How or Do You Refrain From Buying Games?

[JoeAwesome]

My backlog of games (and therefore my guilt of spending) wouldn't be so big if people would just buy things at what I want to sell them for.

[Gunstar Green]

understand your collection more as well

I would like for your to elaborate further on this phenomena. What exactly do you mean by "understand your collection"?

I'm not attempting to speak for him but I think this is where curating your collection comes in instead of just having hundreds of games for the sake of having hundreds of games.

It's the ability to be able to pull any game off of your shelf and talk about it because even if you maybe haven't beaten it you know the history behind it and appreciate it.

Part of my reason for collecting anyway is to curate that collection, thus I tend not to own things I don't appreciate in at least some way.

[mjmjr25]

But buying games is no more a waste of money than any other consumable medium right?

Physical games in fact are better in this regard than most other consumable mediums. You pay $20 for a movie ticket and popcorn - 2 hours of enjoyment - money is gone forever. You buy a $20 game - 2 hours of enjoyment - more enjoyment potential in the future, and when you stop enjoying it...get some, all, or more of your money back.

Fun entirely out of the picture, being the 'evil reseller' for a moment, and figure it this much.

You, and others, have this horrible fascination and disdain of "evil resellers". You do realize that anyone selling any item secondhand is a "reseller" - including yourself. Your mortgage lender, your car dealer, any item at a garage sale / flea market / ebay / etc / etc / etc / etc / etc

They provide a service and have people who want that service - or they would not be in business.

[Nintendork666]

understand your collection more as well

I would like for your to elaborate further on this phenomena. What exactly do you mean by "understand your collection"?

Sure.

Game collecting, to me, has always felt like a constant rush of chasing 'the next big thing'. I'd buy a game, drive it home (or wait for it to arrive in the mail) and surely enough by the next day or so I'd be watching YouTube videos of some other title I caught wind of and all of a sudden that's all that I could focus my energy and attention on.

But actually sitting down and playing my games for extended periods of time? I began to appreciate just what exactly my collection had to offer. I may not own Trip World, but I'll be damned if the Game Boy port of Bonk's Adventure doesn't have A HELL OF A LOT TO OFFER for the $2.99 I'd paid.

I developed a solid comprehension of what characteristics of certain games appealed to me more than others, what caused me to buy the game in the first place, and if I actually enjoy playing with certain game design choices rather than just hoarding similar games of the same ilk because I like the pretty aesthetics. I learned what I actually have time to play, which games I prefer over others, and which developers I really wanted to dedicate my wallet towards. I learned what really is inside all these colorful boxes and grey carts I own.

My collection was birthed through re-purchasing old favorites and tracking down classics acclaimed by fellow collectors. However, certain well-regarded games will just never click with me (I'm looking at you Toe Jam and Earl) and I feel all the more better for coming to that realization. Do I really need another garbage-tier licensed Game Boy game or would my money be better spent on a Five Dollar Foot-long? I'm glad to understand now that oftentimes the latter is the wiser choice.

Perhaps I should've stated it helps you understand yourself as a gamer, as that seems to be moreso what I'm hinting at. But Gunstar Green also summed up what I meant quite nicely. I think it's a bit of both, honestly.

Please don't dissect my words too much however, I have to leave for work in 20 minutes and am typing hurriedly. lol

[dsheinem]

You pay $20 for a movie ticket and popcorn - 2 hours of enjoyment - money is gone forever. You buy a $20 game - 2 hours of enjoyment - more enjoyment potential in the future

Man I hope you don't play/collect shmups then! Crazy folks pay hundreds of dollars for a 20 minute game!

[dunpeal2064]

What idiot would spend hundreds of dollars on perfectly emulatable, 20 year old games?

[Exhuminator]

It's the ability to be able to pull any game off of your shelf and talk about it because even if you maybe haven't beaten it you know the history behind it

Some guys are like this with baseball cards and the players they represent. But I am like this with my hundreds of games. Grab any random game of mine and I will give you a bunch of trivia about it whether I've played it or not. (I'm not bragging about this mind because it's more obsessively odd than anything else.)

@Nintendork666

I understand now what you're saying, I think. You're saying you understand more what you yourself seek from games by analyzing your collection and seeing which parts of it you enjoyed more. By not constantly seeking new experiences, and instead playing everything you already own, you're forced to find out what's good and what's not in your current library. In the future that leads you to buying less games you won't like, and more games you will like. Simply because you understand your own tastes better. If that's what you're saying, sure that makes perfect sense.

However I thought perhaps you were implying that analyzing the games you bought over the years could lead to new insights into your own psyche. Some sort of existential element.

[the7k]

1) Low income job, and hours seem to be getting cut every week.
2) Things seem to keep breaking all the time. All the time. All the time. Whether it's a once perfectly working arcade machine I have just two months to fix up from some unknown power-related issue so I can take it to a con, or a truck that just can't stand to go a week without being in the repair shop, what little money I do have goes to repairs.
3) Nothing really worth a damn comes out these days, so I guess that helps too. I can just focus on old games that go on sale.
4) To be able to buy anything, I have to sell stuff, so if I did happen to really want anything, it's going to cost me more than just money.

My latest purchases were some import games that Super Fami Mart were selling for 30% off for a Spring Sale (most of them about $4 each) and some PS1 games on PSN that were going for less than $1 a piece. I plan to play the PS1 games immediately and the import games when they come in probably a month from now.

[mjmjr25]

What idiot would spend hundreds of dollars on perfectly emulatable, 20 year old games?

...but...but...the blitter, man.

[Hobie-wan]

You pay $20 for a movie ticket and popcorn - 2 hours of enjoyment - money is gone forever.

Hey man. Depending on one's intestinal facilities, that's probably another 16+ hours of enjoyment that is being wrangled out of the visit. If you have septic lines or are some sort of crazy composter, well how do you put a price on green vegetation?