Hmm..despite sounding silly and even insane it seems to work, technically. I already knew I'd run out of money so I increased my game purchasing rate, that way I'd of course unfortunately become poor more quickly but I would also stop buying games sooner.

Plus, it's the good old "I'm buying all this stuff so I won't run out of games when I'm too poor / the winter is long etc etc" excuse. Stone age hoarder mentality.

I haven't formulated a 12 step plan yet, I'm a bit more freeform and wing it as you go, not because I don't like plans but because sticking to them is so troublesome. I prefer concepts over plans. Plans can be too rigid and hamper things. I agree with this guy and his teapot analogies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APx2yFA0-B4


Haha, thanks so much for sharing this vivid angel vs devil story, very fitting!
And yes, we need to beware of the wolf in angel's clothing and the devil in a sheep's hide, aka lousy excuses.
The line between altruistic support for the greater good and self-serving investments is so fine that not even a silk worm could spin it.



Looks like your and my experience are eerily similar. I was already going to say it's all lousy excuses but your idea with the gaming journal is most excellent, one of the very best ideas I've seen so far.
Gaming with purpose or doing anything with purpose rather then pure entertainment requires reflection and if you don't write down your thoughts they often get lost in a neuron storm, inaccessible for all eternity. It's the same as with keeping a dream journal, or a scientific research log. I've been trying to give more thought to my gaming by reviewing some of the games I play in written form and sharing the results in the Games Finished in 20xx threads here on GOG. It helps to look back at a year and get conclusions about how much fun or unfun you had, how much you learned and so on. Even though I'm not a game designer like you and gaming is nothing more than a pastime for me, I still find it a god idea to assess from time to time what I'm doing.

Thanks for sharing your story in detail, and the monthly game budget thing seems like an excellent idea. I think virtually everyone on this forum no matter how relatively poor can set aside at least $3 a month or more for games per month and that is already enough to buy at least one game, or a super cheap bundle. Hm, I think the vast majority here can subscribe to that thought. Perhaps we all just want to be immortal and buying an insane amount of games is us trying to convince ourselves that we can't die before we played all our games, so we buy an sheer insurmountable number of games to ensure that we'll be immortal just long enough :)

Clean for 15 days so far? That's half a month. Not bad, at all!
What can you do about not having time to play, well that's an entirely different problem...often related to the purchasing addiction though because by buying many games you're kinda forcing your mind to think positively into the future "I'll eventually have time again, yes I will. Surely."
It can backfire however, when you overdo it and have so many games that you feel you'll never have enough time even if you suddenly had a lot more time to play.
I think it would be ideal to have at least one game installed that you really want to play, preferably a game that can be enjoyed in short bursts of time, and you'll find a way to make the time to play it. Virtually everyone can squeeze in at least some minimal time, somewhere during their week.
There are thread on this forum that recommend short games and so on, plus I can make a recommendation that works for me: Puzzle games! Not annoying adventure games where you get stuck and might waste a precious hour without getting anywhere and then feel like you lost an hour. I mean puzzle games with super simple controls like CLARC where you can beat a level in half an hour or less and derive joy out of short sessions.

I wouldn't even bother making a topic like this over at Steam. I only used the Steam forum once so far, when I had technical problems with a game.

You can take it as a sort of underhanded compliment that you have clients that are so addicted to your services that they need to start self-help therapy!
I admit that the title of this thread was poorly chosen and I almost feel guilty about it. As I write in my OP edit I'm not trying to start a childish troll rebellion where we all sit on our collections and don't buy anything anymore, with a pout on our infantile faces. The decision to not buy anything is only temporary to me, as long as I can't financially afford it and also in order to regain control over my addiction. It's not a life-threatening addiction and I realize this whole thread is possibly nothing more than LOL material for some but I'm very interested in self improvement and always try to analyze myself as honestly as I can and the verdict is: I am an addict who doesn't know moderation and can't frickin budget his way out of an elephant's ass!
I figured that a happy feeling temporary non-customer is a better actual customer on the long run than a good but unhappy customer. Plus I know that you dislike the word customer anyway and see us as community members, not cash cows.
This thread doesn't affect business in a noticeable way anyway (have sales dropped? Surely not due to my evil doings) since only a few are reading this and even fewer are taking part in the therapy in the extreme way of complete abstinence from purchases.
To make up for the scandalous topic and win back lost brownie points from you, I'm going to post a picture of the GOG Galaxy shirt on the forum as per your request. By wearing the shirt, I can support GOG in public even without spending money here right now. I always keep my promises btw, I'm just super slow!

So finally the long promised GOG Galaxy pic is here

You're making jokes, that's good! It means you're already in phase two. I already quoted Gandhi earlier in this thread, I'll do it again: "First, you ignore your game purchasing addiction. Then you laugh at it. Then you fight it, and then you win."

All can come true quicker than you think, except that you won't have unlimited time. Better not to romanticize that scenario or you might want to fall into it for real :O

An excellent suggestions, in fact I stuck to short games for the most part last year, mostly point & click adventures. Even stuff like GOMO which is really super short. I'ts quite fun to occasionally play a one-session to completion browser game like NLOS Cannon Challenge, it's a refreshing change of pace from more in-depth games on your GOG shelf, good for when you're taking a break.

800 games??! Holy crap! Sounds like you're trying to drink yourself sober, so to speak. I can relate to the part I quoted into bold, a lot. The less time and energy I have to play, the more I buy. Buying a game is a very short lived stimulus to the brain's reward center.
And yes, when you're chewing through a 100+ hours RPG, there isn't even a chance to look at sales and whatnot.

Well, I'm pretty broke already, but not too broke to buy the odd game that's $2 or $3 ... no time like the present to start enjoying the stockpile I've built up!

I'm starting to feel/think I may not like most of the 50+ hr RPG's as much as my "conscious" mind thinks. I have such fond/fun memories of Pool of Radiance, Hero's Quest, and a couple others... back when I was about 1/3 of my age (now).

Dungeon Siege (& DS2) scratched an itch multiple times over the last 12+ years... but half of that was Modding (using and making).

Every other RPG I've looked at/tried just doesn't seem worth the time investment these days.

(Not to say that DS was perfect, it basically had almost no underlying RPG system at all... but there was something about it, that others in its genre just don't seem to have).

The last week or so, I've been periodically playing Saint's Row 2. I use the term "playing" loosely, as I haven't even done the first "quest" since escaping from prison. I just wander around and beat ppl up, steal cars and motorcycles, drive around and explore. I keep discovering (in-game) achievements for doing stupid things. I'm not even sure why it's fun. heh.

Well no, because there always is something better (in some way) out there. So there is no point in trying to get the "perfect" thing, it's just not possible. And trying that over and over and ultimately in vain makes me unhappy so I don't do it. I try to enjoy what I have here and now for the best possible result.
To make another example. Even if you had unlimited funds - when you go to restaurant would you order one dish after another in order to find the perfect one? I certainly wouldn't. Of course I would return a dish if I didn't like at all, but if I can enjoy it even a little I will eat it and maybe say "Next time I'll try something different.".

Well I most of the time have multiple games installed to suit my different needs. But I try to finish every one of them (if they are finishable), at least (if applicable) the "main quest". I'm not a completist anymore - I don't get obsessed to do every sidequest, kill all monsters and find all secrets. ATM I'm playing Divinity 2, Broken Sword 2 and Freespace, with Divinity 2 being the "main game" that I'll probably choose when I'm free to do as I like. BS2 is for when I'm really tired and not able to concentrate on action, stats, whatever - I maybe have to add that this is probably my 3rd or 4th playthrough although the last one is about 10 years past.
Freespace is supposed to be my "twitch game" when I'm not at all in the mood for thinking, but I'll probably go for something else since I play it so infrequently that I always have to relearn the controls - doesn't make a lot of sense. Also I've already beaten it once some years ago.

Then I have Alien Shooter installed for when I have only a few minutes (levels are rather short) and need a quick fix of action. And then I have TIM3 and some hidden object game, but those are more or less for my children.
So I'm pretty much set to beat Divinity 2 and BS2 (again), regardless of what better games there might be out there. Once I'm done with one of them I will probably choose another game. When it comes to that I might experiment a little - start several candidates to find out which one I'm (at that time) liking the most. But once I've settled to one I will probably stick to it and try and make the best out of it.
That sums it up pretty nicely. Although it doesn't really matter if it's a 100 hour RPG or 20 hour shooter - as long as I'm able to get my gaming desire fullfilled, I don't need to buy new stuff.

Ah yeah, Dungeon Siege 2, the hotfix mode make me replay the game again and again, never completing the game once, but poured hours and hours of my time in it......

http://www.siegetheday.org/?q=node/1308&page=3

Those kinda games are ideal for people who don't have too much gaming time. Drox Operative is similar to FTL in that you can win a sector in Drox fairly quickly depending on the sector paramters you set, but one could spend an endless amount of time on the game. Sadly, I found it too repetitive overall so I quit after 25 hours, calling it finished though as I explored all the variants to win already. One of these days, I'll tackle FTL, too. Played it for an hour once and it's still installed, I didn't enjoy the game but will give it another try fair and square.

That is true! That's why I prefer laptops over desktop PCs because it's easier to stack up old laptops and use them for older games in case something absolutely won't work with a newer Widows version and all emulation etc fails.

I wholeheartedly agree Even though I quickly jumped on many sales with joy, I sometimes find it strangely sad when a great game is offered for peanuts. A game that proudly sat on store shelves back in the day, with a proud price tag of $80. Going to the store with your piggybank saving and finally making that purchase was an almost religious ritual experience. Of course, one usually had to very carefully decide which games were worthy of such large investments. I don't want to go back to those days as the choices and ease of use and everything have so massively improved but we did get rather spoiled. It is as you say, if I install a game and don't like it, I'll quickly move on to another game. I currently have several dozen games installed and jump back and forth between them. This isn't necessarily bad, it's just slow. In the old days, frustration tolerance was much higher and as you said one isn't so picky if you only have a handful of games. Plus, back in the 90s there wasn't sufficient HD space to have a gazillion games installed at the same time, nowadays HD space is a non-issue (unless you have all AAA games perhaps)

Hi, BillyMaysFan59! You've been clean for one day longer than me, a modest but good start :)

Welcome, ET3D - you've been clean for almost a full week now. Every day, you can be a little bit more proud of your progress. Let's not forget that not buying games isn't the goal, it's just a means to an end. The goal is to not be an addict anymore (at least that's my goal, plus not being poor :D). If you're addiction-free and have enough money and feel no unease towards having too many unplayed games on your shelf then there's no harm in buying the entire catalog.

Deadly indeed, but the most deadly combination is the above with a small wallet :)

I wish I could still buy at least giveaway codes but due to finances I decided to put a stop to my purchases completely. Fortunately, I still have a couple codes that I can share in the nearer future even if I can't acquire new codes.

200 was the magic number I decided would be the max limit and I vowed not to go above. But then I just broke through that barrier and beyond so obviously the limit by mark method didn't work for me and I have to take more drastic measures now (no purchases at all).

Yep, we're spoiled with a supply that exceeds the demand. In a way, this reminds me of when I was a child and when I was at home, I would ceremoniously pick a book and read that. When I went to the library however and saw the seemingly endless supply of books there, I would run around like a lunatic, often not knowing what to pick. So many choices! Fortunately, my library card only allowed for 4 books to be checked out at a time and I could only go to the library once a week. Often, 4 books wasn't enough for one week but overall it was a pretty good system as it forced me to make choices. And now, many years later as a grownup, I run around yet again like a headless chicken. Only this time it's my game library instead of the book library and I have seemingly unlimited choices, and less excitement. Now that I think of it, the excitement I felt as a kid was exactly because of the limited number of books I could check out. If I could have carried out of the library any and all books I wanted, I might have become jaded quickly.

Mild paranoia might be one of the withdrawal side effects but that doesn't mean no one is after us.

I remember that one kid who had all the Masters of the Universe toy figures, and by all of them I mean all of them. Plus the big castle and everything. I had more than enough of toys myself so I never felt disadvantaged but I didn't just get anything everything I wanted but had to make clear choices, and usually only for birthdays and Christmas. This guy had all his toys neatly set up in his room but he hardly even played with them, it was almost tragic to see how spoiled he was. His parents were rich so they could buy him anything, and they did. When I saw how bored that guy was, I couldn't even be jealous, after all I was having 10 times as much fun with just Skeletor and 4-5 other figures and no castle. If I needed a castle, I'd draw one. Nowadays, I'm like that guy with my computer games. So many that you lose appreciation, though I'm not sure if the excitement of ye olden days would ever come back even if I had only 3-4 games. You do change and evolve as you grow up. Even in your 30s, you still grow up and evolve.

The vast majority of my purchases were during sales, otherwise I'd have been broke way earlier of course.

Sure, it's peanuts with these prices. But the expenses accumulate, especially if you're like me and don't set a specific budget for games every month, I mean if I monitor my food and supplies expenses why on Earth can't I manage to do the same for games? But I know the reason: It's because I see gaming as escapism and keeping budget is sort of anticlimactic to proper escapism.

But four digits?? That's more than 1000 games! Even if I bought everything on my wishlist including the lowest of the low priority, I'd at best end up with 350 games, no more.

Haha! Especially here on GOG where you can marvel at your nice shelf with the nice stamp-like little game cover pictures, it does feel a bit like collecting stamps. I collected stamps as a kid but only very casually, I was more into collecting coins and the aluminum lids of little milk cups that you use for coffee & tea. They always had series going and I tried to complete several series, filled a couple binders worth of milk cup lids. This had real educational value, as I learned the name of many types of birds and plants and other things that way.

You've got to be innovative these days.

Sounds like a strategy guide for an RTS game:

1.) Quickly defeat all the enemies on the map
2.) Now it's much less likely that anyone will attack you and it should be easier to beat the mission....

Although in all seriousness, I kinda did what you suggest by buying as many games as I could before becoming poor so I wouldn't have to suffer when a game I wanted but didn't have went on sale once I was poor. Unfortunately, they keep adding new ones to the catalog :D

Peace be upon you as well, fellow member and reader of the internet!

Concerning what Deng said, looks like they ended up trying it the other way around after all :D

Never heard of the guy before, he's quite funny. Although he's not inventing jokes, just recounting stories and observations from actual everyday life which is the best material for standup anyway.

$10 is usually my pain limit but I did go up to $14-15 in isolated cases. Average expense is probably around $3 but I don't know for sure as I haven't exactly calculated everything.

Well, if you keep begging after stopping to buy games then you're still an addict so in order to get rid of the actual addiction you probably still need the group therapy. Keep us up to date about improvements or relapses, maybe people can help and if not then it's still nice to be able to talk about the problem.

Kid drawings are the best, seriously! Most kids draw but they sadly stop when they start feeling too self-conscious about it due to comparing their efforts with the efforts of other kids who draw better. Regardless of what a lying-to-be-nice grownup might say, kids can see very well who draws better than them. Some kids get inspired by efforts better than their own, others get discouraged. When I was very little, I spent many hours drawing with my older brother. In the beginning, my style was very much influenced by my brother's drawings but once I surpassed him ad my little spaceships started looking better than his little spaceships, he turned his interests from drawing to other things. Not sure if it was because I caught up and took over or if he just got bored with it, fortunately we had plenty of other common interests and I enjoyed drawing by myself just as much.

I resisted succesfully, still clean since December 30, 2014 but it's not easy. I almost caved in for Space Rangers HD, it was super duper hard to resist but I think my laptop is a bit too slow for that game anyway so I convinced myself that the game probably wouldn't even run smoothly.
Don't be discouraged by setbacks or beat yourself up over failing. It doesn't matter how many days you manage to be clean in one unbroken string, ultimately it matters if you're making an attempt at solving the addiction issue and that isn't directly related to how many days you're clean. People can be clean for an entire year and then relapse while someone else might have 5 relapses within the same year and then suddenly be free of the addiction, of course you'll only know that much later.

You're welcome, and thanks for contributing!

Sorry to hear you're in pain, especially since it's chronic pain.
I play games for escapism as well so I prefer games with great atmosphere over games that are just challenging in a "gamey" but mechanical way. Meaning I generally enjoy a story-driven game like Gemini Rue more than a busywork game like Drox Operative that can keep you around for many hours but doesn't transport you away to another realm. Besides escapism, I also us games for procrastination (which I'm a master at). The two go hand in hand quite effectively...

Good point, I live in a small apartment and can't amass unlimited gear regardless of how creative I am with stacking and storing things. So I appreciate that gaming needs no space, I have a laptop anyway so the only other equipment needed is a joystick I have lying around.

Hm, I think that whole trading stuff is quite an advanced stage of the addiction. I haven't even gotten into all that. Fortunately, all this collecting does not seem to have corrupted you at all in an evil Gollum way. Perhaps it's possible to be a happy addict.

Ha, same here. When I was younger, playing games like Wizardry 7 was incredibly fascinating, now it would seem like a waste of time.
There's advantages of getting older though: I can now sit inside a plane for several hours and not get bored even if the TV system is off. There's enough ways to keep my mind busy even with just thought. As a kid, I would have died of sheer boredom but fortunately the flight attendants gave lots of puzzles and stuff to kids on Lufthansa and Pan Am flights. Back in the days when airlines had service!

Meh, I grew up in a ski resort, you won't scare me with frozen wastes. My gentle little fingers went numb many times in the Alpine cold. One time, I even stuck my tongue to a metal crash barrier and almost didn't get away, fortunately my brother was there to help. On the next day, little bits of the flesh of my tongue were still sticking to the cold metal, reminding me of Nature's dominance over Mankind, even Swissmankind.

Anyway, about the Steam The Betrayal (soon to be novelized by Raymond Feist): I currently have zero games on Steam that I don't have on GOG as well and I only betrayed GOG by buying something on Steam first 2 times total so I'm at most going to get the "Betrayal Lite" treatment in Hell.
When I was younger, I had idealism and principles, too! I even went around town selling address labels to raise money for WWF to save the cute animals around the world. 3 years in a row, I even contributed drawings that the WWF printed on the labels, every label featuring a different kid's drawing. It's not that I don't have idealism and principles anymore but one does change with old age. Show some understanding to us old folks, hmph!

(old geezer card valid because me older than you, mwahaha)

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I didn't become worse actually because in the old days I pirated the vast majority of my games so my principles actually improved.

Hi. I've never considered buying 100's of games on GOG to be a problem, but I decided to limit my purchases simply because I have a backlog of games that should keep me on the Gamerland Express for quite some time. I put the brakes on purchases simply by placing a low price cap on what I was willing to pay for any given game.

Hope that helps. ;-)

I was under the impression that the frozen wastes of Hell were slightly colder than Switzerland. And in the 9th Circle you won't have your brother to help you out of (comical) trouble. ;-)

I'm afraid your excuse about Steam would not save you from eternal damnation. Once you use Steam, you can never un-use
Steam. You are marked as "unclean" for all eternity. In fact, perhaps they will make a new level just for those who betray the DRM-Free cause.

The WWF part sounds interesting, especially you having your awesome drawings on the labels. Perhaps this charity work will be enough to redeem yourself for using Steam.

Regarding this bit: "Show some understanding to us old folks, hmph! (old geezer card valid because me older than you, mwahaha)". I will give you that, you are slightly older, and we are supposed to respect our elders. However, at least this younger lady did not stick her tongue to something cold and need help to remove her tongue. So much for the wisdom of the elders. :-)

You might be able to help out over on this thread. :-)

I'm only being playful about Steam. While I don't use it or like it's principles, I have nothing against others who do use it. To each their own.

I sinned a couple of days ago.... with the new resident evil hd thing.... I preordered.....