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WTB: Tsuro

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14 Jun 2022 18:02 #333704 by Msample
Replied by Msample on topic WTB: Tsuro
Yeah the cries that these high end games will destroy the low to mid range market are ridiculous. Arguably they could been seen as subsidizing lower end products due to higher margins on high end stuff.
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14 Jun 2022 18:08 #333705 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic WTB: Tsuro

sornars wrote: My read on these reactions is that there’s a fear that the center of gravity of this hobby is shifting from the working/middle class to the upper middle class and that change is what’s pissing people off.


I think that is a key insight. I remember in the early days of F:AT when some of us flinched at $80.00 board games. I don't remember with certainty how much I paid for my first hobby board game in the mid-'80s, but it might have been $8.00 for a pocket game like Kung Fu 2100. And I still have Kung Fu 2100, and even played it a few times in the last decade. Now we are no longer fazed by games priced over $100, as long as there is sizeable number of plastic figures in the box. It's no biggie to some of us, because we earn a lot more money now than we did in the '80s. But many of us got into this hobby at a young age, and now a fair number of people at that same age are priced out of the hobby.

The same thing happened to comic books, where prices in my lifetime went from $0.20 to $4.00 per issue, and the comics got smaller in all three dimensions. This has had the dramatic effect of preventing most kids from enjoying comics while the fan base gets older and older. Speaking of which, I get the impression that the regulars at this site skew fairly old. I'm 56. If this hobby becomes so expensive that people are priced out until their 30s, it will eventually shrink the whole hobby.
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14 Jun 2022 19:27 #333707 by Erik Twice
Replied by Erik Twice on topic WTB: Tsuro
For me the core of the issue is that most copies of Tsuro Deluxe are just going to end up gathering dust on a shelf.

The guy who truly loves Tsuro is bandied as an example of a righteous customer, but he's mostly hypothethical. Tsuro is a terrible game that holds very little interest to any one interested in actually playing. Rather, our honest fan is outnumbered by hordes of gamers who don't actually play games, but whose main interest in the hobby takes the form of buying. They deny their own existance, of course, and claim they are truly interested in yet another 500€ Kickstarter purchase, but their actions show that their interest begins with the marketing announcement and ends when the game ships.

I've met quite a few guys who seem to have no shortage of reasons to justify their purchases. The price is right, the box is massive, the game is great, it comes with branded poker chips and even has a list of exclusive additional scenarios doubling their amount from fifty to one hundred. And yet, all these reasons seem to hold no weight when the game actually gets there. Suddenly, they are not interested in playing and all those handy components never go outside of the box. Rather, they now have another new game they are more interested in and which is truly the best purchase.

I have no beef with anyone who truly enjoys Tsuro or Marvel United or their wall of Funko Pops. I may think they have poor taste, but if it makes them happy then I support them in their endeavours. But this is not it. This is just the hobby of buying masquerading as actual gaming interest. And since I love gaming and I find it artistically important, it does bother me when people reduce its value to buying. The boardgame establishment rarely stands for much but, suddenly, it's willing to die on the hill of defending Tsuro from criticism. Because there's no horde of angry gatekeepers who want to ban it, we are simply saying it's dumb and horribly expensive.

And it's not like these "consoomers", as the internet derides them, are dumb or evil. Most truly believe that buying a game they won't see for the next 2.5 years will make them happier. That they will bring that new indie RPG to the table and have a lot of fun. How can they believe otherwise? All the people "in the know" tell them that's truly the case. Happiness is always a purchase, or two, away. And since truly enjoying games is hard and requires a group with willing participants, it's often easier to buy than to enjoy games to the fullest.

Even then, you can get incredible sets of Chess, Go and Shogi for half of the price. True works of art, made of quality wood and with a timeless, artistic relevant design. Comparing them to resin tiles, fake Chinese aesthethics and Tsuro's awful mechanics because both have a "right to exist" just washes over the actual question which is why they exist and, above all, why do you actually buy them. Do you really enjoy Tsuro so much? Or are you being mislead to believe you do? To me, that's the better question.
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14 Jun 2022 19:31 #333708 by Sagrilarus
Replied by Sagrilarus on topic WTB: Tsuro
The entire hobby has moved away from playing. I’d wager most people buying into this Tsuro build are already done with the game. This is just about ownership.

They’ll pull it out to look at on their gaming table while sitting in their gaming chair and wearing their gaming pants.

Your money, spend it how you want. I don’t care, I have plenty of good games already.

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14 Jun 2022 19:34 #333709 by Erik Twice
Replied by Erik Twice on topic WTB: Tsuro

sornars wrote: My read on these reactions is that there’s a fear that the center of gravity of this hobby is shifting from the working/middle class to the upper middle class and that change is what’s pissing people off.

That's probably true. Personally, and while I'm in the "Anti-Tsuro" camp, I don't find most economic arguments convincing. For example, I think several versions of the same game, aimed at differences audiences and with different prices, are more likely outcome than the bottom end being replaced by luxury titles.
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15 Jun 2022 01:00 #333715 by ratpfink
Replied by ratpfink on topic WTB: Tsuro

Erik Twice wrote: Do you really enjoy Tsuro so much? Or are you being mislead to believe you do? To me, that's the better question.

But it's not that good of a question until you can make a 30 minute youtube video explaining your 30 second answer.
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15 Jun 2022 07:42 #333720 by Legomancer
Replied by Legomancer on topic WTB: Tsuro
I posted on BGG:

To reiterate, very few people I've seen are angry about this, an even fewer (approaching nil) have said it shouldn't exist. Those are statements made by people who are reacting to what is actually going on -- people making fun of this -- as though that's the equivalent of storming the castle with torches and pitchforks.

Yeah, a lot of people on Twitter, and possibly elsewhere, have said this is a dumb idea and made fun. Me included, but only because I think it's a dumb idea that should be made fun of.

Big deal! My clownery, even when combined with the sum total of clownery from elsewhere, affects nothing. The KS exists, and has made its funding. People have pledged, and will presumably receive what they bought. It will exist as much as they want it to. Absolutely nothing has changed or will change.

This is America, where you have a right granted by God and Founding Fathers to spend as much as you want on any dumbass thing your heart desires, and all the LOLs in the world can't take that away from you.

But yeah, people can and will make fun. People can and will think it's a dumb waste of effort and money. No one's obligated to agree it's a super cool collectible worth owning that makes you handsome and smart. And you can and should just tell them to get bent.

I personally don't like this stuff and feel there's some tangible harm in it, but I think there's tangible harm all over the boardgame hobby and nerd "culture" in general where it comes to consumption and production. I'll probably rail against it futilely until someone beats me to death with a Funko Pop. It won't change anything because there are a lot more people waving wallets.

So relax, no one's taking away your precious stuff or keeping you from getting the things you want.
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15 Jun 2022 08:09 #333723 by fightcitymayor
Replied by fightcitymayor on topic WTB: Tsuro

Sagrilarus wrote: The entire hobby has moved away from playing. I’d wager most people buying into this Tsuro build are already done with the game. This is just about ownership.

They’ll pull it out to look at on their gaming table while sitting in their gaming chair and wearing their gaming pants.

My favorite manifestation of this is how the Hot Deals forum at BGG is now almost purely about consumer trophy-hunting. Once it may have been about "Hey, that game I wanted to try is cheap right now," but now it's all just a bunch of middle-aged dudes sitting around waiting for someone to declare "ALL TIME TRIPLE CAMEL LOW PRICE!!!!" so they can wander into the jungle (click an OLGS link), bag the big game (click the PayPal link), then mount the shiny trophy head on their wall (toss the box on a shelf.) Then in a week they can gaze upon the trophy head and remember the great time they had being a consumer. "I paid five dollars below Amazon's all-time-low price for this mediocre-to-terrible game I'll never play, I am clearly a winner at the game of life!!!!!!!!!!" The glory is the hunt, and the hunt is super dumb.
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15 Jun 2022 09:36 #333730 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic WTB: Tsuro

Sagrilarus wrote: The entire hobby has moved away from playing. I’d wager most people buying into this Tsuro build are already done with the game. This is just about ownership.

They’ll pull it out to look at on their gaming table while sitting in their gaming chair and wearing their gaming pants.

Your money, spend it how you want. I don’t care, I have plenty of good games already.


Some of us still get together to play the games. The rest are more like this:

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15 Jun 2022 12:05 - 15 Jun 2022 21:18 #333733 by ubarose
Replied by ubarose on topic WTB: Tsuro
I think the thing that people are missing is that hobby gamers aren’t the target market for this. The target market is people who shop for gifts at Barnes & Nobel, and other “we are smart and read books and buy Mensa select games and educational toys” type stores.

Tsuro kind of bombed with hobby gamers, but it found a market via Barnes & Nobel, and those sorts of outlets. So this is more like a collectors edition of Othello, Pente, or Quirkle, than it is of War of the Ring.
Last edit: 15 Jun 2022 21:18 by ubarose.
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15 Jun 2022 18:36 #333737 by Virabhadra
Replied by Virabhadra on topic WTB: Tsuro
The Barnes & Noble observation is spot on. The first thing that jumped to mind when I saw this was that Dread Pirate game by Front Porch Classics.
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16 Jun 2022 18:46 #333753 by cdennett
Replied by cdennett on topic WTB: Tsuro

Sagrilarus wrote:

ubarose wrote: If someone wants to create the Snuggie, and a manufacturer has the means and desire to bring the Snuggie to market, and people want to buy the Snuggie, they have the right and freedom to do so, and the Snuggie should exist.


Except in Texas.

Hey, so long as the Snuggie is heteronormative, we've got no issue.
:pinch:
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17 Jun 2022 08:04 #333760 by Legomancer
Replied by Legomancer on topic WTB: Tsuro
Incidentally, I tweeted this the other day:

me: a $500 copy of Tsuro is a waste of money
BGG: how dare you tell people how to spend their own money!
me: I have no problem paying more than new to buy a used game
BGG: fool! you are a money fool!
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17 Jun 2022 09:58 #333765 by ubarose
Replied by ubarose on topic WTB: Tsuro

Virabhadra wrote: The Barnes & Noble observation is spot on. The first thing that jumped to mind when I saw this was that Dread Pirate game by Front Porch Classics.


It made me think of the fancy sets of Senet and Hnefatafl that they sell for $300-$500 in museum gift shops and the gift catalogs on planes.
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22 Jun 2022 12:30 #333852 by Cranberries
Replied by Cranberries on topic WTB: Tsuro

ubarose wrote:

Virabhadra wrote: The Barnes & Noble observation is spot on. The first thing that jumped to mind when I saw this was that Dread Pirate game by Front Porch Classics.


It made me think of the fancy sets of Senet and Hnefatafl that they sell for $300-$500 in museum gift shops and the gift catalogs on planes.


Having recently gone on vacation to DC with my family, I noticed the conspicuous absence of plane catalogs. Fortunately, the airports were filled with people wearing the weird travel clothes of the very wealthy, which more than made up for it. Also, there are tons of bricks and mortar stores with expensive stuff in the terminals, so I suppose that makes up for it. I think of airports as marketing funnels, with flying as an afterthought.
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