Do you believe the more games you own, the less you play?

[Steven]

"the more games you own the less you ACTUALLY play." Ironic, but if you really think about it, it makes a ton of sense. Too many choices to pick out of 500 or 1000... meanwhile the guy with a meager collection of 10 games he loves, will rotate them constantly, while you're pondering what to play before going back online to buy more games and saying to yourself "I'll get to that game ONE DAY." One day usually never comes...

Do you agree? Are you EXACTLY in the position above described? I admit, particularly in the past, I am guilty of just looking at my collection sometimes debating what to play, before deciding to just do something else.

[Hammy]

agreed. i have this problem very often. back in the days when i only had a dozen or so games, i'd play the hell out of them, but now it takes much too long to decide/find the game you want in all the crap games that you will never play.

[Iron Draggon]

This is definitely true for me. When I only had a few games, I played them all the time, but now that I have 1000's of games, I often find that I would rather surf ebay looking for more games to buy than to play any of the games that I already own. Sad but true. The thrill for me in getting a new game is more in the joy of filing it away in my collection and checking it off of my list than in actually playing it. And of course I love the thrill of breaking the factory seal too.

[Pantechnicon]

Absolutely. In 1984 I had a grand total of 9 Atari 2600 carts that kept me occupied for hours, every day, all summer long. Now at over 260 carts - let alone the other systems - you could call me enthralled if a game holds my attention for more than 5 minutes.

I'm painfully mindful of this because I still regard myself as a gamer 1st and collector 2nd. But after a certain level of accumulation it's very hard to keep from teetering definitively over into the latter category. Not that there's anything wrong with that... x_x

[Arcade Antics]

"the more games you own the less you ACTUALLY play." Ironic, but if you really think about it, it makes a ton of sense.


Too many choices to pick out of 500 or 1000... meanwhile the guy with a meager collection of 10 games he loves, will rotate them constantly, while you're pondering what to play before going back online to buy more games and saying to yourself "I'll get to that game ONE DAY."
Ironic, yes. But it doesn't really make any sense when you think about it. 'Cause you're talking about two different things: actually playing a game, and deciding what game to play.

Having 10 or 1000 games is no different as far as the decision making process goes, and that decision making process hinges entirely on the individual. Some people may take a little longer to pull a favorite game from a list of 1000, but again, it's an individual thing, YMMV.

When it's time to play a game, grab one and go. The end. :)

I do understand what you're getting at. But I think it has nothing to do with deciding what game you want to play out of N# of games and more to do with being disenchanted wth / taking for granted the library you have to choose from.

[boatofcar]

But I think it has nothing to do with deciding what game you want to play out of N# of games and more to do with being disenchanted wth / taking for granted the library you have to choose from.

I disagree. When I look at my stacks and stacks of games, I can never decide what I'm in the mood for, and usually sulk off to vbender :)

[Cmtz]

I used to play Mega Man 3 non-stop for my Gameboy back when I was limited on money. Now I buy the game I want play the first couple of stages and then put it away for mabye another day.

[Teknik_SE-R]

Ii have found this to be true also, but I am resisting.

I find myself less motivated to finish a game also.

I have reverted to a sort of chronogaming for some series so I force myself take the time to appreciate and enjoy the games i own. I also limit myself to having 6 games going at once. Then I stay good at those games so I can finish them. For me If I play too many games at once I never get good at any of them and i never end up having any favorites, no matter how good a game might be.

[BydoEmpire]

It's true to a point. My game playing time is limited more by work and other things, not really how many games I have. Although I do end up spending too much time looking at my games trying to figure out what I'm in the mood for. :) When I had fewer games in the 8-bit eras (pre and post crash), I really played each one to death. Of course, I had a lot more free time to play games then.

[Edit] I also spend way too much time online reading about games. Twenty years ago, those hours went into the games themselves.

[Videogamerdaryll]

Do you believe the more games you own, the less you play?

No,..I just have more to play..More choices..
I usually make a stack-list of games that I want to play then go about playing each one..Depending on what it is I will finish it or it may be a quick fun romp...I tend to play more new type games then anything and most of them I try to finish..If I get stuck to no return then on the shelf they go until I find a way later to pass the part I'm stuck in..

When I want to play something old I have it to play..

The biggest factor is my Son..and nephew..
My Son is so much the gamer and he plays everything..
Lately He's been playing MAPPY,Galaxian and Pole Position with interest though he's always playing the new stuff.
As I write this he's playing the Tekken 3 Arcade machine..
So having a lot to play gives him a lot of choices/variety of games to play..

My gaming time-desire method hasn't changed no matter how many games I've owned.
I buy games to play them...My gaming only changes with what time I have to put into it....As get into other things I game less.

[kentuckyfried]

It's called transcending ;)

You move to a higher plane of existence......

[Poofta!]

"the more games you own the less you ACTUALLY play." Ironic, but if you really think about it, it makes a ton of sense. Too many choices to pick out of 500 or 1000... meanwhile the guy with a meager collection of 10 games he loves, will rotate them constantly, while you're pondering what to play before going back online to buy more games and saying to yourself "I'll get to that game ONE DAY." One day usually never comes...

Do you agree? Are you EXACTLY in the position above described? I admit, particularly in the past, I am guilty of just looking at my collection sometimes debating what to play, before deciding to just do something else.


couldnt be closer to the truth =]

in fact, i find that i dont play ANY of my games anymore. i play a couple DS games and the occasional driving/fighting game with a friend thats it. im becoming more and more a collector and less and less a player (i still consider myself a gamer, even though i never played God of War, i can tell you much about it).

[Fighter17]

Ture for me... :(

[ACCarl]

I think thats what made me stop collecting. I had all these damn games and I never played them. I just kept trying to buy as many dreamcast, Saturn, SNES, Genesis games as I could. I finally just stopped and asked myself, "why do I need all this stuff?" I then was watching one of those antique hunting shows that had people searching for Cambell soup products at flea markets and pawn shops like it was their mission. I just laughed and thought how pathetic it was. I then realized it was just an obsession to collect. It was the same obsession I had with games. I realized I was pretty wasting my time. I now just pick up stuff that I played during my child hood that I really enjoyed. I sold quite a lot of my stuff the last two years and haven't regret it. I always laugh when people freak out and believe that the used game market will soon dry up. It won't and game collecting will be a fad. You will see lots of guys like me turn around and throw their games up on ebay in a few years. Then collectors like you guys can cash in.

[cyberfluxor]

This is quite true with me. I'm always buying games but only when they are affordable and appear to be a great deal for what I'm looking for. Now, this means if it's over the general market price, if I REALLY want it and haven't found it up to that time, I'll get it to a certain degree just to have it on the shelf for whenever I might play it. I can say I've spent a good 5 minutes on most of my games, but only few get exceptional amounts of play into it. Personally I do it for collection purposes and to be able to play it if I ever decide to. I know that once I graduate college and move out on my own I'll be damned if I'm not playing these games when it's a nasty day outside.

So I guess yes, it is true but I plan on doing most of my gameplay on the randoms I buy today later when I'm on my own. :)

[eightbitonline]

i find that i can always find a game to play, i just have a hard time committing to a game. when i only had 15 games i didn't have much choice. now i can play a game for fifteen minutes and then say

"wow this game kinda reminds me of blaster master.... yeah, blaster master.... it's so good.... man, i kinda.... i sorta..... i feel like playing blaster master right now!"

so i jump from game to game too fast. last weekend i really needed to grind on Tales of Destiny but i couldn't keep focused on it and kept switching to a shooter or something. when i went to my parents' house this weekend and took Tales of Destiny with me and had no other gaming options available i played for six hours straight. LOL

[Haoie]

Pretty obvious connection.

Also now that I find as I age [oh the humanity] I play less. Especially now, since I'm a postgrad, and researching junk is time consuming.

[staxx]

Yup as my gaming collection grows, I tend to play less games. Now I have to take into account I work a lot more now and have more responsibilities. I make more money than I did when I was in High School and I can buy more (reason that I have a larger collection). But after a long hard day at work I am pretty much drained and just don't feel like playing a game. I guess I'll wait till I retire and see if I spend a lot of time playing games :)

[Vectorman0]

Yes, this is fairly true when I look at myself. It's also one of the reasons I plan to sell off some of my games. However, once I am back down to a less excessive amount of games, I don't think I will start playing more often. But who knows, maybe I will.

[§ Gideon §]

There's a correlation; so far, it seems we've all agreed. But that doesn't mean there's a causal relationship.

The factor could very well be age. Adults with disposable incomes have more responsibilities and therefore less time on their hands.

[incubus421]

For me, this is not true.
I only buy the games I want to play completely through. I don't buy them for the shear thrill of having them in my collection. Altough I do consider myself a collector of great RPG games.
What I do is buy a game, play through it, put it away buy another game, play through it, and so on. If i have more than one game to play I play a little of bothm but eventually get hooked on one, beat that, and then move on to the other. And most games (mostly RPG's) that i beat, I don't come back to for quite some time, as I am always playing a new purchased game.
Also, I try not to be playing more than one game per system, so that I can avoid being unable to decide what to play.

Also: I agree with Gideon, I think being older has a lot to do with it. When we were all kids what did we do? Got to school, come home, tell our parents we didn't have homework (well atleast some...including myself)....and why? So that we could play video games all through the evening up til sleep time. And weekends, were like holidays dedicated to playing video games.
Now that I am older, (and I'm sure I speak for a lot of other people here) I find myself playing less. Here are a few reasons:
1.) Wife/Girlfriend
2.) Kids
3.) Job
4.) Spending time with wife and kids (Dates/Vacation/Outings)
5.) Much more responsibilty and things to care about and work on
6.) I would say a general loss of interest, people realize as they are older that there are more important things to spend your time on
7.) Rules 2, 5, and 6 do not apply to me.

[Dr. Morbis]

This used to be so true of me that I stopped doing it. I used to think "time for some gaming" and then stare at hundreds of cartridges oohing and ahhing before forcing myself to play a game I wasn't really into, or else just saying "ah, fuck it" and doing something else alltogether.

Now, I never go looking at my games trying to think of something to play. I only do some gaming when I start thinking about a certain game in particular or if I get a hankering for some game while I'm doing something else. Then I go and grab that game out of my collection and have some fun.

[Felixthegamer]

Sure it seems true for me. I find myself though constantly playing the same ten or so games that I have played for years and don't seem to let too many new games into the rotation

[retroman]

i agree to a point....U have less time spent on a game u might want to play, because u also want to play another game to.

[Nez]

Not really I have over 1000 games and while I dont have time for all of them I am almost always playing one though completion.

Although when I'm on a collecting binge I have far less time to game becouse Im out finding new games to add to the collection.

[tholly]

i used to play all the time back in the day....but now that im over 1000 games, i spend less time playing and more time on DP, RFGen, CAG and eBay reading about and looking for new games....

[Putney]

Definitely the case for me too. But I think age is a big factor, as it is for a lot of people on here. When I was much younger and in school, I could really just go to school, come home and play. Once I got out on my own in college, I had more stuff to do, and hence less game time.

Plus, being in grad school, if I'm playing games too long in one sitting, I feel like I should be doing school related stuff. If I'm outside of the house running errands, it's so easy to just stop into a Gamestop or EB and see what's there.

Also, having started my gaming life in the NES days, games have gotten much, much cheaper. Not only the factor of having more disposable income, you have to remember that used games were practically unheard of in the major stores until the PSX era. A new game then was $50-80 for consoles, so it was very hard to buy too many, regardless of income.

Now, it's very easy to track down a used or new PS2 or Xbox game for $10 or less, so it's just so much easier to buy on impulse. I think my cheapest current gen game was Clock Tower 3, sealed, for $1.88.

My problem isn't really not knowing what game to play though, even with my nearly 1000 games, I have in mind what exact ones I'm working on or want to play, just other factors of life keep getting in the way!

[segagamer]

Definitely for me as well, as there are some games I will always play and others I will eventually play, if I can find the time to do so. So I end up buying lots of games I like that I think I will eventually play someday...

[Toandirte]

I think it takes less time to collect games then to play them. But if I buy a game (or games), in theory I can play it whenever I want. If I don't buy the games then I don't have that option. What I do to settle this is have a weekend night set aside to play games. Then I have friends or family come over and chose the games to play that night. I personally don't have a problem watching (helping) others play. It's fun (for me) to let others play games out of my collection and to see their faces when they see my collection (about 730 games). Don't get me wrong I still do enjoy playing by myself, actually I on my 3rd time through RE4. Most RPG are one player only so I play those to when no one else is around. I never had video games growing up (something about roting your brain) so the "other" things in life wife, kids, job, are more important to me. But I am really happy I found this exciting hobby.

[Emuaust]

Im not to sure about this one, you see when I was young
I had my SMS, being an aussie this was the norm, Id play
the hell out of it and sit around all day every day getting fat
and having a good time, now im older and have found out
I actually can do well at my choosen sport of cycling I have
far less time to play, BUT.

While this may look like THE reason i play less as ive got older
and have more money and run a game store I have a rather
big collection, the problem is after working and training i come
home and spend an hour deciding what to play before moving
on to my anime and DVD collection as its a no brainer, sit down
relax and not have to think.

I will agree though with this thread as all my mates have meager
collections as they play a game then trade it in on a new one
all the time! Although the logic to it eludes me they have far more
fun gaming as the have time to concentrate on A title, pretty
self explanitary I suppose

[Dji]

Excellent thread and input by various posters. :)

The theory is true in my case. I have a lot of money to spend, a lot of free time, and a lot of games, yet I seem to gaze at them more often than not, finally deciding to do something else entirely because I simply cannot choose among the great number of games readily available to me. I enjoy buying games and systems, especially those I have never tried before, but I go on to the next game quite quickly. I've had some unopened games for months now (I'm not a sealed collector), and many games I've recently bought just lay there until I finally decide to play them. Sometimes, though, I find it fun to pick a random game and play it.

When I was younger, for years I would receive one game for Christmas and another one for my birthday. That was basically it. However, I rented a game or two weekly, so I would play those games and focus on them. Back then, it always took me forever to decide which game(s) to pick, so now it's the same thing, except I already own them all. :/

[SirDrexl]

Well, it depends on how you interpret the question. If you interpret it as "how much time you spend on a game, on average," yes, of course the more you have the less you can play a game.

However, if you interpret it as the amount of time you spend playing games in a day or week or whatever, like videogamerdaryl did, it can actually mean you play more because you like games and have more choices.

[FullCircle]

Well, it does happen, but not exactly the way you have worded it. When I was a kid and started getting video games, I'd probably play 8 hours a week, and as I got more games and the newer games became more involved and took longer on average to complete, I spent more time playing games as a whole, but spent less and less time on each game because I felt I had to work on finishing this other game. So it seems like I'm playing less time per week, but I'm actually playing a greater amount of time and playing a greater number of games at any given time.

For example, right now I'm playing GTA Liberty City Stories, which made me start replaying GTA 3, which made me break out other Xbox games like The Chronicles of Riddick and Beyond Good and Evil. Then I have some games that I play through regularly like the Castlevania, Metroid and Zelda series, which, depending on the game, takes quite a long time. Then I have all of the classic games that I purchase regularly that I can't shelve without saying I beat the game with that specific cart. So in addition to the above games, I'm also playing Super Glove Ball, Gyromite, Ecco the Dolphin, Corpse Killer, Escape from Monster Manor, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Super Princess Peach, Final Fantasy and Crystalis. I have gotten to the point now that I play video games almost all the way through my day at work, since I work in a customer service call center and only need to look up for about a minute and a half per 5+ minute phone call.

It's a sickness, it has to be. but it keeps me distracted from real life.

[Ulticron]

It's not a totaly true statment for me. Yes when I was a kid I had just a handful of NES games, and I played the living crap out of them, while now i have almost 700 games and I don't play my games as much. It's not the choice or the size of the collection that limits my play time though. Mostly it's the fact that I work 40hrs a week, and I come home tired on most ocasions, and other things eat up my time as well. If I had the spare time to sit down and play them I'd be logging in just as much time as I did when I was a kid. Whoever said growing up is fun was an idiot! LOL

[Nz17]

Food for thought, OP.

[Gametrek]

Your not going to get anywhere in life playing videogames 24/7hrs a day. It is like sports, not all sports men actually go big leauge and get the big pay day. Like models they drop them after a certain age range and many people become irrelivant. Like that hosuewife on "Unhappily Ever After" I saw doing HSN recently.

Miyamoto ( if you have seen him play games ) is not a good player. However Nintendo does not want him to talk about his activities and interests. Like

Playing a musical instrument ( Banjo ).
Solving puzzles.
Drafting ( wht he started out with and could be seen doing designing Mario 3 levels ).
His kids are graphic design majors ( as he mentioned ).

I do not regret that at all. I met people through videogames and had experienes. Maye I will have some more.

......................

Take Youtubers.

Metal Jesus Rocks in comparison to Maestro Jake.

Both are into videogames. However one did programming at a real game company, while being in a metal band. While the other was beaten/abused by his dad for making any noise and media was an escape from his life with his parents, resulting him into going into a Janitorial job. One has a gigantic collection still growing, traveling with his wife and growing kids. The other has a Steamdeck and those little plastic figures

It is like something out of Bartleby ( a book I had to read in college ).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HcrBqq-cRYY

At some point you have to move foward and make sure your on top of the world. Like that song
"Let them know that you are winning," but it is work

work = life

.......................

Somebody mentioned women. Girls do not like fear. You like good looking girls, then workout, eat right, study, and save your mony for a date. Try and try again. That is it, they want the baby and could careless what happens next. There is no mystery to girls. Denis the Mennence got it right all along "Girls are ikki". We are better without being trapped in that web of lies,. That is why it is called a "Venus-fly Trap". "Your free Conan Run boy run".....and then comes the single-woman, aka the witch,........Crummmmmmmmmm. All that time in chains he was just fighting cage matches and sleeping with virgins. Then of course comes the Kings daughter ( like baby doll from Dirty Dancing ) riding around with James Earl Jones. vader voice. You look at the stars as you toss ________ head down the stairs and ask yourself "What would life be like without videogames.

I am glad, because I am happy and if I actually put it in any effort into my life, I look foward to playing more videogames.

[MidnightRider]

Mostly it's the fact that I work 40hrs a week, and I come home tired on most ocasions, and other things eat up my time as well. If I had the spare time to sit down and play them I'd be logging in just as much time as I did when I was a kid.

Gametrek kinda started to hit on this, but in actuality, it's those things in your life that you hate, keeping you away from it, that preserves your love of video gaming. Otherwise, if you went back to it as often as you'd want, you'd start to burn out. Especially on the slower paced, time consuming genres.

[Gametrek]

Lets ask ourselves this. If videogames was not real ( never invented ) what would your life be Conan?

[fpbrush]

Absolutely. If your life consists of only being surrounded by videogames that means you aren’t getting out, probably not employed (I.e. contributing to the workforce) and generally eat cereal every Saturday morning. Haha. Naw, I think it’s fine. Really, do what you enjoy and try not to upset misses.

[fpbrush]

As far as OP said, I think it’s hard to actively play every game you own. I usually gravitate to a select few and play over again. The Switch, for example, has been my mainstay with Super Mario Wonder. Always loved Megaman, etc. Shmups are great, and who can beat it’s-a-me Mario?

[Gametrek]

1. In Japan there is the thing where people buy one game for a console and that is it. They do not buy anymore.

2. If I went for any job ( which is not equal ) I would end up
hurting people ( I seriously would go insane ). That is the core of all problems in this world. That is not the reason for stopping to play something.

.................................................. .......................

We talk about Mario now. Mario Wonder is completely out of my range view. I can not even play the oddessy game.
Marios Girlfriend is not a mayor. She is a typical person in a cocktail dress, usually kidnapped by DK. They censored her and made her a 1930's mock-up. She a mayor....

I gave up Mario the moment I saw a disabled guy in my college ( I met in Campus clean up ), I asked him some questions about videogames, which he knew about. But he could not tell me about import titles, or anything beyond the retail store, or history.

"Bowser wants to be a living castle"........that is it I am out

The day when Mario actually fights Giga bowser and he will have his "MRPG" icon when he does his super moves. Is dead. At least Sonic tries to be different from time to time. Mario just tries to be the same.

Then Megaman died when Capcom kept on canceling these auwsome projects. If these things was on the Gamecube or Wii, maybe I would have budged. Even "Retrostudio's" literally was making a "Megaman X" FPersonS game like "Metroid: Prime" and that was canned. MML3 was canned, including the red project.
Capcom does nothing at all with Megaman. They just want the original fans who grew up with the series to die, or even for the Megaman creator to pass away or something.

Reason why you see the team from "Rockman Zero" making all these games that screams Megaman.

Capcom is not a great company anymore.
...

We have goals and sometimes these goals require us to put our attention elsewhere.

[fpbrush]

Trying to parse through your post. Not sure I completely understand. But, games have changed in quality over the years. Sadly, retroemulation might have contributed. However there is still some good stuff.

[Gametrek]

There is no such thing as "retrogaming". There is no such thing as "retro-emulation". It is.
Mainland Asia back when the only thing they could get were Famicom literally had devices to sit atop a SNES, and you use Floppy A:\. Even for awhile famicom gaming was a thing to be wowed by.

Think like this. Rasputin in real life is a prophet, He had many women but was married. He saved the little prince life. Then came post Little-Mermaid Disney theater recruitment nonsense. They made him look like a clown who had mysterious powers, and more nonsense. Then when "Kingsmen III" came out they made emphasized him as part of a conspiracy, with even more nonsense. It is like the way the film and animation Conan/Krull made him look like a clutz.

They are "Jedi" mind-tricking videogames into a state of consumerism that has no logic or respect at all. The Koopa Kids are not tactitions, with actual emotions. They literally are babies in big peoples bodies. Mario does not own a respectful plumbing business with his brother, they were allways in the Mushroom Kingdom. Link never retired to go on more adventures ( like Adol from Y's ), nope he was reincarnated and they literally brought the devil ( Akumu ) into Zelda. Might as well have Zelda and Castlevania in the same timeline.

Then to make it more insane. People outside videogames do great things but makes stupid remarks.
The person who made "Zelda II FPS" has to mention the Deserts of Africa......for a fictional game in a ficitonal world. Press Start II just not being thought out correctly. Alice Madness Returns = great game,
but then they literally had to bring up an off putting topic ( which I will not mention ) at the end, like if I did not know what granny was doing to Alice when she was having one of her trips on the roof.

Next there will be nothing but "Sonic says" alongside all of these propaganda and insert idea into game.
Along with the nonsense from FANG ( Facebook, Apple/Amazon, Netflix, Google ) presents another TV-show that should be a movie, which is nothing but blah blah references I have heard already in Womans History 101.

My money stays in my wallet, because it is iredeemable. Where is the love in all of these games.
Just make stuff that is fun and good, which I could enjoy innocently.

[fpbrush]

Well, I’d say if I was into games any less… I wouldn’t be retrogaming. Pretty sure games of this area just became mindless, addictingly monotonous monetization hoarding globules zippity non-sport videogames. PUBG mobile just releases end-of-cycle recycled BOOM, that said.

What just happened to the era I grew up in????