It is often said that the crowdfunding campaigns for modern board games run on FOMO, the fear of missing out. Unlike video games, of which Steam can produce an unlimited number of copies, board games tend to have print runs, and some games might only get printed in a single print run of a few thousand copies. Thus it happened to me that I heard of a board game that is supposedly great, but either I can't buy it anywhere, or I can only find it on eBay for some outrageous price that isn't worth it for me.

But curiously print runs can also work in my favor. I just ordered a board game printed 5 years ago, and I got it at such a big discount that I bought the much nicer looking deluxe edition for the previous price of the standard edition. Probably they printed too many of the deluxe version, and didn't manage to sell them. And as board games, unlike video games, take up storage space, companies are even more willing to sell you unwanted inventory at a nice discount.

That also works at a personal level. A board game collection takes up a lot of shelf space. Fortunately I now have a board game room, with a bespoke board game shelf from wall to wall, which isn't full yet. But many board gamers resell their older board games, for reasons of space, or to get some money back. If you bought a board game, played it only a few times, and it turned out to not have been the best fit for you and your group, you might well want to sell it. There are specialized shops for used board games. I just picked up a couple of older games in shop I just found, used but complete, for about half of their original price.

There is an evolution in board games, sometimes older games actually *feel* old, in spite of not having the graphics evolution of video games. But other board games age quite well. And games from let's say 5 years ago are often just forgotten due to the flood of newer games, rather than being actually outdated. With a bit of knowledge, one can sometimes find real treasures in a used games shop.