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

[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!

[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?