It's improved a lot by a factor of 6:1 but it isn't under satisfactory control yet. Satisfactory controls imho means that you're capable of making no exceptions. I'm honest with myself so I count every infraction and don't make any excuses along the lines of "well that's not really cheating because this and that etc", there's Hundreds of Millions of people in this world who move the goal post for all manner of things and in all kinds of situations. I only hold myself to strict standards though - so I don't tell other people what to do (e.g. if someone wants to make an exception for the Lucas Arts games, totally fine with me if they do, no problem whatsoever and it's none of my business anyway)

Right now, I should be buying zero games, not just 6 times less than last year. Therefor, one can't consider my situation under control, regardless of how much it has improved. I'm never hard on myself, just honest. Also, I haven't reported my latest purchases yet, I already mentioned that I bought 3 unremarkable games on Steam, that's 3 infractions and I'll combine that into one giveaway. And then there's Technobabylon, the latest infraction. I don't feel guilty or ashamed or anything of the sort, just reporting on what I have done. Giveaway is certain, time is not! (and OP will be updated accordingly)

I don't hate games, I do hate wasting time though. If I waste time with games and I consider all time spent with games a waste of time, it's not the games that I hate but the wasting of time. It's not the game's fault if I abuse it for time wasting.
Wasting time sounds harsh to most people, so I must point out that I don't see wasting time as absolutely criminal, there are situations where you want to waste time because you wouldn't do anything productive anyway and you're not quite tired enough to sleep.
But regardless of how I look at things, I don't consider gaming worthy of being called a hobby. A pastime, at best. That's a purely personal definition. All the other things I do in my spare time are aimed at increasing skills & understanding of worthwhile things or even producing something of worth that can outlive my biological existence. I have very high respect for making games, but for playing games? Nope, doesn't matter how skilled someone is, even if they are the number 1 best player in the world they're just a simple consumer in my view, and everyone who has made a game themselves is much more worthy of admiration imho, whether they're a programmer or musician or visual artist or voice actor etc etc.
Even if you wear a spacesuit and are a Korean Starcraft player, I'll give more respect to someone who has made a mod with new scripts and graphics and sound and so on.

Actually, I play games when I don't have the energy to do something productive. Gaming is a second-to-last resort for me, surpassed only by the very last resort which is watching movies and TV series for when I'm too tired to play even non-hardcore games.
There is no feeling of guilt as I'm entirely unapologetic about my activities and interests, always have been. So the energy drain has no logical connection to feeling guilt. Even if I consider gaming to be of little worth, I feel no shame about the games themselves, or the act of gaming. When I turn to gaming, it means I already don't have the energy for better things which means I already lost the energy previously or didn't have it to begin with.

I play a lot of games but I don't spend a lot of hours with most of them and only finish a small number, overall I probably spend considerably less time on games than many members here. There's no statistical data available for comparison and I don't even know how many hours I play per week so it's just guesswork.
Not sure what I can do about the love/hate thing, as I explained I don't hate games but I can't -not- hate wasting time, and I can't see the act of gaming as -not- wasting time. When I was younger, I didn't have a notion of "wasting time", such a concept didn't really exist. But I can't turn back time, and I don't think I'd really want to.
Regardless of to what amount I reduce or increase my gaming time, I won't feel differently about it. I've already tried less, as well as more. Same result.

There's the energy issue - if I had more energy, I wouldn't be here. Would never have bought anything here or signed on to this forum. It's beyond me how anyone who has a lot of energy would opt for gaming and forum time, there so damn many things to do that are 10 times better.
When I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was gaming and more gaming and I was so addicted to it that I couldn't care less about anything else, including school. It still puzzles me how I managed to get my high school maturity diploma, in senior high school I hardly did any homework anymore and I was half asleep during classes due to having played games all night long. But I enjoyed that.
Nowadays I put greater emphasis on my other hobbies, things that were secondary to gaming (included everything back in the day) are mow much more important to me. But they also require more energy.

Just saw the title of this thread...

This feels like holding an AAA meeting in a bar...

Back to this thread, so yeah, i've been buying less games (for the pc that is), i still get those impulses buy when seeing bundles but i wait for a few hours until that thought "Well, i do have a lot of games and do i really need to play those games?" kicks in.
I have really good games to play like Divinity OS, Wasteland 2 or Dead State and i'm not playing them, whenever i want to play something serious i just get that turn off mentality of "this will consume alot of my time and i want something dumb to play" and that's my current problem.

I've been wasting my time playing dumb games (Dead Nation for example" while listening to music, i see great stuff showing up like that Convoy game, those Star Wars rts on promotion, people saying great stuff about PoE, etc, and i want to play it but i know that whenever i get those games it will join the rest of the games collecting dust.

Dunno, at least i can say that i'm buying WAY less bundles and only picking those games that i really want whenever they are below 10€, meanwhile i'll continue to buy games on my ps4 (where i pass most of my gaming time)...

Or at a liquor store, as has been pointed out previously in this thread:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/official_stop_buying_games_selfhelp_group/post90


True though, certainly does feel like it. I'm not an alcoholic but if I was, I'd hold my AA meetings at a liquor store or bar, best way to help new potential members to join the group. Let's keep in mind that I'm not just doing this for myself, there's always others out there with the same or similar problems and you're more likely to run into those people in places where the addiction substance is available.
Yep, I can subscribe to that. Unfortunately, I've played the living daylights out of Diablo 2 and haven't found a suitable substitute yet. Tried all kinds of games, Drox Operative and many others but nothing quite fits the bill.

Well, looks like you're improving. As bad as I was afflicted, I haven't gone for any of those Humble Bundles etc yet, the only bundles I've picked up were here on GOG and they usually don't contain trash. Just stuff I won't play in the foreseeable future, so I'm done with all bundles, even here.
The 10 bucks and less rule is a good one, actually I try to adhere to that myself but I have on rare occasions spent more.
Fortunately, I never had to regret those +10 bucks purchases.
The latest one was preordering Technobabylon for $15, it goes against my intention to spend that much but I couldn't resist that one. My intuition says the game is going to be totally worth it.

The way I see it, if you're playing the games you're buying (even if you don't finish them), and I think you are, then your buying addiction is under control.

As for the love-hate, yes, it was clear to me that it's not the games that you hate, but the waste of time, that's what I meant. It's still two forces pulling in different directions.

From your description it sounds like games don't drain your energy, instead you come to play them when you don't have the energy to do something more productive. It's not clear to me then why you think they drain your energy, or why you think they're a waste of time, considering that you won't be doing something more productive with that time

It feels like you are trying to overcompensate for your younger years. Me, I gamed a lot over the years (from high school forward) and yet managed to study well and work and have both physical and creative hobbies. That's probably why I don't feel guilty when playing.

Edit: I removed the details about my life, which felt like bragging. They were just meant to illustrate that it's possible to do stuff even if you're gaming. Gaming doesn't have to take over your life. You can play a lot and still schedule other activities.

I really think you should lay off the "waste of time" issue. If you have a generally productive life and a hobby or two that you feel are productive, then gaming or even watching TV isn't "a waste of time". It's a way to unwind, and that's something that's pretty good to do. It's a good thing that you're no longer dedicating all your time to gaming, but you shouldn't be ashamed of dedicating some time to it.

Who in here has +1000 games, just waiting to be played?

I stopped counting. Not sure I have 1000+ but won't totally surprise me. I'm sure I have 500+ though. Many of them I'm not that interested in, but I'm sure I have 10,000+ hours of worthwhile gaming in there.

Please make a T-Shirt saying "NO-DRM or GTFO!"

Will you be able to make it? Can the almighty ET3D conquer his/her own library of great classics? :P
I mean, 10k + hours seems to little time to me. ;)

I still buy more than I play, so the backlog only grows. Only today I bought the entry level tier of the Humble Mobile Bundle 12 to play The Last Express. I just started playing The Dig yesterday and now that'd be put on pause, and I still have quite a lot of KOTOR to play. I'd be surprised if I manage to finish KOTOR this year.

I'm probably double that if I ever get around to redeeming all my bundles. I don't know why I keep buying more.

Do you think some sort of "gaming trade" would help ya? Picking up titles that you have close-to-zero interest in and trading them for much more tasty games that you know you'll enjoy, fullest mode on?
It's a sleak option (imho) for those who accidentally or not built a Tower of Babel made of unfinished stuff :P

Once I saw someone with a shirt that spelled "peace look good on you".

I feel that shirt ooze character and wit and want to get one too.