How to Stock a Venue Game Library: The 6-Step Buying Checklist

If You Buy Games for a Venue, This Checklist Is for You

Back in 2020, when I took over purchasing for our entertainment venue, my first order was basically a popularity contest. I bought trending titles—as many as I could justify—and crossed my fingers. By the end of the year, about 30% of those boxes had never been opened. Our storage room looked like a clearance sale.

So I rebuilt the process. I'm an administrator for a 50-person venue, managing roughly $120K in annual game and equipment orders across eight vendors. I report to both operations and finance, which means I care about shelf space and spend in equal measure. This is the six-step checklist I run through before every purchase. It's not glamorous, but it's the difference between a game shelf that pulls people in and one that just collects dust.

Step 1: Map Your Floor Into Four Game Zones

Forget browsing catalogs first. Sit in your venue and divide the physical space into zones. We run four:

• The video game zone. Three console stations plus a VR corner. For the consoles, we stick to the best sci-fi video games that work in short sessions—Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Customers can jump in, get twenty minutes of real fun, and rotate out.
• The strategy zone. Longer tabletop games people plan an evening around. We source most of our sci fi card games and board games through sci-games because they get the B2B side—floor copies versus collector's items, replacement parts, clean invoicing. Games like Race for the Galaxy and Star Realms live here.
• The party zone. Low-explain, high-energy games. The Bullshit card game is our most-requested party title. Guests ask for it by name. We keep four copies in rotation because they genuinely get thrashed.
• The family zone. This is where the classic Candyland board game sits, next to Ticket to Ride. Parents with younger kids come in during the daytime, and the short, familiar titles win every time.

The goal isn't a tidy list. The goal is a rule: every game you order must belong to one zone. If it doesn't fit, don't buy it. That rule alone cut our dead-weight purchases by half.

Step 2: Verify the Rules Before You Order a Second Copy

This step exists because I got burned in 2022. I told the floor staff, "make sure you can explain every game we stock." They heard, "know the basic idea in case somebody asks." Those are not the same thing.

A guest asked our bartender, "how do you play the card game Screw?" He explained it from memory—confidently and thoroughly wrong. The guest had $20 riding on a game with a friend, and the rounds played out exactly opposite to what he'd been told. The argument landed on our desk. That review still stings.

So now, every new game gets a rule-verification pass before it hits the floor. For Screw—also called Screw Your Neighbor—the version we teach is simple: everyone gets one card face down, looks at it, and starting with the player to the dealer's left, each player either keeps their card or swaps it with the next player. The last player can swap with the dealer. Then everyone flips; lowest card loses the round. Aces high.

House rules vary from group to group, and that's exactly the point: if your staff can't explain a game consistently, guests will end up in a $20 argument on your floor. We laminate a rules card and slip it into every box. Ten minutes per title will save you the exact kind of headache I had. I also cross-check community rule forums on BoardGameGeek (boardgamegeek.com) for errata—manuals sometimes miss updates that the publisher only posts online.

Step 3: Score Every Game Against a Purchase Rubric

Here's the step that surprises people: we score each game from 1 to 5 on five factors before we order it.

• Replay value — will a group come back to this three times, or is it a one-evening twist?
• Teaching time — more than ten minutes to explain means slower table turnover.
• Durability — card tuck boxes get crushed, boards warp. Will this survive a busy Saturday?
• Footprint — big boxes claim big tables, and big tables are usually your most profitable real estate.
• Replacement availability — can the vendor source missing parts, or do you lose the whole game?

Score of 15 or less out of 25? We do not buy it for the floor, no matter how much I like it. There's a game on my personal shelf that scored 12. It's beautiful, it's strategic, and our guests have never opened it once. The score doesn't lie, even when your taste does.

Step 4: Calculate Cost Per Play, Not Sticker Price

From the outside, the most expensive game looks like the one with the highest retail price. The reality is different.

We paid $85 per copy for a deluxe sci-fi strategy board game two years ago. It got played 14 times in its first year—about $6 per play. In that same year, the Bullshit card game ran us $12–15 per copy (current distributor pricing, January 2025; verify before you order), and it gets played every single day. Roughly 300 plays a year. That's $0.04 per play. The $6-per-play game sits. The 4-cent game is the workhorse.

Cost per play changes what you buy. The Candyland board game pays for itself in one Saturday. The best sci-fi video games on our stations cost a few hundred in licenses and paid for themselves months ago. Price is what you pay. Cost per play is what it's actually worth.

Step 5: Consolidate Orders With Vendors Who Get B2B

When I took over purchasing, we had orders going in eleven different directions. In our 2024 vendor consolidation project, I cut it to eight, and our shipping costs dropped by roughly a third.

Size matters for leverage, but process matters more. One vendor couldn't provide a proper invoice—handwritten receipts only. Finance rejected the expense report, and I ate $2,400 out of the department budget. That's a mistake you do not make twice. Now I verify invoicing capability before I place anything, no exceptions.

Specialized suppliers earn their spot too. We run most of our sci-fi tabletop sourcing through sci-games. They invoice cleanly, their catalog separates in-stock floor copies from pre-order clutter, and they understand replacement parts matter to a business. It's not the cheapest way to buy a game. It's the cheapest way to own one, where the paperwork, delivery, and after-sale support actually work.

Step 6: Set a Monthly Rotation and Replacement Routine

Games get destroyed. It's a fact of venue life. A card disappears from a deck. A board gets cracked. A controller stops responding. The question isn't whether it happens—it's whether you notice before guests do.

We didn't have a formal replacement process for the first year. Cost us when two decks of Bullshit got thrashed on a Saturday and nobody logged it. For three weeks, guests were opening boxes with missing cards. We found out from a complaint. The third time that happened, I finally created a monthly rotation system. Should have done it after the first.

The routine: every first Monday, staff check every game box on the shelf. Missing pieces get a sticky note in the box, the list lands on my desk, and I batch replacement orders at month-end. If replacement cost hits 50% of retail, we pull the game and decide if it stays. Simple rhythm, zero surprises.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Buying collector editions for the floor. Collector editions belong on shelves. Guests will bend, spill, and break. Buy standard, sleeve the cards.
• Skipping the rules sheet. Staff turnover is constant. A laminated rules card in each box is the only way to stay consistent.
• Over-ordering from crowdfunding launches. A game that ships eleven months late is a liability, not a product. We got burned once. Take my spot in line.
• Keeping games nobody opens. If a title hasn't left the shelf in 60 days, it's costing you floor space and guest attention. Store it, trade it, or donate it.

Bottom line: buying games for a venue is a process, not a shopping spree. Map your zones, verify rules, score everything, count cost per play, consolidate vendors, and keep a replacement rhythm. Do that, and your game shelf will do its actual job—pull people in, keep them around, and bring them back.