She Shares Shelfies: The Presentation of Boardgame Collections at Home and in Public

• In Event: Games in the City, Games in the Home

Abstract

Boardgames occupy space in the home both as a material collection of artefacts and as a playable resource. Boardgame hobbyists value variety in gaming, and frequently accrue large collections of games. Our research shows that boardgame hobbyists customise their homes to accommodate these game collections, for example through placement of shelves within the home, but also through the design or selection of a home that will accommodate space for gaming. Moreover, the games themselves act as a proxy for the owner's engagement with their gaming hobby. These material artefacts can represent both the history of the owner's interactions with the game – the place they bought it, or first played it – and the promise of future enjoyment when the game is next brought to the table.

Although this appropriation of space occurs within the private space of the home, many gaming hobbyists share it publicly in the form of "Shelfies" – pictures of game shelves, often with accompanying commentary. Through Shelfies, hobbyists share their game collection – as well as, more broadly, the way in which they have customised and presented it within their home – with a broader public. This allows hobbyists to move their private practices of gaming within the home into a more public environment.

In this paper, we describe the way that boardgamers’ large collections are integrated into their home, demonstrate how this sharing of Shelfies is part of the broader process of the appropriation of boardgames into the hobbyist’s life and the representation of themself as a (board)gamer, and examine how this is realised as a public presentation of private space.

Author

• Melissa J. Rogerson, University of Melbourne