Where are your games? Displayed?

I'm jealous of all the space people seem to have available to them. I really wish that was an option for us. A two bedroom condo just isn't enough space for a family. We make it work and I like the look (clean, spartan design for home living looks so dull to me) but more room would really make my wife happier.... and I want a home studio.

All of these concerns can be avoided by only socializing with other gamers.

My games are all safely tucked away in the basement - with the notable exception of my 18" floor standing go board, which I do have proudly displayed in my living room. But that's more of a piece of furniture.

I am a cat named 'Scissors' living in a basement and riding out the zombie apocalypse. what are these games you speak of? I am 5.

Space Ghost wrote: Mine are in the unfinished part of the basement, along with my table saw, lawnmower, and other things on shelves that came from the Repoman Collection. I don't display them for the same reason that I don't display my baseball bat, fishing gear, golf clubs, etc -- they are hobby items that don't really have a place as part of the permanent furniture in out house. They can't be organized in a seemingly matter and just give the feeling of clutter. It is the same reason my wife has her sewing materials and dress forms in a closet and not by the couch.

As a kid, we always kept our games either in the closet or under the bed. I had a huge under the stairs closet that I could fit a shitload of games in. I feel differently about books, which we have on bookshelves in the downstairs living room; I'm sure this is a holdover from being a kid and having the "encyclopedia britannica" prominently displayed in our house. However, I can't abide by creased paperback spines; whenever that happens, the book hits the road so I don't have to stare at its white creasing from the couch. I don't want to feel like Sanford and Son.

I sort of understand this thought about games being a hobby item not furniture, and they do have to be kept neat, but how does a displayed game collection differ from a displayed film or music collection?

Bull Nakano wrote: I sort of understand this thought about games being a hobby item not furniture, and they do have to be kept neat, but how does a displayed game collection differ from a displayed film or music collection?

Games are a lesser art form. It would be less like a normal film collection on display and more like your porn collection being on display.

JonJacob wrote:

Bull Nakano wrote: I sort of understand this thought about games being a hobby item not furniture, and they do have to be kept neat, but how does a displayed game collection differ from a displayed film or music collection?

Games are a lesser art form. It would be less like a normal film collection on display and more like your porn collection being on display.

In general, they're not "lesser art". you can compare a specific board game to a specific film and claim to quantify their artistic merits, but as a medium they're not lesser, though they are different.

Tabletop games are more about craft than production. A film, book, movie has a strong edge in evoking the emotional response it wants to out of you. Games have a tougher time, they're harder to admire because they're so new a form, they can easily inspire joy because many people going into a game expect joy, there are several other feelings games can offer, but they're more akin to furniture (ironic) than film. You can admire the craft and have a seat and experiance what the craftsperson intended you to feel, but it'll often be somewhere on a binary scale of comfort/discomfort.

My question was not posed to create an argument about the artistic merits of board games. If my film collection is full of 80's Italian slasher films, it's still a film collection, if your board game collection is 9 different themes on Monopoly, it's still a board game collection.

The original comparison to sports equipment didn't work for me because those are not things you do indoors, where board games happen almost exclusively indoors.

Loosely, board games, film, music, are all forms of entertainment, and I'm asking why the others are more presentable while board games are "hobby items".

Bull Nakano wrote: ]In general, they're not "lesser art". you can compare a specific board game to a specific film and claim to quantify their artistic merits, but as a medium they're not lesser, though they are different.

Don't make me add winkie faced icons to my posts... I won't do it, you can't make me!!

Seriously though, it's worse than porn even, snuff films on display is what it is.

For me, I would classify movie and music the same and not have a collection on display.

JonJacob wrote:

Bull Nakano wrote: ]In general, they're not "lesser art". you can compare a specific board game to a specific film and claim to quantify their artistic merits, but as a medium they're not lesser, though they are different.

Don't make me add winkie faced icons to my posts... I won't do it, you can't make me!!

Seriously though, it's worse than porn even, snuff films on display is what it is.

There are many games I'd rather watch legitimate snuff over playing.

Michael Barnes wrote: I hide my games because they do not represent me or my family, and our living spaces should represent both me and my family. I do not enforce my hobbies on my family, even though my kids like games. I do have a couple of their games out, like Jeff said, because they're in view and accessible for them.

We have no "nerd" artwork or posters up. If you want to make your adult home look like a dorm room, a good way to do that is to put up nerd posters. I'm much happier (and prouder) of our Jackson Pollack print from his first show at MOMA and some original animal artwork that a local artist did for us.

The bottom line for me is that displaying all the nerd stuff is awesome when you're unmarried, living in an apartment, have the guys over to drink and watch shitty movies or whatever...but it's a matter of personal taste too, and if you're cool with that when you're 150 years old or whatever then that's your thing. But it is subject to Barnes' Patented Arbitration of What is Good and Bad.

Barnes, I think you raised some great points, and also moved this topic towards broader questions that interest me, especially with the paragraphs I quoted above. Questions, for you or anybody else willing to tackle them:

Is your home decorated in a way that expresses your interests and personality? How so?

Should people be ashamed of nerd culture? Why? Is mainstream culture better? In what ways?

Has nerd culture become more mainstream in the last 20 years? To what degree?

What kind of people do you welcome into your home on a regular basis? Extended family, most likely, but what about friends? Friends that share your interests? Friends that don't share your interests? Neighbors? Co-workers? More to the point, to what degree do you feel the need to conceal your interests from the people that you invite into your home? Why?

I'm not asking these questions to make a specific point, I'm just thinking about these issues myself. I finally bought a house in October of 2011, but I haven't really decorated it yet. In part, I have been reluctant to go to the trouble of fully unpacking and decorating, because within 60 days of buying, it became apparent that my job was at risk. And the whole company finally folded last fall and I have been unemployed ever since. And I put off the whole housewarming party thing for too long, because I was waiting for my girlfriend to finish getting her two degrees and then move in with me. So just a few family members have been in my house, and then a bunch of friends and gamers.