Coinciding with the 4th of July, I enjoyed an extended 4-day weekend where I had planned on doing various things, one of which was rearranging my game room in order to make room for various collections which are on the verge of running out of space. Given how large my collection of games is this was no small undertaking, but it was something I was genuinely looking forward to. However something happened while doing this that I would have never expected in my wildest dreams
While moving this shelf over there, and transplanting that collection onto that other shelf, and while moving those other three collection to another shelf I had a bit of an epiphany; why the hell do I have this many video games? Sure, I love video games and always will, but the reality of how many I actually have sort of hit me in a place it never has before. I continued to rearrange my game room, but the feeling was still there; I had amassed way more games than I ever intended or truly originally wanted when I first began collecting back in 2008. Originally I had just wanted to get games I was familiar with from my childhood, but this eventually became games that I'd never heard of, then games that looked like they might be cool, and then at some point it had devolved into meeting a certain quota of games I could say I had in my collection. While this never resulted in me accumulating a bunch of shovelware or outdated sports titles, it certainly has led me to purchase literally hundreds of games that I had minimal interest in. On top of that, the reality of knowing that even if I quit my job and dedicated my life to playing video games, I still wouldn't be able to play and finish all of them, and that's just what I have right now.
I continued through my game room project, and while out and about I discovered that Gamestop was doing a B2G1 sale on all used games. Since recently I've been working to expand my PS4 collection even more I jumped right into this sale and purchased a bunch of titles. However, while buying these games I felt little joy in doing so despite knowing that I would be adding about a dozen cool PS4 games and about 3 Wii U games to my collection. I couldn't help but think how this is essentially how I've felt about 95% of my game purchases for probably the last 4-years.
By Sunday evening I was left with all this on my mind and wondering what to do with it. Not getting anywhere with it on my own, I decided to talk to my girlfriend about it who is also a huge gamer. To my surprise she mostly felt the same way I did, and maybe even more so. She said that outside of new releases that she is super hyped about, she doesn't have that much interest in amassing so many games like we'd been doing since we moved in together back in 2010. As for retro games she felt like we had everything she'd ever really wanted about 5-years ago and that almost everything we bought since then was somewhat superfluous; I couldn't help but agree with her.
We looked at our PS2 shelf which is still our largest collection and between the games she was really attached to and the games I was attached to, it ended up being about 25% of that whole collection, while everything else was stuff that we could do without. I thought about a lot of other console collections we have and it was about the same where anywhere from about 10% to 50% of the overall collection was stuff I wouldn't necessarily miss if I got rid of it.
Since Sunday night I've thought a lot about this and I've decided that this coming weekend I am going to start the process of significantly downsizing my video game collection. I never thought in a million years I'd feel this way, but I honestly feel that I've lost sight of why I began collecting in the first place which was to recapture the nostalgia of my youth. Instead it became this lifestyle, which I don't necessarily regret, but what I do regret is how much money and space it has taken up for far too long. With all that said, I will certainly still buy games and play games, but unless it's a game I am very fond of either because of how amazing it is or because it has significant sentimental value, I am no longer going to buy to collect. I'll still be an active member of this site as well since my passion for video games hasn't changed, just my passion for collecting.
One final thing is that I just feel like everything that has happened around me as it relates to me collecting games just sort of confirms that I want to do this. Many of my old hunting grounds where I'd find amazing deals back in 2012 and 2013 are either long gone or they've become dried up or incredibly overpriced. All my favorite game stores around town are now gone, and what's left is a combination of overpriced stores or used media shops that barely get anything decent in, and when they do it costs a fortune. Essentially the thrill of the hunt and the fun of looking for games is mostly dead to me, and has been for years now despite a few noteworthy exceptions. Likewise, the enthusiasm and excitement in the hobby decreased dramatically over the last couple years, and sadly I don't see it ever picking up again.
It's funny how radically your opinions and feelings can change on things that you once were so passionate about.
