No New Games For a Year

[Kelron]

I have over 300 games on Steam, I'm not sure I've even played half of them. Of the ones I have played, many were only for an hour or two. I have more unplayed games from other sites, and even a few on disc.

I'm terrible for impulse buying games. I'll pick up almost anything that's cheap and looks vaguely interesting. I'll subscribe to MMOs and stop playing after 2 weeks. Even amongst the games I really enjoy, few last more than 20 hours before my attention wanders to something else. At the start of the year I decided to limit myself to buying 1 new game a month, but only kept it up for 3 months before buying a big stack of games in a sale. I don't think I've played most of the games I bought then.

So I'm setting myself a challenge. I'm not going to buy any games, no matter how cheap they are, how good they look or how much RPS rave about them. I'm not even going to download free games. I'm not going to try and force myself to work through my backlog in alphabetical order or finish games if I'm bored of them, but I'll give every game I play a fair chance. I'm going to keep a (brief) log here of what I'm playing and when I bought it (if I can remember). Maybe someone will find it interesting.

Now Playing: Skyrim - Preordered, playing since release.

I'm surprised by how much this has gripped me. 44 hours might not be long compared to the playtimes some of my friends have racked up, but it's longer than I stuck with either Oblivion or Fallout 3. I think I've still got a way to go to catch up with Morrowind, but I'm not close to getting bored yet.

Multiplayer Games:

I've been playing Blood Bowl, ArmA 2 and Solium Infernum regularly for months or years now and don't plan to stop. Multiplayer gaming seems to hold my attention in a way single player does not, although my stamina for competitive shooters seems to have disappeared since I got bored of TF2. I spent 6 years playing EVE regularly and very little of other games, I half want to find another MMO to replace it (although I've had no luck so far) but I also feel I don't want to sink that much time into a single game.

[Fumarole]

Good luck, you're going to need a strong will for this task.

[LaunchJC]

Be interested to see if you can keep that up! I don't think I could :( I probably only have about 30 games on Steam and I feel guilty about all the ones I've barely played.

[Gerbick]

Interesting idea. Might have to do something similar myself. At least until Guild Wars 2 is out...

[Creeping Death]

540 games on Steam (that number rises FAR too quickly) but I've been pretty good at playing most of them for a decent amount of time. 5 hours is generally the length of time I need to reach to not feel bad, as it's about as long as most sp action games last these days. I think last I checked my unplayed games count was 30 or so, and most of them are random ones that were part of developer packs where I played most of the other games included... kinda makes them feel free to me :P

Good luck with no games for a year. I know I couldn't do it. I already feel left out having to wait until xmas for Skyrim!

[The JG Man]

I think you're going about this too hard on yourself. You will undoubtedly want to get games coming out in the year, unless you shut off your eyes from the internet and your ears from verbal media and friends. Instead, I recommend making a list of all the games you want in the coming year. These are ones that you specifically, definitely, want to play. From then, you don't purchase any others.

Ultimately, it's a hobby and you need to do what you enjoy, but don't rule absolutely everything out.

[Nalano]

I have 157 games on Steam.

How the hell do you guys do it?

[Kelron]

I recommend making a list of all the games you want in the coming year. These are ones that you specifically, definitely, want to play. From then, you don't purchase any others.

I can't think of any, I tend to be blissfully unaware of upcoming games until the pre-release hype starts. Maybe Arma 3, but that will likely benefit from a few month's patching. I don't want to buy any games because I so rarely play the ones I do buy, and it's not like I won't have quality games to play. Here's a few of the titles I own but have barely/never played:

Arkham Asylum
The Binding of Isaac
The Longest Journey + Dreamfall
F1 2011
Geneforge 1-5
Pride of Nations
Silent Hunter 3+4
Victoria II

These are not games I'd be forcing myself to play for the sake of it. They look great, I want to play them, but I constantly get distracted and I seem to spend more time buying games than playing them.

[Drake Sigar]

I must have 300 or so games, all physically on my shelves, all played, most completed. You make the Wallmart episode of South Park look completely straight.

[SirKicksalot]

I have 157 games on Steam.

How the hell do you guys do it?

[TailSwallower]

Instead, I recommend making a list of all the games you want in the coming year. These are ones that you specifically, definitely, want to play. From then, you don't purchase any others.

I think this could be a great idea for AAA games, as they have marketing departments that should be putting the word out well in advance, but there's a good chance you'd miss out on some fantastic Indie games.

Personally I don't feel my backlog is too big (probably less than 20 games that are un-or-hardly played), but the problem is that some of those are potentially huge. Sword of the Stars, New Vegas, DoW I&II expansions, and I really want the Geneforge games, which sound potentially mammoth.

[vinraith]

I have 157 games on Steam.

How the hell do you guys do it?

Well, it helps to have a psychotic friend who gifted you every single $5 for 5 games indie pack last Xmas. That's like 50, right there.

It also helps that Steam counts every single piece of $0.50 DLC as a "game" for purposes of that count.

[vinraith]

As to the topic at hand, I have a sizable game backlog of my own, but I won't be making a pledge to stop buying games, for a couple of reasons:

1) At least half of my backlog is crap. I got taken, because I was a sucker for a cheap game price and for a long time indulged a horder's instinct, but there's a lot of stuff I have that I'll never play and that simply isn't worth my time. It's a stupid waste, but in a digital world there's no way to sell it off or give it away, so it can only be taken as a valuable (and ultimately expensive, despite the cheap unit price) lesson.

2) I have no intention of ceasing to support those game houses whose output I value just because I've been a dumbass buying cheap shit for the past couple of years. I'm going to keep buying games I enjoy from developers I like, and I'm going to do it at full price.

Which leads me to my own pledge, which I've talked about around here a few times, and it's simply this: no more buying games just because they're cheap. I have little enough gaming time that hording makes absolutely no sense. I'll stick to the stuff I care about, the stuff I actively want to support or want to play right now, and everything else can slide on by.

[Nalano]

If we're gonna be all on-topic 'n shit,

ME3 comes out in 2012. I can't abstain.

Other than that, I'm pretty set.

[soldant]

Most of the games I barely play were bought on special, and a lot of them are indie titles which are fairly light on gameplay and not much fun for me. I've got 140 games in my library but only about 50 installed at any one time, with about 10 or so seeing regular playtime. Most of them I've got installed simply because I might like to revisit them at some point (the Half Life series is always installed).

I'm going to follow Vinraith's example and stop buying stuff simply because it's cheap, particularly the indie titles that I'm not certain I'll enjoy. I wish I could gift some of these titles to other people.

[DigitalSignalX]

Diablo 3 and ME 3 are the only "absolutely positively gotta have" games of 2012 so far. Maybe you should make a list of anticipated games you will allow yourself to buy in 2012 and then make the pledge for everything that comes up NOT on that list.

[The JG Man]

no more buying games just because they're cheap

As my dad would say, you only save money on a sale if you were already going to get it anyhow. For example:

Game A is £20. You were going to get it. It goes on sale for £10. You buy it, £10 saved.
Game B is £10. You weren't going to get it, but now it's on sale for £5. You buy it, that's £5 extra spent.

It's why shops put on so many sales. How many times have you bought bottles of Tango on sale? I know I sure as hell don't buy it the rest of the time!

[pakoito]

As my dad would say, you only save money on a sale if you were already going to get it anyhow. For example:

Game A is £20. You were going to get it. It goes on sale for £10. You buy it, £10 saved.
Game B is £10. You weren't going to get it, but now it's on sale for £5. You buy it, that's £5 extra spent.

It's why shops put on so many sales. How many times have you bought bottles of Tango on sale? I know I sure as hell don't buy it the rest of the time!

This is the smartest piece of writing I have read in the past ten years. Too bad I just bought the Humble Introversion Bundle because I played Darwinia and Uplink 10 decades ago and I feel guilty.

PS: I only remember Uplink as "impossible, NEED MORE PROXIES" and Darwinia as "friends pointing at the screen laughing at me for playing that shit".

[vinraith]

As my dad would say, you only save money on a sale if you were already going to get it anyhow. For example:

Game A is £20. You were going to get it. It goes on sale for £10. You buy it, £10 saved.
Game B is £10. You weren't going to get it, but now it's on sale for £5. You buy it, that's £5 extra spent.

All true, of course, but the trick is that your brain often tries to convince you that game B is also something "you were going to get," even though that's bull.

[Fumarole]

It also helps that Steam counts every single piece of $0.50 DLC as a "game" for purposes of that count.

Not necessarily. The DLC is counted in the Community profile, but when one views their games from the Library the number of games listed under dropdown for All is probably different. For me they are 272 and 208, respectively.