A Hell of a Conundrum

The ultimate Hellboy board game collection?

I was looking at our Hellboy board game collection today. We have three Kickstarter boxes – the original board game, the Box Full of Evil, and the Big Box of Doom. In addition, we’ve purchased the Wild Hunt expansion. For those not familiar with the game, it is a co-op, dungeon-crawler type game in which the players combine their character’s skills to beat the various monsters and other threats the game reveals as your team negotiates a maze of corridors and rooms. Each game also comprises numerous plastic miniatures faithfully recreating the characters as they appear in the comic book series. And if some of these are a little impractical in size (the large Nimue-as-dragon miniature immediately springs to mind), it is still fun playing a game with the characters from the Hellboy universe, especially if you’ve read almost the entire series as I have. (A side note—I highly recommend reading the Plague of Frogs series and its follow on, Hell on Earth).

A modest selection of graphic novels from the Hellboy universe.

But here’s the thing, we’ve played all the original game scenarios, most of the Box Full of Evil scenarios and about half of those in the Big Box of Doom and will probably never play another one again. Is this because we did not enjoy the games? Quite the contrary, we enjoyed each one, especially the challenge in figuring out how best to utilize each character’s unique skills to beat the game. Why then will we probably never open the boxes again? Because we have moved on to other games we have since acquired. And herein lies the real issue—the number of games we have purchased over the years. As I write this, I take a moment to look over my shoulder and count them. There are 48 in total, 14 of which have never been played. This gets me to thinking about the other things I have acquired over the years—more than 2,000 comic books, over 1,000 books, another 1,000 or so DVDs, not to mention CDs and so on.

Have you not heard of e-readers and streaming services; I hear you mutter? Well, of course I use these, but nothing quite beats owning a book, or a music recording or game, etc outright rather than only having access to that item for however long the service provider decides or however long they remain in business. My physical copy also cannot be arbitrarily altered at some later date by the zealots of Cancel Culture should it fall out of favour with the fashion of the times.

Then there is the potential climate impact of owning physical copies of these books rather than their digital equivalents to consider. Which is better? A quick look on the web gives this result:

‘A typical paperback book has a climate impact similar to that of watching 6 hours of TV, at around 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide equivalent…E-readers are slightly better than paper books, as long as you use them many times. In my book, How Bad Are Bananas? I estimate their carbon footprint to be about 36kg of carbon dioxide equivalent, so you have to read the equivalent of at least 36 paperback books (bought new, then recycled) in e-book format before the paper saving outweighs the emissions embodied in the device.’ – New Scientist.

I should say that more than half of the items I have referred to have been acquired second-hand. In a sense this is recycling and given that it has taken almost 40 years to collect them, this should go some way to minimising their climate impact. Still, it is something to consider and something I have been thinking about more and more. Which brings me to a logical conclusion—should I stop purchasing these things, whether physical or digital, altogether? Perhaps for a few years. Let’s call it a period of ‘Zero Acquisitions’. Cut all unnecessary purchases as part of my small contribution in helping to minimize climate impact. But isn’t consumerism the thing which keeps the capitalist engine turning? What if we all decided to do that? Imagine a collective policy of zero acquisitions. How long could retailers which rely on our purchasing keep going until they started to fail, and then the wholesalers, manufacturers, and so on, each one shedding employees with their demise until finally our economic model grinds to a halt? This question has been debated many times and there are economists who claim to have better economic models but until one is finally put into action, we are stuck, for better or worse, with the one we have: capitalism.

Does this mean we should all carry on as we have? Or should we begin questioning what each of us really needs. Do I need the special over-sized, over-priced collector’s edition of my favourite graphic novel to replace the standard copy I already own? Do I really need to collect all ten variant covers of the latest comic? Do I really need another pair of designer shoes to go with the ten pairs I already own? Do I really need to replace the car that has given me good mileage merely because I like the look of the latest model? Do I really need to upgrade my perfectly serviceable TV because the Joneses next door have just replaced theirs? There are no easy answers, and I am not about to preach to anyone about changing their spending habits. But I have started to change some of mine, like purchasing a second-hand copy if possible, and most importantly, limiting the number of books I purchase each year to a number I can actually get around to reading!