I don't regard people, who amass games in "digital download form (only)", as collectors.

True collectors have one particular field of interest (some may have more than one).
But no matter, whether they collect in one or in several fields - they all have one thing in common: they collect something physical.

I wrote this in a similar thread some years ago already: go to a game collectors' meeting with nothing but a HDD full of digital downloads - and find out, what the real collectors think about that.

People in that thread back then didn't even know, what I was talking about.
That tells you all you need to know about "digital game collectors".

"Digital game collectors" don't collect games - they hoard files.

Well, yes and no - 9 outermost regions (OMR) are part of EU: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Saint-Martin (France); Azores, Madeira (Portugal); The Canary Islands (Spain).

13 Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT), including French Polynesia, do not form part of the European Union, though they cooperate with the EU via OCT Association.

Officially, Overseas countries and territories (OCTs) are associated with the European Union but not as sovereign countries, they depend on three EU Member States: Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

However, there is VAT in French Polynesia, standard rate is 16%, but VAT is not applicable in the following French territories: French Guiana, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Saint-Martin, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna.

It is complicated, but that's just how we in EU roll :)


OT: sometimes, after 400 games in GOG library, 1000+ Steam/EA/Ubi/Epic game licences, and 200 PS4/PS5 games, I get a feeling that I enjoy searching for good deals on games more than I enjoy playing them.
And I really miss those times when PC games came in big boxes with some extras inside, it felt like collecting, and not just hoarding, like today, with digitial games.

My collection is completed, actually. Now i only buy in an opportunistic fashion and don't chase after specific games. It was never about the number but about the specific games, so i never counted. Probably in the lower half of the 4 digits if i had to guess how many i have.

Acquisition of goods stops primarily stops following an evaluation of my position; my means and my qualities. My position must be to not collect, but only to seriously purchase what I will actually play. In other words, any serious collecting is too addictive and elicits too many behaviours associated with hoarding as a coping mechanism that would be ruinous to me, so must be restricted to a percentage of my income. I may not be intelligent in many matters, but at least in this I have lucidity.

That just sounds like the rhetoric of an elitism snob to me, my fellow Scotsman. Why is the value of digital data written on a disc and sold by Sony (or other) of a higher value than one officially distributed by Sony (or other) and written by me to my own disc?

I've set a soft limit to 1.000.000 games. It is not a hard limit, only a soft one, so it doesn't really matter if I go beyond it.

Good that it's just a soft limit then. You wouldn't even be able to get everything currently on itch if it'd have been a hard one :))

Sorry, but as a non-resident of Tahiti, you obviously do not know of what you speak when it comes to Tahiti being in any way a part of the EU, period. We purchase items from other platforms that levy no surcharges, since they have no pysical presence here. That is the ethical way of conducting business. We can provide evidence of such upon request. QED.

If I trusted any of the online services not to yank things offline with little or no notice, I might be the same way. But Steam and some of the other stores can't be trusted not to take things down, (nor can the console companies, for that matter) and at least with GOG I can make archival copies of everything I've purchased.

I feel the same way toward streaming services. Too many TV shows and movies vanish for seemingly no logical reason, and if you don't own a DVD or BluRay you're screwed. I don't like the space requirement of my physical media collection, I'll grant you that, but I like it better than the possibility of something I've paid for disappearing into the ether. Barring a house fire or a robbery, everything I have a physical copy of is mine forever.

Except for the fact of physical media degrading. Hopefully not before you're in the grave though! ;)