I don’t have the space to have anything except a very lean collection of board games much less any other physical object in my life so I default to borrowing whenever possible on all things, and return the thing better than I received it and with a lagniappe for the favor. My friends know this.

Depends, if it’s a friend I play with often I just let them own it. If it’s an acquaintance or a friend who doesn’t play board games so often I’ll usually grab it for myself. Or if it has lots of cool xpacs and they have none lol

In those cases, I buy it if I really, really like it, if there isn’t anything similar in my collection, or if I think I can get it played outside the group that there’s a copy floating around in. Usually takes a combination of those three factors, as I try to keep a lean collection since I’ve got friend who seem to own just about everything.

We are 99% 2p so if I want to play it I pretty much have to buy it.

Naturally I spend a lot of time researching before I buy. Having a good digital implementation (especially on BGA or Yucata) is extremely helpful and it’s probably the best way to sell me a game.

I was in a situation in the early 00s when money was even tighter than it is now. And I had a good friend that collected games and would get a lot of games. And I would buy fewer games and more rarely, since I was so broke at the time. And I’d bring them and we’d play them and he’d like them and he’d immediately buy the same games. And I’d think “if he was gonna buy a copy anyway, why did I buy one? I could’ve saved that money.”

💸

To answer your question: have as few games as possible and have a situation or group in mind for every game. “Here’s one I can play with my boyfriend, here’s one for work lunch, here’s one that I think mom likes” and maybe that can be it. If you have friends with games they are probably aching to get those games to the table and if they’re happy to play them with you, that’s great.