Why Do We Buy What We Don't Play?

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Originally Posted by rezo

Other interests besides video games just gives you more stuff to buy that you'll never get around to using.

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Unless you're buying useful things, like bike parts, or things that produce real life achievements you want to pursue instead of fake achievements, like paints and musical instruments. You could never use those too, but if you have the drive to achieve something instead of earning achievements, you will use them.
I swear to God i'll use that set of Holbein Irodoris one day.

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A good solution to having too much money and too little time is to buy ridiculously expensive video games. You'll be using the same amount of money as always, but on a reasonable amount of games that you actually have a shot at completing.

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What if they're really just bad games that cost a lot, like Evolution Dungeons for Neo Geo Pocket Color, or Shantae for Gameboy Color? THEN YORE RONG and you're just torturing yourself with your own money.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

All of these facts are perfectly obvious to me, as is the conclusion that this is stupid and a waste of money. However, that combination is not enough to stop me from buying new games, many of which simply add to the pile. Why is that?

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You answered your own question. It's stupid.

Why can't you stop? Impulse control. The more one practices it, the better one gets at it.

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Originally Posted by Yoshi

This is hysterical, because it sounds insane, but so is everything led to this suggestion.

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You're the one who buys so many shit games that you can't play them all. [/hypocrisy] [notreally]

That was exactly my point. Taken at face value, he sounds nuts, but it's not any more nuts than the original problem I was describing.

I haven't really added much to my pile since I was in college, when I finally had enough disposable income to buy a lot of old stuff for cheap with the intent of catching up on games from previous generations that I had missed out on. Didn't take me long to realize that I'd never have enough free time to get into most of them as thoroughly as I'd like to, so I scaled my purchasing habits back.

I don't buy more than one game per month anymore, and usually it's less often than that. I don't feel any need to expose myself to every newly hyped game under the sun either. I don't venture much outside my niches and probably miss out on a lot of good shit because of it, but I don't really care anymore. I actually still play games quite a lot, but it's often hundreds of hours devoted to a small handful of titles rather than 5-10 hours each across dozens of titles.

EDIT: I actually do tend to splurge on higher-than-MSRP titles with the rationalization that I'll still be spending less overall than those with the problem described in the OP.

KOF is right. Too much money, too little time.

The other biggie for me is multiplayer gaming mixed with always being a click away from playing games with friends. My latest example is Deadly Premonition. Goofy game right up my alley, problem is I have lots of friends that wanna play the latest and greatest in multi, which is more compelling to me. So not only do I have to make time for gaming with a busy schedule, I gotta make single player time as well.

Digital distribution also doesn't help with the temptation to buy games. Its waaaay too easy to just click and buy something. I have gotten better at it only buying a handful of games during the Steam christmas sale. Then again, I haven't touched one of those games.

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking video games.

Fucking tree hugger.

I kept buying games for about a year after my game playing slowed down.
Most of the games in my pile are bargain bin GC games that I snatched up at the end of that console's life cycle.
These days, I barely use my consoles at all, so half my games are still in the shrinkwrap.

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Originally Posted by Josh

You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking video games.

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You're doing it wrong.