That being said, let’s imagine for a minute that you’re hanging out on TGG and thinking to yourself, “Boy! I like what the gang is doing here! I wish there was some way to show my appreciation and send a few bucks along.”
As I pointed out we’re imagining here people!
If you ever feel that you’re in the mood to make a donation we’re going to ask you to make one. But not to us! What we’d like to ask for you to do is take a moment to look at your game shelf, glance in your closet, or peek under your bed and find one (or two) games that are collecting a bunch of dust. Then take that game and donate to someplace where it will not only get to see the light of day again but, more importantly, spread some fun!
If you happen to have some unwanted children’s or family games call your local children’s hospital and ask how you can make a donation. Get some of your gaming friends together and put together a small collection and that way you can save on gas money and make one drop off trip. If you find that the games are probably more suited for an older audience take them to a local veteran’s hospital, or pensioner’s home, or any other group environment that could use not only the enjoyment but the mental stimulation that comes with gaming.
Doctors recommend playing games for diverse conditions ranging from alleviating depression, treating autism, all the way to preventing the early onset of Alzheimer’s – just to name a few. Who knows just what that little game that couldn’t, in your own home, can do in the hands of someone else? Anyone care to find out?
Of course we’re not proposing you go and donate your most loved or newest games nor do we think our idea is anything revolutionary. But it’s pretty obvious that all of us have at least a game or two that, for whatever reason, is tucked away and will honestly only hit our gaming tables a couple times over the next few years. It isn’t as if we’re going to rake in the bucks selling it on eBay and our hopes are only that somehow, somewhere, someone might want to trade for it on BoardGameGeek. Wouldn’t you be better served freeing one of the titles from your very own “Island of Misfit Toys”?
So if you ever find yourself here on The Gaming Gang, digging what we do and what we’re all about, and you’d like to donate please take our advice. Do something other than spreading a little wealth.
Spread some love!
That’s the best donation we could ever hope to ask for and receive!
That's a great idea. I hold on to a bunch of stuff probably way longer than I ought to, simply because I'm hoping to find someone willing to trade for it. I've had two in-shrink copies of Pecking Order for like 2 or 3 years now, among various other things. Problem is, most of the stuff I pick up that I don't plan to play is stuff that I'm only picking up to cannibalize for parts.
There probably are a few stinkers in my closet I could stand to clear out. [I'm moving from family Euro-gamer to heavy gamer–Age of Steam, Roads & Boats, Magic Realm–and probably have a bunch of lightweight games I'll never play again, including a near complete pre-catapult Carcassonne collection and the like.] Your idea has merit, and I'll consider it.
By the way, your site layout is incredible. A little tweaking could stand to be done, but the use of white-space is welcoming, the menu system makes sense, and ideas rather than ads take center stage. THIS is what BGG needs to start looking like, but I suspect additional tweaks would be needed to move this type of system from a game-group site to a gamer-community site.
Still, fantastic work. Y'all are too kind in your reviews to games that I think outright suck [8 out of 10 for Infinite City… AHAHAHAHAHAHA ROFLCOPTER], but perhaps I'll check in to see if I find any kindred spirits among your contributers. I certainly don't find any over at BoardGameNews. They come off extremely clique-ish, and it always seems like they're lording they're "superior game knowledge" [TM] over you.
I have to point out that our reviews are set as more of a bell curve than anything else; you'll find most games we'll review are going to fall somewhere between a five and an eight on our grading scale. Granted I probably wouldn't have given Infinite City the same grade as Elliott did, but it was his game to review. Everyone has a different view of various games and we never claim to be experts. I can guarantee that we'll always share our honest thoughts though.
You certainly won't find us claiming to be gurus of gaming. No one is ever going to be an expert regarding games. It doesn't matter if someone has a thousands games or designed a thousand games, no one knows all there is about games or why we play.