Coping With Board Game Burnout (or, Board Game Viagra)

Your board game shelf is packed, your wishlist is growing, and somehow you feel less excited to play than ever. We’re right there with you. Clayton and Travis sit down for an honest talk about board game burnout and why tabletop gaming can quietly turn into a second job when you’re the one scheduling game night, learning rules, setting up, and teaching every time.

We dig into what’s really behind the slump: big life changes, limited energy, the “shelf of shame” guilt, and the pressure to introduce games perfectly. We also react to a great burnout checklist from the board game community, hitting common triggers like overconsumption of content, perfectionism, poor hobby balance, and constant hype from crowdfunding and social feeds. If you’ve ever packed up a game mid-setup or said no to your usual weekly play, you’ll feel seen.

Then we get practical. We talk about low-friction ways to reset your board gaming hobby without quitting: lurking and enjoying board game media, playing an old favorite with zero teach, putting new purchases on pause, and even culling your collection to make the shelf feel lighter. If you want to love board games again, this is a roadmap for meeting the hobby where you are right now.

Subscribe for more tabletop gaming conversations, share this with a friend who’s burned out, and leave a review so more players can find the show. What’s your number one burnout trigger lately?

Transcript

Welcome And Naming The Slump

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Back and better than ever. Well, we're we're feeling a little bit burnt out over here at the moment. Uh joining me in the burnout pile of shame is Clayton Gable. How you doing, Clay?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

You know, just just slumping. I am I'm glad we're in this together, though.

Clayton’s Rut And Why It Hurts

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah. Uh so today we are talking about what to do when you have board game burnout. Something that Clay and I have been kind of struggling with lately. You know, I I did that uh solo over the fence kind of state of the podcast episode a couple, like maybe a month ago, two months ago. And uh, you know, we got some good notes from people. Uh our friend Tay of the show, uh, he wrote and said, like, hey, I you know, take a break, take some time for yourselves, uh, learn to enjoy your hobby again. And that's kind of where we're at. Like, we're we've been playing a lot of games, been talking a lot about a lot about games. We've been talking about board gaming topics week in and week out on this podcast. Um, and you know, we're both feeling a little bit of a slump right now, a little bit of a rut with our board gaming. Uh Clay, what talk talk to me about your rut? Where are you at right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, I don't think we've we've made any secret of it that the last year has been a tumultuous one for all three members of the Operation Game Night crew. Oh, yeah. Um, lots of moves, lots of job changes, lots of family changes, all types of things going on. Um, but yeah, I just the past couple weeks, I've just had on a couple occasions, you know, one night I had viticulture all set up and I got it set up. I was excited to play it with Mary, and then it was just like it was like 8:30, and it's like I really don't feel like playing this right now. It's gonna be late. I don't feel like thinking about it, and I just packed it up.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

And then the other night, you know, we Wime Wednesday has been a staple of Mary and I's relationship for the past several years. Every Wednesday, whatever else is happening, we usually sit down and play a game of some sort. And last wine, I mean, usually that's like the Super Bowl for me. I'm like, all right, this is it. This is the one time Mary's gonna, you know, be down to play a game with me. And you know, the kids got to bed, and she's like, Oh, what are we gonna play? And I was like, I I honestly, I just don't feel like playing a game right now, which was crazy. I was like, I just want to sit and watch TV, and I I it's just a culmination of things, really, right? I mean, board gaming is not the easiest hobby to engage with. It asks a lot of you. Oh, yeah. Um, especially if you're the one that is driving the board gaming all the time, which I think since our group has kind of disintegrated, all of us have had to be the ones that are driving every game night, every game, you learn the rules, you set it up, you have to teach people. And at a certain point of time, when when you when it was all of us together, and you know, you taught some of the games and learned some of the games, and Jared would as well, and it and like everybody was excited and on board about every game, it keeps you going. But when when you're like constantly the one trying to push, push that, even if it goes well, even if you have people that are like generally down to play a game, um, if it's just not their most favorite thing to be doing, it's still eventually you're just like, what am I doing this for?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

You know, like yeah, feels bad to like drag people along every week, like if they're participating in something that you love, but like to have to pull them along every single week is taxing over time, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

And that's just where I've been with it, on top of just a busier family and you know, kids' activity life and everything else going with that, dogs walking into my office, you know, it's just you can't you can't really I can't keep it up. I just can't keep it up. And I I look at my shelf and it instead of being exciting, it's daunting to me. You know, I see these games and I want I'm what I look at what I might want to play. I'm just like I don't know, like maybe flip seven.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I you know get out the very, very small box that you know how to play immediately. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I we have gone on some trips this past year and played games with family, and that's always fun. You pull out all your party games, and they're always a hit. Your magical athletes, your strikes, like that type of stuff gets played a lot. Um even like the small box, like small fjords, got that played a bunch this year. And though, you know, I used to be able to rely on solo gaming to like help energize me a little bit in this this realm. But when that's like your primary option for play right now, which is where we're at, uh playing solo games all the time, just it's hard to open them up and learn them and set them up just for you to play them by yourself and then put them away. Like that's uh like like you are oh, got babies knocking at the door.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, it's just really this is a perfect timing. You know, my wife just opened the door. I heard my kids yelling at each other. My dog came in the room. Your Gwen's got something to say out there.

The Hidden Work Behind Game Night

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, life uh life gets in the way sometimes, for sure. Um, and it's not that there's not great games out there that are exciting and I would love to play someday. It's just like well, you get into these like slumps where the hobby has to take a backseat. I think we're both there right now. Uh, and we, you know, we want to keep Operation Game Act going, of course. Uh, I've enjoyed doing this so much and like meeting all sorts of fun people and having fun discussions and getting cool designers and publishers on here. Like that's been really like helped me engage with board gaming on a different level than I was ever expecting to. Uh, but you know, right now the hobby side of it is having to take a little bit of a back seat. And uh you wanna you want to shout out your your article by uh John Jolie from Shelf Gamer?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, yeah. I you know, as we talked about this, we were, you know, as we usually do the day before we're about to uh record a podcast, we're like, hey, what are we gonna talk about today? And um, I was like, I, you know, I don't really have anything. I uh haven't been playing much, just some basic stuff with the kids or whatever. And Travis, like, yeah, I don't really, you know, maybe I could talk about this thing or that thing. And I was like, maybe we could just talk about being burnt out. And and then I did a little googling and I found an article from who'd you say it was Joel Lee?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Joel Lee from Shelf Gamer, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

And it's a great article about what to do when you're burned out on board games. Um, there's some interesting stuff in here. We're not gonna touch on the whole whole article, but it's not an uncommon thing. I've been through this before for different reasons. I think when I first got into the hobby, um, and I think a lot of people will find this too, like you are just so enamored with it that you you like over consume in every way possible that it eventually just like you you come crashing down and you're like, okay, I can't. That's like 45 how-to-play videos this week. I've you know bought my seventh game. I and then you just run out of steam. And I've gotten through that. I pushed through that, and I kind of hit a steady state for a while, and now it's just like a different type of burnout, um, where it's just you know, it just doesn't excite me to think about playing a game sometimes. And yeah, I never thought I would feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, and he he touches on a couple of different like uh reasons that people experience burnout. One of them is kind of overindulgence, like that. Another one is like a need for perfection. Like if I if my hobby is playing guitar and I am not getting better and I'm not seeing that progress, maybe I'll kind of burn out on the practicing for a while with board games of perfectionist. Like maybe you're not winning games all the time, or maybe you're not like I I bragged the other day about uh being able to play root in person for the first time in forever. And then I had the people come that I had taught root to that they fell in love with it, they love the game, they play it digitally all the time, like they are like experiencing and interacting with this medium that I kind of helped them intro introduce them to, and one of them said, like, you know, I appreciate you teaching us that, but that was a terrible teach, and that felt really bad.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

I did my best, like that's not an easy game to sit down and teach for anybody, uh, no matter how much you play it. But I did my best. Uh, and I we got there, we played it mostly correct, I'm sure. Uh, but I'm sure I missed a rule or two here or there. But yeah, like, yeah, no offense, but that teach was terrible. Like, okay, like that feels bad, and it helped it like detracts from the hobby a little bit for me. Like the fact that I put a lot of pressure on myself to introduce them to a game that I love, and then to hear, like, yeah, you kind of failed at that. That that sucks. Like, that's not does not feel good. Yeah. But a couple of the other reasons is like you're not balancing properly. Maybe you have so many hobbies and you're going all in on one. Maybe you're not balancing your hobby properly with your life stuff that's going on. Um, maybe you're just like overstimulated with all of the media out there for your hobby, which is definitely the case for board gaming. You know, you you know, you back one Kickstarter, and all of a sudden it's like just Kickstarter and Game Found and stuff all over your social media streams, all over your inbox. Like it's crazy the amount of emails I get from Kickstarter and GameFound on a day-to-day basis. And I just gloss over most of them, but like they are constantly just in your face with that stuff, and it's not to mention all the you know the influencers and stuff like that. It's hard to keep up with all of that.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Oh yeah, oh yeah, big time.

Burnout Causes From Overload

SPEAKER_00 10:50

So then uh, you know, Joel in his article gives some uh recommendations on how to get out of that slump. Were there any that caught your eye, Clay?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah, I like the lurking in the background recommendation that Joel um had on there. I I think this is generally how I've been handling the past you know months or so is I I still consume board game media, and that's kind of how I engage with the hobby when I'm not playing. I like to hear what other people are talking about. I get some enjoyment from hearing other people's game experiences. Like I didn't have to do the work to learn it, set it up, and play it. So it's fun for me to hear like, oh man, this person had a great time playing this game. That sounds interesting. I'll put that on the back burner. Maybe when I'm over the hill here and I'm in a better place mentally, that's a game I could enjoy. Yeah, so yeah, I still very much like to me, the media consumption like gets me through it, and just listening to people talk about the hobby is enough to still feel engaged without having to, you know, run out and garner up a game night of mostly willing participants and force them through uh a bunch of teaches of my favorite games.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah, and I and I think this kind of slump, largely that I've gone through this year, has been has really helped me with that lurking. Because before you'd see like these influencers or these companies push these this certain game that's coming out, it's a hot new thing. And now that I've gone through this slump, I'm like, I can see those games, I can read the reviews, I can watch the videos and go like, no, I'm good, not for me, or there's no place for that in my life right now. Like, put that one on pause, uh, add it to a wish list and come back to it later. Like, it's not that like go out and buy everything, go out and play everything mentality, and I think that that's healthy to do in any hobby, let alone board gaming, where there's thousands and thousands of options of games to play every single year. Oh, yeah, and to buy. Yes, yeah, that too. Uh, what else stuck out to you?

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, another thing he mentioned was just playing an old favorite and just re-rediscovering the joy of gaming in that way. And honestly, last night I did something akin to that. Um we didn't have any plans on Saturday night, so Mary was like, hey, we didn't play a game on Wednesday, because I told you already that I wasn't, I said no, unbelievably, to a game night on Wednesday. Uh, so she agreed, like, hey, we can play a game on Saturday. Um, and I again again, I was just looking around myself and I was like, there was a lot of games, and this is a problem. A part of the obligation um that Joel also talks about that can lead to burnout, is you have all these games that you haven't played yet that you're like, oh, I really should take the opportunity to play that game. And to pile on that, you have this podcast, and you're like, Oh, if I play that game, I can talk about it on the podcast. That's good. Um, but it just felt like so much. And I just pulled out FinSpan. Nice. I like Fin Span. We can sit here, we can put our fish out, we can go diving, and we can score a ton of points, and it'll be nice. Yeah, and it was fun. I was like, okay, that was good. I didn't have to. We both knew the rules, there was no teach involved, and it was a nice quick, you know, Saturday night little game night with the wife. So yeah, I think that can sometimes be the key as well, is just to release yourself from the need to you know play the new thing or the thing you haven't played before. Just play an old an old favorite.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

I like that. Yeah, one of the other ones that he talked about was like a way to get out of the slump is to try and rebalance between your hobbies or between your life and and your hobbies. And he's talked specifically in the article about like how he likes video games, but not as much as board games and like going to video games a little bit more instead of the board games to try and balance out and kind of refresh his view of video games or of board games rather. Um, and I and I can appreciate that because I am also one that indulges in both hobbies, uh, indulges in way too many hobbies, but those are like my my downtime hobbies, I guess. And uh I I can appreciate that, but even right now, like uh we are collaborating with Vic on a Resident Evil playthrough series on the Games EMOS podcast, and I I'm enjoying that. I love playing those games, I think it's great. It's fun to talk with Vic at always, super energetic guy. I love hanging out with that guy.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Vic never gets burnt out, I bet.

Practical Resets That Actually Help

SPEAKER_00 15:50

He's uh he's a hard charger for sure. Yeah, uh, but like I I want to do a good job and I don't want to let him down, so I have been putting some effort into that, plus like balancing what games I'm playing on a week-to-week basis, plus like doing the research involved with like the history of Resident Evil and all this stuff, like plus the school work, plus that is just piling on, and it's uh maybe it's a little bit of over stimulation, maybe it's a little bit of like perfectionism. Um, but yeah, just even like some of his coping mechanisms are not really helping right now. I just kind of need a bit of a reset with uh my board gaming life right now, and uh I need to offload some of these games and do a serious call and have a some tough conversations ahead about like what games are actually worth sticking around or what need to uh get sold off or what traded or whatever. So yeah, that's where that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

That can feel nice, honestly. Like it can be freeing to just get rid of some games.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, especially ones that like are still in shrink or like they're sitting on the shelf of shame. You put that pressure on yourself, like I have to play this someday. I I spent the money on it, or whatever. Sometimes you just cut those loose or donate them or like do give them to friends. I offloaded tons of games to friends before I left Germany. Uh and yeah, it feels good to just like here, you you enjoy this hobby. I'm not gonna play these. Here's a brand new game. That feels good too.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

It sure does, Travis.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

So where do you think you're at? Like, what are your next steps? Are you gonna like try and go just stick with the favorites for a while? Are you gonna try and uh I don't know what what's your approach to this slump?

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yeah, I think I am I'm just gonna remove all the pressure from myself to play board games, and I am gonna see when the natural urge crops back up, yeah, and then meet it where it's at, you know, and jump back in there. I again I I mean I've I don't know if I've gone in the past seven when did I start doing this crazy stuff? Um it's probably almost eight years ago now um that I got really into board games. I don't know if I've gone a week without playing a board game of some type. You know, it might have just been a quick card game or something short with the kids, but it's been very consistent. Um, and the peaks were high. Like, I mean, before I left Colorado and I had like three different groups that I could have three game nights a week, and I usually at least had two on top of games with Mary and my kids. Uh and I never burnt out of that because it was always people that like were as excited and wanted to be there. They wanted to, you know, so it felt good and it it was energizing. Um, so you know, I think I think I have something good in the works. I I have rekindled a connection with a kid, a guy I went to high school with. Nice, and he he lives like 30 minutes away, and we've set up um an every other week game night. Okay. And he is very into board games, and so I think we're gonna try and play um a feast for Odin here soon. And so I'm excited to do that with him. He's excited to learn it. So, and he's a he'll like watch the videos and he says he's gonna play it on BGA, so he's ready to go. So that has sparked some joy in me, knowing that I have somebody that's gonna be just as nerded out about board games as I am. That's awesome. What about you, Travis?

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Well, I I do have a friend that I sit next to in class, and he talks about board games a lot, has like family game nights. He's playing much lighter games than like the heavy hobbyist in this uh board game sphere. Like he's playing family weight games with his family, does it like at least once a week, family game night? And he's always talking about like, oh, I played this game last night. Have you played it? Like, what do you think of it? What and I I really enjoy like just talking about board games. I think that's why I like this podcast so much, is just like I just like hanging out with my bros and talking about board games, and that's uh what this podcast has always been about. Um, so yeah, I it's fun to just like experience it tangentially through other people. Um, you know, I I like listening to you talk about board games, like uh watching, you know, kind of just separating myself a little bit, watching the videos online, watching the reviews, watching that stuff roll in. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of that. And it's kind of um I'm getting this kind of weird sick pleasure out of uh knowing that I don't have to like engage in a lot of that stuff, and I don't have to go out and I have to I don't have to buy those games just because I watch them. I don't have to go and like get it played, but it's nice to just like see other people play it, enjoy it, get some love out of it, and then uh move on with my life. So yeah, I I think the next big uh turn for me is probably gonna be when we move and have to make some decisions about what games end up on the shelf and what don't. And uh we have lots of life changes coming up here uh on in our family. So yeah, we're gonna make a space for board gaming once we finally settle for sure.

Next Steps Plus A Quick Housekeeping

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Freaking operation game night. We're gonna keep bringing you content whether we're playing games or not.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

So buckle up. That's right. We're gonna make stuff up. Uh man. Yeah. Uh also, we are now 21 minutes into this. I do want to apologize to everybody who uh watched or watched the video or listened to the podcast last week. We had like a minute long audio gap on our episode, and I'm not sure what happened. Um, it was fine when I listened to it. It was fine when I uploaded it. So I'm not sure what happened between uploading and publishing that. Cause that gap. Hopefully it doesn't happen. I'm doing local recordings right now just so that does not happen. But uh thank you to those who reached out and let us know because we want to make this podcast better and it sucks when our systems go awry.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

So uh which episode was that?

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Uh I think it was the crits and tricks one actually.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Really?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. I don't know what platform they were listening on, but I got a note that said, hey, just so you know, you have a minute-long gap in the middle of your podcast. So if you see things like that, please let us know because we can't listen on all these different platforms, and it sucks when that happens.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

So and we're perfectionists.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

We are perfectionists and we like to get things right. So let us know. Did we do it? We did it. Are we successfully out of our board game slumps? We're moving on. I see a light. Onward and upward. I think it's just my ring light, but uh, can I just say that when you're talking about like you need to be ready to meet and meet the moment and be prepared? You sound like you're like doing a men's sexual health ad, like take this one little pill to rise and meet the moment when the timing is right.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

That's how it feels. Oh my gosh, we need board game Viagra. I felt like I just cannot get up for it. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

We need to let's uh let's call this episode um board game Viagra.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah, I like it.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I think that'll be a catchy thumbnail. A little blue pill for board games.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Oh, okay. And with that, and with that, yeah, there we go. And with that, uh, I have been clay. I have been Travis, he has been clay. I am losing my mind. This has been Operation Game Night and uh Board Game Viagra, and we are out.