How often do you buy games (or music....or movies) you never play (or listen to....or watch)

jjstraka34

I seem to have this mentality. This weekend GOG had insane sales, and I purchased every Ultima game, every Might and Magic game, the whole Realms of Arkania trilogy, 3 Wizardry games, and a few assorted others. The price is not the issue. Getting all these classic titles for around $50 is highway robbery. The point is that I can't imagine I will have the time to play and complete these games within the next decade. Yet I was obsessed with acquiring them.

My media player on my computer has nearly 25,000 songs from over 4200 artists and over 1500 albums. If I put it on shuffle it would play 24/7 for almost 2 MONTHS before repeating a song. I also buy all my DVDs used at pawn shops and Thrift stores, and can usually come away with 10 or more for $20. Yet I haven't gotten to 75% of the ones I've purchased in the past year. Same thing applies to books.

If I had ten straight years of not having to work 40 hrs a week with no other outside distractions I MIGHT be able to take all this stuff in. So why is it so damn enjoyable just to acquire these things and know that IF I want to experience them, I can??

TheElf

I've only ever bought a game I didn't play at all because it didn't work (trying to fix fallout 2 to work on my system left me quitting in frustration). A couple times though I have been tempted by Steam sales to buy a few really cheap games that I've only played for about an hour or so and then gave up on.
I think it's because sometimes I don't have any games I'm really looking to play when I get a chance, so it's like gambling with a grab bag or something. I think if I find one cool game in the mix I'll have made off with a crazy bargain. Haven't really had a hit though.

CoryNewb

I have a bunch of steams games I haven't played yet, but I have intentions of playing them. I started child of light today and plan to play don't starve when they add the multiplayer. Movies and music I buy I always watch or listen to at least once.

Steam just makes it super easy.

elminster

Yea probably 1/4 of my steam games I've not even touched. I probably should get on that, but its easy to stick with what you know (and enjoy).

meagloth

Almost never. I don't buy many games.

wubble

I use steam family sharing with my brother, that way we can play each other's games without having to pay.
Though I have a few things I've bought that I still need to get round to playing/watching.

artificial_sunlight

I own 218 Forgotten Realms novels, and I am currently reading the 35th.....
I also own all the spelljammer novels, all the old FR comics, and a lot of other books. I think I read about 5% of them.

Kamigoroshi

About once every couple of decades. If such a thing happens, I'll simply resell the item(s) in question.

ShadowHunter

GTA 5 , is the only game I bought and did not enjoy because it was just plain boring IMHO.
That's what you get when you're a hardcore RPG-computer gamer and decide to buy a game like that ...

Nimran

I don't usually buy games...but when I do, I play them all the way through, even if I hate it.

deltago

jjstraka34 said:

with it ad ten straight years of not having to w. ork 40 hrs a week with no other outside distractions I MIGHT be able to take all this stuff in. So why is it so damn enjoyable just to acquire these things and know that IF I want to experience them, I can??

To answer your last question in one word: Consumerism

Why you would buy them could be chalked up to spontaneity.

You never know when you'll have a friend over who really always wanted to watch The Killjoy Triology and there it is sitting on your shelf.

Same with music. Sure it may take a long time to listen to it all, but you maybe in he mood to listen to Pat Methany Group during a dinner party or maybe something else.

Games could be wanting to try something new without having to go pay full price for it. You might only place it once but is 5 bucks, the same as renting a movie in the past and you'll probably get the same number of hours of enjoyment out of it.

There are many games I have acquired and need to play. I blame xbox live free games for that. Movies I will always watch at least once and music albums get at least 2 weeks in my random rotation be for I pick and choose my favourites from the album and let thw others take up space in itunes.

Kaltzor

I have a huge backlog of games... Though most of it is for the Xbox 360... When I found places selling used games I couldn't help buying some games for it.

jackjack

After rent, food, and bills, living in NYC, I'm too poor to buy games I do want to play, so the idea of buying one I wouldn't definitely play is a foreign concept to me.

Michail

I actually buy all steam games i am interested in when they are on sale (lots of good games can be bought at 75% off at times). I have stockpiled more than a 100 and have played something like 20 - 30 of them. But i mean i really played. Like, finished the game on all difficulty settings and got every achievement I could.

I also stockpile books and DVDs. Got 100s of books i mean to read. Some of them i must have bought some 15 years ago and never got round to. And more often than not i will buy a DVD of a movie i have allready watched, just because i liked it or because it's a classic and want to have a good collection.

I seem to have stopped buying music though. Used to buy lots of it, but now i never listen to new stuff and seldom listen to the oldies as well. I seem to have drifted away from the habit. At least i have listened to what I have.

I know i had good reasons for choosing every single book, even the theoretical and really boring ones. I still feel i 'd like to play every game I bought on impulse. I will probably get round to most of my games but some will be oldies by then. And I will probably scrap my DVD collection when the format goes the way of VHS. I decided to buy only blu ray from now on to limit the damage. I doubt I will ever read all my books, but at least they can be given away, resold or passed on to the next generation. Is it consumerism? Or are we so bored that we are hoping to fill our time with more experiences than we can take?

iKrivetko

I never buy things for the sake of buying them. I either buy because I have the intention of playing (reading/watching) them in the nearest future, or because I want to support their cause, like I bought Max Payne for iOS because it was one of the first major game ports to be released for mobile platforms. I also bought IWDEE for iOS, even though I currently do not use my iPad very often, and the game isn't very satisfying on the iPhone 6 Plus.

The only games that I had bought and was not able to finish were the Witcher series. I bought them with the assumption that I would be able to play them on my new Macbook Pro, but the first game apparently doesn't work well with Intel graphics, even after all my extra tinkering. And since this is a series, I had no interest in touching the sequel either, except for trying the tutorial to see if it works. It does, if you're interested. But CD Projekt still deserve their bucks for supporting a DRM-free world.

Considering music, I don't buy it a lot. I have most of Iron Maiden's albums in my iTunes library, as well as some pre-digital era CDs of other bands, but I mostly prefer listening to the radio, as I don't like creating my own playlists, but I do enjoy it when the music is shuffled but not completely random. For that reason, I have recently subscribed to Beats Music (yay proxies), and I'm a happy camper ever since. Except for the situations where it fetches a black or death metal song, or some similar shite, but apparently it's adapting to my tastes as it doesn't commit such atrocities very often :P

As for films, I generally either go to the pictures, rent them on iTunes, or randomly stumble upon them on the telly (which I don't watch that often). I'm not a big cinemafan anyway, so there's that.

jjstraka34

What I believe it is for me is the pleasure I take in collecting and archiving things that are similar. I have spent countless hours tagging for massive music library over the years, and I'm still tweaking it. In the past few weeks, spurred on by the winter sales on both GOG and Steam, my CRPG library now includes the following:

Ultima 1-8
Might and Magic 1-8
Wizardry 6-8
Realms of Arkania 1-3
Eye of the Beholder 1-3
Ultima Underworld 1-2
Ultima Adventures 1-2
Elder Scrolls Arena and Daggerfall
Lionheart
Baldur's Gate 1-2
Icewind Dale 1-2
Planescape: Torment
Divine Divinity
Divinity: Original Sin
Legends of Grimlock 1-2
Dungeon Master 1-2
Fallout 1-2
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura
Eschalon 1-3
Avadon 1-2
Avernum: Escape from the Pit
Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos
Betrayal at Krondor
Darklands

and that isn't even the whole list as I haven't even organized and set-up over half a dozen D&D Gold Box/Strategic Simulation games I was able to get my hands on. Aside from Pillars of Eternity, I doubt I'll ever need to buy another game again if I don't feel like it. I got all these for well under $200 over the course of a few months. But it presents the problem of just WHAT to focus on. Right now I'm playing the early levels of Grimrock, Divinity: Original Sin, and Eye of the Beholder at the same time essentially, but that's just my personal-style. I'm sure this sounds insane and ridiculous to many people. I don't know how many of these I will ever finish. But I take tremendous comfort in the fact that I can access the comprehensive history of computer role-playing with a click of the mouse. But I likely have serious issues