Two Groups, Two Years, Same Money: A Shared Shelf Case Study

The best way to see what a shared board game library does is to watch two groups spend the same money for the same two years and compare what ends up on the table. So this article follows two fictional four-person groups, the Maples and the Oaks. Both groups love games. Both spend about $200 per person per year. The Maples buy the way most people buy. The Oaks follow the One Copy Rule.

This is the sixth article in The Shared Shelf series from The Ludarium. Everything below is an illustration: made-up groups, rounded prices, and purchase lists chosen to show the pattern, not to predict any real group’s shelf. The pattern is what matters. If you want the rule the Oaks are following, start with The One Copy Rule.

The setup: same people, same budget, different habits

Both groups have four members and meet roughly every other week. Both have a budget of about $200 per person per year, which at an average of $40 per game is about five games per person per year. Over two years that is forty purchases per group and $1,600 in total spend.

That budget is not unusual. Survey data suggests only about 6% of players spend under $100 a year on board games, while about 22% spend over $1,000, with most people somewhere in between. $200 a year is squarely in the middle. How Much Do Board Gamers Actually Spend Per Year? looks at those numbers in more detail.

The only difference between the groups is coordination.

• The Maples each buy what they like, when they like it. They do not check each other’s shelves. When a game is a hit at game night, two or three of them buy it that week.
• The Oaks pooled their shelves in month one, agreed out loud that they would buy one copy per group, and assigned lanes: strategy, party, co-op, and two-player plus filler. Expansions go to whoever owns the base game.

Year one: what each group buys

In year one, both groups buy twenty games. Here is how it might play out.

The Maples, year one

The Maples play Catan at the first game night and it is a hit. Three of them buy it within a month. Codenames goes the same way a few weeks later: two copies. Pandemic: two copies. Then each person rounds out their own shelf with a few picks that feel personal.

Twenty purchases. Count the distinct titles: Catan, Codenames, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, Azul, Wingspan, Splendor, Carcassonne, Sushi Go!, Love Letter. Ten games. Ten duplicate copies.

The Oaks, year one

The Oaks buy twenty games too, but every purchase lands in a lane and nobody buys what the group already has.

Twenty purchases. Twenty distinct games. Zero duplicates.

Year two: the gap widens

Year two is where the two habits really separate, because the Maples’ duplicates do not just cost money. They cost shelf space and attention. By the end of year one, each Maple has a shelf that looks a lot like the others’, and each one is a little less excited to buy more of the same.

The Maples, year two

Some Maples slow down. A few buy games they saw online and never bring to the group. Two of them buy Wingspan expansions for their own copies, so the group now owns two expanded Wingspans, one of which never leaves its owner’s house. Rough tally for year two:

• Seven new distinct titles across the group (illustration: Dominion, Root, The Crew, Just One, Patchwork, Splendor expansion, a Wingspan expansion).
• Six more duplicate base games, because three people bought Dominion after one good night and two bought Root.
• Seven purchases that were duplicates of expansions or games bought solo and never played at the group table.

The Oaks, year two

The Oaks keep buying in lanes. At the first birthday of the year, three of them chip in on a $100 campaign game, Gloomhaven, that goes to the strategy owner’s house because that is where the big games live. Expansions for Wingspan, Pandemic, and Spirit Island arrive as gifts to the lane owners. The rest of the budget fills gaps the group noticed: a second-tier party game that works at five, a two-player war game, two more fillers.

• Fourteen new distinct base games.
• Four expansions, each to the owner of the base game.
• One group-funded campaign game.
• Zero duplicates.

What each shelf looks like after two years

Here is the comparison that matters, with the same $1,600 spent by each group.

The Maples spent about $640, or 40% of their two-year budget, on games the group already owned. The Oaks spent that same $640 on sixteen additional distinct games. Same money, double the library.

The distinct-game count is only half the story. Look at the bottom three rows. The Maples have one party game for a big night, two co-ops, and two two-player games, and all of them are the obvious hits. The Oaks have real choice in every lane, because each lane owner kept buying after the first obvious pick.

What game night looks like for each group

Numbers on a shelf are abstract. Here is what the two groups’ nights look like in year two.

A Maples night. Four people arrive. Someone suggests Catan. Someone else suggests Wingspan. Those are the two games everyone owns, so those are the two games that always get suggested. They play Catan. A fifth friend shows up unexpectedly and the group realizes it has nothing good for five that is not Codenames. They play Codenames, which they have played a lot. It is a fine night. It is also the same night as last time.

An Oaks night. Four people arrive. The strategy owner brought Terraforming Mars because the group has been meaning to try it. The co-op owner brought The Crew as an opener while people get drinks. A fifth friend shows up, so the party owner pulls out Wavelength, which plays great at five. Two people leave early; the remaining three play Jaipur and Hive while the host cleans up. Nothing on the table tonight was on the table two weeks ago.

An Oaks night when someone is away. The party owner is out of town, so the group has no big party game tonight. They notice, they play a co-op instead, and the next day someone adds “second party game that is not at Oak 2’s place” to the group wishlist. This is the only real cost of the Oaks’ approach, and it is the subject of The Shared Shelf Social Contract.

What the Maples could do next

The Maples are not a cautionary tale. They are most groups. Their fix is cheap and takes a week:

1. Pool the shelves in the group chat and count the duplicates. Sixteen extra copies at about $40 is a number nobody will argue with.
2. Say the One Copy Rule out loud.
3. Trade or sell the spare copies. Trading and Selling Board Games You Don’t Play covers how.
4. Assign lanes with the games they already have, then point the next purchases at the empty lanes. Claim a Lane walks through it.

The duplicates they already own are sunk cost. The next $800 is not.

The point of the case study

Two groups, same money, same two years. One ends up with seventeen games and sixteen spare boxes. The other ends up with thirty-four games, four expansions, and a campaign. The difference was not budget, taste, or luck. It was one conversation in month one.

The game is the reason. The people are the point.

FAQ

How much should a board game group spend per year?

There is no right number, but about $200 per person per year is squarely in the middle of what most players report spending. What matters more than the amount is coordination. A four-person group spending $200 each can build a library of thirty-plus distinct games in two years if it avoids duplicates, or half that if everyone buys the same hits.

How many board games can four friends collect in two years?

At roughly five $40 games per person per year, four friends make about forty purchases in two years. If they coordinate under the One Copy Rule and assign lanes, nearly all forty are distinct titles plus a few expansions. If they buy independently, duplicates of the group’s favorites can eat 40% of that total.

What is the biggest waste of money in a board game collection?

Duplicate copies within the same play group. When four friends each buy the game they loved at last week’s game night, the group pays four times the price for zero extra plays. Unplayed games on the Shelf of Shame are the other big one, and duplicates often become exactly that.

Is it better for friends to share board games or own their own?

For games you play with the same group, sharing wins clearly: one copy serves everyone at the table, and the money saved buys more distinct games. Owning your own copy makes sense only when it creates plays the shared copy cannot, such as a family copy at home or a second play group in another city.

More from The Shared Shelf

• The One Copy Rule: Why Your Play Group Only Needs One Catan
• Claim a Lane: How Four Friends Build a 20-Game Library
• How to Audit Your Group’s Game Shelf (With a Template)
• How Much Do Board Gamers Actually Spend Per Year?
• Trading and Selling Board Games You Don’t Play

The Ludarium newsletter carries the rest of The Shared Shelf series. Subscribe and the next article comes to you.