*looks at everybody around and then stands up*
I did it again. I bought two games of the "Insomnia Sale" and five games of the "Oldies but Goldies Sale". I'm so damn weak and stupid.
*starts crying and sits back down*

Yes, but if $1500 is meaningless to you and spending it or wasting it causes you absolutely zero harm or negative consequences then there is no problem to solve. Just doing something a lot habitually in itself no matter how pointless it is or may seem to others is not in itself a problem that needs to be solved. It is only when something causes a notable negative impact on one's life or the life of others with negative consequences that it is a problem. You might be doing something irrational in the eyes of others, but if it brings you some kind of pleasure and is not causing you harm in any way then I would not classify it as addiction.

Personally, while I have a rather huge game collection now I do not consider myself a game collector as I have no desire or intent to collect games just for the pure sake of owning them and completing a collection as a trophy or for any reason like that. I've got probably more games than I could ever play now, and there are tonnes more that I want to get if the price is right. It's not to own them as a badge though neither for myself or to show to others. I acquire new games either because the game or game series is one that I have seen and have a direct interest in of some kind to play - without taking any time to calculate the likelihood of me ever getting around to play a particular game. I want the option to choose to play it at a later date, and I am securing my copy of it now while a great bargain is on that may or may not happen any time soon.

I do not ever spend money that is reserved for paying bills or other important expenditures and I am never short on funds. Accumulating games does not affect my life in any negative way or have any visible consequences nor cause harm to myself, or anyone around me, so it is a harmless passtime and a hobby for me, one that costs very little (especially compared to dozens of other potential hobbies/interests) and it is enjoyable. Occasionally I do end up playing one or more games a little obsessively and neglecting things that could be better use of my time, but never to a degree where negative consequences occur that are of any significance.

Someone could see it as a problem because they see it as wasted money, but what someone else's opinion is about how I spend my money to enjoy myself doesn't concern me any more than they'd be concerned about me thinking that they are wasting money buying a new $900 iPhone and spending $100+ a month just to text message people useless info and gossip while buying 2 $5 Starbucks coffees per day every day. If they're making enough money to be able to afford that without consequence then they've earned their right to waste their money how they see fit without needing to justify it for me or face my judgment. :)

Everyone does things that matter to them that seem irrational or wasteful under the judgment of someone else who does not value things the same way that they do. The worst thing we can do is worry about other people's judgment over such trivial things that have no negative consequence in our life. Life is short, and I say enjoy it and don't bother wasting time explaining and justifying your actions to others that look to judge or criticize your decisions that they can't rationalize themselves. The time wasted on that could be spent enjoying one's passtime or even trying to solve other actual real world problems in one's life. :)

For those who do legitimately have an addiction problem with buying games which does cause real world negative consequences for you in life, my heart goes out to you and I wish you nothing but the best in trying to conquer your problem, as such problems can be difficult and are no laughing matter. But while such problems do unfortunately exist, everyone that buys games frequently because they enjoy knowing they got a good deal on games they would like to play sometime and have now got it in their personal library for if and when they choose to give it a whirl, aren't necessarily an addict with a problem needing a cure either. :)

I've seen this sentence before and I don't agree with it because of the rampant sales. You know they will come back in a relatively short time and they will be even cheaper if you wait. Of course any time soon is highly subjective and is largely dependent on one's patience. Just look at GOG's weekend sales, they keep running a cycle that changes once they are done with the last one plus whatever special promos they throw like Insomnia sale.

OTOH, I'm too tired to find a source for now but I recall as people find ways to lower the price of something they will most likely purchase multiple goods only to increase their overall spending so having a great patience but not see the bias in that might affect even more negatively than picking several games for cheap instead of swarms of games for dirt cheap.

It depends on the game and the particular price it is being offered at of course. If the regular price of a game has hit what appears to be the lowest a publisher will go and holds for a very long time and the biggest sale discount they offer it at is say 80% off then if you follow things long enough you know that game will come up for 80% off again and again and again every 3 months or so, and will bounce around from game reseller to reseller as well so it's not going to be hard to track it on sale using isthereanydeal.com or similar and grab it when you want it. I can totally agree with you for games that match that pattern of discount, and for the most part I don't buy those games unless I actually plan on playing them the day I buy them, because I know they'll be on sale again soon enough.

But there are many games that show up in ultra-discount bundles, such as the Humble Warner Brothers bundle a while back that had a bunch of triple-A games for peanuts. That level of discounting for such big name games just does not happen too often, and is generally not repeated frequently. Many of those deals are one time deals that one either moves in on or potentially misses out on. When they happen, if there are enough games in the deal for the price offered for me to consider it a super sweet deal, then I just wont pass it up. For $3/4/5/6 to get a big handful of AAA games or even lesser games that I am fond of, is like going out for a coffee at a donut shop with a buddy for an hour. I'm going to spend $2-5 or more for an hour visit with a friend and not think about or care about my $5 and feel like I got my money's worth. Likewise, I'll spend the money on the bundle and feel I got my money's worth before I even play one of the games. Using that Warner Bros bundle as an example, I wanted almost all of the games in that bundle exept Scribblenauts, and that was just the original games in the bundle and not including the additional 6 or so games they added as a surprise after I made my purchase. The way I view that purchase is that it doesn't take many hours of gameplay in any one of those games for me to consider that I got my money's worth in entertainment value of the whole purchase, and the rest of the games are free. I've gotten many dozens of hours of enjoyment out of those games though and definitely got my $3.86 or so worth of entertainment value.

So I've bought quite a lot of bundles in the last 2+ years. I don't have a total count handy but about 18 bundles on bundlestars, about 8 on Humble, maybe 5 or so on Indiegala, and a handful elsewhere. Each cost between $1 and $7, and I've gotten probably 150-200 or more games out of it. It works out to probably far less than a dollar a game. Some games show up in bundles repeatedly a lot too, however those tend to be low-value games that I am totally uninterested in that fit into the category of "crap shovelware" as I like to call it. The games that show up in bundles that I do like have to date turned out to either be one time deals that have never repeated for what I got for my cup of coffee's worth of money, or individual games might repeat in another bundle sometime but it might not be as nice of a bundle either. A smaller number of bundles have came back for a repeat run on Bundlestars over time and given lots of opportunity for one to pick them up, but for my money if I see a good deal on something I want, I'm not trying to save pennies to balance my checkbook, I'll buy it and own it and not have to think about it again.

One could certainly put forward an argument that it is a waste of money for some games I might never play, and I can put forth an argument that I've already gotten my money's worth in terms of money spent versus hours of entertainment giving me a high value per hour of entertainment for my dollar compared to other ways to spend money to get entertainment. In the end though, I'm not experiencing any problem as the result of my decisions and so there is no problem that I need to solve about my spending choices.

There's even an argument where if one considers the adage "time is money" that if I convert the time into money at a dollar wage that I value my time at, I've most likely wasted more of my "time" money contemplating and discussing the topic over time here and elsewhere than the total amount of money I've spent stockpiling ultra-discounted games over time. :oP It's all in fun though and good to read other people's perspectives, thoughts and opinions as well. For my time and money though, here's my money, gimme my games, rackem and stackem! :oP

I certainly agree with that, I just don't agree with the way you put it. Paying bills and not being in debt doesn't equal no consequences. If you have $1,000,000 saved up then yes, I'd say that wasting $1,000 has no consequences. If you're paying your bills, not in debt and you have $20,000 saved up, then don't waste those $1,000.

For all I know you could be rich and $1,500 really isn't of any consequence to you, so go right ahead and spend it. The reason I discuss this point is that the notion of "paying the bills and being out of debt" being enough to spend money carelessly is a dangerous one.

Not really. The question is, what kind of pleasure or satisfaction you gain from it. Buying an iPhone is rational if you use it a lot, or having it as a status symbol is important to you. Having a $100 plan is fine if you text a lot and use the data. As you said, if you have the money, you can use it. However, if you get that phone and plan and then leave the phone in a drawer, that was money wasted.

If your only pleasure is in the buying itself, in the knowledge that you got a great bargain, then you've wasted money. It's not a matter of judgement of what you spent the money on, it's simply a matter of judging what pleasure you get from it.

Well, I think we're probably more in agreement than not then but I wouldn't try to put dollar amounts on things because everyone's net worth, income, cost of living, taxation, debt load, frugality etc. vary greatly. What is important is that one live within their means, and games are best acquired from disposable income. If someone has $1500 per year in disposable income to spend and they choose to spend it all on games, I don't see a problem with that if it makes them happy. There are certainly better things one could spend that $1500 on, such as saving and investing it, but that's an individual thing to determine really. People spend lots of money daily on things they don't really need which are conveniences or pleasantries that they enjoy and it all adds up to a lot of money, but it's ultimately their money and their decision on how to spend it whether they make good choices or bad ones or somewhere in between.

I emphasize though that if someone isn't causing or creating problems with negative consequences for themselves or others that there isn't necessarily a "problem" that needs solving even if there is an argument that someone isn't making the best possible use of their money that they could. Most people don't make the best out of their personal financial situation than they could, but they're not necessarily having any financial problems either.

But I do totally agree with what you're saying and I'm not suggesting against it.

I don't disagree with what you're saying at all, quite the opposite. It can potentially be considered wasted money given the details and specific of one's situation, however if the amount of money wasted is of no consequence and no problems are being caused then there is arguably no problem being created and no problem needing to be solved. Again, people waste money every day of their lives for the most part, nobody has optimized every cent of every dollar they spend every day, we all make a conscious choice to spend money on things and put a value to them in our minds. Some people buy $2+ gourmet coffee instead of making it themselves because it is convenient and gives them pleasure, others may buy a fancy luxury car and have higher car payments but don't really need a fancy car like that whether or not they can actually afford it or could get by with something less. Some people buy name brand laundry detergent when noname brand would work just as well. There are thousands of examples like that, and pretty much every single one of us spends at least some of our money this way in a fashion that is not the best possible use of our money.

I would agree with anyone who is of the opinion that if we spend our money only on things we truly need that we'll make that money go further and we will get more out of it, and potentially reach our financial goals and whatnot sooner in life. I am actually quite a frugal person myself to be quite honest, and probably the most frugal person I know personally.

Without getting into a lot of personal details, it has put me in a good position in life as I keep my expenses rather low and I live more or less as a minimalist. But I believe that we live in a life of abundance also and that we need to be able to live a little and experience the joys in life that we enjoy too, as part of a balanced lifestyle. One should ideally be able to work hard, make their money, pay their bills and have money left over to save and invest for their retirement, vacations, and other big items, and to have money left over for passtimes, hobbies and interests and disposable income for entertainment and other things as well. If one has enough income to cover all of these areas comfortably then one should feel no guilt for how they choose to spend their disposable income if they enjoy what they're doing and if they perceive the value in how they are spending their money.

I'm not rich, but I'm not poor either. I would not spend or waste money I have on things I didn't need unnecessarily if it would work against me in any way that had measurable and meaningful consequences to achieving my goals in life and I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone else do it either.

Whether one has wasted their money or not is really up to them to decide though, and whether their are any notable material negative consequences for the way they spend it. If there aren't any, then someone can classify it as wasted or not and it really makes no difference in the end. If their bill collector comes knocking at the door, or their kids are starving, or they can't pay their rent at the end of the month, well... then there's a real problem indeed if they've spent money they shouldn't have.

Some people can easily afford to spend $50 or more a month on video games without it causing the slightest disruption to their lifestyle or financial situation much in the same way some people currently spend $50/100/200 per month on something like cable television or satellite TV. Just about everyone I know has either cable or satellite and pay on average over $100 per month for it. I've never paid for cable TV or satellite in my life and don't even watch TV. I probably spend less money myself on video games and other life pleasures in a month than anyone else I know personally when all "money wasting" sources are taken into account for everyone, and the money I've spent on games is pure peanuts compared to what most people spend on superfluous things month after month. That's the thing, everyone spends their money on things they like to spend it on and may criticize others for the way they spend their money. It's kind of funny. :)

As I said, you're wasting money for sure if the only pleasure you gain is from the buying. All your examples are of product choices, but all about products which are bought to be used. If you buy a specific product because something about that product gives you pleasure (saved work certainly counts), that's fine. You could have spent more frugally, but it's up to you to decide if you need to. If however the only reason you bought something was because of "value for money" (you think it's a cool product for a good price), and the product itself doesn't bring you any pleasure (because you don't use it), then it's a waste of money. It means that even though you put a value to the item in your mind, in reality it has zero value to you. You were deluding yourself in order to get the pleasure of the purchase, or you're simply bad at estimating value.

Wasting money is not a serious problem when it doesn't impact you financially, but it's still a good idea to compare the real value a product has to you to its perceived value and learn from that for future purchase decisions.

Wasting is a matter of perspective, one can also say he waste money on a game he only played once. A game has good value only if one play it over and over again.

So anybody that buy more than 365 games is wasting their money because they can play different game each day for a year. Rotate the games one play every year and they will not get bored.

How true this perspective is depends on the indivudial, but it may help one stop buying games with this mentality. "OMG I do not play my games more than once, I must replay them 3 times each before I consider buying new games"

One can say anything when in denial. :)

Do you seriously not understand the difference between value (spending any time on a game, be that playing it once, many times or even partially) and no value (not playing the game at all)?

I agree that it's a matter of perspective, all in the eye of the beholder. I could go to the movie theater and watch a 2 hour movie for $10 excluding snacks, that gets me approximately 2 hours of entertainment for $10 or roughly $5 per hour. Or, I could instead buy a bundle from bundlestars that has 12 games for $4 and if I divide that up equally per game it works out to $0.33 per game. Lets say I only play one of those games for 2 hours and never install the rest of them. In one person's eyes (one beholder) I have wasted $3.67 of my money because I only played one game for 2 hours and didn't even get my money's worth out of it. What is my money's worth though? Isn't that for me to decide? I think it is for me to decide what my money's worth is. :) At 2 hours of gameplay for that one game alone that would be a cost of 16 cents per hour of entertainment. That is a fantastic bargain compared to going to the movie theater for $5 per hour, not to mention that I own the game and at a later date may choose to play it even more thus further increasing the value I received for my money spent. But if I only play the one game, it's equally reasonable to consider the money that I spent as being money spent on what I did actually play, so if I apply that $4 to the one game and forget the other games even exist, then that works out to $2 per hour for one game, still far cheaper than going to the movie theater for $5/hour. I'm not even factoring in the cost of transportation to the theater, parking, or other side expenses either.

Compared to the cost of a pay per view UFC event, or going to a pro sports arena to watch a game, or any one of dozens of other entertainment forms that people engage with every day, my game bundle was the most extreme bargain imaginable for the dollar per hour of entertainment value. If one wants to pedantically say "well you're still wasting the money on those other games" I wont stop them but I wont validate it as being anything meaningful or care about it either. :)

The question really isn't about whether money is being wasted or not though, it is about whether people think that they need help getting over an addiction habit or not, and it is my personal opinion that just buying games even a lot of them and even habitually is not in itself addiction. If someone goes to a psychologist or a psychiatrist because they feel like they are addicted to video games or addicted to shopping (for games) and the doctor does what they do and officially diagnoses the person as being an addict, then they're an addict. Otherwise, it is either self-diagnosis or crowd-diagnosis which isn't the best way to get professional help if one truly needs it, and is just a possibly judgmental or critical label being applied to someone if they aren't. If someone is truly addicted however that isn't necessarily a big problem unless it is actually causing problems in their life of some kind and they absolutely can't control themselves, or if it is heading towards becoming a big problem.

Just spending or wasting money however one chooses to see it is not a problem in and of itself however. Feel free to disagree.

I don't have any problem with anyone thinking I am wasting my money on games or telling me they think that here. It's completely subjective what someone else may think and doesn't affect me nor am I offended by it in any way. :) Mind you, if the goal of this thread is for people to find assistance with a real problem they're having, I find it disingenuous for people to debate how to label others in an effort to "be right" rather than focus on actually helping people who might have a real problem or simply sharing their own personal story (hopefully without the judgment of others, which isn't helpful to anyone).

Anyhow, my best wishes to anyone who does actually have a problem with overspending, it an be a difficult habit to stomp and I've had a friend struggle with that for many years (although not with games, but other stuff) before he got it under control. I do have some suggestions that might possibly help out also. Make it more difficult for yourself to access/buy games or whatever you're struggling with by removing all of the bookmarks to those sites that you have. Secondly, go in your web browser's settings and delete the stored username/password forcing you to have to type it in every time you visit the problematic websites. Third, download and install a password storage program such as PasswordSafe or KeepassX and store all of your passwords in that, and choose a lengthy complex password to have to enter to get into the password database. Also change your passwords on all websites to be long and random convoluted things that are hard to remember. Now when you go to these sites you have to type the URL in by hand, then unlock your password database and at least copy and paste the nasty password. That will get annoying pretty fast, and also act as a reminder to you that you are possibly about to do the thing you don't want to do and may act as a deterrent.

Anyhow, best wishes to all, and hope my suggestions help.

I currently have 97 games in my Gog account, and 440 games in my main Steam account. That's about 10% of each of their entire catalogues!!! I also have another Steam account originally intended for software only, but also have 20 games on that!

As well as this, I have a PS3 that I have purchased 30 digital download titles for, plus still have 10 boxed games unplayed. I also have 75 digital download games as part of the PlayStation+ subscription (but which I have not renewed so currently cannot access).

I've probably only played about 20% of all these games, probably only half of which were to completion.

Do I have a problem? I feel like I do. I'm a gamer in my 40s and it just doesn't feel healthy. It's not so much a money thing, as a time thing. It makes me feel pretty anxious when I look at my Steam, Gog or PS3 Library, to the point of actually feeling quite depressed - either not being able to decide what to play next, or worrying about WASTING MY LIFE AWAY. What the hell is that about? Gaming is supposed to be fun.

I think the problem for me is the fact that digital download games just sit in your account waiting to be played or replayed. You feel compelled to react on that. It's bad virtual feng shui. With boxed retail games, you can just sell them on when finished and you certainly don't build up a library of 400+ games!!! It also doesn't help that I like RPGs, which tend to be ridiculously long and ridiculously replayable.

Previously, I additionally had 150 games on Humble, 21 games on EA Origin and 11 games on Uplay, but I gave all those accounts away at the end of last year as a way of managing my addiction. And I've stopped buying bundles or looking at bundle sites altogether. But then what do I go and do? Buy 10 more games in the GOG Insomnia Sale!!

I have been contemplating giving away my main Steam account for a while... perhaps selling one of my PCs and signing the account over to the buyer. But something's holding me back... all those lovely games (that I'll never play)... HELP!!!!

I think that's the problem, not the accounts. It might be painful to see these games there, but if you get rid of them you'll just have an excuse to buy more, because suddenly your backlog will be so much smaller.

I'd say:

Look at your backlog and make a list of games you haven't played already and really want to play. When you think of buying a game look at that list and ask yourself: "do I want to play this game more than any game on the list?" If the answer is "no", then don't buy the game. If the answer is "yes", then buy it and play it.

Hahahaha, that's mega funny! I am sitting here eating a serving size yogurt as I read that and just about spit it out all over the monitor cracking up. LOL

... and this... simply blows my mind. The first time I played DOOM was *exactly* like this, and the first time one of those pink monster thingies showed it's face and made a noise it scared the living shit out of me and I flew back in my chair which toppled over and I cracked my head off the wall behind me and actually damaged the drywall. It hurt like hell and I did draw blood, but I was blown away how awesome the game was to make me do that! Years later before DOOM 3 came out there was a leak of an internal test version of DOOM 3 that was leaked via a laptop given to ATI and a buddy of mine brought this very hacky demo over to my place to try it. We were totally blown away by how dark and scary the game engine looked, and I played the demo levels and this one level a nasty creature comes ripping through the wall after some period of silence and it was the scariest thing I ever saw in a game, I screamed like a school girl, running backward in game with the trigger held down the whole time until I ran out of bullets then flew backward on my chair again. Didn't injure myself that time but my pulse was like 700bpm. AWESOME :)

Just amazing to hear someone else with a similar story about DOOM. :)

My GoG account has 135 games and when I first joined GoG, I never expected to buy this many. The last time I went a little crazy was when the Star Wars games games to GoG but I was good before and after that. During the insomnia promo, I only bought 2 games (1 of which I finished, the other is half finished) but my backlog has been shrinking quite nicely. I'm actually actually I little proud to say if I don't include games that require a joystick for freebies, I only have a backlog of 26 games now. I am so happy :)

I know it's too late for some of you here as you already have Steam, Desura, Origin, Whatever DD service accounts but GoG is the only DD service that I use and my list of unplayed games is one of the reasons I'm not considering using any other DD services at this time. If you have a mounting backlog and are considering using other services, my advice would be not to.

I guess I'm also lucky that GoG has butchered me so much that the number of games on my primary wishlist can be counted on hand, however, that doesn't mean I'm immune sfrom new arrivals or last chance purchases before games get pulled from GoG..

My backlog is shrinking slowly though. I look forward to the day I can post a new thread stating that I finished my backlog which I started when I first joined GoG :)

Is there a "Stop Buying Bundles" self help group? I rarely purchase individual games now, but I buy several bundles a week...