monster Player" I laughed out loud at that, I didn't even smile at the giant duck but this line had me in stitches.
I like cthulhu wars that changed my view of boardgame, not only with miniature. Many people do not know the value of the Cthulhu War. Compared with games of the same type in the current world, the Cthulhu War has a relatively high balance of asymmetric races and abilities, which is very interesting. If you have a basic understanding of most of the gods and monsters in Cthulhu mythology, and understand the characteristics or behavior descriptions in their stories, you will find that many abilities in the Cthulhu War are manifested in other ways. This is really exciting. If you like this type of game and asymmetric race, this game is very valuable, especially if you like to use various abilities.
I think the price point scares people away. Times have changed though, and I wonder how it'd fair these days. Foundations of Rome, a more recent game, could easily fall into this list. Although, everyone that reviews it loves it, and is a bit more accepting of the price tag. When I first learned of Cthulhu Wars, all I heard was it was amazing, but over priced. I bought it anyway, and never regretted it. I almost went all in on Ankh. I liked that area control, the asymmetric aspects. But uhh, then I realized wait. I've got Cthulhu wars. I think it's a more solid to the point area control game with all that same asymmetrical goodness. You can fine tune your strategy for your favorite faction, expand with other factions, maps, and yeah.
@@BoardGameCo I disagree with a lot of what you said in this video. Crokinole will hold its value over time. This is due to the nature of that game. Provided you get a really good crokinole board. I agree with Tapestry. However Tapestry falls into the category overhyped (not overproduced). Sure the game is overproduced, but at times that can sell the experience. A good example is Santorini. You can have Santorini with worse components, but the way it is made, helps selling the game. Tapestry unfortunately is overhyped, overproduced and has severe ballance issues. I saw a video from No Pun and they said it well. In a similar veign I don't see dominion as good value as it won't hold value over time that well. I agree that going all-in is a mistake in some cases. It varies from game to game. Sometimes going all-in is the right thing to do (Nemesis). Sometimes it is a bad thing to do (Lords of Hellas). It varies from game to game. Then there is Monumental. Monumental is overproduced for what it is, but the worst part is that the overproduced components don't add to the gameplay. Nemesis is also overproduced, but the components help sell the game and the experience. Could you get the experience with lesser components... sure... but in the case of Monumental I also found that the game itself is kinda bad. I never really played it, but I imagined myself playing it and the map felt tagged on. What I mean is that the map doesn't feel needed. It feels like they upped 7 wonders and wanted to sell the game with miniatures. Also Kingdom Death Monster will hold value, maybe not all, but a lot more then games like dominion.
I agree. Although I did not go all in on Batman I did drop a hefty chunk on it. At the time I believed Monolith had learned some lessons about making the rules for their very elegant system clearer to provide an excellent game and I had though from the first time I saw Conan that this would translate perfectly to a super hero genre game. Sadly Monolith screwed the pooch by vastly complicating the system and still failing to produce a clear and conscience set of rules and support materials. I vastly prefer the Conan game and even on that I refuse to give into the madness of going ALL IN.
I think Batman was a bad game, but I think it's a decent value for a licensed minatures games with the amount of content you get. It's just poorly executed on. It's still 1/2 of KDM to get seasons 1+2 (and the coop is coming out this year which I'm excited for, and will help you dump that collection for a profit)
I have a custom made Crokinole board with the logo of my favorite baseball team. It cost a BUNCH but was worth every penny. 1) it’s a work of art and hangs on my wall. 2) I can get everyone in my family to play it when they come over. It will have more plays than any other game I own by a long way!!! Best money I ever spent!!! 😁
Go back in time. Convince your ancestors to immigrate to Canada. Inherit a crokinole board from, grandpa, mom, dad, aunts, uncle, second neighbour twice removed. Problem solved.
I own KDM and evaluating this game by how times you have played it would be a mistake. I personally value it by how many hours I have actually spent on it. The same should be true for any other games you own to be honest. Back on topic, outside of the gameplay itself, KDM brings in model assembly, with plenty of creativity with armor sets, and model painting. There is plenty of thinking to be done in between games as well to figure out which hunts you should focus on to try and build the armor sets you want. Once you get into the game itself, every lantern years will easily take between one to three hours depending on your speed of play. I always value my games, or more specifically entertainment, by how many hours of fun am I getting for my money. I.E. Going out to watch a movie at the theater can cost you $20 per hour, per person once snacks are factored in. I have spend easily 200 hours assembling and painting KDM models so far and close to 150 additional hours going through several campaigns with friends. That means I've spent around $1.14 per hours for my entertainment so far with this game and this does not factor in the time my friends put in as well, further reducing the initial cost. Obviously, if you are not going to be put in the necessary time to get that value, then its not good, but once again, that would be true for any games you own.
Sure, but if you go down that path, then any CMON game is the absolute best value for your money because you're getting well over 100 mins to paint in addition to the game. Bringing the hobbying aspect into the game is going to skew towards anything with a bunch of minis. Heck, by that measure, I've spent even more ridiculous hours "playing" Gloomhaven if I consider all painting time, or time organising components into different containers, sleeving cards, planning character builds, item purchases, enhancements to make... It's a false equivalence. Yes, some people love KDM. But it's an expensive extravagance.
I think it is clear that in the video he said "a lot of people buy this and not able to play it", not "those who buy and play it does feel not worthy". So it is not even talking about KDM players, more about those who buy it but fail to play.
My problem is going off of plays in August 2020. KDM is a 5 year old campaign game, every game he compared it to is newer. Also, all of the games he listed (with the exception of TI4) have had expansions released in the last year. In fact, Too Many Bones and Gloomhaven have both had expansions released in the last month. Of course they’re getting played more than KDM at the moment. The last gameplay expansion for KDM was 2016, 4 years ago. People have played the crap out of KDM, and are playing newer stuff. By this logic, Trolls World Tour is a better movie than The Shining, because people are watching it more in August 2020.
@@Richard-sy1ej you can't rly compare CMON and KDM minis, cMON is no where near same quality... especially new expansion that will come, minis are insane...compare size of minis to something you would buy from GW and suddenly value is way better.
I would say that Lifestyle games, no matter the brand or genre. This includes CCGs like Magic: the Gathering, Miniature Wargames such as Warhammer 40.000, or other games that have an exceptionally large number of options that you can purchase, with the express idea that no player will purchase more than a small fraction of the material available. Games Workshop games do get a special callout here due to the "high end" buy in cost, when you try to get in with the Core Rulebook/Codex/Army entry point rather than one of the 2 player starter boxes (which are much more reasonably priced). For reference, buying everything new, it would run you... nearly $200 for the rules and a starter army (HQ and two Troop choices), and can easily run over $1000 for a single army.
KD:M is a boutique level hobbyist game. Buying it solely for the minis isn't wrong. They are some of the coolest minis I've ever played with. But it suffers in my gaming group because there is no "time limit". It's easier to talk people into an hour or so, as opposed to the indefinite scale of something like KD:M or 7th Continent.
@@n3kkidninj4 Which is also why I have never logged a play of it, while I have with other games. It just doesn't fit the same mold. Not sure I care for the metric he's using in this video. That said, its far from a good value IMO, but also not even close to the worst value games in my collection.
@@n3kkidninj4 I think the quality of the minis is purely average. The concepts are great and full of Imagination but I can find better quality minis for half the price almost everywhere. Even for free as files for 3d printing. Certainly in tabletop games of basically every somewhat large company and in many boardgames as well.
With something like KD:M, it needs to become a lifestyle game for the owner to be worth it. By that I mean that it basically becomes the collection, it gets played over every other game, etc, and I think there are people it does this for. I think any game that achieves this status for even a few years for someone is going to be worth the price tag. I'm pretty sure I will never play another board game as many times or for as many hours as I have played chess, even if I'd splurged on a super expensive decorative chess set. Also, it seems like prepping KD:M, customizing the minis, etc is its own hobby almost. A friend who has it bought tiny magnets to dig holes into the joints of arms and legs and glue them in so that he could swap out new armor, reflect injuries, etc and had a lot of fun doing this. Me, I'd find that to be work, but that's one of the reasons it'd be a bad value for me.
Considering how much games are going for on KS these days, I really only need to play it 2x more than many of the other games I own for it to be of equivalent worth. And I'd say I'm closer to 4x - 5x. So for me it's been worth it. It is far from a lifestyle for me and I see no reason it needs to be? I have and do play many other games. How much do people think I spent on it? I was in on the second KS (not even the "deal" that the first ended up being) and I spent $200 on it. For a boutique game. How many people in the hobby are routinely spending over $100 on KS buys now?
The question of value is hard to measure. For KDM it offers me something no other game does. A game with well designed boss encounters. I love a good boss design in video games to the point where if a game is a straight up boss rush I'm in. Everyone values things differently, some people like fancy cars, others like fancy board games.
Please don't do any math using the "plays" on Boardgamegeek. I like BGG to track my Collection and also rate every single game I have and played etc. But I don't see any benefit of using the "play-tracker". And I assume there are plenty of people out there who have many games marked as Owned in their Collection, but even though they love and play it very much, they never bothered to track their "plays" on BGG. So you can hardly do any meaningful math using those numbers. And yes, you absolutely should play Kingdom Death Monster first before considering it as an overpriced game. Even though the game I think has some huge flaws, it gives you an experience no other game can give you so far. I went in biased when a friend brought it on the table and even after a couple plays I never really felt like I like the game. But the more we played the more amazed I was with the continious story elements of the game and the characters. It feels a lot like a Pen&Paper RPG. As mentioned I think the game has some huge flaws, such as Combat and when a character dies, you basically just take his equipment and paste it onto a new character, so it just feels like a weaker version of your old one, instead of a new character. But it's still worth your time and money. I agree though it's overpriced, due to customizable miniatures, which were unneccessary I think, but the value comes from the unique experience as well, just like in Food Chain Magnete as you mentioned. So in short: yes KDM is overpriced, but I wouldn't consider it a bad value. Give the game a couple tries (1 surely isn't enough I guarantee you) and it might will end up being one of your favorite games of all time.
The math is comparitive, many people don't use it but for comparative data between the other games it should be meaningful, essentially it's polling data.
@@BoardGameCo I get what you try to say, but I see some problems that comes with it. Let's compare with ratings on BGG. You can see how many people have rated a game, but also the value of the rating. So a game with 10 ratings isn't directly less meaningful than a game with 3000 ratings, because at the end the rating value (stars) matters the most. But sure a game with 3000 overall positive rates is more likely to be good than a game with just 10 positive overall votes. The difference I see in "plays" is there is no direct value to it. A game with 10 plays doesn't have to be worse than a game with 1000 plays, because the 2nd value is missing. It is just pure speculation why one game has more plays tracked than another. It's a poll with missing components and unanswered questions. Bad polls also exist. A poll that only ask specific questions that automatically leads into a specific direction, isn't a good poll. A poll about movement and transporations that only asks about your walking and driving habbit isn't very good, because it's missing all the other movement and transportation methods such as cycling, flying, shipping etc. And I think this is what "plays" on BGG is, it's missing some components, because not everybody tracks their plays, because why should they? It's a very specific way of tracking something most people don't care about I guess, while rating a game and adding it to their list has more value to do so.
I don't know how much good analyzing owned-to-plays is. I've got a number of my games marked as owned on the Geek, which is an incomplete list of what I own, and I think I've only logged one play ever on the Geek. I'm sure most users on the site who do mark games as owned are probably like me and don't bother logging plays. Almost all the games I have marked as owned have ZERO games logged even though I've played the majority of them a bajillion times.
@@BoardGameCo the problem is KDM is a campaign game where you can log just 1 play when you played literally from dawn to dusk (Tainted Grail another example). The game just doesn't have some "marker" to "divide" your sessions into plays. And in the end of the campaign you will have like 10 plays but with 100 hours of time investment behind it, which is not that bad.
@@BoardGameCo I would have to say Plays Logged on BGG, the data is so incomplete, and what is there is not standardized ( multiple weekly sessions being counted as one play is a terrific example), it's worthless from a statistical point of view.
Kingdom Death: Monster was the first board game that i backed on Kickstarter. I fell in love with the art, the lore, and the miniatures. I'm easily $6000 deep into the game over the years, and i haven't played it ONCE! lol I have all the expansions, and I keep buying the pin-ups and what not, i just love all of it and i don't know why. I'd get rid of every game in collection before i even considered getting rid of Kingdom Death. But i see your point, lol.
A good Crokinole board is like heirloom furniture, I plan on giving mine to my grand-kids. If you go by cost per hour played, this is by far the best value for my dollar in my collection.
Agreed! If you count all the one-off and filler plays then your cost/hour is very cheap. This is the only one I don't like on this list, the rest make sense.
This is assuming that your descendants/friends want to inherit a crokinole board. It will likely end up in a second hand shop or even being scrapped by someone who doesn't appreciate it.
I don't believe Kingdom Death Monster is a good buy for everyone, but it is definitely a great value for the right audience. Not only do you get a LOT of great miniatures, but it is a very amazing experience for those that do enjoy it. For me it is a great value as we have a group at my local gaming store that plays every Saturday. But I do agree that it's not for everyone. Great video!
This is me commenting as a man of science and data, not as a KD:M player. As an idea, the metric is excellent, to some degree it is even a metric KD:M players themselves use when defending the value (though it's usually dollars/hour) but the data is not very reliable. The count for owned copies is pretty good, it's around half of the amount of 1.5 KS backers (which is the only public sales info at hand) so it's quite passable, but the logged plays are not good data. People use BBG in various ways for various purposes and I bet voluntarily logging plays is not the most popular of them. I'd reckon it is a feature that is primarily used only by the most hardcore hobbyists, who play a lot of different games. So what this data essentially does is exclude the average player and only includes a very specific type of group, skewing it heavily. Since you seem to trust the data, do YOU yourself religiously log every play of every game? And this is me as a KD:M player, supporting the man of science. If I were the type of person to log my plays, over the past couple years I would have logged approximately 90 plays, because that is approximately how many lantern years (one per session) I have played in the 4 campaigns that I have finished or that are ongoing. So how would that affect your data? It'd be an over 50%(!!!) increase in plays contributed by a single person! (And yes, my copy is one of those 9000+ on BGG.) That is a huge swing and really emphasizes just how lacking the data is. To provide actual data (though only a single data point) I'm currently at approx 15$/play (and that's INCLUDING content I have not yet explored or even received). I admit, still seems a bit expensive but those are some very long plays so if I was to convert them into $/h it could actually compete with some small games that make it to the table often with my play groups. As an aside, KD:M is a hard game to get to the table and by what I've read and seen in the community, there are A LOT of copies that just do not make it to the table and those are some really awful investments. But the copies that do make it to the table are more often than not, some of the best bang for the buck in their respective collections. So just like "Going All In", don't get KD:M unless you're sure you'll actually get it to the table often enough. :)
I think the point was that even if only small subset of players log plays on bgg, statistically we can make comparisons between games. Point is not that kdm is 2k per play, it is that kdm is 2k per in comparison to mageknight 800 per play.
agree! The parameters are not right.Who logs their plays in Bgg? I think every owned copy could almost equal 1 play (at least, imaging that not all game are on shelf of shame.)
Food Chain Magnate and Antiquity have gotten tons of play in my house, but we did have to buy additional components to make them easier to get on the table. It's definitely been an investment.
Shots fired shots fired...."if anyone is willing to do pointless paperwork for no apparent reason it is KDM players" Love it. Great list. I enjoyed hearing your opinion and your honesty on willing to pay bad value for games you live anyway.
Great video! It helped me realize that I’m a sucker for premium aesthetics if I like the mechanics and feel of the base game... I went all in on Everdell for the coins and wood. I also upgraded my Scythe into a Cadillac of gaming after playing a few base games with friends. By the time I played the Rise of Fenris campaign there was metal, wood and porcelain everywhere... It’s terrible value for resale purposes but it feels pretty awesome when I can get all the splendor to the table.
I'm just glad Splotters is on this list. It just feels like such a ripoff in value proposition. For it's price tag, I demand proper art by artists, proper graphic design for usability, no stupid jokes and quality production like inserts and deluxe bits.
Splotter as a company do their games out of the love of gaming, not for a profit to stay in business, it is a side investment. As for the cost, they do not print in China, so the cost is more because of printing in Europe in small amounts is costly. There is also a factor of time to develop a deeper game, but my guess is still not going to usual publisher route makes it hard to get the price lowered. A few other publishers that don't print in China also have similar pricing. And shipping out of Europe is raising daily.
Just realized why I like your videos so much, there's few (if any) edits. Many folks have lots of tiny jump edits in their videos and it drives me crazy. You leave it all in and I enjoy them more for that. Also, not sure if the metric used provides accurate information but it's certainly an interesting way to look at it (cost*owned/played). Personally, I never enter my plays in BGG. For me, I would have said something like Monopoly. Some game that has massive sales and few plays. It sits on shelves across the world mostly unplayed. A 5 second Google search says 275 million copies sold. That's got to be the worst value per play out there. As always, love the content and keep having fun.
Shadows of Brimstone is my KDM. Easily hits the top 5 most expensive game, if you're going all in. I have slowly added expansions and add-ons, even with the investment, my most bang for buck. Play most frequently. Time spent organizing, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Time putting together the miniatures and Painting (I am not into). So may worlds and expansions. Feels almost endless, if you play it like an RPG. probably not a good value at all for resale, but plan to keep for a very long time. Hope they keep producing new products.
You've made some interesting points on all these games and I really agree with many of them. However, I will keep all my Zombicide games but do agree with your opinion on them (Invader) somewhat. As to Kickstarter, I'm really having a tough time there now. As I'm 71 years old and still love gaming, I'm hesitant to pledge much these days since I may not make it to the game's actual release and shipping. And yes, I have high hopes of staying around a bit as I have way too many toys left that need paint or playtime. At that rate I'll be 103 before I meet my maker. TA!
A couple of decades ago, I sold an anesthesiologist in San Francisco an extremely high quality Go set, Kaya board, Yuki grade slate and shell stones, Mulberry Bowls, for just over twenty thousand dollars. Did he get his money's worth? Definitely. The aesthetics of a high quality Japanese Go Set are unparalleled, every material and the manner in which it is crafted. Now this player was an amateur 5-Dan, but could not reliably play in Tournaments, as being an anesthesiologist, he was constantly on call. However, he had easily the finest Go Set in the Western United States, and had some minor fame in Asia as a consequence. Whenever top level professional Go players from Japan, Korea, or China visited the West Coast, they would play one or more exhibition games on his Go Set. Thus he hosted many of the highest ranked Go players in the world because he possessed the best Go Set in the Western United States. Could he have played Go with a nice Go set costing less than a hundred dollars? Of course. Yet this set was worth every dollar he paid for it.
Interesting Analysis with good viewpoints. I do have to stop going All In myself for the game play value. However for the hobby of painting minis, having the all In minis to paint and then field them in home brew heroscape battles.. is priceless :)
Overprice games should be your next video. There's so much to discuss about it. I want to know more about how to identify if the boardgame is over price. Keep it going, great video!
can we talk about how bloody expensive the Hamburg & Amsterdam Kickstarter is? I was excited until I saw the price. $100 a box for the deluxe edition? Cmon...
Cthulhu Wars is a big hit at the board game meet-up I go to.and it is a very well done game. The miniatures are extreme, but they draw attention across the room. It is also available for $150. I have played it more than enough to justify the price.
Crokenole - sure it's a lot of money - mine was handmade and cost me $105 CAN 10 years ago, but what a bargain over the years. Whenever we play it we have a blast. There's no having to remember complicated rules, and whenever we're not playing it, it hangs on the wall as a beautiful piece of art. I've spent a lot on useless games, some expensive, some not so, but for value for money, Crokenole is right up there (even if my one doesn't rotate like yours), and is one game I will never ever part with. Great channel by the way :-)
I can't wait for the new version of Forbidden Star! Two things on Crokinole. I believe that getting a board made in your own country, not by "slave" labor and not with extremely polluting means is an incredibly good value. Second, Cube Quest is the pinnacle of flicking game.
@@nerdfatha The designer will do a new version. It will be sci-fi with its own IP published by PSC Games through Kickstarter. You can check out more on BGG in the forum section of Forbidden Stars. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2139220/forbidden-stars-redux
Going all in and getting out of print games are definitely good ways to lose value on board game purchases, even if its the only way to get some games. The thing I would point out about KDM is that you should be looking at the cost verses time spent on the game instead of just games played. One "game" of KDM monster could take between 5-40 normal game play sessions to finish. If your buying it as a lifestyle game, which is really what it is, then the value is pretty great with the number and quality of miniatures that you get.
I went all in with THE 7TH CONTINENT. The first curse alone logged in almost 75 hours. There are 14-16 curses to figure out as well as the ability to stack curses together. That along with being able to incorporate certain expansions for the benefits of its unique components and cards is great. I never log anything on BGG but i can tell you this. My kids and wife absolutely love this game. I passed on my LONE WOLF choose your own adventure series on to them so this game really resonated with them. That is what earns it a great game for me...the smiles and joy it brings to them.
I spent maybe 10 hours watching reviews and painting videos before my KDM Purchase. No other game comes close to the joy that game brings me sometimes I just open the box touch everything look at future gear and then close it up. Clank I never play and never even touch.
I would say it is rather hard to log the time you spend with KDM. What do you log? Showdowns only? Only a full lantern year? Also it is a life style game. Do you add in the hours spent assembling and painting? I would say that this year I’ve spent the most time with KDM (hours upon hours). . . But I’ve probably only logged it a few times. (And I’m typically a very meticulous logger with an average of 400+ plays of other games logged a year, but I never know how to log KDM so it looks like it is played less.)
Paying over the odds for an oop game I won’t do. But if you are patient and keep watchful a bargain can be had. And that is always a mighty nice feeling.
Wow! KDM shots fired!! The fun feud with Quakalope has just become real. Lol. I thought you guys were friends? The Boardgameco Bridgade is going to have to brace for retaliation. You and your calculations are getting us into a war. Lol. Definitely going to listen to the podcast now 😉🔥 #smacktothequack #boardgamecoBrigademountUp #boardgamecoOG
I really appreciate how you separate cost value vs personal feelings and plays. It seems to be one of the few industries where value is put on time spent vs the actual product you receive. Thats not a knock, we all do it, but when you buy a car you value the car on features, not the amount of driving you plan to do. Same with clothes and many other items. My collection is full of terrible value buys. I love them and don't regret spending the money, but I acknowledge freely that I overspent on many of them.
Oh I totally agree...I own half this stuff. But speaking for myself, I look at everything this way. Board games are actually the one area where I give myself more leeway to get "bad value"
In regards to Crokinole, for what I paid ($500), it is my most used game. I also own a Mayday copy of the game, it just stays on my game table. Often I find my wife or children (now back at college) playing a pickup game during the day even if it against themselves. When we have family events (e.g. birthdays) both boards come out are are binging played EVEN by non gamers. The most fun we have is watching my Mom at age 74 and mother in law 72 playing against each other. On a dollar/play I have far exceeded what I payed compared to Twilight Imperium that I can play maybe once or twice per year at most. I look value more in terms how much will it get played. A $20 game that barely gets played is expensive to me versus a $100 game that gets played often.
Crokinole come out whenever people are over, meaning it comes off the wall everyone sees it on already. When we go, or used to go pre Covid in NY, a BBQ it goes in its carrying case. During the work week, pre covid, it stayed in my office lunch room where it was played EVERY DAY at lunch. That was just my Mayday board and now I have a custom board being finished which will be the main board with the Mayday being the secondary for when groups are present or I want to leave one at work and one at home. Crokinole boards will never "go out of print" and will always be played until you are dead or they can't wheel your hospital bed to the table.
I’ll say this, KD:M players are some of the chillest I’ve ever seen. They’re game gets shat on constantly, usually by people who admit they’ve never played it, and they’re like meh. It pretty impressive that KD:M has gone like half a decade without any real expansion and it is still being played and talked about and still in the top 50 on BGG.
Never seen one of your videos before, love this one. I will say your data for KDM , a game I hold no stake in, is kind of a moot point. 1. Games last longer than a sing month 2. BGG estimated once that less than 40% of users actually log plays. And 3. (This goes back to a debate I had with my brother once and we researched it for weeks) far less people use BGG than buy games. For example roughly 7% of the copies of Ticket To Ride that have sold have been listed as owned on BGG. Based on the data I can find less than 50% of the KDM copies that have sold have made it into accounts on BGG so that data is way off... but anyways yes $400 is too much for any game. Also I’d like to add to your comments for the All in Pledges category... what most people don’t realizes is a lot of add on content (and Kickstarter exclusive stretch goals too) are not play tested and in the case of certain publishers not in anyway balanced for game play.
I totally agree with you, the data isn't meant to be absolute, rather it's meant to be comparative. Like polling data. Meaning I'm not saying this is how much KDM costs... I'm saying look at all these other heavy, expensive, and hard to table games... And KDM has a significantly worse value than any of those comparatively speaking.
I don't particularly like Food Chain Magnate, but at $100+ for the game and another $100+ for the expansion, you are right on the spot - it's a terrible value for your money.
This is what’s keeping me from going crazy on kickstarter these days. The value you get out of a 200$ pledge compared to store-bought games with good reviews is making it harder and harder to justify the expense. I’ve been looking at Uprising and Massive Darkness 2 and while they look great it’s just a big gamble as to whether I’ll like them and be able to bring them to the table.
Agreed, I find more and more know I am just getting base pledge levels on KS and getting the expansions if and when they come to retail. A game really has to blow me away now to go all in, whereas before I went all in without really considering the cost to playtime ratio.
If you're interested but hesitant on MD check out the first game first, I did this with Dice throne and very glad I did. You can borrow, play with a friend, watch gameplay, or buy it yourself to see if it's up your ally. I totally get the kickstarter thing, I used to suffer from FOMO with kickstarter real bad. I've reeled it in and back big box games once a year or so now. I guess what I'm trying to say is this, MD2 is $145 no addons/shipping (for the campaign inclusion). It will cost the exact same in the store, but you'll get a bunch of bonus content for free on KS (whether or not you get to use it all, that's a different discussion). If it interests you and you have a chance to research MD1 then back it if you want to extra stuff you may or may not ever use. Hopefully this comes across as somewhat helpful and not some spiteful or whatever youtube comment, I obviously don't care if you back it or not. If you like dice rolling, hack n' slash, dungeon crawl type games MD is a lot of fun.
@@macayne I hear what you’re saying! I do in fact own MD1, which I backed on kickstarter and have kept mostly for the minis as the gameplay was a bit subpar in my opinion. Which is also why MD2 is making me hesitate : the gameplay looks much nicer and varied, and it would allow me to use my copy of MD1 more... but this all comes with a price! And knowing I’ve already backed 2 big dungeon crawlers in the past year... I guess I’ll be on the fence until the very last day XD
In defense of crokinole: that’s a piece of furniture, you can get cheap boards made of MDF for $50. Your gorgeous board isn’t entry-level - that’s like criticizing a pool table for costing 500 Gloomhavens.
I would actually argue KDM players are the least likely to log games, as they're busy bookkeeping for the game! In all seriousness though, that evaluation seems a bit weird to me. I don't know a single person who logs their plays, although I know of a few who use BGG regularily. Seems too random to me who actually logs games to extract usable data from that.
It would seem logical to assume that if you took the time to log ownership of games in BGG that you would also log plays of said games. But there are so many factors to affect this assumption. For instance, I owned many games and played them before ever knowing about BGG. When I did create an account, I was able to log ownership of all those games, but had no records of plays of those games. It's usable data for interest and fascination, at best in my opinion.
You have just entered the territory of the great and mighty Quackalope, and disturbed his highly prized sleep. You were the first to throw down the battle/conflict resolution dice. Hopefully your roll was high enough to defeat the monster's wrath. Ok there is some flavor text for #10. Seriously I don't own any of the mentioned games. I suppose BGG stats are all that are really out there, I don't know about the accuracy. For many of us game fades with time, certainly not all of us. Thanks for your time Alex.
Just wanted to point out KD:M was sold for $100 without minis, and can be found for around that price from people on secondary markets. Personally a big player of it and I don't log my plays on BGG, either. Didn't mind the comments; they were hilarious :P
Agree with everything except the EXIT games. My view on these is: Cost:Hours played ratio vs a trip to the movies. Exit games have a pretty high ratio when you factor in other people's times. Then there's a game that demands me do a load of paperwork and feels like a job for little story time. We ditched Gloomhaven... even with the App. A Video Game masquerading as a boardgame with all of the heavy logic for you to handle... YAWN. But there are people that get their kicks from moving a counter and following rules - hey... that's why people love minecraft after all...
Totally agree when comparing to a movie, that's why I compared to an actual escape room as well...but when comparing to other games or even the unlock series...then it doesn't hold up (imo)
As someone who has played Kingdom Death: Monster but doesn't own it this is what I'll say about it and I'm sure I'll get tons of hate for it. The price point for entry and expansion just does not equal out to being worth the experience unless you're just hardcore out for awesome miniatures with a system to play them in. In terms of legacy gaming, I think that Gloomhaven does a better job. In terms of audience friendliness, this obviously comes down to personal taste, but I've had two separate women tell me while touring the KD:M booth at GenCon that they would never play the game because of how the game depicts women so it's going to be even harder to find players to take part that aren't turned off by the art style. And in terms of "dungeon delving" and fighting monsters, I can get something like Descent into Darkness for much cheaper and it takes way less time to actually set up because I don't have to put the minis together. All that being said, I appreciate KD:M for existing, and for what it is, because it helps me get some amazing minis for my D&D games thanks to the second-hand market.
@@Raptorialand it's almost like you didn't read the whole "this comes down to personal taste part." I literally had a woman who has done pin-up modeling tell me she wouldn't play it because of the way the art depicts women. There's nothing wrong with that.
I disagree on the exit games, many times theres some good sales on them and as you said VS the price of an escape room they are a good value. Also the unlock ones are pretty easy to sell/trade/give away after you are done since nothing is destroyed
@@BoardGameCo BTW, can an expensive game (or game system) be a good value? I have about $270 (MSRP, although I paid less) in Memoir 44, and I've played it over ninety times. It's not my favorite wargame, and not even one of my ten favorite games. But it is exceedingly playable. I believe that there are other games in my collection that if I looked at the core and any expansions that went along with it, still managed to produce a good value in terms of plays, hours of entertainment, or experiences despite the high cost.
@@nathanaelrobinson4831 he seems to value good games, experience, and quality or resale value. If you play a game frequently it is hard to say it isn't a good value. If is isn't getting played you are paying to store it.
@@brianflansburg8934 perhaps I did not express this correctly. I was ponder why in general one's picks for bargains tends to be cheap games, but our minds tend to go to expensive games for bad values.
It all depends on your own personal definition of ‘value’ an exit game is great value if you compare it with going out or other social activities. I have managed to almost go infinite with unlock though, I just trade my version for another I haven’t played yet every year
100% This entire list is subjective. But to me the point is comparative value, I actually have a follow up video coming soon about how to "Value" a game.
Hey Alex, great and interesting video! It all makes absolutely sense on a rational level and sounds like complete bullshit emotionally 😂 Have you ever thought of addressing the topic of board games as a luxury good? I think that there are certain similarities. You can buy of course a watch for 20 Dollars on Amazon or get a 20.000 Dollar Rolex in a jewelry store. Both give you the same thing but are so far away from each other when it comes to value showing you the time. I think there are more and more people in the hobby with this attitude or approach. Me included. If I'm totally honest, one part of KDMs attraction for me was the fact that it is the most expensive board game out there. Don't get me wrong, I love the theme, the art, the gameplay and the mechanics. But I also love owning something so big, so overproduced and so expensive 🙈
It's an excellent idea. I'll add it to the list. And I totally agree with you, there's a reason I own half the stuff I'm saying is a bad value (comparatively)
@Tim Wanger I’m the same way. I probably have $750 into Dominion (all the expansions and promos in premium sleeves and self-made wood boxes with acrylic dividers), but have only played maybe a half dozen games. Got all the Collectors Editions of Everdell, with just 2 plays under my belt. I have the entire 7th Continent KS collection and have only opened it to sleeve all the cards; haven’t played a single session. An hour before watching this video I watched Alex’s top 10 Best Solo Games, then found myself on Chip Theory’s site... then ended up spending almost $400 on Too Many Bones. (Which I hope to better justify; a big reason why I don’t get many of my games to the table is bc I don’t have anyone to play with). Hopefully my kids will have an interest in playing games when they get older. So... I’m “investing” in good games that may not be available down the road. Or... I might just have a problem 😂 Ultimately, I like the way everything looks on my shelf. That’s the value in having a collection right?
@@G0F15H Haha, we are certainly brothers in spirit :D - I got all CEs of Everdell as well, although I am playing it quite often with my wife. - I also got everything from the 7th continent and just recently spent another 200 Euros on wooden inserts and sleeves. So far we have only played one curse but it was my first big KS project and I really love the game - Last year I discovered Too Many Bones and just got everything to this point. Now I am waiting for the Trove chest and I am already exciting how awesome it will look in my Kalax :D However, I have only played it a couple of times. - Then I finally gave in to KDM this year and got the core box. But I already planned for Black Friday and put enough money aside for a BIG purchase of the rest of the current and future gameplay At the moment I'm trying to upgrade most of my games with inserts and sleeves. Even though I don't play that much at the moment (due to a 17 month old toddler) I love spending my money on buying overproduced games or upgrading others. Playing is of course great but owning this amazing collection also brings me a lot of joy :)
I think the main point about KDM in this video is not "if you are into this game, does it work", instead it is "how many people are not into this game, just buy because of thought it worth".
@@BoardGameCo Several year later check in. After backing many games all in, and not playing a majority of the expansions that I've backed in Kickstarter, I've gotten allot better at not backing everything. Most games I play the base game, then never touch the add ons. So now I only buy the base game and am willing to pay an extra premium if necessary to buy the addons only for the games that Ive played allot of and absolutely love and want more of. Like Death May Die. Finally played that game. Figured out that its perfect for me and my friends, and now Im going back and picking up only the expansions that I want to play.
In KDM each play is recorded after at least a month ;p All in all, KDM is a very premium game without a more basic version available. That's really it. Everything is bigger and higher quality in it hence the price. The rest of it, the lore and roleplay, the pinup models, etc. that's irrelevant here and up to the individual as to how they value that. Therefore since KDM is just a premium game of it's own system, when going to purchase it, you should have knowledge and better yet, experience of how it plays or else you'll buy a full bells and whistles game that you may not like. ...I'd recommend finding a game that you've established that you love, and then get a full out premium version of it.
@@BoardGameCo Then I just remembered how the game contradicts itself providing survivor minis that you can totally customize while being probably the #1 game where you consistently lose and have to recreate characters. Unless you're magnetizing your minis or only building those few that survive a good while then what's the point? I'd say that's another point against the game value-wise!
Kingdom Death Monster - you said it! It cost too much - took too long to reach our game group and lasted on the table for 30 minutes. Moved to the garage as it takes up too much room on the selves. Its too painful an experience to try and resale or even look at. It's been hidden away and forgotten about like Bates' mum in the cellar. Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling this one out. 110% behind you!
I frankly don't care at all about the price most of the time. I am in for the fun. Disposable income is a major factor. The value of experience you elaborated on is the core of it.
Omg, that deluxe version of crokinole. SO BEAUTIFUL! My husband's cousin has crokinole and they actually hang theirs on the wall :) I also was salivating at the zombicide collection. I've got season 2 coming, and have only ever played the very original first one, which I LOVED! I really think I need to get Black Plague I'm actually loving the MD2 Rainbow Road expansion, I think it was a really cute/different idea, like you were covering yesterday.
there's literally zero part of the crokinole board that is "a terrible value for the money" - the work that went into it alone is literally worth the value for the money, and damn is it beautiful. But I also have no idea how you play crokinole on a lazy susan... I guess the idea of value is completely subjective, because this video was solely about the experience (?) where a large number of the games on this list are literally the *best* value for gaming. The sheer # of minis covers the amount you pay alone.
I don't get it! what's the point of telling viewers what's worth getting and what's not while obviously you did the opposite in some cases like Zombicide? how is this gonna affect viewers the way it's supposed to?
Your first example of the Ninja game, and your reasons behind not getting something just because its cheap, really spoke to me as I've been seeing Seafall on sale for like, $11 and have been tempted. You've talked me off that ledge, so thank you!
I've tried to stay away from games with expansions. I went very deep with Yugi-oh. Almost with X-Wings. Your video is very good the second time viewing.
I spent a ton of money on yugioh. If you still like tcgs what i have done is get magic commander decks and i left the decklists as is to keep them balanced. I also got into some HomemadeTCGs like chaos galaxy even though it can be expensive and the cards don't hold any value i find it more rewarding than digging through endless amounts of power creep ridden yugioh cards.
I'm an all-in for Kingdom Death Monster...both Kickstarters. I probably put about $1100 total into it (fortunate at the time to have the money) and I do agree it's horrible value, but like your round game board, It's soooo pretty (grotesque). The miniatures captivated me and I'm a huge miniature collector/painter, so the expense is a bit more justified for me in that respect. The game is incredible. The AI system feels like a living thing at times and I have not experienced another game like it. The main problem is getting the people to play and to have a consistent group that doesn't mind getting hammered and destroyed quit often. I don't know why anyone would give you hate over your opinion. I can love certain games while acknowledging their flaws.
1. Anything from White Wizard Games. Star Realms is great, Hero Realms equally as great, Sorcerer offers a great twist on the LCG formula. But when you pay $10 for 10-20 cards, then do that for dozens of packs, it starts to become bad value when you look at how much of an experience you get out of the games. Especially when other LCGs offer 30-40 cards per pack for similar prices. 2. CCGs *cough*Magic*Cough*. This one speaks for itself. 3. I respectfully disagree with the overall classification of Escape Room games. Most of them, especially the Unlocks you used as an example, can be reset and replayed, meaning you can resell them to recuperate your costs. 4. KDM. I own it. I love it. I've rarely played it. It is a gorgeous work of art. It is the most outrageously ridiculous game purchase I've ever made. You only examined the value of the base game, which is a fair evaluation. But when each expansion costs 2x to 10x the value of most of the games in my collection, it's mindblowing to consider how much I have spent on KDM in total. You are absolutely correct in putting this game first.
Oh why did you have to show that Crokinole board? I was quite happy with my Mayday board, but now I totally want to overspend and waste money for that sucker. Crokinole may be worth it. Great game that everyone seems to enjoy.
Notice how he holds it lovingly and his eye twitches a bit ;) Yes, people spend $200 on chess and Go sets that look like pieces of art. It SHOULD be on the wall. The reason you get a game like that is not just for the experience but also because it is a piece of the decor and a permanent fixture in the house. Bad value for sure, but so is that lovely gaming table we all want as well...
@@BoardGameCo I tend to buy both series, and photocopy stuff from the Exit ones to make them replayable. Since it's the only kind of game my brother agrees to play with me I have almost every escape room in a box style of game available, including the werewolf series which is the worst value proposition in the genre. haha Alex, a series similar to Unlock but that usually has a bit more parallelizable puzzles is the Deckscape series, in case you haven't tried that one. I think my favorites are the Thinkfun ones, but you need to get a good deal to get them for less than 15USD, they often have more physical puzzles to work through. The Escape room the game ones (the ones with the machine and keys) can be a good value, particularly if you can find them used (thanks boardgameCo, haha).
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
"If anyone is willing to do useless paperwork for no apparent benefit it would be a Kingdom Death Monster Player" -- That line had me laughing. Shots fired.
I had so much fun with that line :)
Guilty.
and that subtle wink 😂
@Ape2020 xxx the models are indeed advanced level assembly, but @Alex... as a hobbyist, if I were forced to sell / throw all my board game but one.
I would keep KDM without an hesitation. :D (but I would be pretty pissed)
Wow, KDM settlements around the world were just ravaged by the BoardGameCo paperwork comment event!
In general: The worst value are games - however good they are - you don't play, be it because you don't like it, or even worse, you love, but don't have friends to play it with.
Totally agree
I don't know about the latter. I enjoy just looking at those, even if it's a bit bittersweet.
I absolutely adore Kingdom Death Monsters, Twilight Imperium 4E and Gloomhaven. But I never get to play them. Even though I can solo 2/3 of them, I don’t have the time.
Here’s the tragedy of KDM. It is the only game in existence that makes me truly immersed in the world. You assemble the miniatures but it’s more like character creation as you get to pick what hairstyles, poses, weapons, Armor and face it has. You spend hours upon hours painting it, and then when you finally assemble your team, you give them a name, they wake up like babies in a brutal world, you develope this small tribe into a society. You pick their dispositions and their culture, you are their god. Then you use them to hunt, and they inevitably die but their culture and society lives on. And you realised you spent an entire week playing it and the time flew by (by entire week I count the miniature assembly). Then you pack it up to continue the game next week. But then life catches on. You don’t have time. Then when you do have time, the amount of time you need to devote to picking it up again is too high of a barrier to entry and you’d rather play a quick euro with friends. Get that quick win. But you promise yourself you want to play KDM again sometimes, get bought back to that magical immersive time. But that day never comes. Life goes on.
@@Straddllw I mean, Ive successfully completed i dont know how many campaigns with various groups of people and that was with other responsibilities too.
KD:M is the best game for your friend to own.
Lol well that's definitely true.
Can confirm. My friend owns a copy, and the other friend we play with own a copy, and I own a copy.
We're playing on TTS and it's a really incredible game. I may end up being that friend that owns it. I'm holding off as the secondary market is *crazy*, but if they have stock of the core on black friday I might not be able to resist...
I’m that friend. No regrets
i'm also that friend LOL.. though i am all in (hell i even have the pvc mat coming too)
Title: Worst prices
Me: Laughs in Warhammer Games Workshop
For the Emprah!
How GW can increase prices for models from molds that are over 30 years old is a rip-off. That's not "making a profit", that's ripping people off. But people apparently love giving Games Workshop their money. Whatever.
@@tempestfury8324 Yep, i am amazed to see how much money some people are willing to give to GW for the 9th version of a game :/
@@theoven344 Just wait until the feminist virtue-signalling cult gets their claws into WH40K.....they will destroy it just like everything else they've done!
On their way already with 9th!
@@tempestfury8324 What are you on about
When you have so much zombicide that it messes up your audio
Lol true story
There is a quote we refer to for making big item purchases. "The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten". Being gaming is a luxury item, is it are you a "collector" or are you playing each of these games repeatedly. Based upon this, that "value" goes up by a set amount you play the game more often but with diminishing returns for that game as it is played often. Do you factor in when playing the game you bought keeps you from buying a different game?
Based upon your suggestions, RPG books like a D&D or a Pathfinder rule book would be the most bang for your buck. (but none of us buy just one book).
I can't stress how much my Gloomhaven has been worth it. The four of us have played roughly 40 games, and we have enjoyed every one. We still have much more to go. Totally worth it
For sure. Any game will have people that it's right for and more of a value for
Let's see. A movie is $10 for 2 hours. So, 4 people would $40 for 2 hours. One game, roughly = 2 hours of gaming. $40 x 40 games = $1600. Yeah, Gloomhaven is a good value for you.
The worst value game is one that gets unwrapped and never played.
💯
To be fair, and in a different light, I've paid way more for artwork... and at least these pretty games have potential even if they don't get played. #Justification 😂
Looks at my copies of Hawaii, Monstrous, and Tragedy Looper and Salem Saberhagen style cry to myself because my family are doo doo heads.
The most over priced game I've ever bought was an out of print fourth edition Space Hulk. Not only was it at a premium price, but I had to have it shipped internationally, and then paid 30% import tax on top of that. I ended up paying over three times it's original price. It was worth every cent to have something I had wanted for close to thirty years and for it to be just as good as I've always hoped.
Space hulk rules
wholesome
I got lucky and found unopened third edition for the price it was originally sold in my country. My greatest tabletop treasure.
Thanks for the video! I totally disagree on Crokinole. It's so easy to teach and play and leaving out on a table guarantees you'll be playing some games. If the assumption is that the worst values are games you don't play or play very little, this one has a lot going for it because if you like it it will become one of your most-played games. The game will last forever and it is a game you'll get better at over time. I'd rather have this than a couple Kickstarters or 4 new games.
I very much appreciate the realistic and frankly blatant message of, “dude. I got impulse control issues too… but just don’t. Be real with yourself”
It’s something as I started this hobby, I reallllly still struggle with. But it’s good to hear I’m not alone, and that there are things that I can/should just straight up pass on.
"If anyone is willing to do useless paperwork for no apparent benefit it would be a Kingdom Death Monster Player" I laughed out loud at that, I didn't even smile at the giant duck but this line had me in stitches.
Lol that's what I was going for 😂 I had so much fun with that one.
I like cthulhu wars that changed my view of boardgame, not only with miniature.
Many people do not know the value of the Cthulhu War.
Compared with games of the same type in the current world, the Cthulhu War has a relatively high balance of asymmetric races and abilities, which is very interesting.
If you have a basic understanding of most of the gods and monsters in Cthulhu mythology, and understand the characteristics or behavior descriptions in their stories, you will find that many abilities in the Cthulhu War are manifested in other ways. This is really exciting.
If you like this type of game and asymmetric race, this game is very valuable, especially if you like to use various abilities.
I think the price point scares people away. Times have changed though, and I wonder how it'd fair these days. Foundations of Rome, a more recent game, could easily fall into this list. Although, everyone that reviews it loves it, and is a bit more accepting of the price tag. When I first learned of Cthulhu Wars, all I heard was it was amazing, but over priced. I bought it anyway, and never regretted it.
I almost went all in on Ankh. I liked that area control, the asymmetric aspects. But uhh, then I realized wait. I've got Cthulhu wars. I think it's a more solid to the point area control game with all that same asymmetrical goodness. You can fine tune your strategy for your favorite faction, expand with other factions, maps, and yeah.
I went all in Batman Gotham City Chronicles and I regret it to this day.
That would have been another great choice for this list.
@@BoardGameCo I disagree with a lot of what you said in this video. Crokinole will hold its value over time. This is due to the nature of that game. Provided you get a really good crokinole board. I agree with Tapestry. However Tapestry falls into the category overhyped (not overproduced). Sure the game is overproduced, but at times that can sell the experience. A good example is Santorini. You can have Santorini with worse components, but the way it is made, helps selling the game. Tapestry unfortunately is overhyped, overproduced and has severe ballance issues. I saw a video from No Pun and they said it well. In a similar veign I don't see dominion as good value as it won't hold value over time that well. I agree that going all-in is a mistake in some cases. It varies from game to game. Sometimes going all-in is the right thing to do (Nemesis). Sometimes it is a bad thing to do (Lords of Hellas). It varies from game to game. Then there is Monumental. Monumental is overproduced for what it is, but the worst part is that the overproduced components don't add to the gameplay. Nemesis is also overproduced, but the components help sell the game and the experience. Could you get the experience with lesser components... sure... but in the case of Monumental I also found that the game itself is kinda bad. I never really played it, but I imagined myself playing it and the map felt tagged on. What I mean is that the map doesn't feel needed. It feels like they upped 7 wonders and wanted to sell the game with miniatures. Also Kingdom Death Monster will hold value, maybe not all, but a lot more then games like dominion.
I agree. Although I did not go all in on Batman I did drop a hefty chunk on it. At the time I believed Monolith had learned some lessons about making the rules for their very elegant system clearer to provide an excellent game and I had though from the first time I saw Conan that this would translate perfectly to a super hero genre game. Sadly Monolith screwed the pooch by vastly complicating the system and still failing to produce a clear and conscience set of rules and support materials.
I vastly prefer the Conan game and even on that I refuse to give into the madness of going ALL IN.
I think Batman was a bad game, but I think it's a decent value for a licensed minatures games with the amount of content you get. It's just poorly executed on. It's still 1/2 of KDM to get seasons 1+2 (and the coop is coming out this year which I'm excited for, and will help you dump that collection for a profit)
I have a custom made Crokinole board with the logo of my favorite baseball team. It cost a BUNCH but was worth every penny. 1) it’s a work of art and hangs on my wall. 2) I can get everyone in my family to play it when they come over. It will have more plays than any other game I own by a long way!!! Best money I ever spent!!! 😁
Go back in time. Convince your ancestors to immigrate to Canada. Inherit a crokinole board from, grandpa, mom, dad, aunts, uncle, second neighbour twice removed.
Problem solved.
Lol I got my board from Canada :)
I own KDM and evaluating this game by how times you have played it would be a mistake. I personally value it by how many hours I have actually spent on it. The same should be true for any other games you own to be honest.
Back on topic, outside of the gameplay itself, KDM brings in model assembly, with plenty of creativity with armor sets, and model painting. There is plenty of thinking to be done in between games as well to figure out which hunts you should focus on to try and build the armor sets you want.
Once you get into the game itself, every lantern years will easily take between one to three hours depending on your speed of play.
I always value my games, or more specifically entertainment, by how many hours of fun am I getting for my money.
I.E. Going out to watch a movie at the theater can cost you $20 per hour, per person once snacks are factored in.
I have spend easily 200 hours assembling and painting KDM models so far and close to 150 additional hours going through several campaigns with friends. That means I've spent around $1.14 per hours for my entertainment so far with this game and this does not factor in the time my friends put in as well, further reducing the initial cost.
Obviously, if you are not going to be put in the necessary time to get that value, then its not good, but once again, that would be true for any games you own.
Sure, but if you go down that path, then any CMON game is the absolute best value for your money because you're getting well over 100 mins to paint in addition to the game. Bringing the hobbying aspect into the game is going to skew towards anything with a bunch of minis. Heck, by that measure, I've spent even more ridiculous hours "playing" Gloomhaven if I consider all painting time, or time organising components into different containers, sleeving cards, planning character builds, item purchases, enhancements to make... It's a false equivalence. Yes, some people love KDM. But it's an expensive extravagance.
I think it is clear that in the video he said "a lot of people buy this and not able to play it", not "those who buy and play it does feel not worthy". So it is not even talking about KDM players, more about those who buy it but fail to play.
My problem is going off of plays in August 2020. KDM is a 5 year old campaign game, every game he compared it to is newer. Also, all of the games he listed (with the exception of TI4) have had expansions released in the last year. In fact, Too Many Bones and Gloomhaven have both had expansions released in the last month. Of course they’re getting played more than KDM at the moment. The last gameplay expansion for KDM was 2016, 4 years ago. People have played the crap out of KDM, and are playing newer stuff.
By this logic, Trolls World Tour is a better movie than The Shining, because people are watching it more in August 2020.
@@Richard-sy1ej you can't rly compare CMON and KDM minis, cMON is no where near same quality... especially new expansion that will come, minis are insane...compare size of minis to something you would buy from GW and suddenly value is way better.
@@Richard-sy1ej you forgot reading the FAQ and other rules questions
Glad I'm not the only one that went through the garbage discount bins phase! Great video as always.
Yep, we all do....it's a phase.
I would say that Lifestyle games, no matter the brand or genre. This includes CCGs like Magic: the Gathering, Miniature Wargames such as Warhammer 40.000, or other games that have an exceptionally large number of options that you can purchase, with the express idea that no player will purchase more than a small fraction of the material available. Games Workshop games do get a special callout here due to the "high end" buy in cost, when you try to get in with the Core Rulebook/Codex/Army entry point rather than one of the 2 player starter boxes (which are much more reasonably priced). For reference, buying everything new, it would run you... nearly $200 for the rules and a starter army (HQ and two Troop choices), and can easily run over $1000 for a single army.
100% agree with you on lifestyle games, I left them off the list because they are fully lifestyles. I've done MTG and Warhammer both.
I bought my Crockinole board for $5, best purchase of my life.
That's a stellar deal
How?
People actually play KDM? I thought we just paint the minis and brag about it on the internet?
Lol well in that case....
KD:M is a boutique level hobbyist game. Buying it solely for the minis isn't wrong. They are some of the coolest minis I've ever played with. But it suffers in my gaming group because there is no "time limit". It's easier to talk people into an hour or so, as opposed to the indefinite scale of something like KD:M or 7th Continent.
@@n3kkidninj4 Which is also why I have never logged a play of it, while I have with other games. It just doesn't fit the same mold. Not sure I care for the metric he's using in this video. That said, its far from a good value IMO, but also not even close to the worst value games in my collection.
@@n3kkidninj4 I think the quality of the minis is purely average. The concepts are great and full of Imagination but I can find better quality minis for half the price almost everywhere. Even for free as files for 3d printing. Certainly in tabletop games of basically every somewhat large company and in many boardgames as well.
With something like KD:M, it needs to become a lifestyle game for the owner to be worth it. By that I mean that it basically becomes the collection, it gets played over every other game, etc, and I think there are people it does this for. I think any game that achieves this status for even a few years for someone is going to be worth the price tag. I'm pretty sure I will never play another board game as many times or for as many hours as I have played chess, even if I'd splurged on a super expensive decorative chess set.
Also, it seems like prepping KD:M, customizing the minis, etc is its own hobby almost. A friend who has it bought tiny magnets to dig holes into the joints of arms and legs and glue them in so that he could swap out new armor, reflect injuries, etc and had a lot of fun doing this. Me, I'd find that to be work, but that's one of the reasons it'd be a bad value for me.
Considering how much games are going for on KS these days, I really only need to play it 2x more than many of the other games I own for it to be of equivalent worth. And I'd say I'm closer to 4x - 5x. So for me it's been worth it. It is far from a lifestyle for me and I see no reason it needs to be? I have and do play many other games. How much do people think I spent on it? I was in on the second KS (not even the "deal" that the first ended up being) and I spent $200 on it. For a boutique game. How many people in the hobby are routinely spending over $100 on KS buys now?
The question of value is hard to measure. For KDM it offers me something no other game does. A game with well designed boss encounters. I love a good boss design in video games to the point where if a game is a straight up boss rush I'm in. Everyone values things differently, some people like fancy cars, others like fancy board games.
100%. I own most of these games...I'm looking at comparative value.
Please don't do any math using the "plays" on Boardgamegeek. I like BGG to track my Collection and also rate every single game I have and played etc. But I don't see any benefit of using the "play-tracker". And I assume there are plenty of people out there who have many games marked as Owned in their Collection, but even though they love and play it very much, they never bothered to track their "plays" on BGG. So you can hardly do any meaningful math using those numbers.
And yes, you absolutely should play Kingdom Death Monster first before considering it as an overpriced game. Even though the game I think has some huge flaws, it gives you an experience no other game can give you so far. I went in biased when a friend brought it on the table and even after a couple plays I never really felt like I like the game. But the more we played the more amazed I was with the continious story elements of the game and the characters. It feels a lot like a Pen&Paper RPG. As mentioned I think the game has some huge flaws, such as Combat and when a character dies, you basically just take his equipment and paste it onto a new character, so it just feels like a weaker version of your old one, instead of a new character. But it's still worth your time and money. I agree though it's overpriced, due to customizable miniatures, which were unneccessary I think, but the value comes from the unique experience as well, just like in Food Chain Magnete as you mentioned.
So in short: yes KDM is overpriced, but I wouldn't consider it a bad value. Give the game a couple tries (1 surely isn't enough I guarantee you) and it might will end up being one of your favorite games of all time.
The math is comparitive, many people don't use it but for comparative data between the other games it should be meaningful, essentially it's polling data.
@@BoardGameCo I get what you try to say, but I see some problems that comes with it. Let's compare with ratings on BGG. You can see how many people have rated a game, but also the value of the rating. So a game with 10 ratings isn't directly less meaningful than a game with 3000 ratings, because at the end the rating value (stars) matters the most. But sure a game with 3000 overall positive rates is more likely to be good than a game with just 10 positive overall votes.
The difference I see in "plays" is there is no direct value to it. A game with 10 plays doesn't have to be worse than a game with 1000 plays, because the 2nd value is missing. It is just pure speculation why one game has more plays tracked than another. It's a poll with missing components and unanswered questions.
Bad polls also exist. A poll that only ask specific questions that automatically leads into a specific direction, isn't a good poll. A poll about movement and transporations that only asks about your walking and driving habbit isn't very good, because it's missing all the other movement and transportation methods such as cycling, flying, shipping etc.
And I think this is what "plays" on BGG is, it's missing some components, because not everybody tracks their plays, because why should they? It's a very specific way of tracking something most people don't care about I guess, while rating a game and adding it to their list has more value to do so.
I agree with you. I also marked games I own as owned but I don't sync any of my plays on BGG. Just for categorical purposes. 😂
I don't know how much good analyzing owned-to-plays is. I've got a number of my games marked as owned on the Geek, which is an incomplete list of what I own, and I think I've only logged one play ever on the Geek. I'm sure most users on the site who do mark games as owned are probably like me and don't bother logging plays. Almost all the games I have marked as owned have ZERO games logged even though I've played the majority of them a bajillion times.
Sure, but overall it's comparative data, like polling data. Will be incomplete but useful for comparing one game to another.
@@BoardGameCo the problem is KDM is a campaign game where you can log just 1 play when you played literally from dawn to dusk (Tainted Grail another example). The game just doesn't have some "marker" to "divide" your sessions into plays. And in the end of the campaign you will have like 10 plays but with 100 hours of time investment behind it, which is not that bad.
@@BoardGameCo I would have to say Plays Logged on BGG, the data is so incomplete, and what is there is not standardized ( multiple weekly sessions being counted as one play is a terrific example), it's worthless from a statistical point of view.
Kingdom Death: Monster was the first board game that i backed on Kickstarter. I fell in love with the art, the lore, and the miniatures. I'm easily $6000 deep into the game over the years, and i haven't played it ONCE! lol
I have all the expansions, and I keep buying the pin-ups and what not, i just love all of it and i don't know why. I'd get rid of every game in collection before i even considered getting rid of Kingdom Death. But i see your point, lol.
You haven't played it? Do you paint it?
@@mistletoemonkeyI've only ever opened it once to check to make sure nothing was broken...lol
This was such a great video! I laughed so hard with that KDM line and the wink! 😂 Well done! 👍
Lol, I had so much fun with that :)
KDM players find it more fun to actually play the game, rather than log plays on BGG :)
Lol perhaps
A good Crokinole board is like heirloom furniture, I plan on giving mine to my grand-kids. If you go by cost per hour played, this is by far the best value for my dollar in my collection.
Agreed! If you count all the one-off and filler plays then your cost/hour is very cheap. This is the only one I don't like on this list, the rest make sense.
This is assuming that your descendants/friends want to inherit a crokinole board. It will likely end up in a second hand shop or even being scrapped by someone who doesn't appreciate it.
I don't believe Kingdom Death Monster is a good buy for everyone, but it is definitely a great value for the right audience. Not only do you get a LOT of great miniatures, but it is a very amazing experience for those that do enjoy it. For me it is a great value as we have a group at my local gaming store that plays every Saturday. But I do agree that it's not for everyone. Great video!
This is me commenting as a man of science and data, not as a KD:M player. As an idea, the metric is excellent, to some degree it is even a metric KD:M players themselves use when defending the value (though it's usually dollars/hour) but the data is not very reliable. The count for owned copies is pretty good, it's around half of the amount of 1.5 KS backers (which is the only public sales info at hand) so it's quite passable, but the logged plays are not good data. People use BBG in various ways for various purposes and I bet voluntarily logging plays is not the most popular of them. I'd reckon it is a feature that is primarily used only by the most hardcore hobbyists, who play a lot of different games. So what this data essentially does is exclude the average player and only includes a very specific type of group, skewing it heavily. Since you seem to trust the data, do YOU yourself religiously log every play of every game?
And this is me as a KD:M player, supporting the man of science. If I were the type of person to log my plays, over the past couple years I would have logged approximately 90 plays, because that is approximately how many lantern years (one per session) I have played in the 4 campaigns that I have finished or that are ongoing. So how would that affect your data? It'd be an over 50%(!!!) increase in plays contributed by a single person! (And yes, my copy is one of those 9000+ on BGG.) That is a huge swing and really emphasizes just how lacking the data is. To provide actual data (though only a single data point) I'm currently at approx 15$/play (and that's INCLUDING content I have not yet explored or even received). I admit, still seems a bit expensive but those are some very long plays so if I was to convert them into $/h it could actually compete with some small games that make it to the table often with my play groups.
As an aside, KD:M is a hard game to get to the table and by what I've read and seen in the community, there are A LOT of copies that just do not make it to the table and those are some really awful investments. But the copies that do make it to the table are more often than not, some of the best bang for the buck in their respective collections. So just like "Going All In", don't get KD:M unless you're sure you'll actually get it to the table often enough. :)
Completely agree, these numbers are skewed to all hell.
I think the point was that even if only small subset of players log plays on bgg, statistically we can make comparisons between games.
Point is not that kdm is 2k per play, it is that kdm is 2k per in comparison to mageknight 800 per play.
agree! The parameters are not right.Who logs their plays in Bgg? I think every owned copy could almost equal 1 play (at least, imaging that not all game are on shelf of shame.)
Food Chain Magnate and Antiquity have gotten tons of play in my house, but we did have to buy additional components to make them easier to get on the table. It's definitely been an investment.
I love those games. Expensive, but I love them.
Shots fired shots fired...."if anyone is willing to do pointless paperwork for no apparent reason it is KDM players"
Love it. Great list. I enjoyed hearing your opinion and your honesty on willing to pay bad value for games you live anyway.
Lol I loved that line :)
@@BoardGameCo the wink made it even better IMHO. LMAO, good job
@@mattcurr9931 😉
Shadows over camelot is my unicorn game, I refuse to buy it at the OOP cost.
It's a good one, I often wonder why they don't reprint.
Great video! It helped me realize that I’m a sucker for premium aesthetics if I like the mechanics and feel of the base game... I went all in on Everdell for the coins and wood. I also upgraded my Scythe into a Cadillac of gaming after playing a few base games with friends. By the time I played the Rise of Fenris campaign there was metal, wood and porcelain everywhere... It’s terrible value for resale purposes but it feels pretty awesome when I can get all the splendor to the table.
I'm just glad Splotters is on this list. It just feels like such a ripoff in value proposition. For it's price tag, I demand proper art by artists, proper graphic design for usability, no stupid jokes and quality production like inserts and deluxe bits.
Don't get me wrong, I love splotter games :) But I wouldn't recommend them unless people are hardcore into the hobby.
Splotter as a company do their games out of the love of gaming, not for a profit to stay in business, it is a side investment. As for the cost, they do not print in China, so the cost is more because of printing in Europe in small amounts is costly. There is also a factor of time to develop a deeper game, but my guess is still not going to usual publisher route makes it hard to get the price lowered. A few other publishers that don't print in China also have similar pricing. And shipping out of Europe is raising daily.
"..probably because you have poor impulse control, like I do.." nice ;-)
Great channel BTW, becoming one of my favourites, keep up the great work!
Thanks!
Just realized why I like your videos so much, there's few (if any) edits. Many folks have lots of tiny jump edits in their videos and it drives me crazy. You leave it all in and I enjoy them more for that.
Also, not sure if the metric used provides accurate information but it's certainly an interesting way to look at it (cost*owned/played). Personally, I never enter my plays in BGG.
For me, I would have said something like Monopoly. Some game that has massive sales and few plays. It sits on shelves across the world mostly unplayed. A 5 second Google search says 275 million copies sold. That's got to be the worst value per play out there.
As always, love the content and keep having fun.
What do you think of Battlestar Gallactica? Is it worth the out of print premium?
Not for me personally but many would say yes.
Shadows of Brimstone is my KDM. Easily hits the top 5 most expensive game, if you're going all in. I have slowly added expansions and add-ons, even with the investment, my most bang for buck. Play most frequently. Time spent organizing, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Time putting together the miniatures and Painting (I am not into). So may worlds and expansions. Feels almost endless, if you play it like an RPG. probably not a good value at all for resale, but plan to keep for a very long time. Hope they keep producing new products.
I've always been intimidated by it.
Shadows of Brimstone is fantastic, unlike KDM or Too Many Bones.. ;-)
You've made some interesting points on all these games and I really agree with many of them. However, I will keep all my Zombicide games but do agree with your opinion on them (Invader) somewhat.
As to Kickstarter, I'm really having a tough time there now. As I'm 71 years old and still love gaming, I'm hesitant to pledge much these days since I may not make it to the game's actual release and shipping. And yes, I have high hopes of staying around a bit as I have way too many toys left that need paint or playtime. At that rate I'll be 103 before I meet my maker. TA!
I'm keeping my Zombicide too, no worries there :) and may you live long and prosper :)
A couple of decades ago, I sold an anesthesiologist in San Francisco an extremely high quality Go set, Kaya board, Yuki grade slate and shell stones, Mulberry Bowls, for just over twenty thousand dollars. Did he get his money's worth?
Definitely. The aesthetics of a high quality Japanese Go Set are unparalleled, every material and the manner in which it is crafted. Now this player was an amateur 5-Dan, but could not reliably play in Tournaments, as being an anesthesiologist, he was constantly on call.
However, he had easily the finest Go Set in the Western United States, and had some minor fame in Asia as a consequence. Whenever top level professional Go players from Japan, Korea, or China visited the West Coast, they would play one or more exhibition games on his Go Set. Thus he hosted many of the highest ranked Go players in the world because he possessed the best Go Set in the Western United States.
Could he have played Go with a nice Go set costing less than a hundred dollars? Of course. Yet this set was worth every dollar he paid for it.
I own half the games on this list....value is a tricky conversation. But I certainly would advise most people not to drop 20k on a go set.
Interesting Analysis with good viewpoints. I do have to stop going All In myself for the game play value. However for the hobby of painting minis, having the all In minis to paint and then field them in home brew heroscape battles.. is priceless :)
Yep :) The value discussion is an interesting one. I own half these...definitely don't mind owning expensive games.
Overprice games should be your next video. There's so much to discuss about it. I want to know more about how to identify if the boardgame is over price. Keep it going, great video!
Interesting...I have a different video that needs to come first though.
can we talk about how bloody expensive the Hamburg & Amsterdam Kickstarter is? I was excited until I saw the price. $100 a box for the deluxe edition? Cmon...
Even the classic editions are a bit rich. Still better than the OOP prices of the originals, but it's close.
Cthulhu Wars is a big hit at the board game meet-up I go to.and it is a very well done game. The miniatures are extreme, but they draw attention across the room. It is also available for $150. I have played it more than enough to justify the price.
Yes :) There's a reason I own it, the promise of the game is appealing.
That doesnt mean it is a good value in general. Your personal experience doesnt matter to the average experience.
The value of watching this video is overpriced for what I paid for it.
When compared to other videos you could have watched in the same time frame that would give you greater enjoyment....for sure!
Crokenole - sure it's a lot of money - mine was handmade and cost me $105 CAN 10 years ago, but what a bargain over the years. Whenever we play it we have a blast. There's no having to remember complicated rules, and whenever we're not playing it, it hangs on the wall as a beautiful piece of art. I've spent a lot on useless games, some expensive, some not so, but for value for money, Crokenole is right up there (even if my one doesn't rotate like yours), and is one game I will never ever part with. Great channel by the way :-)
Thanks :) And yes, everything on this list is awesome. Well except #1. It's just a question of picking and choosing the games we buy :)
Cthulhu Wars is a good game, but for that price they dont even give a good insert
Yep....great games, bad value.
Still wishing for cheaper/token version of the game 😞
"...until you can justify having 1000$ worth of games on your shelf because you can't control yourself!"
Oof! Et tu Alex!
:)
I can't wait for the new version of Forbidden Star! Two things on Crokinole. I believe that getting a board made in your own country, not by "slave" labor and not with extremely polluting means is an incredibly good value. Second, Cube Quest is the pinnacle of flicking game.
Cube Quest is fun :) But I prefer crokinole.
What do you mean by 'slave labour'?
Did you say new version of Forbidden Stars??? please expand!
@@realsushrey He means a Mayday board made in China. Of course he is probably typing this on a piece of electronics made there so...
@@nerdfatha The designer will do a new version. It will be sci-fi with its own IP published by PSC Games through Kickstarter. You can check out more on BGG in the forum section of Forbidden Stars. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2139220/forbidden-stars-redux
Thanks for taking the time to make this list man. Nice breakdown.
Glad you enjoyed :)
Going all in and getting out of print games are definitely good ways to lose value on board game purchases, even if its the only way to get some games. The thing I would point out about KDM is that you should be looking at the cost verses time spent on the game instead of just games played. One "game" of KDM monster could take between 5-40 normal game play sessions to finish. If your buying it as a lifestyle game, which is really what it is, then the value is pretty great with the number and quality of miniatures that you get.
Totally...but depends how people log plays....that being said this was primarily meant in good fun :)
You make a lot of good points and I appreciate the effort on the cost per play.
Thanks :)
Well, I have to admit ... that I had a good laugh at the part with the blink. Well done.
Lol, I really enjoyed the wink :)
I went all in with THE 7TH CONTINENT. The first curse alone logged in almost 75 hours. There are 14-16 curses to figure out as well as the ability to stack curses together. That along with being able to incorporate certain expansions for the benefits of its unique components and cards is great. I never log anything on BGG but i can tell you this. My kids and wife absolutely love this game. I passed on my LONE WOLF choose your own adventure series on to them so this game really resonated with them. That is what earns it a great game for me...the smiles and joy it brings to them.
7th continent is excellent :)
I spent maybe 10 hours watching reviews and painting videos before my KDM Purchase. No other game comes close to the joy that game brings me sometimes I just open the box touch everything look at future gear and then close it up. Clank I never play and never even touch.
Excellent! Enjoy it! I own half the games on this list.
I would say it is rather hard to log the time you spend with KDM. What do you log? Showdowns only? Only a full lantern year? Also it is a life style game. Do you add in the hours spent assembling and painting?
I would say that this year I’ve spent the most time with KDM (hours upon hours). . . But I’ve probably only logged it a few times. (And I’m typically a very meticulous logger with an average of 400+ plays of other games logged a year, but I never know how to log KDM so it looks like it is played less.)
But TI4 each single play is 8 hours, so it balances out :)
I disagree with Kingdom Death: Monster because I got a lot of value for my investment. I had my friend buy it :).
lol nice.
Paying over the odds for an oop game I won’t do. But if you are patient and keep watchful a bargain can be had. And that is always a mighty nice feeling.
For sure :)
Wow! KDM shots fired!! The fun feud with Quakalope has just become real. Lol. I thought you guys were friends? The Boardgameco Bridgade is going to have to brace for retaliation. You and your calculations are getting us into a war. Lol. Definitely going to listen to the podcast now 😉🔥
#smacktothequack
#boardgamecoBrigademountUp
#boardgamecoOG
Lol, I had so much fun with that.
I really appreciate how you separate cost value vs personal feelings and plays. It seems to be one of the few industries where value is put on time spent vs the actual product you receive. Thats not a knock, we all do it, but when you buy a car you value the car on features, not the amount of driving you plan to do. Same with clothes and many other items.
My collection is full of terrible value buys. I love them and don't regret spending the money, but I acknowledge freely that I overspent on many of them.
Oh I totally agree...I own half this stuff. But speaking for myself, I look at everything this way. Board games are actually the one area where I give myself more leeway to get "bad value"
@@BoardGameCo its true. A bad value boardgame may, at worst, cost you a couple hundred bucks. A bad value car could really hurt.
In regards to Crokinole, for what I paid ($500), it is my most used game. I also own a Mayday copy of the game, it just stays on my game table. Often I find my wife or children (now back at college) playing a pickup game during the day even if it against themselves. When we have family events (e.g. birthdays) both boards come out are are binging played EVEN by non gamers. The most fun we have is watching my Mom at age 74 and mother in law 72 playing against each other. On a dollar/play I have far exceeded what I payed compared to Twilight Imperium that I can play maybe once or twice per year at most.
I look value more in terms how much will it get played. A $20 game that barely gets played is expensive to me versus a $100 game that gets played often.
100% agreed.
Crokinole come out whenever people are over, meaning it comes off the wall everyone sees it on already. When we go, or used to go pre Covid in NY, a BBQ it goes in its carrying case. During the work week, pre covid, it stayed in my office lunch room where it was played EVERY DAY at lunch. That was just my Mayday board and now I have a custom board being finished which will be the main board with the Mayday being the secondary for when groups are present or I want to leave one at work and one at home.
Crokinole boards will never "go out of print" and will always be played until you are dead or they can't wheel your hospital bed to the table.
I’ll say this, KD:M players are some of the chillest I’ve ever seen. They’re game gets shat on constantly, usually by people who admit they’ve never played it, and they’re like meh. It pretty impressive that KD:M has gone like half a decade without any real expansion and it is still being played and talked about and still in the top 50 on BGG.
I think your interpretation of their lack of reaction is very different than mine :)
Also crokinole has gone 150 years with no new content and is 65 ;)
@@BoardGameCo Man, Crokinole is baffling good. I’ve never been happier dropping $250 on a wooden circle in life 😂
Never seen one of your videos before, love this one. I will say your data for KDM , a game I hold no stake in, is kind of a moot point. 1. Games last longer than a sing month 2. BGG estimated once that less than 40% of users actually log plays. And 3. (This goes back to a debate I had with my brother once and we researched it for weeks) far less people use BGG than buy games. For example roughly 7% of the copies of Ticket To Ride that have sold have been listed as owned on BGG. Based on the data I can find less than 50% of the KDM copies that have sold have made it into accounts on BGG so that data is way off... but anyways yes $400 is too much for any game.
Also I’d like to add to your comments for the All in Pledges category... what most people don’t realizes is a lot of add on content (and Kickstarter exclusive stretch goals too) are not play tested and in the case of certain publishers not in anyway balanced for game play.
I totally agree with you, the data isn't meant to be absolute, rather it's meant to be comparative. Like polling data. Meaning I'm not saying this is how much KDM costs... I'm saying look at all these other heavy, expensive, and hard to table games... And KDM has a significantly worse value than any of those comparatively speaking.
I don't particularly like Food Chain Magnate, but at $100+ for the game and another $100+ for the expansion, you are right on the spot - it's a terrible value for your money.
This is what’s keeping me from going crazy on kickstarter these days. The value you get out of a 200$ pledge compared to store-bought games with good reviews is making it harder and harder to justify the expense. I’ve been looking at Uprising and Massive Darkness 2 and while they look great it’s just a big gamble as to whether I’ll like them and be able to bring them to the table.
100% agreed :)
Agreed, I find more and more know I am just getting base pledge levels on KS and getting the expansions if and when they come to retail. A game really has to blow me away now to go all in, whereas before I went all in without really considering the cost to playtime ratio.
If you're interested but hesitant on MD check out the first game first, I did this with Dice throne and very glad I did. You can borrow, play with a friend, watch gameplay, or buy it yourself to see if it's up your ally. I totally get the kickstarter thing, I used to suffer from FOMO with kickstarter real bad. I've reeled it in and back big box games once a year or so now. I guess what I'm trying to say is this, MD2 is $145 no addons/shipping (for the campaign inclusion). It will cost the exact same in the store, but you'll get a bunch of bonus content for free on KS (whether or not you get to use it all, that's a different discussion). If it interests you and you have a chance to research MD1 then back it if you want to extra stuff you may or may not ever use.
Hopefully this comes across as somewhat helpful and not some spiteful or whatever youtube comment, I obviously don't care if you back it or not. If you like dice rolling, hack n' slash, dungeon crawl type games MD is a lot of fun.
@@macayne I hear what you’re saying! I do in fact own MD1, which I backed on kickstarter and have kept mostly for the minis as the gameplay was a bit subpar in my opinion. Which is also why MD2 is making me hesitate : the gameplay looks much nicer and varied, and it would allow me to use my copy of MD1 more... but this all comes with a price! And knowing I’ve already backed 2 big dungeon crawlers in the past year... I guess I’ll be on the fence until the very last day XD
@@galadan88 Good luck in your decision making process! I keep reducing my pledge amount telling myself I really don't need all the things.
In defense of crokinole: that’s a piece of furniture, you can get cheap boards made of MDF for $50. Your gorgeous board isn’t entry-level - that’s like criticizing a pool table for costing 500 Gloomhavens.
Agreed....but still worst value for your money as far as games vs cost of games :)
I would actually argue KDM players are the least likely to log games, as they're busy bookkeeping for the game!
In all seriousness though, that evaluation seems a bit weird to me. I don't know a single person who logs their plays, although I know of a few who use BGG regularily. Seems too random to me who actually logs games to extract usable data from that.
It's definitely random but on large enough data sets it should balance out.
For what its worth I log every year of the game we play using BGStats.
It would seem logical to assume that if you took the time to log ownership of games in BGG that you would also log plays of said games. But there are so many factors to affect this assumption. For instance, I owned many games and played them before ever knowing about BGG. When I did create an account, I was able to log ownership of all those games, but had no records of plays of those games. It's usable data for interest and fascination, at best in my opinion.
How do you log your plays on BGG?
@@AenarionITA I log with BGStats which links to BGG, much easier than navigating the BGG interface lol
A really good and well thought out assessment video - thanks
Glad you liked it!
You have just entered the territory of the great and mighty Quackalope, and disturbed his highly prized sleep. You were the first to throw down the battle/conflict resolution dice. Hopefully your roll was high enough to defeat the monster's wrath.
Ok there is some flavor text for #10.
Seriously I don't own any of the mentioned games. I suppose BGG stats are all that are really out there, I don't know about the accuracy. For many of us game fades with time, certainly not all of us. Thanks for your time Alex.
Always :) This was a fun one for me.
Very interesting list. Really liked the data numbers.
Glad you enjoyed :)
Right before opening the video I knew KDM would made a list in some way.
100% :)
Just wanted to point out KD:M was sold for $100 without minis, and can be found for around that price from people on secondary markets.
Personally a big player of it and I don't log my plays on BGG, either. Didn't mind the comments; they were hilarious :P
Totally fair, that would change the equation.
I think you have to take into account play time whenever you want to use plays.
That's reasonable, ideally that metric would be playtime and not plays.
BoardGameCo that should have been the title of this video, great games - bad value.
@@BoardGameCo very common with video games to note the cost per hour value.
Agree with everything except the EXIT games.
My view on these is: Cost:Hours played ratio vs a trip to the movies.
Exit games have a pretty high ratio when you factor in other people's times.
Then there's a game that demands me do a load of paperwork and feels like a job for little story time.
We ditched Gloomhaven... even with the App. A Video Game masquerading as a boardgame with all of the heavy logic for you to handle... YAWN.
But there are people that get their kicks from moving a counter and following rules - hey... that's why people love minecraft after all...
Totally agree when comparing to a movie, that's why I compared to an actual escape room as well...but when comparing to other games or even the unlock series...then it doesn't hold up (imo)
@@BoardGameCo The Unlock ones are definitely more consistent. The recent Exit High Tower spin off was very good. Took us a couple of sessions.
As someone who has played Kingdom Death: Monster but doesn't own it this is what I'll say about it and I'm sure I'll get tons of hate for it. The price point for entry and expansion just does not equal out to being worth the experience unless you're just hardcore out for awesome miniatures with a system to play them in. In terms of legacy gaming, I think that Gloomhaven does a better job. In terms of audience friendliness, this obviously comes down to personal taste, but I've had two separate women tell me while touring the KD:M booth at GenCon that they would never play the game because of how the game depicts women so it's going to be even harder to find players to take part that aren't turned off by the art style. And in terms of "dungeon delving" and fighting monsters, I can get something like Descent into Darkness for much cheaper and it takes way less time to actually set up because I don't have to put the minis together.
All that being said, I appreciate KD:M for existing, and for what it is, because it helps me get some amazing minis for my D&D games thanks to the second-hand market.
Wtf did i just read ... "depicts women" hä? Not every women is turned off by being a sexy a** elf or something. Just dont have sjw friends...
I haven't played it but, aren't the guys half naked as well?
@@chukniloc it's more the giant impractical boobs and armor cleavage.
@@Raptorialand it's almost like you didn't read the whole "this comes down to personal taste part."
I literally had a woman who has done pin-up modeling tell me she wouldn't play it because of the way the art depicts women. There's nothing wrong with that.
@@bobbyellis5006 Comes down to personal taste... i dont like women who are offended by this things - and they prob. don't like me lol
Good to see somebody not in denial about the value of the games he actually owns.
Lol hell no :) I understand why I own them but get other games first :)
@@BoardGameCo I bought star wars rebellion because I love star wars. It is not in any way justified valuewise. But sue me, I have star wars in a box.
Actually, I know the MSRP for too many bones is $130 and I am pretty sure the MSRP for gloomhaven is $140 if I remember correctly
and the base kickstarter pledge for KDM was 100 dollars. When people claim it is just the numbers it matters what their bias or lack of knowledge is.
Great list Alex,keep them coming. My worst buy was Endure the stars the stars
Will do :) This was my most fun list to date.
I disagree on the exit games, many times theres some good sales on them and as you said VS the price of an escape room they are a good value. Also the unlock ones are pretty easy to sell/trade/give away after you are done since nothing is destroyed
"Here are my rules and how I break them." (you'd make a great Talmudic scholar.)
Lol that's fair :)
@@BoardGameCo BTW, can an expensive game (or game system) be a good value? I have about $270 (MSRP, although I paid less) in Memoir 44, and I've played it over ninety times. It's not my favorite wargame, and not even one of my ten favorite games. But it is exceedingly playable. I believe that there are other games in my collection that if I looked at the core and any expansions that went along with it, still managed to produce a good value in terms of plays, hours of entertainment, or experiences despite the high cost.
@@nathanaelrobinson4831 figure out your cost per hour and compare to other games. Pretty common metric for video game collectors.
@@nathanaelrobinson4831 he seems to value good games, experience, and quality or resale value. If you play a game frequently it is hard to say it isn't a good value. If is isn't getting played you are paying to store it.
@@brianflansburg8934 perhaps I did not express this correctly. I was ponder why in general one's picks for bargains tends to be cheap games, but our minds tend to go to expensive games for bad values.
It all depends on your own personal definition of ‘value’ an exit game is great value if you compare it with going out or other social activities. I have managed to almost go infinite with unlock though, I just trade my version for another I haven’t played yet every year
100% This entire list is subjective. But to me the point is comparative value, I actually have a follow up video coming soon about how to "Value" a game.
BoardGameCo good luck on opening that can of worms! 😉
Hey Alex, great and interesting video! It all makes absolutely sense on a rational level and sounds like complete bullshit emotionally 😂
Have you ever thought of addressing the topic of board games as a luxury good? I think that there are certain similarities. You can buy of course a watch for 20 Dollars on Amazon or get a 20.000 Dollar Rolex in a jewelry store. Both give you the same thing but are so far away from each other when it comes to value showing you the time.
I think there are more and more people in the hobby with this attitude or approach. Me included. If I'm totally honest, one part of KDMs attraction for me was the fact that it is the most expensive board game out there. Don't get me wrong, I love the theme, the art, the gameplay and the mechanics. But I also love owning something so big, so overproduced and so expensive 🙈
It's an excellent idea. I'll add it to the list. And I totally agree with you, there's a reason I own half the stuff I'm saying is a bad value (comparatively)
@Tim Wanger I’m the same way. I probably have $750 into Dominion (all the expansions and promos in premium sleeves and self-made wood boxes with acrylic dividers), but have only played maybe a half dozen games. Got all the Collectors Editions of Everdell, with just 2 plays under my belt. I have the entire 7th Continent KS collection and have only opened it to sleeve all the cards; haven’t played a single session. An hour before watching this video I watched Alex’s top 10 Best Solo Games, then found myself on Chip Theory’s site... then ended up spending almost $400 on Too Many Bones. (Which I hope to better justify; a big reason why I don’t get many of my games to the table is bc I don’t have anyone to play with). Hopefully my kids will have an interest in playing games when they get older. So... I’m “investing” in good games that may not be available down the road. Or... I might just have a problem 😂 Ultimately, I like the way everything looks on my shelf. That’s the value in having a collection right?
@@G0F15H Haha, we are certainly brothers in spirit :D
- I got all CEs of Everdell as well, although I am playing it quite often with my wife.
- I also got everything from the 7th continent and just recently spent another 200 Euros on wooden inserts and sleeves. So far we have only played one curse but it was my first big KS project and I really love the game
- Last year I discovered Too Many Bones and just got everything to this point. Now I am waiting for the Trove chest and I am already exciting how awesome it will look in my Kalax :D However, I have only played it a couple of times.
- Then I finally gave in to KDM this year and got the core box. But I already planned for Black Friday and put enough money aside for a BIG purchase of the rest of the current and future gameplay
At the moment I'm trying to upgrade most of my games with inserts and sleeves. Even though I don't play that much at the moment (due to a 17 month old toddler) I love spending my money on buying overproduced games or upgrading others. Playing is of course great but owning this amazing collection also brings me a lot of joy :)
I think the main point about KDM in this video is not "if you are into this game, does it work", instead it is "how many people are not into this game, just buy because of thought it worth".
I am that simp that cannot resist going all in every time when I should not >.<
Someone needs to stop me!
lol same here :)
@@BoardGameCo Several year later check in. After backing many games all in, and not playing a majority of the expansions that I've backed in Kickstarter, I've gotten allot better at not backing everything. Most games I play the base game, then never touch the add ons. So now I only buy the base game and am willing to pay an extra premium if necessary to buy the addons only for the games that Ive played allot of and absolutely love and want more of.
Like Death May Die. Finally played that game. Figured out that its perfect for me and my friends, and now Im going back and picking up only the expansions that I want to play.
In KDM each play is recorded after at least a month ;p
All in all, KDM is a very premium game without a more basic version available. That's really it. Everything is bigger and higher quality in it hence the price. The rest of it, the lore and roleplay, the pinup models, etc. that's irrelevant here and up to the individual as to how they value that.
Therefore since KDM is just a premium game of it's own system, when going to purchase it, you should have knowledge and better yet, experience of how it plays or else you'll buy a full bells and whistles game that you may not like.
...I'd recommend finding a game that you've established that you love, and then get a full out premium version of it.
Oh I completely agree. But a Rolex is also an overpriced watch. At this point in the discussion these are luxury items.
@@BoardGameCo pretty much
@@BoardGameCo Then I just remembered how the game contradicts itself providing survivor minis that you can totally customize while being probably the #1 game where you consistently lose and have to recreate characters. Unless you're magnetizing your minis or only building those few that survive a good while then what's the point? I'd say that's another point against the game value-wise!
Kingdom Death Monster - you said it! It cost too much - took too long to reach our game group and lasted on the table for 30 minutes. Moved to the garage as it takes up too much room on the selves. Its too painful an experience to try and resale or even look at. It's been hidden away and forgotten about like Bates' mum in the cellar. Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling this one out. 110% behind you!
I frankly don't care at all about the price most of the time. I am in for the fun. Disposable income is a major factor. The value of experience you elaborated on is the core of it.
Just wait until Thursday's video :)
Omg, that deluxe version of crokinole. SO BEAUTIFUL! My husband's cousin has crokinole and they actually hang theirs on the wall :)
I also was salivating at the zombicide collection. I've got season 2 coming, and have only ever played the very original first one, which I LOVED! I really think I need to get Black Plague
I'm actually loving the MD2 Rainbow Road expansion, I think it was a really cute/different idea, like you were covering yesterday.
there's literally zero part of the crokinole board that is "a terrible value for the money" - the work that went into it alone is literally worth the value for the money, and damn is it beautiful. But I also have no idea how you play crokinole on a lazy susan... I guess the idea of value is completely subjective, because this video was solely about the experience (?) where a large number of the games on this list are literally the *best* value for gaming. The sheer # of minis covers the amount you pay alone.
I don't get it! what's the point of telling viewers what's worth getting and what's not while obviously you did the opposite in some cases like Zombicide? how is this gonna affect viewers the way it's supposed to?
The fact that something is a bad value relative to the cost doesn't mean you shouldn't get it... That's your decision to make.
I don't regret the bucks I put in tapestry. This game is awesome.
Awesome :) If you enjoy it, always keep at it.
Your first example of the Ninja game, and your reasons behind not getting something just because its cheap, really spoke to me as I've been seeing Seafall on sale for like, $11 and have been tempted. You've talked me off that ledge, so thank you!
Seafall is a great example. A bad game isn't worth your time just because it's cheap.
However, Seafall does offer good components for home-made PnP or personal blinging sailing games
I've tried to stay away from games with expansions. I went very deep with Yugi-oh. Almost with X-Wings. Your video is very good the second time viewing.
Thank you! And yes, I mostly stay away from LCG's for that reason.
I spent a ton of money on yugioh. If you still like tcgs what i have done is get magic commander decks and i left the decklists as is to keep them balanced. I also got into some HomemadeTCGs like chaos galaxy even though it can be expensive and the cards don't hold any value i find it more rewarding than digging through endless amounts of power creep ridden yugioh cards.
Excellent video! You've really made me think about my collection and all those games that are sitting unplayed on my shelves...
Awesome :) Doesn't mean don't get these...just think about :)
Trying to watch this but getting quacked at...😂
on a separate note... JESSE'S A MONSTER!!
oh are we doing that? ok hold on brb
@@robinrising9929 I've been A-Quacked!!😲
Lol yes :)
Sorry about the Quack.
Oh quack. I wasn't ready for that
I'm an all-in for Kingdom Death Monster...both Kickstarters. I probably put about $1100 total into it (fortunate at the time to have the money) and I do agree it's horrible value, but like your round game board, It's soooo pretty (grotesque). The miniatures captivated me and I'm a huge miniature collector/painter, so the expense is a bit more justified for me in that respect. The game is incredible. The AI system feels like a living thing at times and I have not experienced another game like it. The main problem is getting the people to play and to have a consistent group that doesn't mind getting hammered and destroyed quit often. I don't know why anyone would give you hate over your opinion. I can love certain games while acknowledging their flaws.
Following your logic, Catan is $ 5.715 collectively owned / play...
1. Anything from White Wizard Games. Star Realms is great, Hero Realms equally as great, Sorcerer offers a great twist on the LCG formula. But when you pay $10 for 10-20 cards, then do that for dozens of packs, it starts to become bad value when you look at how much of an experience you get out of the games. Especially when other LCGs offer 30-40 cards per pack for similar prices.
2. CCGs *cough*Magic*Cough*. This one speaks for itself.
3. I respectfully disagree with the overall classification of Escape Room games. Most of them, especially the Unlocks you used as an example, can be reset and replayed, meaning you can resell them to recuperate your costs.
4. KDM. I own it. I love it. I've rarely played it. It is a gorgeous work of art. It is the most outrageously ridiculous game purchase I've ever made. You only examined the value of the base game, which is a fair evaluation. But when each expansion costs 2x to 10x the value of most of the games in my collection, it's mindblowing to consider how much I have spent on KDM in total. You are absolutely correct in putting this game first.
The unlocks I think are great,I was referring only to ones you don't reset.
KDM is beloved....but expensive.
Oh why did you have to show that Crokinole board? I was quite happy with my Mayday board, but now I totally want to overspend and waste money for that sucker. Crokinole may be worth it. Great game that everyone seems to enjoy.
Notice how he holds it lovingly and his eye twitches a bit ;)
Yes, people spend $200 on chess and Go sets that look like pieces of art. It SHOULD be on the wall. The reason you get a game like that is not just for the experience but also because it is a piece of the decor and a permanent fixture in the house. Bad value for sure, but so is that lovely gaming table we all want as well...
I'm okay with $10 to $11 for an escape room game, considering an in-person escape room can be like 10 times as expensive.
Oh for sure! I was only comparing Exit to Unlock, which I think is better.
@@BoardGameCo I tend to buy both series, and photocopy stuff from the Exit ones to make them replayable. Since it's the only kind of game my brother agrees to play with me I have almost every escape room in a box style of game available, including the werewolf series which is the worst value proposition in the genre. haha
Alex, a series similar to Unlock but that usually has a bit more parallelizable puzzles is the Deckscape series, in case you haven't tried that one.
I think my favorites are the Thinkfun ones, but you need to get a good deal to get them for less than 15USD, they often have more physical puzzles to work through.
The Escape room the game ones (the ones with the machine and keys) can be a good value, particularly if you can find them used (thanks boardgameCo, haha).