The average bottle of wine lasts one evening. The average bouquet of flowers lasts five to seven days. The average box of chocolates lasts about a week, less if you’re honest about who’s eating them. A board game lasts a decade. When you actually do the cost-per-moment math, the cheapest gift on the shelf is almost always the one with the biggest price tag.
Key takeaways
| Gift | Avg cost | Lasts | Cost per evening (1 person) | Per evening (group of 4) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bottle of wine | €50 | 1 evening | €50 | €12.50 |
| Bouquet of flowers | €40 | 7 days of looking at it | €5.70 | n/a (no shared use) |
| Box of premium chocolate | €60 | ~10 days | €6 | €3 |
| Board game (Base) | €40 | 30+ plays over years | €1.33 | €0.33 |
| Board game (BIG BOX) | €125 | 50+ plays over years | €2.50 | €0.62 |
The math is brutal. Now let’s defend the case.
Why we don’t buy board games as gifts (and why we should)
The honest objection: a board game is a more thoughtful gift than a bottle of wine. You can’t just grab one on the way to dinner. You have to know what kind of game they’d like. You have to be willing to look slightly silly if they hate it.
That’s exactly the point.
The reason people remember the board game you gave them and not the wine you gave them is because the board game required you to think about them. The game sits on their shelf with your name attached to it for years. It comes off the shelf when their friends come over and they say “this was from so-and-so.” That’s the gift that keeps giving, literally.
🦜 Polly’s take: A consumable says “I bought you something.” A board game says “I thought about you.” Those are not the same gift.
The objection: “But what if they don’t like it?”
Fair. So you pick well. Here’s how.
If they already have a games shelf with anything more interesting than Monopoly on it, they’re already in the world. Look at what’s on the shelf, find a hole, and fill it. If it’s heavy on card games, buy them a board game. If it’s heavy on strategy games, buy them a party-flavoured one. If the shelf is half-empty, ask what they liked last time they played.
If they don’t have a games shelf, start them small. €40 is more interesting than another bottle of wine and not so much money that anyone feels bad if it doesn’t land. Our Base Game lives in this range. Taught in 90 seconds. Two to six players. The kind of game that gets pulled out at a dinner party.
If they’re already a board game person, you can be bolder. The BIG BOX exists for this. €125 is real money but it’s the kind of money you spend on someone who will reach for it for years. It’s the gift you give the friend who runs a regular game night, the brother who’s been into the hobby for a decade, the partner who needs a present for an anniversary that means something.
The shared-experience advantage
There is something worth taking seriously about gift-giving: people remember gifts that produced experiences with other people far longer than they remember gifts of things. A bottle of wine drunk alone is forgotten in a week. A board game played across years with the same friends becomes part of how that group sees itself.
You don’t need to take our word for this. Think about the gifts you actually remember receiving. Almost all of them probably involved doing something with someone. The ones you don’t remember are almost all things that you consumed alone or once.
A board game is structurally a shared-experience gift. It can’t be played alone (well, some can, but not most). Every time it comes off the shelf, it pulls people together.
The case for the expensive one
There’s a version of this post that ends with “and that’s why a €15 card game makes a great gift.” It does. We sell €30 expansions and €40 base games for exactly that reason.
But there’s a case for the expensive one that’s worth making.
When you spend €125 on a gift, the recipient knows you spent €125 on a gift. That isn’t crass, it’s communication. It’s a way of saying “I want you to have something you would not buy for yourself.” Most adults don’t buy themselves a €125 game even when they want to, because it feels indulgent. Receiving one removes that block. It says: someone else thought you deserved this.
If you have someone in your life who plays games, runs a board game night, or hosts a lot, the BIG BOX of Lying Pirates is the kind of gift that earns the framed photo of opening it. €125 spent once, played fifty times over ten years, by four people each time. The math says you bought 2,000 moments of group fun. The wine you almost bought instead would have been forgotten by Tuesday.
The follow-up gift problem solved
One last reason board games make better gifts than consumables: they have follow-ups.
You can give somebody a Base Game one year and an expansion the next. You can give them the BIG BOX as the birthday gift, then a future expansion as the Christmas one. Each follow-up gift is cheaper than the original and lands harder because it shows you remembered.
You can do this for years before you run out of road. Try doing that with wine.
🦜 Polly’s take: The €30 Cities of Greed expansion is the year-two gift you didn’t know you were buying when you gave the BIG BOX in year one. The Base Game owner gets it. The Bottle Two of Wine recipient does not.
The honest closing
We sell board games. Of course we think you should buy board games as gifts. But this argument holds even if you buy a game from a competitor. The world has more good board games than ever before. The supermarket card games, the hobby gateway picks, the premium boxes. There’s something in every price bracket for nearly every kind of person.
The next time you’re standing in a store trying to decide between a €50 bottle of wine and a €40 board game for somebody you actually like, do the math.
Then buy the game.
Also recommended
Base Game
The safe, generous gift. 2-6 players, taught in 90 seconds.
€40 inc VAT
Deluxe BIG BOX
The milestone gift. Base + Cities of Greed + premium components.
€125 inc VAT
Cities of Greed Expansion
The perfect year-two follow-up if you already gave them the Base.
€30 inc VAT
Pick your gift
- Base Game (€40): the safe, generous gift. Suits most groups. 2-6 players, taught in 90 seconds.
- Cities of Greed Expansion (€30): the perfect year-two follow-up if you already gave them the Base.
- Deluxe BIG BOX (€125): the milestone gift. Base + Cities of Greed + premium components. The gift they’ll talk about.
Or start at the homepage and pick by mood.