Orginization is key!!

So since having purchased several board games I have noticed one flaw in most of them. They pretty much all give you no options or anything to help you organize the components. Some games it isn't so bad, like Flash Point: Fire Rescue. There is a limited variety and number of components making it  no problem to split them among the boxes divider. But with some games, the game as a whole would benefit greatly from at least some attempt to help you divide them other than a box insert. Sometimes the box inserts actually makes it more difficult to store the game once all the components are unpacked and punched out. This is the case, IMO, with Descent 2nd edition.

One of the pet peeves with board games and having it all organized. I am finding that the grocery store sandwich bags just don't cut it for me. They are slightly opaque and when you have a bunch of them in a box it becomes this blurry mess which makes it more difficult to pick out what you are looking for/need.

This is a picture of what looks like all the components from the original game and the 2 expansions to Twilight Imperium. This guy, not me at all, has it all very neatly organized, but the organization rested squarely on him. Look at all that stuff!!! Imagine breaking this out every couple weeks to play and not having it organized at all. The hundreds of cards, plastic ships, race tokens, extra ground and fighter tokens, optional rules tokens, systems tiles, and race sheets just thrown into the box. I can imagine that it would be a HUGE pain in the ass to sift through it all for everything each player needs to play. This in turn would make me less likely to play it as it would be just a pain to get everything organized.

Of course that may be an extreme example. I recently purchased the vintage Risk from Target. It comes in a wooden box. The box tops slides out to reveal neatly organized components. All the wooden army counters are held in plastic containers which are held in place with a black plastic insert. The dice have a place, the cards have a place. Everything has a place!!! The game was about 22 bucks. So it would seem that in a lot of cases the reason companies don't give you much in the way, if any at all, to organize the games (sometimes many) components is due to cost. I can't imagine giving plastic containers or even decent plastic bags costing all that much


Anyway, I just wish more game companies would throw us a bone here. There is 1 company I know that includes nice plastic games, with a little in them so you don't have to worry about trapped air. That company is GMT Games. And damn if that isn't really cool to me!!! I mean yeah sure it is just plastic bags, but that is a ton more than most companies do for you. Memoir '44 is another game that's box is made to keep everything organized. So kudos to GMT games and Days of Wonder for that. I know I really appreciate it