Friday Night Shots – Game Clearance Sales & “Mystery Boxes”

Hey there, welcome back to the bar!

I’m feeling much better, thank you. Not 100%, but better.

At least up for writing and meeting with you!

Let me pour you a drink of whatever you prefer and have a seat. I’ll turn the music down (Can’t really talk over Gloria Gaynor now, can we?)

Many thanks to those of you last week who gave me some possible topic ideas for future Friday Night Shots posts, but this one actually occurred to me this week!

So I’ll keep those in my back pocket for the future.

Let’s talk about board game publisher “mystery boxes” and online retailer clearance sales.

The clearance sale item is probably more about US/Canadian online retailers, mainly because I don’t know anything about them from other countries.

Maybe they’re the same?

Let me know if that’s true!

Anyway, this post was prompted by this post on Boardgame Geek about Mayday/Sleeve Kings offering a “Mystery Box” of boardgames for sale.

Yeah, I don’t know.

Supposedly it’s a $50 box that has “$200 value” in it.

What a deal!

Of course, it comes out later that the $200 is MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggest Retail Price, I think?).

The games will apparently be a mix of old and new, and be from different publishers

Those games aren’t selling for $200 now, I’ll bet. Even

Maybe the “new” one, but I doubt there will be more than one new game.

How many games with a $60 MSRP are selling at clearance shops for $15?

Or something similar to that, anyway.

It seems to me (and many people on that thread as well) that this is just a way to get rid of a lot of their overstock that’s taking up warehouse space and which they can’t sell.

Let’s take a look at Miniature Market, one of the big online game retailers in the US.

Hey look! They’re offering Operation Kindergarten on clearance for $11.

Its MSRP is $55. That’s a quarter of the Mystery Box supposed value!

And who would want that game?

(I’m not saying that Operation Kindergarten is in the Mayfair Mystery Box, of course, though if it is, I should probably guess the next lottery numbers. I’m saying that this is the type of thing that happens with many of these Mystery Boxes).

The other issue with Mystery Boxes?

How particular we gamers can be.

Alderac Entertainment Group recently had a massive sale on stuff, which also included a Mystery Box for $40.

The mystery games ended up being the following:

Waffle Time (unreleased game)

Shake That City (recent Kickstarter)

Number Drop

Love Letter: Adventure Time (they’ve lost the license to Love Letter, I think? So they can’t actually sell it outright, but including it in a Mystery Box is fine!)

That’s actually great value! Two new games that definitely would sell for more than $40 plus the other two.

But then you run into that picky gamer problem.

Are these games that you would want to play?

Some people sold all four games. Maybe they made a profit, maybe just got their money back, but they had to spend the time to do that.

Personally?

I would probably enjoy (or at least like trying) Waffle Time and Shake That City.

Maybe I wouldn’t like them that much, or maybe I would, but they look interesting.

I disagree with one poster in the “Mystery Box” thread linked above, who said:

“People in the AEG thread were falling over themselves to say what a great deal they got. I’d bet my house that 99% of those people wouldn’t have otherwise bought any of the games in their box. Just post-purchase justification.”

I wouldn’t say that was 99% and post-purchase justification.

I would say some people may be doing that, but for me, this would be a case of “I probably wouldn’t have paid full price for these without playing first, but I wouldn’t have minded trying them. And I’m glad I did.”

Or maybe not.

I do agree with his final statement, though:

“It’s pretty simple. Buy the exact games you want and you’ll never wonder what you’re getting.”

If you are a particular gamer, that’s definitely good advice.

So Mystery Boxes are…a mystery! If you are particular, don’t try them! And beware of many Mystery Box offers, as you may be getting a lot of trash.

Which brings me to online retailers clearance sales, first mentioned above with regards to Miniature Market.

I learned early in my gaming life (sadly not early enough) that you have to be careful with clearance sales.

You have to do your due diligence!

There’s usually a reason that it’s on clearance and being sold ultra-cheap.

I don’t know how many games I bought from the Miniature Market clearance “rack” that sounded interesting but ultimately were terrible.

You have to do your research and know what type of games you really want.

I did get lucky, getting both Trains and the Rising Sun expansion for cheap on their clearance list.

Sure, I haven’t played them for years, but I did play them and enjoy them a few times, and I wouldn’t mind playing them again!

Sometimes good games just don’t catch on and they do end up being massively overstocked (or sometimes publishers print a lot more than they were able to sell).

For the most part, though?

They were games like Road Kill Rally, which ended up looking really terrible after I got it.

Not only that, one of the pieces was broken, and Z-Man of course couldn’t replace it because it was an ancient game (yes, 2010 is ancient).

What also amuses me about these clearance sections of these stores is how they begin with really minor discounts and then they cascade over time as they can’t get rid of them.

Hell, Boardgame Bliss in Canada has some clearance items that have a whole whopping 7% discount to start!

Now that I’m much more experienced and not falling for this stuff, I have to laugh sometimes.

I definitely wasted some time and money on these games.

This all may not make a whole lot of sense (I’m still not 100% and…well, it is a Friday Night Shot), but it is something to think about when you’re buying games.

Have you ever bought a “Mystery Box?” Were you satisfied?

What do you think of all this? And please keep it to yourself if that thought is “Dave, you’re an idiot.”

Happy weekend!

(This post brought to you by Crown Royal whiskey, the number 1064, and the letter Ç)