Gaming and Materialism: What are your thoughts?

[skaar]

I think more and more about just selling it all off and only keeping the stuff I really care for. I'm house shopping right now and the first thing I'm doing before I list my place is emptying ALL of the shelves into boxes and putting my stuff into storage. I'll be living without any of my games other than a handful for each console for a few months.

All the DVDs and books are already packed away, I have to go through the old game room but the modern stuff is already packed up. It's going to be interesting to see how I feel as I gradually "lose" my stuff to storage.

[JakeM]

I came back to gaming after a string of really bad things happened and I lost all faith in humanity. Ive learned you just gotta do what you have to to stay happy as long as it doesnt hurt others. So gaming is the best thing out there. I used to be into films, and now I wish instead of having a massive dvd collection I had bought a ton of games.

EDIT: Atleast I have a far better movie collection than 99% of people. Id do medical studies and bring in my movies and people would be weirded out.

[Atarileaf]

The problem with living in a materialistic, consumer driven society is that we are trained that happiness is a byproduct of buying and owning "things". This is a fallacy.

People also confuse "joy" with "happiness". Joy is fleeting and temporary, joy is external (ie buying a rare game for a dollar) where happiness is an inner peace and contentment. "Things" can never bring you that inner peace and contentment, they can only bring you that temporary joy, which is why, like a drug, people need to continue to buy more and more to get that high that joy gives you. A truly happy person doesn't need external material things to give them that.

[badinsults]

I never accumulated a lot of games when I did collect (I have a collection of maybe 150-200 SNES games), so I don't know if I ever truly got into full on materialistic mode. At any rate, about four years ago I lost my job, and I had to pack everything I owned into my car. I had some furniture (man, it felt good to own furniture, even if just for a year), and realized a lot of my stuff was completely useless and unnecessary for me to have. I got rid of a good bunch of crap (probably about 1/4 of the stuff I fit in my car), and put most of my games and textbooks into storage. I gave my remaining furniture and TV to my brothers. Then I flew overseas and became a PHD student. I still have my Xbox 360, DS and a bunch of SNES stuff with me, but I usually only pull it out every once and a while. Another overseas move is very likely for me in the near future, and I ponder whether I should tote all of this stuff, or if I should just sell what I probably won't ever use again. I look at the amount of things I have accumulated over the past three years, and most are small souvenirs that will be an interesting conversation piece sometime in the far future. I'll probably leave Australia with about as much as I came here with. Over time, I have acquired an almost anti-consumerism attitude. Perhaps this stems from being burned far too many times from buying cheap crap from big box stores like K-Mart and Big W (a store like Wal Mart in Australia).

[Loganm187]

I have been collecting for a decade and it was always very casual. I would one day a week go out and look for old games (back when they were cheap!) IT was always very casual. I never got jealous of others and just found what I found. I was also basically one of the only people in my town looking for stuff so I got awesome finds all the time. But this past year or two, with all these young kids staring at craigslist all day and go to yard sales everyday while their parents pay for their rent and school...just pisses me off and make me want to collect more. it's like a competition now and it's not really fun anymore. I have over 2500 games and nearly a complete NES set. All found in the wild for cheap and I'm only 27. I don't play 90 percent of my collection and I use to only try and find weird and obscure games as that's what i was into.

I have been lucky to always be renting a place with an extra room to store games in so it doesn't get in the way and there isn't a single game in any other place in the house except that single room. I am a filmmaker for as living and have made a full length with distro and love film, and I have a feature I want to shoot next fall, but I have a feeling this collecting bug I got bit by lately is kinda making it hard for me to get into pre-production for my project. I have even used my collection a reason to not leave the state to move somewhwere better for work. I think I should just sell all of it as outside games all I have is camera equip and a computer. I'm sure i could get usb adapter to the old controllers....kinda ranting

[xelement5x]

The problem with living in a materialistic, consumer driven society is that we are trained that happiness is a byproduct of buying and owning "things". This is a fallacy.

People also confuse "joy" with "happiness". Joy is fleeting and temporary, joy is external (ie buying a rare game for a dollar) where happiness is an inner peace and contentment. "Things" can never bring you that inner peace and contentment, they can only bring you that temporary joy, which is why, like a drug, people need to continue to buy more and more to get that high that joy gives you. A truly happy person doesn't need external material things to give them that.

Man, nice post. I hope others read it as well and comprehend it.

Collecting anything can be an addiction if people aren't careful, or have poor impulse control. I'm personally pretty sure I have a problem with my game collecting now, but my wife is pretty supportive about helping me work through it now that we've identified it.

[FFStudios]

There's a very easy way to separate the two: Joy is what you experience when you purchase the car, happiness is what you feel as you take it on the first beautiful coastal drive of the summer.

[Lictalon]

In that case, I wonder how this game will fit in.