Reflection

I’m slowly coming to the conclusion I have a serious problem with my relationship with games. It may be you also share this same issue, or you may not even consider it a bad thing. My problem is I just can’t stop buying games.

There isn’t any kind of affordability concern, I’m not racking up vast amounts of debt in order to feed my addiction. No, my problem is I don’t have enough time to actually play the games I own. I think we can all agree that life is busy and when you’ve got a full-time job, kids, a household and various other responsibilities then it’s even busier. Finding the time to play games is becoming more and more of a struggle and I can really only ever count on approximately 30 minutes of game time a day.

The problem

So why, when I already have enough content to last me several years do I then buy other things? In the last couple of weeks I’ve added Paper Mario: Colour Splash, Farpoint and Torment: Tides of Numenera  to a pile that already contains Final Fantasy XV, Resident Evil 7, Eagle Flight, Stardew Valley and Breath of the Wild – and that’s just from 2017.

Using the numbers on HowLongtoBeat that is conservatively 200 hours of gameplay. Which at 3.5 hours a week works out at well over a year’s gaming, and that doesn’t take into account the other games sitting on my shelf from previous years that go unplayed. There are so many amazing gaming experiences on my shelf/PS4 HDD/Vita/Wii U that I’ll more than likely never see and this makes me sad. But then the flip side is I’m actively considering buying a PS4 Pro with Horizon Zero Dawn (20 plus hours) and Wipeout: Omega Collection (lots of hours).

The solution

What can I do? Well, inspired by the idea behind Desert Island Games, I’m planning on limiting myself to playing only eight games for a year. How exactly I do this is still undecided. Do I just draw up a list of eight existing games, or do I leave a couple of slots in there for upcoming stuff? I’ve got to include games I might play with the kids, but do I really want two slots out of eight taken up with Lego games? Are there some exceptions I can get away with (VR experience type stuff for example not counting as games)? These are all things I’m going to have to consider. I figure I’m also going to need to cover many different genres as when it comes to games I take an attitude similar to Banky Edwards’ attitude to porn.

Holden McNeil : You’ve got like 30 books there! We’re only going to be gone for two days!
Banky Edwards: Variety’s the spice of life. I like a wide selection. Sometimes I’m in the mood for nasty close-ups, sometimes I like them arty and air-brushed. Sometimes it’s a spread brown-eye kind of night, sometimes it’s girl-on-girl time. Sometimes a steamy letter will do, sometimes – not often, but sometimes – I like the idea of a chick with a horse.

So over the next couple of weeks I’m going to start considering my own eight games (but only for a year) and I’ll post my thoughts on here.

And yeah, I know #firstworldproblems.