Have you ever been addicted to game collecting to a point where it was unhealthy, or financially reckless? How overboard did you go, and how were you able to stop yourself?
Lately I've been on somewhat of a game collecting binge. I've been buying up games left and right without much restraint. Granted they are all games that I think I really want to have, but I'm simply buying so many of them so fast it's alarming. I've spent hundreds and hundreds in the past few weeks. Subconsciously I think I'm trying to make up for the year or so I didn't buy any games. I'm just so tired of not having certain titles, and just thinking "some day". I'd rather have them all now.
Like most things in life, it's never that clean cut. I've never gone so far as to collect in an unhealthy way, but there have been periods when I've been buying up titles which are cheap because the older generation of consoles is getting shown the door at retailers, or when a system's old enough for all of its prices to drop before they inevitable shoot back up within a year or two.
Your priorities in collecting and taste in games can change, dramatically, the reality of what is available now and what was available five years ago are different.
I bought a lot of games in the .. whichever generation it was that contained the PS2/XBOX/GC. Anything that was non-sport/racing for the GC, over time, since it was a system I prioritized collecting for, anything PS2 exclusive that was Japanese/quirky/obscure, over time, as well as any non-racing/sports for the OG XBOX since they were pence when the game shops were clearing them (GC was already dried up at that point, PS2 games remained relevant for years afterwards). Did something very similar for the 360 (main console of that era) and picked up PS3 exclusives (much smaller collection, PS3 was garbage for exclusives in comparison with the PS1/PS2). I thought that was 'it', the 360 would be my mainstay. I was wrong.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 didn't have a lot of variety in games, so many 'wander around 3D landscapes hitting/shooting things and opening doors' kind of games. This became extremely apparent when the PS4 picked up steam - so many different quirky and niche titles. The 360/PS3 do what they do well, but there's no need to keep loads of identikit games, so I've cleared stacks of them out and just kept the cream, ditto with the previous generation. Over the past day or two it's dawned that I'm really not bothered about the Vita (nice system, not enough exclusives, of those too many of them are 2/5 in quality) or the PSP (some nice exclusives, but also a lot of blocky garbage which has been done better on the PS2). So they're going altogether.
I'm not buying half as many games now, haven't the cash with a little one to feed and clothe, but I'm actually playing the good ones that I've kept from previous generations, bottoming my PS4 collection in terms of beating the games and enjoying the cheap-as-chips PC games from the past couple of decades floating around charity shops etc. My priorities have changed, but my interest in maintaining my games collection has not, just different types of games and more focus on the best of each type.
