Necessity is the mother of ingenuity, and of Stop Buying Games self-help groups.

This is a very intriguing thought. Some of our members have backlogs that will require several generations.

Here's what you can write down on your last will: "To Vicklemos Junior, besides the mortgage on the house I hereby bestow on you my grand collection of mostly unplayed games. I used to just buy games from GOG to launder money from my illegal online cat food store but maybe you can actually play those games. Anyway, all this now belongs to you!"



A turtle can't fly but there's no reason you can't stop buying games. Technically it's just a matter of happy little neurons taking this or that turn inside your brain. When you decide not to buy a game and then go ahead and buy a game, it simply means that you opted to send some neurotransmitters down lazy alley to temporarily distract yourself from unhappiness rather than opting to do something truly fulfilling that will allow you to experience happiness without the inevitable following sugar crash factor.

In practical terms: Instead of focusing on resisting the temptation to not buy games, focus on a fulfilling activity that makes you enjoy the moment and makes you yearn for more. A worthwhile hobby can serve as a catalyst for your neurons to be sent down non-lazy alley. Be curious rather than overly ambitious, that way your feeling of reward is more frequent and greater.

In that regard, following this thread is not essential because once a good catalyst is in place that is much better than focusing on how many days you've been clean and how many days the other members have been clean etc and so on. Nevertheless, this thread has a purpose and that is to share strategies. Different approaches work for different people so it's interesting to see what other come up with. And for some people the very act of verbalizing their problems has a therapy effect so here's a dedicated platform. For some people it might be encouraging to see how many times others have failed until they made progress.

I listed all my so far 40 relapses in the first post. At the time of this writing, I've been clean for 74 days (personal record) and feel confident that I'm on the path to betterment. I don't feel anxious about breaking my winning streak because my whole intention isn't to never buy a game again and win the nonexistent "clean for most days" award. My goal is to minimize the feeling of compulsion when I see games on sale. When I buy my next game, I want it to be not out of compulsion for a quick hormone rush. Instead, I want my next purchase to be an entirely non-guilty free choice.

That's good advice. I've actually tried to focus on a variety of other things - some healthy and some probably similarly unhealthy distractions - but mostly I've focused on recognizing the "bounty" of my backlog. Trying to read more, been looking at some career redirection options, though frankly the balance is still probably too much unhealthy>healthy.

I think so far in 2016 I've only bought one game (GemCraft) plus one BTA humble bundle, so in terms of $$ only about $5-6, but in terms of games it's still quite a lot of potential hours at a keyboard. Plus I think I'm up to 4 games received through GAs, though 3 of them were fairly short games, 2 of which I've already beaten.

Still, the urge to buy stuff, even on sale, is at least somewhat reduced. So....glass half-full, right?

From the sound of it, you're making progress so congrats on that. We must be careful that we pour the liquid contents of the glass down the drain and not into another glass. That liquid is compulsive self-sabotage and fits into any glass regardless of its shape.

I think that buying stuff certainly falls into this category. I enjoy learning about games and trying to decide whether they fit my desires, and it makes me yearn for more.

Edit: And I just bought Memoria.

So you are a happy person, or even more hardcore, an optimist? We can't therapize you then, you must first be unhappy!
On the other hand, it seems you not only enjoy the process of researching and buying games, you also enjoy trying to be more selective and then "failing" which I assume isn't seen as failure in your eyes, just as a missed optional opportunity to optimize and refine your collecting habits.


Memoria is an excellent adventure game, well worth a purchase. Not too difficult nor too easy, I can very much recommend it to any fan of the genre. Would play Chains of Satinav first but it isn't absolutely necessary as on can understand the story of Memoria without having played the first game.

Yes, I'm generally optimistic. There are a lot of not nice things around, but I do try to look more on the good aspect of things.

As for "happy person", that's harder to define. I do get stressed, angry and such often enough, that's life. But I'm also satisfied and happy at other times. But I guess that yes, I'm not the depressed type.

I installed and started playing Chains of Satinav yesterday. My first PC game in a while (not including those played with my kids). Let's see if I continue it and finish it. Then I plan to start Memoria.

Chains of Satinav starts a little slow and dull but things soon get more interesting so imho it pays off to have a little patience. It's well worth finishing and so is Memoria.

Dunno how to start but jesus you made me laugh in here! :D
Guess what? They're twins! I'm a twin myself so measure the odds yourself! :)
Well, "thankfully", the phisical backlog is ok, under tight control. But the virtual one is starting to bug me a little. I man, with like 550+ games (is it too much compared to the majority in here? tell me!) I'm starting to think that this will follow through and just move on by itself!

Wow, your family reunions must be very confusing to anyone uninitiated ;)

I don't know the average backlog of GOG members but I'd estimate it at around 200 games, give or take? 550+ is most likely well above average but we have some hardcore cases with collections of over 1000 games so their backlog is probably higher then 550. Either way, no number is so high that you're collection will magically keep growing without momentum. All purchases are still manually made by you and you can stop at any time (for example right now!).
If you think that your collection grows by itself then you accidentally invented the perpetuum mobile and need a physics Nobel prize a.s.a.p.

TL;DR: I'm doomed ;(

ps: not identical twins in both cases! pheeew close one ;P

I was doing a good job of not spending any of my own money to buy games for a few months now (I did get a gift card for Christmas that I used for two games). But this newest humble bundle is tempting me. :/

It's funny how this thread always pops up in the front page of gog forum whenever there is a good humble bundle sale.

This has become a trend.

I did buy that, after being told that Never Alone is worth playing even with the sloppy controls. But I paid $1, because I think that devs deserve at least minimal compensation (gave $0.90 to the Never alone devs, $0.09 to charity and $0.01 to Humble).

So add to those $2.74:

Memoria - $2.99
Humble Mobile Bundle: KEMCO 2 - $1
Humble Indie Bundle 16 - $1

Total is $5.73. Number of games is 19 (but this counts those I'm not planning to play).

So many releases and promos.. must.. resist... already got... 10 games this year.. only.. stop...
GAAAAAAAAAHHH! ;D