Anyone trying to cure a game buying ADDICTION?

[Atari7800]

I'm just wondering if I'm the only one.

I was a huge gamer as a child (5200 especially) and me and my college roomies played the hell out of NES, SNES, Genny, 32x, and PSX, plus some Super Gameboy thrown in for good measure. I was a serious GAMER for a number of years.

Now I'm a bit older (33) and my life is full of work and social activites, especially since I got rid of the old ball & chain (ex) a year ago. I just don't have much time to play anymore, and none of my current friends are gamers.

I'm just not spending much time enjoying videogames lately.

I have a problem... I'm a game COLLECTING addict. We're talking $200-$300 a month, sometimes more. I got started with that old 2600 I found on the side of the road and it just went nuts from there. Then I discovered Ebay... certainly the most expensive journey of my life and I suspect a cause of concern for many of you out there. I can't begin to account for all the money I've spent on Ebay... it's in the tens of thousands. For at least two years I lived from paycheck to paycheck, spending all my hard-earned cash on assorted crap that costs less (even MUCH less) than it does now. I don't know how many times I've been to the Post Office to mail off a money order. I spend every weekend going to fleas, game stores, cruising the net... it's as addictive as drugs or sex.

I'm in a better financial position now, with a a decent amount of money to blow. My credit cards are paid off, I actually have a savings account (!!!), and my living expenses are low. I'm not buying as much as I used to, but it's still bad.

I've got well over 1000 games now. Most I've never finished. Most I've never even played for more than 5 minutes. Some I've never played at all. Half my stuff is in storage six hours away, so I couldn't even enjoy it if I wanted without a car trip. I'm at the point where I'll have something to play for the rest of my days, but still I want more. I don't have any of the current systems, and you have no idea how hard I had to restrain myself from going nutty on a Dreamcast. I never got one, and I'm glad (yet saddened) that I did not. I still get the urge when I see those stacks of cheap DC games at GameStop of EB.

I'm especially interested in "RARE" games. I don't know why. Many of them suck. I suspect it's a "boys with toys" thing, a need to own something that few other people have so that deep in my mind I can gloat and think "I have this and you don't. Haha." This is bad. I have a number of things that would be considered "rare" (though not compared to some of you) but I still chase after that rare game until I have it, then pick another target. The smallest thing will set me off... I was reading a post about Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES a few days ago, and I immediatley went to Half.com and almost bought a copy for $60. I would have gotten it in the mail, looked at it lovingly, and then put it in a box (my SNES is in storage.) Then off to the next. Is this the point of gaming to me now? How pitiful! I spend wads of cash on stuff I'll never enjoy. I could have taken the $10,000 I've spent on games in the past few years (VERY conservative estimate) and bought a nice car or some Real Estate. Instead I have boxes of stuff that I'll never play.

I'm making a concerted effort to stop gradually. I went out last Sunday and only spent $23 (my usual for that particular stretch of gaming stores is $100 plus.) I'm trying to wean myself off my video game crack.

Am I the only one with this disease? Is there a cure? I've almost bankrupted myself a few years ago... I don't won't to ever go there again.

Let me hear some of your stories so I'll feel better and maybe stick to my resolution to save money instead of blowing it on more junk.

[Oobgarm]

Brother, I hear you loud and clear. Game buying addiction sucks. And I'm only 24.

I've been a huge gamer since my formative years with the 2600 and NES, but I only started collecting games seriously a few years ago. Unlike you, though, I'm more into the current systems. Still, games become expensive quickly. Those small prices add up over time.

The one thing that probably kills me is the fact that I work at a game store (Gamestop). I see everything that comes and goes, and I have plenty of stuff "on hold" for myself, most of which I'll probably never play if I buy them.


I've got well over 1000 games now. Most I've never finished. Most I've never even played for more than 5 minutes.

Me too. I've got crap I've bought and never even opened or played at all. Why? Just to add it to the collection.


I have a number of things that would be considered "rare" (though not compared to some of you) but I still chase after that rare game until I have it, then pick another target. The smallest thing will set me off...

While most of my stuff isn't too rare, I am a horrible impulse buyer. If I hear good things about a particular title, I'll seek it out and usually buy it.


I spend wads of cash on stuff I'll never enjoy. I could have taken the $10,000 I've spent on games in the past few years (VERY conservative estimate) and bought a nice car or some Real Estate. Instead I have boxes of stuff that I'll never play.

I'm 100% agreement with that. In the same boat, so to speak. Problem is, I just can't seem to wean myself off of it yet. Congrats on doing so (thus far). It's a tough thing to do.

[Goblin]

Some might consider this blasphemous, but the last year or so have been fantastic: I've felt my need to buy games just to have or eventually resell drop ten fold. I've never been an extreme collector like some here, and the most I've ever paid for a single game (not retail) has been $25. Although I've got a fairly decent collection of close to 30 systems (about 15 unique), and over 600 games.

Now I tend seek out specific goals and accomplish them. Some thrive on 'the hunt', I tend to get bored by it now. It would be great to find a NWC for 50 cents, but I don't need to spend hundreds of hours (over a life time) going to yard sales looking past $5 SMB carts hoping to find it. With other responsibilities I've found my time is more valuable than that. The advent of emulation has also eased the burden a bit. At the very least it allows me to enjoy my collection more without having systems around everywhere. Sure its not the same, but for me its close.

I will still jump on a good deal if/when I see them, but I tend to buy individual items or else trade to get them. Probably the best part is now having the time to play through all those games that previously never saw play. Even if I never got another game in my life, I still couldn't play all I have, which is why I started to cut back. Now I only buy things because I want to play them.

[Starcade]

I don't play most of my games either, i just like having them all, i mostly buy whats cheap, I don't like payign 50$ for a new game, so I usually wait for the price to drop before buying it. I only spend 40$+ on games that I KNOW wil keep me busy for awile. (cough eqoa).

[Queen Of The Felines]

I'm a bit of an addict as well. My problem is that I'm one of those people who shop when she gets stressed/depressed/etc. Ironically, what's causing that is financial problems, and my shopping in turn causes MORE financial problems. :roll:

Ebay's the worst site for someone like me, lemme tell ya.

Kristine

[jaydubnb]

I selected the first option "No, not at all." However, I usedto have the collecting addiction until I realized that I was just stocking up on games and not playing them....thats like buying a book and staring at the nice cover, heh. I broke the habit by vowing to complete a bunch of previously purchased software before acquiring anything new...and it worked! Now that extra dough that I have is much better served......

[Atari7800]

It seems we have someone who works at a game shop in this post... I don't see how you do it! I'd be so broke! Does it pay well? :D

[Oobgarm]

Hehe, no. But the discount is nice. That's where all my money goes. Right back into the store. Hell, they could even pay me with a gift certificate.... LOL

[zektor]

I can totally hear where you are coming from. My videogame collecting addiction is so bad that I have broke myself more than once. I actually kept buying SMS games a little over a year ago, and not even paying my rent! Well, when I was about 5 months late and was threatened with eviction, I sold off the games and paid my rent off. Things like this have happened to me on and off for the past few years. Not paying PSEG, or the Cable, Phonebill...you name it...just so I can buy more games that I hardly ever play. Now I am not working, but still buying games on ebay. How do I get the money? Selling off other stuff. My recent addiction has been the TG16/PC Engine and as of now I have a very respectable collection of the two. I am also two months late on my rent. Ugh..yes, I am this bad. This time I don't care...I REFUSE to sell my collection to pay these bills off. I'll just have to find another way until I get a job.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I'm one of those people who shop when she gets stressed/depressed/etc. Ironically, what's causing that is financial problems, and my shopping in turn causes MORE financial problems.

That's me too, though it wasn't a problem before I was co-existing with someone who doesn't always do the best job of keeping track of the checking account balance. I've been curbing my collecting here lately, though, for a couple of reasons: every year, when that magical Really Expensive Item hits (in my case it was the Odyssey), it's time to lay off. And furthermore, my only chance of making it to the Expo is to stop spending money on anything else (and the way things are going lately, even then that's no guarantee). :/

[Charlie]

LOL, well I haven't bought any video game since Warioware Inc came out and I'm not shaking or anything. Then again, I haven't been able to put it down since I got it, so maybe I have another addiction. Hell, I haven't gotten a new NES game since Febuary. I've bled this area dry.

[Videogamerdaryll]

Voted..
(Most certainly. I'm as bad as you.) :D

I don't know who I'm as bad as but I believe it an addiction..
Oh..and I have a bad case of it..But I'm happy and my excessive game buying has not created a problem...at all..
I love buying Video Games..It's my thing..

I have an addictive personality..
I went looking for some PS game link info tonight and I bought 2 Xbox games 1 PS2 game and a PS Classic Trackball..

I said to my wife earlier today that I wasn't going to buy any games tonight.
"Yea Right"..That statement didn't last for long today. :-D

[christianscott27]

heres a true story, i was comitted to getting at least one game for every day of the year, i did this for 4 years, most of the time easily beating the quota. the thing was that i had so many titles to get it wasnt hard to do. i spent about $25 a week, now i have 70% of all the titles released prior to the SNES. so what happened was that i moved onto the 16 bit era and started hitting the funco to get my 7 a week fix. i still make it out to the thrifts and fleas but the odds of me finding classic titles that i still need are much less than they were a few years ago. my son was born last fall and he's the center of my world now, gaming is still a big part of my life but not as much. i came to think that just going down to gamestop and picking up SNES sports titles i'd never play anyways was a waste of time. now i just pick up whatever comes my way in thrifts and fleas, hunting in the wild like a real collector :) so now i pick up less games than before but i enjoy the finds more.
________
Zoloft lawsuit (http://classactionsettlements.org/)

[hezeuschrist]

There are some things I just cant pass up. I don't know why, but I just won an auction for Saga Frontier 1 and 2, with the guide for 1. I already had the guide for 2, it was the perfect complement to my collection and right now I'm trying to rationalize the purchase, but I can't. I played Saga Frontier once, and I didn't enjoy it. Why am I buying it? For the collection. 90% of the time I can just let the auctions come and go, watch the prices and when I feel like it snag a game at a good price... but the lots kill me. I see a great lot and i think "I'll NEVER see a lot like this again, I don't want to dip into my account, but I can just put my next paycheck in the bank" Yeah, right.

I've got a list about 50 or so games long which for me right now is WAY too much. By the end of the summer I hope to have maybe half of those games, and even then I won't be able to play them much. I don't know why, but it's just my current fad since I've found DP. You guys are terrible :(

[maxlords]

Well, I used to be worse than I am about it. I used to spend $400+ a month and then mooch money off my family to pay my bills. I was collecting EVERY RPG I could find for every system, and lots of other stuff and never selling any of my games. Then I got married and moved to Canada and just didn't have the money for it anymore. And then I sat down with a few of the games I'd collected over the years and realized "some of these games are complete shit and I'll never play them." Also realized that some of the ones I've played thru (like FF8 and 9 *hangs head in embarrasment for playing those*) I'd NEVER play thru again.

So I decided it was time to start selling or trading off all the games I didn't like or knew I wouldn't play again ever. I've gotten rid or a good 100+ games, and taken in maybe 50 more, and I buy new stuff much less frequently now. I'm SLOWLY curbing the habit, due in no small part to the fact that I have 3/4 of the games I've always wanted. Mostly I'm filling holes in the stuff I wanted, which is mainly imports anymore. I've got nearly every rare domestic title I ever wanted, and most of the newer stuff I wanted too. It makes it easier to say no. Now, the only real impulse buying I do for games is when i see stuff I can resell quick or get good trade for. And that doesn't happen THAT often. The best advice I can give anyone...AVOID eBay as much as possible! I try to stay off, but it's hard. What I've been doing is telling myself I can only bookmark X number of auctions, and then if they go above a certain low $ amount (which they usually do) I can't buy them and have to delete the auction, finished or not. Works well if you have the self control :)

[scooterb23]

There is a reason I'm 28 and still living at home... :roll: :embarrassed: :D x_x

I'm not as bad as I used to be...but I still have no head for saving money...I have three major money sucking events coming uo in the next month, and I just went out this week and bought 6 (soon to be 7) brand new cds!!

[Atari7800]

Hey there guys and gals...

Thanks a lot for the intelligent replys. It's good to know there are a few people in the same boat as me, or at least a few people waving at me from the dock...

Look's like we've run the gamut between occasional $5 buys to 5 months late on rent.

Any other stories to tell? :D

[wberdan]

i have it under control right now fortunetely, but it definetely has been bad in the past.. hardcore addiction collecting games. since i hit 2,000 different games it practically stopped, but i think its just because im out of it right now.. i kinda get into it every few months or so- like ill go on a frenzy for months and then completely stop for months.
actually, after pissing away 5,000 or so bucks on games the first like two months of this year i guess you NEED to stop for a while
aaaaaaaahhhhh hahahaha

willie

[icbrkr]

You're not the only one having this addiction. 2.5 years ago, I got a Dreamcast for Christmas from my wife - the only video game system I had in the house at the time. 1.5 years ago, my dad gave me his Intellivision. Currently, I have 30+ systems and about 1,600 games - most of them in the course of the last 1.5 years. At first, I was just happy collecting for the Intellivision and Dreamcast.. .then I remembered I liked Ataris, and I always wanted a Colecovision, and then I found this old Saturn....

For a few months (right after coming back from the Cinncinnati Classic), I spent every weekend for 2 months or travelling about 300 miles to find games, blowing $100-$200 a weekend. By Christmas, I was close to broke. I had delpleted savings buying games. Luckily for me, two good things happened: 1. I came close to finishing off some collections so I became more content with what I had instead of having the urge to run out and buy more. I started concentrating on 1 or 2 systems instead of buying for *everything*. 2. I cleaned out pretty much everything within a 300 mile radius so there's no point in running out and looking as often.

I do understand the "got it, now put it away" syndrome. I have stacks and stacks of games where I just made sure that they worked, and placed them into the closet knowing I'll never play them unless someone specifically asks to see them. Maybe that's what it's about. I love the look on people's faces when I lead them into the game room and tell them to look around. Most of them have a flashback to when they were kids, and pick up random items and say "ooo.. I had this when I was a kid" and "oh, do you have *THIS?* I'd love to play it again!". So I fire up whatever it is that they wanted to see. Just watching that nostagic trip is very cool and rewarding, I don't know why.

So, it's not just you...

[le geek]

heh,
I think videogame buying is something that I have under control in terms of finances. I generally don't buy what I cannot afford. For instance I didn't buy anything in May or in June so far.

But I do have a stack of games that need playing including: Radiant Silvergun, Ikagura, Sin & Punishment, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Indiana Jones for N64 to name a just a few... And it does seem like I need to cut back on the amount of time I spend playing/reading about/reviewing/cruising msg boards about games...

I do love videogames a lot, but I'd like to have done some other things in my time here though. heh.

Good luck finding the balance.

Cheers,
Ben

[Darth Vader]

I'm right with ya! Even if I have the game, if it's at a good price, I can't pass it up. There is no way in hell I have the time to play all of my games, yet I think I enjoy buying them as much as playing them (thats why dave2236 calls me a hoarder). Oh well, its better than being addicted to crack or some other drugs. :D

Danny

[Atari7800]

So much for good intentions... I spent $100 this weekend on a bunch of crappy PSX games (Tiny Tank is pretty good, though) and 2 instruction-less Blockbuster N64 games. Still, $100 IS BETTER THAN $300...

[Achika]

Hello, my name is Adriennne, I'm 21 and a recovering addict.

I was really bad before I went to NYC. I was spending most of my paycheck right in the store where I worked. Ebay was a bit out of control, but on a 56k it was getting better during christmas break than it was when I was in school.

Being forced into a budget in NYC was difficult without time for a paying job. I was spending a bit at first but after awhile I really started watching and ended up not spending as much. I snapped into this mode of "well that's nice, but I don't really need it....I'm probably not going to play it" So it was a moment when the collectors soul started leaving. I also started trading in or selling on eBay some of my PS2 games and just using that to buy new ones. It's worked that way. Buying high, selling for half, and telling myself "I'll buy it later when it's clearenced out or gone to greatest hits."

It's worked so far, but the problem is that the collector soul feels like it's just left now. I look at my near-completed DC collection (and a few others) and think, it'd be so much easier if I just kept the games I liked and sold the rest. :o

[AB Positive]

I think I'm a strange breed on this one. First, I too work at GameStop and if you work at one where they use the "Used Games" or "Funco" store plan, you pick up the retro-gaming addiction hard working there. I've now sworn off ever actually buying from my stores for a few reasons, unless I'm trading stuff in to use as credit. Going to yard sales and buying some SNES games loose for $10 you won't play isn't bad when you go to work and trade them in for $32 in credit. Heh.

However, as much of a buying addict as I am (and I just dusted off the old ebay account) I'm also an incredible tight wad. If I spend $100 on games, I better have gotten 20 or so complete games for that cash. I'm really REALLY jonesing to play Bomberman '93 again, but when the first auction I saw ended above $10 I refused to bid again. The only other one (last I checked) is a simple BIN of $30. Hell no.

However if I see anything that I know I can resell/trade for more, I impulsly get it. I can't seem to help it when I know i'm getting a deal. Working CDX + 16 CD games for example. I knew it was worth more than $30 but I wasn't about to spend more and was taking a huge risk that he'd decline to sell it. He did though, and now I'm happy.

So, I guess I have something internal that limits me, however I have probably still spent near $100 this month on stuff. I just have to make it a bargain to justify spending it though.

-AdamG

[le geek]

It's worked so far, but the problem is that the collector soul feels like it's just left now. I look at my near-completed DC collection (and a few others) and think, it'd be so much easier if I just kept the games I liked and sold the rest. :o

WOW! You're well on your way to recovery! :)

Cheers,
Ben

[Ed Oscuro]

So I hear people here are compulsive collectors...I consider myself a very selective collector, but that said, I'm pumping just as much money into this as many other people are (I often save up two paychecks to buy a mere handful of items, sometimes I can spend one paycheck or more on a single item). I got started when I was 18; I'm 19 right now.

Yes, things are darned expensive, but I hate to think how much some of this shit's gonna cost a decade down the road. If I don't start getting some systems I'll be hurting later on.

[Anthony1]

Wow!

I've read this entire thread and I can definitely say that you guys have me seriously worried!

I've just gotten into Retro Gaming, just these last 60 days. Actually, I don't even think it's been 60 days yet. I've just gotten into this and I've already bought 5 game systems. 2 of them off Ebay, which is starting to turn into HTML Crack as far as I'm concerned.

It's amazing because less than 60 days ago, I was just a normal gamer playing XBOX and GameCube games. I only had one game for the Cube (Metroid Prime) and a handfull of XBOX games, and I was content just playing these games occasionally, and also renting the occasional game from Blockbuster.

I really had no interest in SNES or Jaguar or Saturn or Genesis or TG-16, or anything like that just 60 days ago. But everything has changed.

I've bought 5 systems and almost 30 games, in a very short period of time. Everytime I log onto the net, I immediately check my Ebay Bidding/Watching page.

Also with being a real newbie in this, I've probably spent way too much for the games and systems that I have picked up so far.


I think the policy that I need to have is that I have to completely finish one of my video games from beginning to end, before I buy any new ones.

[Ed Oscuro]

You be careful with eBay. I found myself buying games that I didn't even care about (I thought running into a bunch of demo discs for a cancelled PSX game was cool... o_O). eBay is an awful place to buy imports from, and it's a bad place to look for lots of stuff. Take those $0.01 carts...after S&H you almost always end up paying $3.50-$4 for an ultracommon cart. Bah.