1000 different games

I love variety in games; I don't like playing the same game a lot. It's not unheard of for someone to suggest a game and have my reaction be "Oh, I just played that a few weeks ago.", or for games that are less favored, "Enh, I've already played that this year." The most favorite and filler-y of the fillers rarely receive more than 10 or 20 plays in a year, and for a while, I was playing a lot of games each year (~800). Recently, Race for the Galaxy, has been the exception, but the general rule still holds.

So, it was with pleasure and a certain degree of pride that I recently passed the 1000 different games played mark. Of course, I haven't been keeping track of games played my whole life, but I probably played a total of 15-50 different games before I have any chance of remembering details. Further, before 2000, I didn't keep very precise records. For example, I know I've played Wiz-War, but not since 2000, and I don't remember exactly when. So, the 1000 threshold is a little fuzzy, but I can now say I've played:

• > 1030 different games in my life
• 1018 different games that I have some record of
• 1001 different games since 2000, for which I have specific logs

Of course, it also depends how you count "different" games. I count, somewhat arbitrarily, by the distinct packaged games, where plays of a game with an expansion counts as the base game. So, Ticket To Ride and Ticket To Ride: Europe are two different games, but Ticket To Ride and TTR with the 1910 deck are the same game. Further, all the games in New Games in Old Rome, count as one game. Further, if BGG considers two games to be the same game, such as Europa Tour and 10 Days in Europe (which are not-quite-identical, but close enough) I count them as the same, even though they are technically distinct packaged games.

Some stats on the 1001 games:

• I own 52% of them.
• The average (mean) number of plays is 4.
• The median number of plays is 2.
• 47% have been played once.
• 22% have been played 5 or more times.
• 9% have been played 10 or more times.
• 1% have been played 38 or more times.
• I play at least one new game in 42% of gaming sessions.
  
• The average number of new games per session is 0.9
• Unsuprisingly, the rate at which I play new-to-me games has been almost monotonically decreasing over time, looking at a window of 100 new games. There was a brief upward blip the year when I first attended Gathering, when I played 54 new games in under a month, leading to 100 new games in 6 months. Lately, it takes me over a year to play 100 new games.
  
• Since 2000, there have only ever been 4 calendar months where I haven't played a new game. (August 2004, May & September 2005, Jun 2007)
• I've never played more than 10 new-to-me games on a single day, but I have played 10 on four separate occasions.
• I've played multiple games which begin with each letter of the alphabet, except X. I should clearly correct this, since I own at least 3.
• I still want to play more new games.