Recovering video game purchasing addicts with ridiculous backlog

This topic seemed to get a lot of interest in the target clearance thread do I thought I would start a topic here if anyone wants to discuss some more and not clutter up the deals section

After evaluating my own behavior for why I would be buying so many games, it comes back to my upbringing and not having money for a lot of the games I wanted when I was growing up. 

I never really stopped playing my NES and would occasionally scoop up some great lots of NES games at garage sales or even on eBay in the late 90's, early 2000's for very little $$$

It was a lot of fun to play games I had never heard of before and play some titles I never got around to. I was in high school and college at the time so I had free time.  I don't have the free time now but I am getting better about passing up on the deals. 

The thrill of the hunt and getting a deal is also a big driving force.  If I buy something, I intend to play it. Those good intentions only go so far as the backlog grows. Even though I plan on playing what I buy, I also consider, if I don't like the game, will it have good resale value?  I know that trends into "flipping" territory but I prefer to see it as a way to finance my hobby.  

Just thought I would share 

In the NES, SNES/Genesis and most of the N64/PS1/Saturn generations of consoles, I had a good selection of games but never had any kind of backlog because either stores didn't have sales/clearances like they do now or I was too young to know about any deals and not using the internet until the late 90s and I only got games at gift giving occasions.

It was in 1999 when I saw Toys R Us putting Saturn and the games on clearance that started the backlog of games for me. They had the console for $29.99 and games for $5 - $10 plus EB had games for as $1 - $10 new plus a free 3D controller with any game purchase and then buying cheap games kind of took off from there. I wanted to build up a library of games so bought almost anything. Madden 97 for $1 that I ended up playing once or twice as an example. Then with PS2/Gamecube/XBox the same thing happened, so many games at stores for a few dollars I ended up with way too many games for those consoles. It was difficult for me not to buy a game for a few dollars even if it was something I would have never considered buying for full price or even $10 - $20. Many of the XBox games were from when Gamestop was getting rid of the used games for XBox and had Buy 1 Get 2 free and it was as cheap as $0.33 to $0.66 a game. I still continued to buy cheap games for Wii and PS3 although not as bad. I realized I would never have time to play every game plus replay ones I really liked and decided with Wii U and future PS3 game purchases (both are my 2 main gaming consoles right now), I would only buy a game I really wanted. I traded in some of the games that I knew I would never want to play again.

I still have a small backlog, 2 or 3 3DS games, 4 or 5 Wii U games and 1 or 2 PS3 games since you have to buy a game when you can if it's really cheap but I don't plan to ever buy so many games for a console or handheld system again.

Ha... it's funny this came up. I've greatly cut-back on my collecting because it's so hard to find deals on anything anymore unless you're looking for deals 24/7 and now I'm wonder why I have so many games that I know I'll never play or have any interest in. I remember my first big score, the Circuit City $5 clearance- easy to justify something collecting dust when you get it for a 90% off. Then all the clearances at TRU and a few other smaller retailers... those days are long gone though. 

I'm gonna purge a lot of my stuff PS3/360/3DS forward. It seems like most of those games end up getting re-released anyway in much improved forms. I really need to dump a lot of my CEs... so many of them aren't worth keeping but luckily, I bought most on sale. 

Vinny said:

Ha... it's funny this came up. I've greatly cut-back on my collecting because it's so hard to find deals on anything anymore unless you're looking for deals 24/7 and now I'm wonder why I have so many games that I know I'll never play or have any interest in. I remember my first big score, the Circuit City $5 clearance- easy to justify something collecting dust when you get it for a 90% off. Then all the clearances at TRU and a few other smaller retailers... those days are long gone though.

I'm gonna purge a lot of my stuff PS3/360/3DS forward. It seems like most of those games end up getting re-released anyway in much improved forms. I really need to dump a lot of my CEs... so many of them aren't worth keeping but luckily, I bought most on sale.

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The CEs are something I was getting caught up in. I was sticking mostly to Nintendo stuff so they tended to keep their value a little more but lately I've been looking at this stuff and wondering what the heck am I going to do with it.

I snagged one of the Breath of the Wild collectors edition and I used the switch case from that for awhile but I picked up an amazon basics hard case for the switch that does a better job keeping my Switch safe.

Long story short, I'm done with CE editions and will likely sell off my BOTW collectors edition. I like to focus more on the portable games because I don't have the time to sit in front of a TV for hours anymore on a regular basis

Pretty sure there’s a ton of us on here. That is basically what the site is for.

I can agree with all of you. I use to buy every game the day it was released. Especially with GCU the past 5 years or so. I have so many games that I’ll probably never get to play. While I haven’t bought too many games at release recently, I’ve just picked them up when they go on sale. Far Cry New Dawn is a pretty good example. My backlog/collection was a lot bigger at certain points in the past 15 or so years. I took a ton of my collection and sold/traded multiple times if the numbers were right. It’d be so much larger then it is today. I have a problem with passing up good deals. I still have some games I purchased on Black Friday still sealed, Diablo 3($11). While I always say I want to check it out, I probably never will. Instead of playing something from my back log, I almost always play something newer and more recent. I played RDR2 then re2, then played Trials Rising, and just started New Dawn($17) and I’m currently playing it. Part of my problem is the games I tend to really enjoy are long open world games(ac origins, botw, far cry). While I’d definitely say I got my money’s worth out of those games there’s still plenty that I never will. Playing the Switch on the go was a great way to play through Zelda and MARIO a lot faster than it normally takes my to play a game of that size on say PS4 or Xbox though. Too bad most games aren’t released or are inferior version on the Switch.

And don’t even get me started on my Xbox Game Pass. Get mine for free through Microsoft Rewards so I can’t complain too much about that. And just today picked up a year of PS Now for $60. Just because it was so cheap.

Maybe my kids will play some of my unplayed games cause I won’t be getting to all of them. And I’m sure I’ll still be buying them. Honestly though it’s just something I enjoy. The Video Game industry as a whole is something I’ve always been into a great deal. And usually spend way more time reading about games then I do actually playing them.

.....sorry for the ramble... Not really sure if that was the point of this thread or not but once I started typing I couldn’t stop.

i only started buying lots of videogames cause of the discovery of CAG during the ps2 era lol.

before that i relied on my dad as a kid, so id only get 2 or 3 games a year.

Like many casuals, i thought videogames only ever costed $50/60 except during Christmas or greatest hits lineup.

I started buying lots of games but luckily i was only starting high school so i blew through them fast.
Once i saw my room get crowded i needed to make space. i figured out which games tanked in value. typically mainstream and western games. I saw which games id never play again after beating once and would become worthless. so i always sold those quickly and if i ever wanted them later i knew they'd be worth $1, $3 down the line used.

Once ps3/wii came out with good games i put the older gen stuff on backlog to never be played. that's when trouble started.

I started getting almost any game for cheap by then until I realized i didn't want to waste my time forcing myself to beat a game i didn't like just because I bought it on clearance.

So i started to sell off any game i played and thought sucked instead of sticking through it because i paid for it philosophy.

Than the trophies /achievement mentality happened. Where before id just beat the story and do the parts of the game i enjoyed. now i needed to 100% plat everything. This made the backlog grow since beating a game would take a whole month for 100% instead of a week or two. Luckily i snapped out of that too. kinda.

Than WORK happened so even with my backlog cutting strategies I've built a backlog since i had more income and less time to play. Also deals/glitches can be shipped to home now instead of making trips to the store clearance sections like before so that contributed too.

I now look forward to retirement to finish the backlog. i mean i still play with my snes games so I'm sure I'll still enjoy playing ps4 games in a few decades.

Bleedingwickedly said:

Pretty sure there’s a ton of us on here. That is basically what the site is for.

I can agree with all of you. I use to buy every game the day it was released. Especially with GCU the past 5 years or so. I have so many games that I’ll probably never get to play. While I haven’t bought too many games at release recently, I’ve just picked them up when they go on sale. Far Cry New Dawn is a pretty good example. My backlog/collection was a lot bigger at certain points in the past 15 or so years. I took a ton of my collection and sold/traded multiple times if the numbers were right. It’d be so much larger then it is today. I have a problem with passing up good deals. I still have some games I purchased on Black Friday still sealed, Diablo 3($11). While I always say I want to check it out, I probably never will. Instead of playing something from my back log, I almost always play something newer and more recent. I played RDR2 then re2, then played Trials Rising, and just started New Dawn($17) and I’m currently playing it. Part of my problem is the games I tend to really enjoy are long open world games(ac origins, botw, far cry). While I’d definitely say I got my money’s worth out of those games there’s still plenty that I never will. Playing the Switch on the go was a great way to play through Zelda and MARIO a lot faster than it normally takes my to play a game of that size on say PS4 or Xbox though. Too bad most games aren’t released or are inferior version on the Switch.

And don’t even get me started on my Xbox Game Pass. Get mine for free through Microsoft Rewards so I can’t complain too much about that. And just today picked up a year of PS Now for $60. Just because it was so cheap.

Maybe my kids will play some of my unplayed games cause I won’t be getting to all of them. And I’m sure I’ll still be buying them. Honestly though it’s just something I enjoy. The Video Game industry as a whole is something I’ve always been into a great deal. And usually spend way more time reading about games then I do actually playing them.

.....sorry for the ramble... Not really sure if that was the point of this thread or not but once I started typing I couldn’t stop.

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Rambling is encouraged. I find it therapeutic just to write down how my approach to collecting has evolved over the years. Going from grabbing anything I can for cheap to now running out of space for everything I bought is not how my ten year old self envisioned this going.

I have talked to a few friends that have a similar background and we are all now more in the "curation" phase of collecting. It was a lot easier to get some of this stuff than to sell it. One person I talked to talk used the "Does it bring you joy?" philosophy for his collection and seems quite happy with how it has been going. My group is all mid to late 30's , early 40's and we just don't have the time to play. I still enjoy the hunt though

I relapsed a little bit on Sunday during the best buy Nintendo switch The Nordic sale. I could not turn down the $9.99 price point. I did want to play this the police 2 at least. I missed out on Gianna sisters though. I justify that purchase because I intend to play the game. Hopefully they get a restock on the sold out titles

Retroxcellance said:

I relapsed a little bit on Sunday during the best buy Nintendo switch The Nordic sale. I could not turn down the $9.99 price point. I did want to play this the police 2 at least. I missed out on Gianna sisters though. I justify that purchase because I intend to play the game. Hopefully they get a restock on the sold out titles

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I completely missed that sale, by time I saw it, all the games I wanted were gone. I was going good for most of 2019 until the past 2-3 weeks, suddenly started buying a ton of PS1 games.

BrendaRow said:

So basically I have tried several things and am still struggling and wanting to play my favorite childhood game again. I have used wine/winebottler and dosbox, but am just not having any luck and was hoping for some help...Thanks

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I forgot all about this thread. Try game on emulator , see if it still is something you enjoy. Usually getting just a little hit will help the symptoms go away. If that doesn't work, look at your bank account. That usually helps out things in perspective. What else could I buy with that money, a gift for a friend or child, food, shelter, coke

OP and others, are you still recovered from this problem or have you relapsed? I've had periods of recovery where I stopped buying games only to fall back into the addiction again.

caggamers said:

OP and others, are you still recovered from this problem or have you relapsed? I've had periods of recovery where I stopped buying games only to fall back into the addiction again.

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I think I have redirected my collecting urges.
Having kids has kept me from scouring Facebook marketplace and garage sales so I haven't found the crazy deals I would 10 years ago. I also haven't had time to hit up Walmart clearance as much either. I have been actively selling a lot of my retro backlog because prices are so high right now. I still collect but it's been for the switch and buying physical games when they are on sale.
My video game collection has gotten smaller. But I think I'm addicted to the hunt and finding things cheap.
I also collect vinyl records. This used to be a nice cheap hobby but now vinyl is getting expensive. I still like having physical copies of music so now I buy CDs. People are practically giving them away. I don't know if cds will ever come back in popularity like vinyl did but it's a nice cheap way to scratch my collecting itch

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