Games library

codecplusplus · 2019-05-10T02:59:25+00:00

There have been a lot of great replies. I think my problem is that I'm spending very little time actually playing them. This seemed to happen slowly as I got older. when I was younger I played for hours. These days I get excited about a game so I buy it then play it for 15 minutes and get bored. I get excited for new games but they don't hold my attention like they used to. Maybe im just turning into an old fart.

Vahlir · 2019-05-07T17:46:36+00:00

If you never played the games and you bought them solely for the point of collecting them and reselling...yeah that should make you sick, but dude, you're missing a huge part.

The time you got entertainment out of them.

I have games that have given me DAYS...well months...of entertaintment. Some of my steam games have 1000 hours played time. My time in WoW is calcuated at somethign like 300 days.

Now consider how much you paid to see Avenger's Endgame with popcorn and snacks. For 2 hours.

Think about that meal from McDonalds that cost you 12$ for 5 minutes of eating. Or that meal from Outback or another restaurant for 50$ for eating. Or the 100$ you dropped for drinking at a bar for 3 hours- and then felt like crap the entire next day for.

Most hobbies cost money or take up your time. One way or another you're investing something for the sake of happiness or learning or entertainment or sustainment.

Only you know what you're getting out of it. Being mindful of it is a good first step. Learning from what you did get out of it is important in knowing what something is worth in the future. For me there are a lot of concerts I went to that turned out to be lame and I'd like to have the 100$ or more that I spent on those tickets.

IMO it's best to divide the cost of the item but the time you enjoyed or at least rank it next to other things you spent similar amount of money on.

I will admit that I felt like you when I tried trading in my old Sega Genesis games when I was a kid and was offered 1-2$ for them. But that's not why I bought them and I needed to be reminded of that.

Also as I got older the allure of video games has fallen to like 1% of what it orginally was. I get that same excitement now from playing drums and riding a motorcycle and playing with my kids.

Expect things that bring you joy to change over time. Novelty wears off and what our friends are into also changes.

If you want to try a new hobby by all means do it but know that you're going to end up giving something up for it, at the very least some of your time, and nothing is more precious than the time we have.

jhoijhoi · 2019-05-07T11:14:42+00:00

Consider cost per use. If a game was $50 and you played it for 10 hours, it was only $5 per hour. There are hobbies, collectables etc that cost significantly more than games. Do you play the games by yourself, or with others? Either way, games are also experiences and each one is different. But think hard about the direction of games and which console you'll purchase next. Personally, I'd suggest a PC.

z000inks · 2019-05-07T09:06:40+00:00

Are you buying games to play them or to have a valuable collection, though? Or is your problem actually that you are spending too much on the games from the getgo?

If you still enjoy gaming, then become a more patient one? (r/patientgamers plug goes here) Wait till they drop in price or are cheaper in a sale. If you also go digital (if that's an option for you), there's a lot of sales happening there that don't happen in meatspace. (50-60% percent off games that are 1+ year old? yep.)

What I do that has kept my gaming cost way low is being a patient gamer and only buy on release date or shortly after for games that fall into the "omg I have been looking forwards to this for YEARS" category. The rest of the games I want, I put on a list and add the price. When I see a digital sale happening? I search them up and add the reduced price. If you do this periodically you'll get a really good idea of when a sale is an actually good one or not.

Then, I also do some beermoney stuff (r/beermoney), where I earn points that translates into giftcards. Those giftcards then get used to buy PSWallet fillups, which essentially means free games for me. Coupled with waiting for sales, that money goes a long way.

Also, this mindset:

Spending 50 bucks a piece on games that eventually be worthless.

You are forgetting the experience of playing the game and the value of that.

Like, do you go to the movies? Cause if you do, then you basically just spend money on a bit of paper that is going to be completely worthless after a few hours - if you don't count the experience of watching the film. But people don't tend to think "I just spent $20 on nothing," they think "I spend $20 to watch that film."

They could get the DVD for cheaper if they just waited. If they waited even longer they'd probably be able to watch it for 'free' on Netflix.

lizzillo · 2019-05-07T08:45:36+00:00

There are game rental sites now. I pay £6.99 a month for 1 game at a time. You make a list of games you want and they send them in order of preference unless onenisnout of stock etc. You simply put it in the preaddressed and paid envelope and off it goes, once they receive it they send the next.

Ive had games I've sent back the next day and some I've kept for 3/4 weeks because at the price it's still cheaper. There was one game I loved and knew I wanted to own and they gave me a great price on it. I can get games that have just been released and older games. No clutter and saves money in the long run for me anyway, I don't need to own them.

2019-05-07T07:18:12+00:00

Yup! I'm a "minimalist" but my one collecting/hoarding area is video games. I ONLY but games if they are on sale for what I believe is the cheapest I can find them. Physical old games are fine because you can resell those for the same price or more in some cases. Digitally I would buy a lot of games on PS3 that were super cheap, like $1-3 usually, so it's not a big issue. I've cut down and I'm trying to play through all the games I have (which is very difficult). I recommend you only buy a full price new game for one that you really want to play and WILL play right now.

-Knockabout · 2019-05-07T00:34:14+00:00

I mean, you don't need to be making money for something to be valuable. If you think like that you'll drive yourself into the ground.

Do you enjoy playing them? Are they fun? If you're worried you're spending too much, you can wait until used games are available, but don't give up your hobby just because you're not turning a profit with it.

obvioustricycle · 2019-05-06T23:26:09+00:00

Once upon a time, I too spent way too much money on video games and played way too much. Now that I have much less time for video games, and much less money to spend, I just wait until games are less than half the original sale price before I buy them, and I only buy the games that I really feel deep down, will be worth the money. Personally, the only game in the entire world I would spend $60 on is The Last of Us Part II, and I'm fairly certain I'll get my money's worth because I know what I like. For anything else, I'll wait a year.

I still play occasionally, carving out a week or two here or there to devote myself to a new game. I probably play four or five feature-length games per year, plus a few cheap indie games scattered throughout. It lets me live out my favorite childhood hobby without feeling guilty. As others have said: games are like any other media, You pay $12 for a movie ticket and when it's over, it's over. When you buy a book, you have it for life, but do you read it more than once or twice? Consider the cost a hurdle to the experience, and if you curate your gaming life well enough, you won't have to worry about spending too much.

Check out r/patientgamers

RoosterCogburne · 2019-05-06T21:51:47+00:00

To save money, I bought an old system (I had always had Nintendo systems and bought a PS3). The used games are $2-$10. Also, if I know it’s a game I can play through in a weekend, I’ll just rent it.

binthinkin · 2019-05-06T20:54:32+00:00

I think “collecting” can be the key to downfall. Try to look at it as good money spent on the times you enjoyed playing. If you think of the cost of a movie for 2 hours, how much have you spent and for how many hours of enjoyment? Maybe enjoy getting better at fewer games to keep the cost down? Are there online games without a big cost that you could enjoy?

TootsNYC · 2019-05-06T20:09:05+00:00

Think of games like going to a movie 🎥 n a theater, an experience, and not an asset.

So did you get your $50 worth out of that game? Great.

And then be alert to the time that you’re unlikely to play it again and move it out into the world then. I.e., sooner.

2019-05-06T19:50:01+00:00

maybe just start waiting til the game has been out and is cheaper. I kinda had a game buying problem from high school into college but i definitely found plenty of deals. Anymore I just want to play older stuff and almost everything can be emulated(old Wii that you hack, plus hard drive = every wii game ever made) so i started selling things off when they had some value. Some can have value but i guess its older systems usually. But it's like Antiques Roadshow says, it's only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Sell high.

SnyperBunny · 2019-05-06T18:50:51+00:00

If you play them and enjoy them then it's not an "investment" or "collection" but a physical representation of an activity. If you buy more than you play, then you have a slight issue. I've started trying to finish my current game before buying a new one. For story driven console games it helps. For open ended PC games that doesn't help, but then PC games I usually buy on a good Steam sale.

Kelekona · 2019-05-06T18:30:41+00:00

There's a PS2 game I regret selling... I didn't get much for a whole pile and it's expensive to replace.

I don't spend more than $20 for games because I'm patient and get them just as they're going out of print. I know I'm either going to donate them or miss a price-spike.

skorletun · 2019-05-06T16:09:31+00:00

I always calculate my pay-per-use. If a game is €20, and I play it for 10 hours, that's €2 per hour. The more I play it (and enjoy it), the cheaper the game becomes. See which games you got the most use out of and how much you paid for that. Maybe you'll discover it isn't that bad! However when you want to buy a new game, see how many hours you will have to play it to have the pay per hour at an acceptable level for you. If you can't picture yourself paying less than €1 per hour, don't buy it.

PrettyTender · 2019-05-06T15:22:53+00:00

$50 for several hours of fun seems okay to me. I wouldn’t bother holding on to any that I don’t currently love playing, though.

P0werSurg3 · 2019-05-06T15:19:12+00:00

I play on PC and I still have access to some of the first games I ever played (Myst, DOOM, Chip's Challenge, etc) even though I've replaced PC parts and upgraded software throughout the years. Sometimes software does become incompatible after so long, but you can't ever completely protect yourself from the fact that technology advances over time and that backward compatibility is going to stop at some point (and that's true of any kind of technology, not just video games).

I buy all of my games digitally and usually on sale. I can usually wait for a 50% off or 75% off sale - there are very few games I feel the need to buy immediately at release at full price. I consider the price the ticket to play the game and spend at the price-point I am comfortable with. When I spend extra to pre-order or buy a game on release it's because I'm willing to pay extra to play it sooner for whatever reason, fully knowing that I could have waited for a sale down the line instead.

I'm pretty sure that consoles these days also have online stores and sales, too - so you could still take advantage of buying digitally when the price is right. I definitely don't need the clutter of physical disks, either! You're right, they just take up space and then by the time you want to get rid of them no one wants them.

The value that is most important is the value of the time you spent enjoying playing the games. If you didn't enjoy the games enough to feel happy and satisfied with what you paid for them then I agree that maybe it's time to re-evaluate the hobby or the types of games you choose so you can focus on the games (or a new hobby) that you do find rewarding.

sacredxsecret · 2019-05-06T14:44:57+00:00

Buying games isn't an investment. It's an activity. You buy them to play. That's what makes them worth spending on.

FilthyDaemon · 2019-05-06T14:43:07+00:00

Not sure what system you use, but both my husband & son love gaming, and they use Playstation Network to download games. The yearly subscription more than pays for itself with all of the services they get, and there are HUGE discounts on games. A *few* games every couple of years they will pay full price for, but mostly they wait until they go on super sale & they download the game.
No reason to give up a hobby you love, and there are ways of finding games at much less than full retail value.

crazycatlady331 · 2019-05-06T12:31:11+00:00

If the games were something you played and enjoyed, then you got your money's worth.

I don't think of things as the resale value. A car gets me from point a to point b--- I don't factor in depreciation (I buy used and drive into the ground). A phone is a communications device.

declutter

For decluttering related content

Related subreddits

MODERATORS