The only time I buy games I don't like is when they're going to be removed from the store, unless I *really* don't like them.

Yeah... I used to spend waaaay too much on games.. and my "Games I'll play one day" list is bigger than big ben.

One thing that helped me is actively monitoring my money. By which I mean I use accounting software (GNUCash) to input my bank statements, credit card usage, my expenses, my income etc and categorised them, so for example a purchase on GOG would go under "Entertainment/Gaming expenses", computer hardware under "Computers/Components" etc.

It wasn't until I did that, that I realised just how much of my budget was actually being wasted on games which made me think twice before clicking buy.

When you've got your finances laid out in front of you like that, it does make you question what you do or don't need and really puts your finances into perspective.

Hence, why I don't pay for any subscriptions beyond necessary like broadband, no Prime, no Netflix etc.

On the flip side, the money I was spending now goes directly into savings for big things I want. Bonus.

Not to sound like a humble brag but money is low on my list of complaints. It's more just trying to play stuff I don't actually love playing that I find interesting. Why do I do that?

I'll edit the OP to make that clear.

I don't spend money on expensive games I won't enjoy. I'll go so far as to say that while I think that most games can be improved with the addition of cats, I'm not going to purchase a game just because it has cats. It needs to be something that I would want to play in the first place.

I'll make exceptions for those big charity bundles that have shown up on itch in that while there needs to be something in there that I would enjoy playing, I don't need to like everything. Having bought three of these now, there's a lot of games that I technically own that I don't like... I just ruthlessly delete them from my backup drive because keeping would be data hording.

Likewise if a storefront wants to giveaway a game to everyone that shows up to claim it, I'll check it out even if is a genre that I wouldn't buy. Occasionally, I have been pleasantly surprised by these sort of things, but I won't try to force myself to like something.

Yeah I'm definitely coerced by the cats and need to stop that. Good analogy.

Admittedly I don't face your matter. I simply not only don't buy games that belong to genres I believe I won't enjoy (e.g. platformers, city builders, flight simulators, games with too much text (Pillars of Eternity 1), etc.), but also don't participate in (Doc's!) draws-giveaways, when he gives these types of games, and of course I don't even claim them when given for free by GOG (Alma's Awakening, for example).

But enough about me. I understand that you buy games from genres you don't like, simply due to curiosity! It happened to me too (e.g. Pathologic, which keeps rotting in my backlog). You have probably seen much from different games of genres you like, so you want to try something else! It isn't bad. Keep doing it! BUT what I would advise you is, DON'T buy THAT expensive/new game with the excellent reviews (which doesn't belong to your favorite genres). Because if you do, then you WILL feel obliged to play/finish it ("since I have bought it"), but that feeling would cause you to not want to play anything else at all and all your other games would stall!

If I were you and I wanted to try my luck to "not liked" genres, I would read some articles of, for example "Easiest 20/50/100 platformers" and I would buy that which would be as easiest and cheapest as possible. In this way: 1) It would be easier than the others, so I would have a chance to finish it, and 2) even if I couldn't, I wouldn't mind (since I would have bought it cheaply), I would leave it aside without second thoughts!

Because you are an inquisitive person who enjoys broadening your horizons at times and this is a manifestation of that from your subconcious.

Buying not that much unless maybe it's extremely good offer but I have this often with games that were on giveaways. Games that I wouldn't pay for myself but since they look somewhat interesting or have good opinions and were given for free I feel somehow obligated to play them. And sometimes I end really enjoy these but often it's mildly entertaining at best and a chore in worst case.

Why do you buy games you don't love? Because we all want to broaden our horizons. I often try games that I don't think I'll like because they were referred by others or look good. A few times, I do like them. I learned a long time ago that I don't like 4x games even though I loved some of the earlier and simpler ones. I like Warcraft and Warcraft 2 and Starcraft, but Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3 and other more modern RTS games just turn me off quickly.

I found a love of games i didn't originally like, the ARPG and eventually Souls-likes. Third person ARPGs in general and difficult ones for sure weren't my cup of tea. Now it makes up most of my gaming tastes.

So we are always searching for different experiences that we'll like. Sometimes we strike gold, but often our established tastes are that way for a reason.

One way to ''combat'' it is to stop purchasing games altogether and focus on the backlog.

Sorta works for me. Games I am interested in I wishlist, so as not to forget that they exist, and leave it at that. Games that I really wanna play ''right now'' are fairly rare.

On the topic of genres not liked -- during one of GoG's Piñata/Easter Egg events i received... either Hard West, or Expeditions: Conquistador it was. Turn based combat. A genre I was not very good at and dreaded. Whelp... have this game now, might as well try it... I was pleasantly surprised! Not only did I not suck at the combat, but enjoyed the game so much that I now knew I can jump into more games of this genre -- so I did buy either said other game, in the case of Expeditions - it's second entry ''Vikings'' and for Hard West the DLC and supporter/collecters Pack. Also X-Com:2 when it appeared here.

But that was years ago. Nowadays I don't really buy games of the genres I love instantly. I'm probably missing out on a lot of good games from, say the platformer genre... but - backlog is as big as it is. :/
Not to derail the topic - but any reason why you like Stracraft, but not Starcraft2 ?
One of my nitpicks is, is that I don't see SC as an RTS but a ''clickfest'' game. Screw building the right units and positioning them correctly - as long as you have high APM (action per minutes) you will win.

And in this regard the original is worse.

Yeah this is me 100%. I love RPGs enough to enjoy The Witcher 3 or Hogwart's Legacy for example, even if 3rd person hack n' slash isn't my thing, but I wish I liked them more. I keep hoping to fall in love with Souis type games because of that but their difficulty and save systems get in the way of me forcing it like I did The Witcher 3.

Unless your backlog happens to be full of games of the genres that you don't like or are not accustomed to...

Edit: Pluralised the word 'game'...

I just didn't find it fun. I don't know why. I just didn't enjoy it for whatever reason.
I love the difficulty personally. I'm so glad I forced myself to like Demon's Souls back in the day. Once I wrapped my head around it, I just started enjoying games differently.

I don't know! I still try a bunch of "grand strategy" games, even though I've only ever found one I remotely enjoyed. Everything about them "on paper" seems like it should be exactly my cuppa. But they're not.

When EU4 came to GOG, fortunately, it was easy enough to avoid due to its gross monetization.

But, hey, at least I do manage to avoid puzzle platformers and especially 3d platformers!