I keep buying games when I know I'm not even going to play them

[Rickstilwell1]

In need of money I have recently started to force myself to stop collecting and start building a virtual repository that includes scans of all the boxes, manuals, cartridges, discs, paperwork; the gameplay videos of me completing the game from start to finish on original hardware, and the rom or disc copy if available. I want to use all this content minus the roms of course for a website.

I'm just going to keep the systems needed to play games at any time and work away at my backlog till it disappears. I have just gotten to the point where it has become way too much to handle. And if I really need that quick replay of Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong or whatever else - that's what the Everdrive and Powerpak are for. I love Suikoden II for Playstation but I can still play it on my PSP and PC if I just have to get the heap of cash back out of it.

[Trebuken]

Things that help me:

1. You do not have to complete the game.
2. You do not have to play it on the toughest difficulty or even the default one. It's up to you. So what if it is easy. (I never turn down the difficulty anymore - games seem to be getting easier).
3. Games don't go out of date. I myself just played Deus Ex in the last year (The original). It was still awesome.
4. I like having a selection of games to choose from at my side. I don't want to have to simply commit to the next game I buy.
5. If you shop wisely and buy at the right price you will probably be able to get most of your money back.
6. Only pay full price for games that are truely worth it, or you can't wait to play (or to support the developer, which oddly I think of now that I am getting older). For Example; If you only want to play Call Of Duty's single-player, it is not worth $59.99. It's too short.
7. I always say that game collecting is as enjoyable as actually playing the games.

[otaku]

send the games my way I'll play them

[goatdan]

I totally had this same issue, and for me when I looked at, say, my 40 GameCube games and I had played 5 of them, I felt overwhelmed. I got to a point that I actually realized that I was stressed out by having too many games to play because I would look at them and go, "Oh no." and then not play anything. I had the same thing with movies and TV shows on DVD. I had like 25 of them or more that I hadn't even touched, and this was after a long time... When I had free time to play a game or watch a movie, I felt stressed that I had to get something done or else I would never catch up...

But, when I was at a store, and there was a game on clearance that I had heard about and was really interested in, I would pick it up. I found myself never playing the games that I couldn't progress in (like arcade compilations and so on) because although I love that type of game, I couldn't feel like I accomplished anything by playing them.

About two years ago, I sat down and went through everything that I had. All of the games that I wanted to play went on lists, as did the DVDs and so one. My list was over 200 items, but what I did was I sorted it for myself so I had one game for each console that I played at at time. Then, little by little, I chipped away at it -- I didn't play every game for long, if I didn't like it, I sold it. And if I went to a store, I would have the list in my pocket so I could say, "How many 360 games haven't I played? Where would this one fall? Never mind, I don't need it."

I've purchased VERY few games in the last two years, but my list is under 30 items now, and I am finding that I find it much more enjoyable to think about what I'm going to play. I look at my list and not the games themselves to prioritize what I am going to play, and I have sold many, many games that I played or didn't like to make space.

It's been great, and I've saved a LOT of money by doing it. I also can find myself now pulling out an arcade-y title (NBA Jam for the PS3 recently) and playing it for a while without feeling like it was a waste. If you're feeling the same thing, I'd suggest doing this too

[substantial_snake]

I occasionally fall into this trap and it always makes me laugh knowing my younger self would have been yelling to me to play my damn games.

I've pretty much instituted a "I'm 12 year old again" policy when it comes to new purchases. That pretty much falls to trade in/sell X amount of games before I pick up a new one. This both encourages me to really play through a game and enjoy it for what it is before getting rid of it while still saving cash on random game purchases. It works pretty well with the only exceptions falling under new retro releases and the occasional retro game. I find it lets me enjoy games more while cutting down on my overall costs.

[GameNinja]

I wonder how many other people bought Mass Effect when it was for sale on Steam thinking "5$ for Mass Effect? I can't pass that up!" and have it sitting there unplayed. I know I am one of them.

[Chadt74]

My issue is that I want to play the games I buy but do not have enough time and recently I purchased a lot of games for effectively $3 a game or less (Xbox360 & PS3). So they are cheap and I want to play them, but I do now have a huge back log. Not sure what to do, but I do enjoy choosing my next game.

[jdc]

And this is one of the greatest things about having a 10 yr old son who has grown up with videogames. If there are games in our backlog that I don't get around to, eventually he will. To ensure this, I raised him to accept all generations of console as equal.

[kevifray]

there is worse habits than that, and i'm sure you'll go back to them soon!

[videogameking26]

Same thing here man, got so many great deals I couldn't pass it up and have quite a few still in shrinkwrap, for example out of my 230 360 games have about 30 still in wrap and another 30 I've popped in to get a feel for them and moved on to something else.....have a real problem for that as another example bought Man vs Wild on release and played first area and really enjoyed it but then shelved it to move on to another, again another prime example as I was loving AC: Brotherhood and made it to 5th mission and then just shelved it for another game, just bought Revelations off Best Buy on Black Friday for $35 so will have to go back to finish it, that is what happen when I bought Brotherhood and to go back and finish AC II because I did the samething like Brotherhood....err trying to keep my mind on one game as currently working on Sonic Generations but just qit playing Rayman: Origins as I'm clsoe to end so need to go back to it soon....anyone else do this?.

[BHvrd]

This is just one part of why I'm considering a move to the PC. Steam games will stay nestled clean in my library. Taking neither shelf space or getting disc scratches. And I can't go sell them away en masse in a blaze of OCD-ness, which helps too.

Well you could always sell your steam account *poke* *poke*. lol.