I track every crowdfunding delivery estimate I’ve ever backed, actual dates, actual slippage, the same way I’d track a shipment at work. What that spreadsheet doesn’t have a column for, and probably should, is whether I actually wanted the game or just wanted to not miss out on it. I found out the hard way, about fourteen months ago, that those are different things, and I found out by finally opening a box I’d been avoiding since it arrived.

I’m not going to name the game, mostly because it’s not really about that specific box, it’s about a pattern I only noticed once I had proof of it sitting on a shelf. I backed it during a thirty-six hour window where four separate people in my hobby circles were posting about it at once, the way these things happen, a critical mass of enthusiasm that starts to feel less like information and more like weather. I read maybe two paragraphs of the actual rules summary before pledging. I told myself I’d read the full rulebook once it shipped.

It shipped nine months late, which by this hobby’s standards barely counts as late, and by the time it arrived I’d genuinely forgotten most of what convinced me to back it in the first place. I opened the box, looked at the components, which were fine, perfectly nice, and felt nothing. Not disappointment exactly. Just the specific flatness of realizing you bought a decision instead of a game, the decision being “don’t be the one person who missed this.”

What bothers me isn’t the money, honestly, it’s a reasonably priced game and I can afford it. What bothers me is that I have an entire system, an actual real spreadsheet, built for tracking whether external promises get kept, and I built none of that same rigor toward tracking my own actual interest before committing. I know exactly how many days late every campaign I’ve backed has run. I could not tell you, without real effort, which of those campaigns I backed because I’d read enough to know I wanted the game, versus which ones I backed because everyone else in the room was reaching for their wallet at the same time.

I’ve started doing something small about it, not a system exactly, just a rule: read the full rules summary, not the pitch video, before pledging anything. It’s caught two campaigns already where the actual mechanics didn’t match the vibe the marketing was selling, and I passed on both, no regrets. The box from fourteen months ago is still on the shelf. I’ll play it eventually. I’m mostly keeping it around now as a reminder that FOMO and actual desire produce identical-looking pledges, right up until the box is open and you have to tell the difference yourself.