Purple Parlay—Game Inserts

6 Comments

1. Clayton on 15.02.2011 at 16:48

   If I find that the insert does the job, I leave it. If not, I throw it away. For instance, I found that part of the Small World insert worked nicely (the part that holds the races), but other parts of it was junk. So I threw out the junk and kept the rest.

   I keep the cardboard templates for my 2-yr-old to play with for a couple of days. Then they go in the recycling bin. I’m not sure what the point of keeping them would be.

2. Alex on 16.02.2011 at 07:27

   On paper it seems like a good idea to keep things like the plastic inserts that hold miniatures (for games that have them); but, in reality especially for those with lots of mini’s just trying to find which mini goes in which spot can be painful. And wrestling them back in to those inserts might cause more harm than good.

   Best to just trash. It’s something I’ve been trying to do in general life as well. I’m not a pack-rat by any means but am probably guilty of hanging on to more than needed.

3. Dave Leach on 16.02.2011 at 11:17

   I’ve really started getting frustrated with game packaging over the past six months. Last fall I moved in with my girlfriend, trading a 900 sqft apartment with one occupant for a 600 sqft condo with two. Needless to say a lot of downsizing has been going on, and pretty much all for the better.

   Because we have so little storage, I’ve challenged myself to keep my entire game collection in one cabinet of our entertainment center. Now, while I don’t have nearly the collection of some of my gaming buddies, we’re still talking at least fifty games of various shapes and sizes. Almost all of the boxes are bloated beyond the size they should be, some of them egregiously so.

   The worst offender lately has been Havana. I just measured the box: it runs 11.5 in x 11.5 in x 2 in. Without much creativity, I’m able to compress the game materials down to take up only 8 in x 4 in of the box, a savings of over 75%.

   I’ve heard it theorized that game manufacturers believe that can get a higher price for games in larger boxes, and that may well be the case. Still, I’d like to think of game hobbyists as savvier consumers, and while I may be an extreme example most of us could use more space to house our libraries.

   One last thought: I purchased a webcam from Amazon as a gift some months back. When it arrived, it came in a plain unshrunk white cardboard box. At first I thought I’d been given a used or refurbished camera instead of one that was new. When I opened the box, however, I found a note explaining that the webcam was indeed new and that the manufacturer had started supplying no-frills packaging to online merchants as a cost-saving measure. As more of the game market moves online, perhaps game publishers will take the opportunity to make their packaging more practical.

4. Eric on 17.02.2011 at 13:04

   Game designers need to big-box their games so they look prominent on LGS shelves. Just like with grocery stores, product placement (shelf placement) is a HUGE factor in sales. Sure, the size doesn’t mean anything when you’re selling these games through the internet, but when you’re selling these at a game store, you want your box to stand out and be looked at along with the other boxes. Bohnanza Bohnaparte won’t be picked up like a Stone Age box.

5. felix on 18.02.2011 at 00:19

   I usually keep the insets, and often i keep the cardboard templates, too.

   Why the templates?

   Often you can put the templates **under** the insets and as a result have a box that perfectly closes again and which you can put vertical without all the chits etc. leaving the insets.

   Big box/inset/high price- highlight so far: Runewars. Ridiculous packaging for that price (gone are inset and templates).

   –f

6. David on 19.02.2011 at 08:21

   I will agree that the box size is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I hate it when you can shake a sealed box and hear the bits jumbling around inside.

   I also was part of the, save the inserts cause they may be useful one day, crowd. The day never came and like you, I finally got tired of removing the inserts one too many times. Now I almost always throw them away unless I can find a use for them right then and there.

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